Life in the northern wastes of Walsall
Readers who’ve been hanging around this ramshackle, leaky village pump for a while will no doubt remember how we’ve touched here on the history of local marching bands, particularly the Burntwood Blue Birds Jazz Band.
Last week here I featured a film clip made be photo restorer and friend of the blog Lisa Ashby, celebrating Brownhills and the Black Country – Well, Lisa’s been at it again, and made a lovely clip about The Burntwood Bluebirds, the award-winning marching band from Burntwood.
As usual, I’m a bit late to the party with this but this is a very important announcement for anyone who was a member of, or is interested in the marching bands so popular in our area that were huge from the 1930s onwards, but particularly in the 60s-90s.
Long-term readers will remember well friend of the blog Wendy Jones, who donated so much material to the blog – both in the form of photos of the area before the mM6 Toll came through, and her main interest, the history of local marching bands, particularly the Burntwood Blue Birds Jazz Band.
This is a huge post, but it’s just so wonderful I couldn’t butcher it – Wendy Jones has been working hard and supplying me with loads of material relating to her time in the Burntwood Blue Birds Marching Jazz Band.
I think it’s fair to say that in writing and curating this blog, fate occasionally turns up some remarkable material – whatever else this thing I labour over has done, it has actually seemed to have connected people to their history, and on rare occasions it has put back in touch people who were once familiar, but became separated by time or distance.
This is nice, quick one that came in at the weekend from reader and friend of the Brownhills Blog, Stuart Cowley, whose passion is Marching Jazz Bands and their history…
I’ve had a blistering article mailed in from reader and friend of the Brownhills Blog, Stuart Cowley. Stuart, you’ll recall, has written and supplied some great material on the subject of Chasewater, and his pictures and recollections of the cafe there have been very popular.
Since I’m still a bit peaky, David Evans has been busy writing and supplying material to fill the gaps, for which I ‘m very grateful indeed. David has written a great piece here about Walsall Wood and its musical history. I hope you guys love it as much as I do… David has this to…