Music

5 Responses to Music

1. Joanne Bishop says:

   November 4, 2010 at 9:32 am

   I originate from Brownhills and I am disgusted by what a hole it has become. Before I left in 1995, the market was flourishing, the majority of the shops were still running and Tesco taking over Ravenscourt wasn’t even a thought.
   Now you walk up/down Brownhills high street and shops are closing,boarded up, it’s disgraceful. It used to be a nice village once, all the shops were doing well, the market was popular enough to attract outsiders. What happened? The Council happened. As with Politicians, I think that these Bureaucrats should do this “job” free as an honour to serve their town/county. Yet instead they pretend to give a damn whilst siphoning off public funds for doing bugger all.
   Walsall is just as much of a hole,but, Brownhills is my concern. I was surprised at the monstrosity been built by the Anchor Bridge, I thought they were new flats until my Dad told me it was an OAP “village”. Apparently it’s been termed an abortion!
   I have received this post via my Brother who is also a Brownhillian, he no doubt will have forwarded it to my Dad(who still lives in Brownhills) and my other Brother. Enough said, I will be delighted to subscribe to you, hell who knows we might know each other or you might know my Brothers.

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   • sara says:

     December 26, 2010 at 2:07 pm

     First of all hasn’t brownhills always been a hole?

     number 2 why do people who no longer live in places feel the need to slag them off???? Why don’t you get up off your idle arse and do something about it if it bothers you so much instead of blaming every one else!

     Our society and environment, where ever that may be is our responsibility and that means all of us!! Actions speak louder than words so how about actually doing something that will make a difference to you or your fathers environment instead of pointing out all the bad things that create unrest and disappointment within a community and further demotivates them.

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2. Richard B.Smith says:

   February 20, 2012 at 8:01 am

   In the 1930s when relatives of mine first lived in Brownhills it was by all accounts a fairly rough mining town but with a good deal of community spirit. In my memory,the 50′s,60′s,70′s it was a thriving town which retained something of that community spirit though it expanded greatly during that period to accomodate ‘overspill’ council tenents chiefly from Birmingham.The town undeniably suffered from the closure of its railway station in the mid 60′s and then from being ‘engulfed’ as it moved within the remit of Walsall Council which had and it seems still has more pressing priorities.

   My youth was spent largely in the town,I spent most holidays and every weekend with my aunt,uncle and cousin there after my father passed away and my mother took work in a Birmingham department store. We played football on the ‘common’ between Chester Road and Watling Street in the late 50′s,early 60′s.I had my first beer at the ‘Monkey’ on Hednesford Road.My first girlfriend went to Brownhills High School and her father played cricket for the Brownhills Club at Holland Park

   . In 1968 when I left school and began work in Brum my visits to Brownhills became less frequent but in 1974 my mother re-married. My step father was a friend of the uncle who resided in Brownhills and a native of the ‘Wilkin’.Mom moved there to live with him and so my visits again became frequent. I was a regular in the Hussey Arms and the Crown.I went to the Friday ‘disco’ at the Royal Exchange on Lichfield Road in the mid-late 70′s. Then I married and settled in Brum,in 1982 I was transfered to Oxfordshire at work and visits became less frequent,confined to Christmas mainly infact.

   In 1988 mother and my step Dad retired to Devon and I didn’t visit the town for years until my uncle passed away in 1996. My cousin,his only child,had a serious illness and was unable to assist with the arrangements and my by then quite elderly aunt asked me if I could help her which I gladly did. I spent around ten days there sorting out funeral arrangements,insurances and so on. I have to say the place had ‘gone to the dogs’. The pubs were empty,kids roamed the Wilkin estate drinking,drug taking and so on. The town itself was no better,police patrol cars were whizzing about all the time chasing errant youths mainly it seemed.

   The town was once full of quite hard men,miners,foundry workers and so on,it was never anybodys idea of ‘quaint’ but nothing like this. These kids were wild,bored and poor. I tried to imagine them acting this way in the days when the Station Hotel housed some of the roughest blokes in the midlands,they’d not have needed the police then I can tell you but that I guess is the world today. I know Im privillaged to live in a leafy Oxfordshire village even if it doesn’t have a semblence of community about it. I rather think few places do have any snese of community left,certainly Brownhills didn’t then.

   My aunt died last year and I attended her funeral. I got my first look at the ‘Miner’. He is factually absurd but even so impressive. The locals however appear to be unimpressed. Heritage is not ‘cool’ it seems.It was described by a teenager who knew my aunt via her work at the local hairdressers as ‘stupid’.

   Still,maybe there is hope. I stumbled upon this website on a bored afternoon over Christmas last and am a fan. It is nice to know somebody cares about the place and its roots but also its future and all power to ‘BrownhillsBob’.

   So no Sara,Brownhills hasn’t always been a ‘hole’.Far from it infact. It may not ever have been any sort of paradise but it was a proud place,a good place to live and work. If it is a ‘hole’ today (and I cannot really comment having visited for one afternoon in the last 16 years) then that is because the people have made it so. In ’96 it was certainly a ‘hell-hole’ I do know that but I hope the old town has moved on again since then. I really do.

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3. laugher says:

   August 23, 2012 at 11:54 am

   I feel as if I know you. I was around in the fifties, had my first pint at the Anglesey, played football on the park, went to the Station Hotel on Fridays and Saturdays. My dad being a miner made me CIU affiliated so I wandered the Working Mens clubs. The Avion at Aldridge was the place to go to on Sundays to watch groups like the Rockinberries. I joined the Army in 1964 and only went back on what I called duty visits. I agree with everything you say about Brownhills especially the overflow. Brownhills went down hill when they built between Caters Electric Shop and the Anchor Bridge. Brownhills used to be a separated town from Pelsall, Walsall Wood, Shire Oak and Chasetown

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4. Pedro says:

   February 11, 2013 at 2:49 pm

   Stranger in My Own Hometown…Percy Mayfield

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