THE
KATES HILL PRESS, DUDLEY, ENGLAND
SYNOPSIS
of BLACK
COUNTRY STORIES AND SKETCHES by GREG STOKES
…is a
collection of short fiction some of which has an historical base, and some have
a base in personal experience. Some are
full stories, others are vignettes of local life, i.e.
sketches. All are set in, or have some
connection with, the Black Country – the collection of communities
north-west, but not part of, Birmingham.
In
notes I wrote in 1992 which never appeared in the final publication I stated,
“There have been books with similar titles but none, I think with similar
content.” I went on:-
“Black
Country Sketches by Amy Lyons was published in 1901 and recorded Black
Country life, mainly in Wednesbury. Black Country Stories by T.H. Gough
was published in 1946 and is a collection of five volumes of stories, anecdotes
and customs which originally appeared in The Dudley Herald in the
1930s. The Black Country Society
reproduced some of this material in 1968 (and again more recently). Black Country Stories by E Baker was
published in 1952 by Allen and Unwin and is a
collection of 16 short stories. These Black
Country Stories And Sketches were written over a
ten year period between 1982 and 1992.”
With
the above in mind I went ahead and published Black Country Stories And Sketches with what I believed to be a unique
title. But a few months after it
appeared in print I picked up a copy of J Freeman’s Black Country Stories And Sketches published by James Wilkes of Bilston in 1930. I
later learnt that this too had been reissued by The Black Country Society. So, while the title proved not to be unique,
I still contend that the content is. The
notes produced for the book went on as follows:-
The
first days of 1992 saw the announcement that the L.P. was becoming a thing of
the past. So too were the notes on
record sleeves. This book is an album of
stories rather than songs. To keep alive
the “sleeve” tradition, the notes for this album acknowledge origins and influences.
The
Inheritance: When I was about 10 I remember my sister,
Jill, telling my parents a story of three people who held the belief that an
equal society was possible. They set up
in business on the basis of equal partnership.
One ended up being “ripped off” by the other two. My first attempt at a novel, A Pocketful
of Mumbles, written in 1982, was based on that story. In 1992 I reworked the chapter in which one
of the three, the one who ultimately kept his ideals,
came by the money to set up in business.
The Inheritance is the product.
The
Dunkirk Spirit: In the late 1970s I lived in Leicester. I used to return to Dudley at weekends. Each week fresh tales of redundancy and
closure greeted me. One Friday night
Steve Harding told me he had been to a party that dinnertime – his works had
been closed without warning. In 1982 I
used that scene in A Pocketful of Mumbles. I reworked it in February 1992, changing
characters and locations.
The
Bats Under The Belfry: Based on a true
story. One day in the winter of 1963/64,
the pupils of Kates Hill School in Dudley were gripped by the belief that the
bell tower was haunted. I had forgotten
about the incident completely until I dreamt about it some 10 years later. I wrote it down in September 1983.
The
Minor And The Miner’s Son: My first
experience of the miner’s strike of 1984 was a newsreel I saw in a bar in
Athens in the October of that year. I
had been working in the United Arab Emirates and was wending my way back. It didn’t take long on returning to England
to note the divisive nature of the dispute.
A ticketless middle class boy gets to see the Albion’s 1968 FA Cup
triumph after all, his saviour a south Staffs miner who’s father has recently
died. Growing into a businessman with a
fierce antipathy to striking miners, he is confronted by the saviour he never
knew again. The idea for this story came
to me while standing in the bar of The Bush in Dudley in January 1985
when a newsreel of the miner’s strike was followed by “On The Ball.” I wrote it the following week.
On
Leave:
I first met Steve Harding at the Wolverhampton Beer Festival in
1977. Steve has a great eye for a
story. One night after a session in The
Three Crowns he stood gazing at the gravestones outside Top Church. The grave of two boys drowned on the same day
caught his eye. It had long been a habit
for me to drink with Jim Jones in The Bush on Thursday nights. Jim was an oracle for all matters of Dudley
life and it came as no surprise that he knew of the grave and the story behind
it. This story is set near the old
Dudley Station below the castle because that’s how I imagined it when Jim told
it. The real tragedy occurred in
November 1923 near Dudley South station, which later became Blowers Green
Station. I wrote this in January 1985.
The
Collector: A collector of toy cars finds himself in
financial difficulties. The only way to
redemption is to think the unthinkable and sell the collection. I got the idea for this one while working as
a relief driver for Sandwell Social Services.
Written in August 1986.
Street
Scene:
In the 1980s there was a boom in busking. Street Scene puts a story to a Churchill
Precinct musician. Brenda Cooper (Mac’s mom) told me of Lord Haw Haw’s comments
about Dudley. Written in April 1987
The
Effrontery: Chris Workman used to teach drama in Quarry
Bank. With a keen sense of drama he
related this one about young Fascist marchers who are cut down to size. The march took place in April 1987. I wrote this later in the same month.
