Between the outbreak of the Second World War and the end of the century, life changed dramatically for the working-class people of the Black Country. Having survived the hardships of war, they found themselves facing a slew of social issues, all the while playing a vital role in manufacturing to stabilise the country's struggling economy. Innovations such as the wireless, television and cinema also brought huge societal changes that would move them closer to the present day. As well as a nostalgic look at the past, this book details the appalling health conditions, pollution, morality and crime in the region, before finally taking a look at the decline of crucial industries. Tom Larkin takes us back to the good old days and asks the question – whatever happened to the real Black Country? The author's royalties are being donated to the Wolverhampton charity Let Us Play.

In our world of global superstar footballers, it’s easy to forget the grassroots of a sport where loyalty to a hometown club is often rock solid – and counts for everything. Even as local communities come under threat, football fandom still pulls us together. But why is this? What is the special magic that connects towns and teams? For many of us, the local club offers it all: passion, hope, heartache, drama. And a sense of belonging. The town where we grew up and all the places we’ve lived are the bedrock of our lives, and memories of seeing the local team play are inextricably intertwined with our sense of place and identity. Steve Leach spends a year visiting the twenty towns and clubs that are special to him. He celebrates the distinctiveness of these places, the fascinating differences between Lincoln and Leyton, Barrow and Birmingham, Macclesfield and Morecambe – towns and teams that may not be glamorous, but they are unique and, more importantly, they are home.

Alice Randall, award-winning professor, songwriter, and author with a “lively, engaging, and often wise” (The New York Times Book Review) voice, offers a lyrical, introspective, and unforgettable account of her past and her search for the first family of Black country music. Country music had brought Randall and her activist mother together and even gave Randall a singular distinction in American music history: she is the first Black woman to cowrite a number one country hit, Trisha Yearwood’s “XXX’s and OOO’s”. Randall found inspiration and comfort in the sounds and history of the first family of Black country music: DeFord Bailey, Lil Hardin, Ray Charles, Charley Pride, and Herb Jeffries who, together, made up a community of Black Americans rising through hard times to create simple beauty, true joy, and sometimes profound eccentricity. What emerges in My Black Country is a celebration of the most American of music genres and the radical joy in realizing the power of Black influence on American culture. As country music goes through a fresh renaissance today, with a new wave of Black artists enjoying success, My Black Country is the perfect gift for longtime country fans and a vibrant introduction to a new generation of listeners who previously were not invited to give the genre a chance.

In the wake of the Bradford and Brussels football disasters in 1985, football in England was subjected to detailed scrutiny and criticism. Critics - of all sorts and persuasions - saw in those terrible events, especially the Brussels riot, evidence of the broader problems afflicting British (not merely English) life. Football, which had once represented so much of what was once considered good - fair- play, team play and sportsmanship - was now discussed as a major national problem. To most critics, at home and abroad, football came to represent a nation in decline, characterised by organised violence, drunkenness, political extremism and a host of related social problems. It was widely assumed that football - but especially those English fans who travelled abroad - was the epitome of what had gone wrong with life in urban Britain. It is understandable that those disasters would lead to heated and emotional argument. But many of the explanations of the events culminating in the disasters appear less convincing when scrutinised more closely. This book tries to examine not only the alleged roots of those violent incidents, but also to locate the problems afflicting the national game within the context of the broad social and economic changes which have transformed British life in the past generation. The book is as much an analysis of recent British social history as it is about the game of football.

This book, first published in 1929, analyses the changes to Birmingham and the Black Country in the nineteenth century. The area underwent quite a transformation: many of the older trades were decaying, while at the same time a number of new manufactures were making a remarkable rapid advance. As a result of this, the industrial structure of the area in the early twentieth century was made up of very different constituents from those of which is was composed sixty years previously. This is an invaluable study of a remarkable industrial transformation that was carried out in a very short space of time.

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