My Home Town

My Home Town, not My Home City or Village. That might be because the single beat of a word town rolls off the tongue better than the two of City or Village, or more likely the concept of the size of a town is more comfortable than the large and small numbers of people in the other two. I’m from Birmingham and I’ll say it’s my home town.

early Victorian Birmingham

What I won’t say is that I’m from Brummagem, which appeared in the Middle Ages as a variant on the older form of Bermingeham, which is in the Domesday Book, and was in widespread use by the time of the Civil War.

I didn’t know until today that Brummagem was a pejorative term in the 17th Century. It had a brief reputation for counterfeiting groats. The word passed into political slang in the 1680s. The Protestant supporters of the Exclusion Bill were called by their opponents Birminghams or Brummagems (a slur, in allusion to counterfeiting, implying hypocrisy). Their Tory opponents were known as anti-Birminghams or anti-Brummagems.

By the 18th century times had definitely changed and it is of this part of the story of Birmingham that I’m most fond. The Lunar Society, or Lunar Circle met in and around Birmingham between 1765 and 1813. They were very particular about who was allowed to become a member. An exclusive club, it never had more than fourteen core members, and each member was noted for their special area of expertise including the greatest engineers, scientists and thinkers of the day. 

the Lunar Society

Their preferred venue was Soho House in Handsworth, the home of Mathew Boulton who was the heart of the Lunar Society. It is said that this group would bring about the ultimate fusion of science and social change that would fuel the fires and ignite the Industrial Revolution.

The society gained its name as its monthly meetings were always scheduled for the Monday nearest to the full moon, the better light helping to ensure the members a safer journey home along the dangerous, unlit streets. They actually called themselves the lunarticks.

For a terrific read about the group I’d recommend ‘The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future’ by Jenny Uglow.

Here are a few of them:

Mathew Boulton. The leading industrialist of his day, he developed modern-day industrial practice and introduced the first workers’ insurance schemes and sick pay.

James Watt. Developed the world beating steam engines that provided the power for the new factories that were springing up across the country.

Erasmus Darwin. Poet, inventor and botanist. He published a theory of evolution 60 years before his grandson Charles. He developed a steering system that was used by Henry Ford and a mechanical copying machine. A visionary, who predicted the use of steam powered propulsion.

Josiah Wedgwood. The father of English pottery, who was also Charles Darwin’s other grandfather. As an industrialist, he was dedicated to improving everyday life and brought affordable tableware to the masses.

Joseph Priestley. The cleric and scientist, famous for isolating oxygen, discovering carbon dioxide and carbonated (fizzy) drinks.

The meetings were not dry and pompous. When Darwin was unable to attend due to a fever he wrote a letter of lament for his absence:

“Lord! What inventions, what wit, what rhetoric, metaphysical, mechanical and pyrotechnical, will be on the wing, bandy’d like a shuttlecock fro, one to another of your troop of philosophers!”

I’m thinking that the following covers the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

Gas Street Basin, Birmingham

Bridge 88

(for Anne)

There are more canals in Birmingham
than there are in Venice
and who would deny
that the Gas Street Basin
has more of an atmosphere
than the Ponte de Rialto

although as you pointed out
over tea at the old café
it’s actually more miles of canal
which, surprisingly, didn’t annoy me
as you picked up your keys
keen to explore the path

past bars and posh restaurants
past apartments with balconies
places where the cut
was really from the past

until we went under
the old brick road bridge
and you stopped suddenly
as I thought you might

it’s what towpaths are for
that look of surprise
you pointing to the other side
where a screen of trees
stretched beyond distance

you were telling me all the names
while I was keeping an eye
on the railway tracks this side
wishing I still had my Ian Allan

the spell wasn’t broken
by a narrow boat passing
we waved back to the couple

you asked if we could walk to Worcester
water has that effect on folk.

First published in Acumen, May 2025

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

Read More

Accent

In 2013 I was back in Birmingham for an event and my friends came up from London to help. They had never been to the second city before. Their son, aged about 21, went for a wander and came back to inform us that the Brummie accent was the sexiest he had ever heard.

At first I thought that needed a paragraph of its own without further comment. But research has found (e.g. Thorne in 2003) that overseas visitors find it lilting and melodious. And really when I come to think about it and remember that Shakespeare would have been using this dialect in his rhymes and vocabulary is it so surprising?

I’ll prove this later on as I have just used the words ‘accent’ and ‘dialect’ as though they were interchangeable and I need to clarify this first.

