Contribution
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Ms Vaz. ’Owamya, me babbies? It’s bostin’ to be here with my Black Country muckas to celebrate all the great things about our region, past and present.
Black Country Day was first celebrated in 2014, bringing together the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Wolverhampton and Walsall to acknowledge our shared, rich cultural heritage and history. It is now an annual event, where we can reminisce about the past and look towards a prosperous future. The Black Country flag was designed by a local schoolgirl, Gracie Sheppard—she is not so young any more—and it has become a recognisable symbol of the region, flying atop flagpoles on our civic buildings, spotted at football matches across the world and even on display at the campsites of Glastonbury.
Elihu Burritt’s 1868 “Walks in the Black Country and its Green Border-land” opens with the words
“black by day and red by night”
because the local furnaces gave out smoke and grime during the day and glowed red at night. At the centre of the Black Country flag is the glass cone, a well-known shape on the Stourbridge horizon, flanked on either side by black and red skies. A chain flows across the flag, representing the region’s heavy industrial past: chain making was done by women in the back gardens of homes in Cradley, and larger chains and anchors were made at Hingley’s in Netherton. The Black Country area was originally made up of Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Staffordshire, but when the West Midlands county was established in 1974, some of our identity was lost. I have been lobbying to have the Black Country flag included in the historic county flags display currently outside Parliament—maybe next year.
I am Black Country through and through, growing up in Halesowen and later moving to Stourbridge; my family have roots in Smethwick and Langley. Us Black Country folk are fiercely proud of our area and its history, and rightly so. During the industrial revolution, it was known as the workshop of the world. My constituency takes in not only the town of Stourbridge but also Brierley Hill, Netherton, Wollaston, Lye and Amblecote, Norton and Pedmore. Since the 1600s, Stourbridge has given its name to glass production, and the rich local resources of coal and fireclay made it the perfect location for that industry.
One of my priorities in Parliament is to promote and protect our varied history, heritage and crafts. I am already working towards keeping our own glass festival at home in Stourbridge. Wollaston produced the Stourbridge Lion, the first locomotive to run on a commercial line in the USA. Round Oak steelworks in Brierley Hill provided employment for thousands of local people and was a world centre of iron making during the industrial revolution. Netherton was the home of Hingley’s, whose most famous product was the anchor for the RMS Titanic. Lye was famous for the manufacture of nails, anvils, crucibles and firebricks, and the Stourbridge name can still be found embossed on old bricks. Linking all these places are the many miles of waterways, once the highways for transporting goods, now the perfect place to walk ya wammel up the cut.
The Black Country is no longer the heavy industrial power it once was, but I believe that, with the right investment and the opportunities provided by this Government, it can thrive once more, with modern technology and green industries. It may be a bit black over Bill’s mother’s today, but I believe the future is bright. In fact, we have already seen groundbreaking innovation in Allister Malcolm Glass at Stourbridge Glass museum, which has transitioned fully to renewable energy and is working with another Black Country company to develop the country’s first high-power electric furnace.
Stourbridge is also home to the shortest railway in Europe, the Stourbridge Shuttle, which runs between the town and Stourbridge junction, where our most famous resident, George the station cat, can be found. Stourbridge has long produced sporting, musical and artistic talent, from England football star Jude Bellingham to Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Pop Will Eat Itself and Robert Plant. Just last week, cyclist Ben Healy retained the yellow jersey, finishing in the top 10 in the Tour de France.
It would be remiss of me not to also mention the strong and diverse community and the friendly people across the Black Country. We also have our own community radio station, Black Country Radio, and brew our own beer at the famous Batham’s Brewery in Brierly Hill—
“Blessing of your heart, you brew good Ale”.
I even met my husband in a Batham’s pub. Hon. Members may not consider the Black Country as a destination this summer, but I am sure they will agree that there is plenty to see and do, and they would be welcomed with open arms. As we remember our fascinating past, there is much to look forward to in the future. I am not having a laugh—the Black Country really is bostin’.