Whatever Happened to the Real Black Country?

Black Country Chronicles 1939-1999

Tom Larkin

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780750992602
• eBook ISBN:
  9780750993654
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

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.

1

The War

The Beginning

Much has already been documented about the Second World War, but it’s important that its enormous impact on civilian daily life is never forgotten.

The first indication of what was to become a ‘people’s war’ came with the government’s Emergency Powers (Defence) Act passed in August 1939, giving them the ability to requisition buildings, control prices, introduce rationing, establish the right to imprison people without trial – and to impose severe penalties on anyone found guilty of breaking or ignoring any part of those crucial wartime rules. Undoubtedly, these were some of the most Draconian regulations ever imposed on British citizens; dictating people’s eating habits, the clothes they wore and, most severe of all, decreed where they worked and, in many ways, controlled their day to day lives.

Initially, everyone accepted that such laws were needed, and there had already been some indication of what was to come from earlier legislation relating to compulsory identity cards and the issuing of gas masks. But before long, people started to question certain aspects of this strict control. Blackout laws became a cause of disagreement, especially with the alarming increase in road traffic incidents. For example, during an inquest into a fatal accident in the Holloway Bank area of West Bromwich involving a municipal bus, court proceedings included strong comments about inadequate clear vision and the obvious dangers to pedestrians – particularly to the elderly. Also remarked upon were the difficulties of walking at night with no street lighting, and vehicles being restricted to only a pencil beam on headlamps.

Everywhere took on a depressing look of wartime life, with sandbags protecting public buildings and every household required to cover windows and doors with thick black material between sunset and sunrise. People were taught how to use a stirrup pump and water bucket, for dealing with fires on outside buildings such as sheds and outhouses. Large silver-coloured, sausage-shaped barrage balloons started to appear in the sky, suspended from strong wire cables attached to a movable wagon. As part of the blackout regulations, councils painted white lines on lampposts, exposed walls, street trees and footpath kerbs. These markings were important in preventing people from stepping on to the road by mistake, risking collision with passing vehicles. Lighting a cigarette outside was forbidden because it might be seen from the air, but a torch could be used provided a layer of thin brown paper reduced the beam of light.

Because of the alarming increase in accidents and injuries, the government had to do something to ease growing public concern. Eventually the harsh lighting regulations were slightly eased. Nightly wireless listening figures jumped to 25 million, and the number of books issued by libraries rose substantially as people opted to stay indoors. There then followed a seven-month calm that became known as the ‘Phoney War’, when nothing seemed to be happening and people began to question all the restrictions.

When France fell and troops were evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940, the mood of the nation changed dramatically as the possibility of invasion loomed large. Only a small number of councils had made efforts to increase spending on civilian defence, and concerns were regularly expressed that air-raid precaution facilities in certain Black Country towns appeared to be totally inadequate. For example, the town clerk of Rowley Regis (who also performed the duties of ARP controller) publicly denounced the serious shortages, claiming that in Tividale hardly any worthwhile schemes existed. In Willenhall, the chairman of the ARP committee spoke of widespread apathy, warning that if it continued he intended to resign. Fortunately, the situation regarding local factories was more encouraging, as most firms found little difficulty in organising air-raid precautions from within their own workforce. Evidence of this came from the much-publicised visit by Home Office inspectors to the vast Revo works in Tipton, where management and employees received praise for the efficiency of their well-trained team of 150 firefighters drawn from the ranks of its 2,500 workers.

Increased air-raid warnings meant more nights of disrupted sleep, but people were still required to be at their workplace on time the following morning. Households were issued with shelters comprising six corrugated sections for assembly at the bottom of the garden. After digging a hole 4ft 6in deep, the sheets would be bolted together into a tunnel-shaped structure with a covering of soil placed on the top. Many still recall how cold and wet these shelters were during the winter months, because after a period of time they sank low into the earth and any rain would immediately find its way inside, causing severe dampness. These conditions prompted many to stay indoors during a raid instead, either sheltering in an alcove under the stairs, sitting on freezing cold cellar steps or taking refuge under a heavy wooden kitchen table.