The word dialect comes from the Ancient Greek dialektos “discourse, language, dialect,” A dialect generally involves more than just pronunciation—it differs from another form of the language in at least some grammatical structures and vocabulary.

Accent goes back to Latin, where the root referred to the stress patterns in vocal music. (It's related to the words "cant" and "chant".) It has been used in English to refer to spoken words since at least the 10th century. As the term is used by linguists, everybody has an accent. It's the sum of the way you form your vowels, stress your syllables, lengthen your sounds, etc. There has to be an accent in the same way that every sound has a length (thank you to Joshua Engel for that explanation).

For example if you get a Preston newsreader, a BBC newsreader and Scottish newsreader to each read the same written script. And let’s say they are all perfect readers. All the words and grammar will be the same. The difference in what you hear will be accent.

But if they meet up for a cup of tea these 3 people’s speech will differ in vocabulary and in grammar, as well as in pronunciation. The totality of these differences are called a dialect

I once worked at a major London Teaching Hospital and one day a Consultant and two medical students were heading to the same lift I was waiting for. The two students were doing the “Yah, absolutely Sir” to the Consultant but when they got on the lift with me and their boss had carried on down the corridor the conversation changed to “What yowm doin tomorrer?”.

Shakespeare memorial room at Birmingham central library

I said above that to overseas folk the Birmingham accent is lilting and melodious. What do British people think?

YouGov said that the West Country accent is considered the most attractive to over-60s compared to only 22% of 18-24 year-olds. The opposite perception had developed for Northern Irish too, with most 18-24 year-olds seeing it as attractive, compared to only 37% of over-60s, and then the Geordie accent also had a greater appeal to older British people too.

Here’s the list in full. The Most Attractive Accents in the British Isles are:
Southern Irish
Received Pronunciation
Welsh
Yorkshire
West Country
Geordie
Northern Irish
Glaswegian
Cockney
Mancunian
Scouse
Brummie

I also said above that I would now prove that Shakespeare wrote in a Birmingham dialect and/or accent. Unfortunately, I have run out of space.

People sometimes mix up the Birmingham accent with the Black Country one. They are different but for this I don’t care as it’s a great poem by Liz Berry and anyway she now lives in Birmingham.

Homing

For years you kept your accent
in a box beneath the bed,
the lock rusted shut by hours of elocution
how now brown cow
the teacher’s ruler across your legs.

We heard it escape sometimes,
a guttural uh on the phone to your sister,
saft or blart to a taxi driver
unpacking your bags from his boot.
I loved its thick drawl, g’s that rang.

Clearing your house, the only thing
I wanted was that box, jemmied open
to let years of lost words spill out –
bibble, fittle, tay, wum,
vowels ferrous as nails, consonants

you could lick the coal from.
I wanted to swallow them all: the pits,
railways, factories thunking and clanging
the night shift, the red brick
back-to-back you were born in.

I wanted to forge your voice
in my mouth, a blacksmith’s furnace;
shout it from the roofs,
send your words, like pigeons,
fluttering for home.

                                           Liz Berry

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

Read More

Marmalade

Another Saturday, another blog (and by the way, belatedly, happy Lancashire Day). Went to Birmingham, saw lots of snow, got freezing cold, watched a football match in which the Tangerines should have made marmalade of poor opposition but our finishing was off, we were denied a clear penalty and the home side bundled in a late winner. "So it goes", as Kurt Vonnegut remarked. 

making marmalade

Upon the final whistle we got held behind by West Midland Constabulary for  twenty minutes to allow the Birmingham fans to wander off into their second city night. After that it was a long, hungry ride home. Paddington Bear might have added "A wise bear always keeps a marmalade sandwich in his hat in case of emergency." I wish I had paid more attention to the hirsute little Peruvian.

And that tart reportage is about all you're going to get this week on topic, apart from a new poem partly, but only fleetingly, inspired by a Beatles song - you know which one ("Picture yourself on a boat on a river etc etc").

girl with the marmalade eyes

Bear in mind that this was the product of a late night scribbling session, another work-in-progress, and on reflection (if I ever get the time) subject to change to improve it.

Marmalade Eyes

Blue eyes sparkle like twinkling stars

sapphire bright irises, light and cheerful

Green eyes smile like welcoming pools

cool emerald isle lakes, dive in and swim

Grey eyes shine with wisdom and grace

the generous glow of worldly understanding

Brown eyes smoulder with subtle passion

chocolate to the depths with alluring flecks

but

Marmalade eyes are glaucous and slarkey

both sweet to behold but sticky like amber

so beware: return their deceptive glaze with 

care or end up ensnared in some terrible jam 

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

Read More