A
Hen Party: A sketch based on the Black Country bus tours
which transport revellers across the region on a double-decker fitted with a
bar. Written May 1987.
Fight
Night:
A true story of events in a bar on the night of a televised fight. Only the names have been changed to protect
the innocent. Written
May 1987.
Snowstorm: A sketch based on
an experience getting a puncture fixed in March 1987. Written May 1987.
The
Boy In The Basement: A story of love unrequited. Started in a London
basement in 1985, finished on Kates Hill in November 1987.
The
Brown Mackintosh; Parts 1 & 2: On one leave I saw a thief being chased up
Dudley High Street and was still there when the detective made his collar. On the next leave the same detective clocked
me in a record shop. Written
December 1987.
The
Singing Shopkeeper: Arthur and Dot Doughty kept a shop in Buffery Road, Dudley in the late 1960s. This story is a tribute to them. Written January 1988.
A
Happy Atheist: The Jehovah’s Witnesses persist in calling on
an argumentative man who counters their quotes from the bible with quote from
Darwin and Dawkins. But one off the
Witnesses is not so zealous. A total fabrication with its base in many a conversation with
Jehovah’s Witnesses when unemployed.
Written February 1988.
Baldwin’s
Monument: The character Baldwin is my own invention,
but a urinal was built below the clinic in Dixons green in Dudley and was known
so my uncle Des Stokes tells me, as “Bodin’s
Monument,” and built when a plumber was ‘pinched’ for taking a leak in public
and subsequently got elected to office specifically to remedy the
deficiency. If this story is not true,
then it ought to be. Written
February 1988.
Tim
The Tatter: My father, Doug Stokes, used to tell this one
of Tim The Tatter making the load lighter for his ‘oss
by bursting a balloon. There are many
Tim The Tatter tales in currency, many of which,
including this one, were recorded in The Black Country Bugle in
1991. Written February
1988.
Grandma’s
Apparition: My Grandma Baxter used to ell
me this one. She lived in Shavers End
when she saw her apparition. Written February 1988.
Tommy
Stone’s Send Off: Based Tommy Rock, on a character well known
around Kates Hill. Steve Harding and I
discussed the send-off we would have given a Black Country hero. Written February 1988.
Steel
Town Myth: I have read and heard many stories from steel
towns. All claim the same stories to be
their own. This one mingles the one
about the man falling in the vat with a story about rats and a fast food outlet
which did the rounds in 1980. The
adverts paving the way for the privatisation of British steel prompted this
one. Written March
1988.
Harry
Crapper:
Based on Henry Kipper, one of Dudley’s characters from the post war
period. As with all characters he became
something of a legend. Sorting out the
fact from the fiction is difficult when the only facts available are the
fiction. Written March
1988.
Shafted: Lance Whitehouse
is a toolmaker in a toilet factory (cisterns not pons). He told me this toolmaker’s tale in which
precision is the name of the game and a posh gaffer gets exactly what he asked
for. Written April
1988.
The
Brew’uss: This is based on The Gypsy’s Tent in
Dudley. The pub was something of a
legend. As with other stories, the only
facts I know are the commonly held fictions.
Written April 1988.
The
Country Pub: Based on events which took place in
1973. Martin ‘Mac’ Cooper was with me
when we rediscovered The Red Lion at Upper Farmcote,
a remote country pub unspoilt by townies.
Anne Forester, Lenny Henry, and Bobby Cooksey are the other players in
the tale. Written
April 1988.
Playing Away: Based on a true story and set in the early
1980s when London “discovered” real ale and two city gents try to put a Dudley
bloke straight on the matter of boozing. Written June 1988.
The
Blue Teapot: Based on a true story of a family in which
the young members hear of the collectively possessed Blue Teapot. But no one knows where it is. Written July 1988.
The
Glorious Revolution: A total fabrication set in the not too
distant future when Britain’s manufacturing base has been reduced to zero and
the only manual workers are in the heritage museums. The Glorious Revolution tells of the
last stand of the industrial proletariat.
Written January 1989.
Christmas
Card To Lev: Based on a true story related to me by Chris
Workman of Dudley football fans who endeavour to send a Christmas card to the
great Russian goalkeeper who once delighted the Molineux
crowd when they hear he is dying of cancer.
Written January 1992.
The
Secret Agents: A “pack of saftness”
based on the observations of Steve Harding, Doug Stokes, and many others
throughout the 1970s and 1980s of the men who queue outside public houses
waiting for them to open, and those who try to pretend they are doing something
else. Written March
1992.
For
reasons of space, neither The Secret Agents nor the above ‘liner notes’
found their way into Black Country Stories and Sketches. The Secret Agents will appear in Black
Country Stories and Sketches Volume Two, which has been completed and will
be published sometime in the future.
Greg
Stokes, Dudley, December 2003.