Look, I’m not going to waffle on here or bore you (any more than usual) but this blog coughed and spluttered into a life of it’s own a decade ago today, on 2nd May 2009. Yes, I’ve been doing this for 10 years now.
I have no idea how this got here.
I never thought I’d still be here today.
I don’t know why people read this or appear to enjoy it. My part in it is badly written, badly organised and my typing, rather than improving with practice, has become far worse. Ten years ago today I was smacked in the face and bundled into the back of a van. It’s still careering downhill and I’m in the back with no idea where it’s going but hanging on by the skin of my teeth.
The ride has been incredible fun and had fantastic highs and occasionally, deep, very deep lows. But it has been a wonderfully rewarding and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
I wish I could remember pushing the first ‘publish’ button, when I reblogged some pithy observation by Politics Penguin of Willenhall as a test at 7:11am one Saturday. Remarkably, the Politics Penguin blog still exists although its curator is not enjoying the best of health. My best wishes to Gareth.
I know I had no clue what I was doing and didn’t know what I wanted the blog to be. Local history was never really the intention, more mischief. And over the years it’s evolved. I don’t do politics so much anymore, as Walsall and national politics are now so bizarre you can’t parody either, and sadly, the people I used to bounce off… Are no longer around. So there’s this odd combination of events, parish notices, local history, cycling and stuff that catches my eye.
I had no long term intentions.
I never thought I’d still be here today.
When this started, I was noticed by Mark Blackstock and the wonderful YamYam, his brainchild website that put amateur content like mine and that of the burgeoning scene of local writers at the top of the same page as local news journalism. That’s what made this shambling edifice what it is. Sadly, Mark passed away in 2017. God, how I miss him.h
The scene that the Brownhills Blog was part of assembled around the wonderful community that grew around The YamYam and local online writers. I grew fond of many local blogs and news sites – from the ever-present Lichfield Live to the wonderful community that was WV18. From the surgical incision of the Plastic Hippo to the frequently bizarre and late-lamented Tamworth Time Hikes – probably the best local history blog ever to have existed.
Walsall had a great political and current affairs writer in The Plastic Hippo. I came to know both he and Mark well – Mark was the impish, Norren Oirish, wonderfully gay real media man; Hippo the ex pat northern Brian Blessed tribute who filled my heart with fire and my head with sedition and sharp, excoriating one liners.
Sadly we lost Hippo too, following a protracted duel with cancer that he pursued with dignity and courage. My heart still cries for Hippo.
I had no idea you could miss people like this so much.
I never thought I’d still be here today.
This last couple of years, work has been tough and I’m getting old. I no longer have the boundless energy I did to write into the wee small hours every night, and without my comrades, little reason to bother. Following the loss of Janey too, later last year, I resolved to stop writing this blog at the ten year anniversary. I was lower than I’d been for a decade or more. My heart was broken. I was tired.
I had been encouraging Janey to write. She was chaotic, manically enthusiastic but really could write and do local history, as her wonderful and thoughtful stewardship of her group showed (in reality, it was a lot more considered than many people thought). I was convinced if I could focus Janey’s boundless energy she would have a great outlet on the blog. I will always feel I didn’t work hard enough to nurture her talent. I failed. My heart went from broken to hollow.
Christmas came and went. It still was not improving. Nothing was healing.
I thought I knew that I wouldn’t still be here today.
Then, something odd happened. I started feeling it again, as the sun and flowers came in an early spring. Just gently. Gerald Reece came up with some wonderful donations. I felt the warmth and passion of David Evans’ quest on a local history matter. I realised folk were still reading what I wrote, even if I wasn’t feeling g the love. Maybe it was worth having a think about.
So I am still here today. And it will continue.
I never thought I’d still be here today.
My thanks for ten years of boundless help to the young David Evans, Peter ‘Pedro’ Cutler, Aer Reg, Ian Pell, David Oakley, Gerald Reece, Geof Harrington, Bill Mayo and all who have contributed so much to this thing over the years. Without you all, and all of the many I haven’t named, and to those behind the scenes thanks so much. You have been part of something strange but wonderful.
Thanks are also due to those who help online too – old friend Linda, Phil, Stymaster and Rich who put up with far more shite than anyone should for no return whatsoever. Thank you friends.
There is still great stuff to come, I promise. But I’m going to have to slow down. I missed a lot of last summer writing a blog when I should have been out in the sun recharging. This thing is still here today, and hopefully for the future. But I need to slow down a bit.
I never thought I’d still be here today.
‘Some have died, some have fled from themselves, struggled from here to get there.’
– Paul Simon
‘It doesn’t seem right. I want to say no
But the only thing to do is let it go
I wanted to speak. I wanted to say…
But all these different words got in the way’
– Ivan Doroshuk
Thank you all
Bob