Sunshine after rain

Here’s a great piece of local history I’m proud and happy to feature here on the blog for readers to peruse: the autobiography of local lady and community champion Gwen James.

The work, entitled ‘Sunshine after Rain’ was published some time ago, around 1998 (it’s dated 1997), and was published in a small, local run as these things often are. Scant information is available online, but it’s a hundred page gem of a book, that gives much information on Brownhills from 1909 until modern days.

Sunshine after Rain has been scanned in what must have been a marathon effort by David Hodgkinson, the great-grandfather of Brownhills history online, without whom, this blog would never have existed. He is a star, a great friend of the blog and a top bloke. Thank you.

Sunshine after Rain is just the thing to read on a lazy Sunday afternoon, or pop it onto your tablet or e-reader to dip in and out of; it also has a great index, unusual in such a book.

You can download the whole work by clicking the following link:

Sunshine after Rain by Gwen James – PDF format – 22 megabytes

It’s a large file and will take a while to download on slow connections.

I won’t say anything about the content yet, as I don’t want to lead the audience, but there will be much to provoke discussion here, and it’s all welcome. Comment or mail me as you see fit.

I hearby pay tribute to Gwen and her tireless work and dedication to the community, something often, and sadly overlooked by the powers that be. A tireless servant to her area, we all owe her a huge debt.

Here’s an article about Gwen from the Brownhills Gazette Issue 23, from August 1991 which says more about this remarkable lady than I in my ineloquence and fumbling ever could.

Thanks to David Hodgkinson the scanmeister, David Evans who sourced the pictures, and of course, to Gwen.