At Birmingham station I became a modern Englishman, enthusiastically proud of modern England's science and energy; that station alone is enough to make one proud of being a modern Englishman. Oh, what an idea does that station with its thousand trains dashing off in all directions, or arriving from all quarters, give of modern English science and energy. My modern English pride accompanied me all the way to Tipton; for all along the route there were wonderful evidences of English skill and enterprise; in chimneys high as cathedral spires, vomiting forth smoke, furnaces emitting flame and lava, and in the sound of gigantic hammers, wielded by steam, the Englishman's slave. After passing Tipton, at which place one leaves the great working district behind, I became for a considerable time a yawning, listless Englishman, without pride, enthusiasm, or feeling of any kind…
I'm not surprised. Next stop from Tipton is The Dark Place, home of The Hegemon! Birmingham was indeed an industrial powerhouse - but the workers came from all over the world, particularly Wales and Ireland. The industry is gone now - between Birmingham and Tipton is a wasteland of abandoned and demolished factories, the only vomit that of revellers - usually Gary O'D - drowning their sorrows, the only hammer the one I (literally) used on my wall on Friday night in a fruitless attempt to get my neighbour to turn his music down…
1 comment:
The abandonment of such industrial powerhouses in particular car manufacturing in this region was referred to in Top Gear last night with Cannon Green in West Bromwich highlighted; the stats were staggering and the locations apolitically ruined.
Surely these places have better use than to serve the drunken louts and graffiti artists?
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