Anderson shelter interior

Indoor Morrison table shelter

Bilston Home Guard, 1942

Families living in tiny back-to-back houses used the nearest purpose-built brick-and-concrete municipal shelters. Erected in areas where most properties had no garden, these quickly became the subject of controversy due to their hard seating, low level of cleanliness and lack of heating, or even a door at the exposed entrance, which created numerous problems in bad weather. Not surprisingly people began to shun them, preferring to risk remaining in their own homes. Schools had their own shelters, fitted with slatted wooden benches. During an air-raid warning, teachers would organise gas mask drills or a sing-song to help distract minds from the reality of the situation.

In 1921, unemployment figures fell to the lowest level since official records began, and to maintain maximum industrial output every bus company requested families to refrain from using buses before 9 a.m. in the morning and 4.30 p.m. in the afternoon, when workers were travelling to and from their workplace. Similar restrictions apply even to this day, although the use of cars has increased and unemployment has risen.

The public were also asked to travel by train only as a last resort, with passengers instructed to make certain the blinds stayed down as a precaution against exposing any glimmer of light. Station names were blacked out to confuse enemy agents, and passengers had to be vigilant on badly lit platforms, making sure that the train was alongside prior to stepping out.

A strict system of petrol rationing was introduced, with only people deemed essential to the needs of the community allowed a priority allocation, while posters appeared with the message to exercise caution when travelling in the dark by ‘wearing something white when walking at night’.

In May 1940, groups of part-time militias for men between the ages of 17 and 65 were introduced called Local Defence Volunteers (LDV), later renamed the Home Guard. Their activities entailed a minimum of one evening a week doing general guard duties, plus regular weekend training. Other men in that age group became air-raid precaution wardens (ARP), whose main priority was to maintain blackout laws during an air-raid, while some were enlisted for firefighting duties involving a minimum of 48 hours work weekly. The penalty for not complying with any of these commitments was a £100 fine, or three months’ imprisonment.

Conscription was brought in for able-bodied women aged 20–30 to fill the gap in manpower created by men being recruited into the armed forces. They were offered employment in munitions factories, or training as railway porters, bus conductors, telephonists, machine shop operators, street cleaners, delivery van drivers and post office workers. Some opted to join one of the services – either the Auxiliary Territorial Services (ATS), Women’s Royal Navy Service (WRNS, nicknamed the Wrens), or the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). Others trained as nurses or enlisted in the Women’s Land Army (WLA). For young girls conscripted from the green fields of Worcester, Shropshire, Warwickshire or Herefordshire, and directed to work in the Black Country, the polluted environment must have come as a complete shock. They gradually adapted, however, and many married and settled in the region when the war ended.

Strict powers were granted to enable local courts to impose penalties for deliberate absenteeism from critical war production. In Dudley, three men from Tipton, Sedgley and Dudley faced a charge of being deliberately absent from work for 12 hours, and were fined £10 each – a very large sum, considering that for working a 75-hour week a man typically only earned £9. The magistrate commented that he hoped that the verdict of the court would prove an example to discourage this happening again, and that the loss of essential output would not be tolerated, with imprisonment a possible outcome for anyone found guilty of being consistently absent.

At Bilston court, a member of the Home Guard was fined £5 for what was described as ‘deliberate malingering’ by persistent non-attendance from parade and duties over a period of months. A man from the Greencroft area of the town, employed as an electrical welder at W.G. Allen & Sons in Tipton, was fined a staggering £15 for ‘continual lateness from work’, estimated at 426 minutes of lost output during December 1941. The accused told the court that this was due to an unreliable bus service between Bilston and Tipton, plus his inability to wake early in the morning.

During 1942 at courts around the Black Country, seven local men were fined £15 each because of their constant lateness from work, with magistrates again highlighting the serious loss of essential war materials involved. In similar fashion at Darlaston Court in 1943, four workmen employed at world-renowned nut and bolt works Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds (GKN) were significantly fined for arriving late for work, while another employee was fined £8 for regular absenteeism. The court dismissed the defendant’s claim that this was partly due to trouble in walking because of ‘corns on both feet’. At Wednesbury police court, two workmen were committed to prison for two months for a similar offence resulting, it was claimed, in the loss of 206 hours of munitions production. There were also numerous cases of people falling foul of the blackout controls – in one month alone a total of thirty families from Darlaston, Wednesbury, Tipton, Cradley, Bilston and Willenhall found themselves fined the standard 50p imposed for blatant infringement.

