Black Country Women Review

Poems of Black Country life and history

Marion Cockin, Anne Babbs and Jane Salmons mark Black Country Day with poems of Black Country life and history. From Mary Macarthur and the chain-makers of Cradley Heath, via the 'Wednesbury Mangle Theory' to the more intimate realities of life today, expect poetry of fun, warmth and connection. 

Marion, Anne and Jane all have strong Black Country roots and a great love for the area, past and present.

Fight for your birthright of Black Country Pride

It was Anne Babbs who referenced pride in the Black Country and she took me back to my Grandma and Grandad’s house. Her teenage experience is one many of us can relate to — ‘I was the 529, he was the 310. We’d have a Wimpey then walk to the Arbo’. I can almost imagine Jarvis Cocker singing it. Or maybe Jonny Cole.

Stourbridge lass Jane Salmons talked about the lauded Trades Unionist Mary Macarthur who travelled from Scotland in 1910 to witness the dreadful conditions the women chain-makers in Cradley Heath endured. She led the women to strike and on to victory in their fight for a minimum wage. The poem Jane went on to read was sobering, as it references babies being in crates (essentially) with sparks flying around them as their mothers toiled. 

The protections and rights we have as workers, and as women, were indeed hard-won and we must guard them fiercely.

Jane’s grandmother was called Mercy Fisher – how wonderfully exotic for late nineteenth century Lye! She lost her 25-year-old husband to Spanish flu and had to work to provide for their three daughters. She worked in a brickyard and, by all accounts, ‘had shoulders like an oss and er’d walk barefoot’.

With the World Cup closing, Marion Cockin was strident about Jude Bellingham being from Stourbridge and so YES, Stourbridge is very definitely in the Black Country. I loved her recounting their move from the second worst council estate in Wednesbury to the ‘posh estate’, only to later find out a neighbour was a ‘lady of the night’.

Marion’s talk and reading of poems were so evocative. Where have all the pigeon-fanciers gone? I can’t say I’ve ever shared a boiled sweet, sticky from a mate’s spit, but yeah, we did share stuff.

It’s honestly hard to remember what was in a poem and what was just said, but I think that underlines how accessible poetry like this is. I particularly liked hearing ‘consonants you could lick the coal from’*!

*a line from Liz Berry’s poem ‘Homing’ which was read out as part of the event.