One decision people found hard to understand was the policy of evacuating families, especially from the London area, to the Black Country because of the Blitz. They felt this very strange, considering that so many vital local industries would inevitably be major targets in air-raids, as well as the fact that the whole region suffered from an appalling housing problem with huge numbers of Victorian slum properties in every town.

There are accounts of the evacuee’s arrivals, and how residents reacted towards them. Two from London were billeted in a house inside Hickman Park, Bilston. Their names were Shepherd and Sipthorpe. A family named Clews were housed in Hadley Road and their two children attended the local Holy Trinity Catholic School. In similar fashion, a family from Dagenham named Ling were accommodated in a small back-to-back house in Tame Street, an area containing some of the most dilapidated properties imaginable. The Ling children became very popular with neighbourhood youngsters. Another example is that of the Tyler family: a mother and daughter who came from East Ham in London and found themselves billeted in Hill Street, Bradley. They arrived with all their belongings in a small suitcase, and the whole of the street rallied round to provide clothes and other essential items.

There were very strict penalties for those refusing to take refugees if the local billeting officer decided they had enough space in their home. The odd incident of hostility did occur, with some people complaining about being given no choice in the matter. For instance, five households in Walsall were fined £50 for refusing to provide accommodation even though they had adequate room.

Propaganda, Rationing and Utility Schemes

Public information became part of the propaganda campaign to bolster public morale and remind people of the need for their cooperation and support. So, when tea, margarine, cooking fat and meat were added to the list of food items on ration, reasons were highlighted to justify the entire rationing policy and the following explanations were given to placate rising concerns:

• Prevention of waste

• It freed more shipping to carry other essential cargo

• Stricter rationing ensured food was divided fairly

• Only by a policy of fixed quotas for every household was this at all possible

Families accepted the aims of fair rationing, even though they were aware of a thriving black market; they consoled themselves with the knowledge that those using it risked prosecution. Occasional accusations were made of extra portions been given to housewives said to be ‘well in’ with certain shopkeepers. Such incidents were isolated, but even so, constant warnings were issued using cinemas, the wireless and newspapers to underline the stiff penalties regarding rationing laws and any deliberate food wastage.

Everyone over 5 years of age was allocated a buff-coloured ration book that contained coupons to last 52 weeks. Children under 5 had a separate green book, and families were required to register with a local shopkeeper for a period of 12 months.

Some Black Country councils adopted a policy of teaching older schoolchildren how to issue replacement ration books. One such scheme involved girls from Etheridge School, Bilston, being trained to become Ration Book Clerks, distributing them from a small office in the town hall under the supervision of the food officer, Mr Fred Barnett. This work was entirely voluntary yet, amazingly, there was never any shortage of volunteers; yet another of the many ways that schoolchildren contributed to the war effort.

At the beginning of 1941, jam, cheese, sweets, confectionary and canned fruit went on ration – but it was the meagre weekly allocation of tea and sugar that people found the most depressing, because tea in those days was by far the most popular family beverage. On top of that, there was no sugar substitute, apart from the awful-tasting ‘saccharin’: a tiny white tablet that fizzed and dissolved, leaving a sickly taste in the mouth.

Wartime housewives would stand for hour after hour in queues for specific items – cereals, canned fish and biscuits – available under what was called the points system. These supplies could be obtained at shops on a first-come first-served basis, which meant queuing outside from early morning.

In February 1942, soap was put on ration, and the traditional white bread loaf was replaced with something known as the National Wheatmeal Loaf. Most people found it unpalatable, but accepted its necessity owing to the dramatic decline in imported wheat. That year the buying or selling of new cars was also banned, along with casual driving for pleasure, to save petrol. There was also an advertising crusade with the message of ‘frugality in the home’ aimed at saving fuel and water. It asked people to turn the lights off in empty rooms, to avoid letting the tap run while washing hands, and there was a special plea not to use more than 5in of water when taking a bath.

More controversy arose over alternative food items such as packets of pure dried eggs, a substitute the government claimed was the equivalent of twelve standard eggs, and dried milk that was simply powder encased in a cylindrical tin, to which water was added to produce a pi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 The War
• 2 Cinema
• 3 Childhood Games and Sport
• 4 Post-War
• 5 Things Ain’t What They Used to Be
• 6 Smoking and Lifestyle
• 7 The Effect of Post-War Immigration on the Region
• Addendum
• Acknowledgements