Black Country Bugle

50% OFF FOR SIX MONTHS*

TWO EASY TO WAYS CLAIM

It's a Black Country knockout!

DO you remember the TV show It’s a Knockout? The main series ran from 1966 to 1982 and there were several special editions as well. In 1978 a team from the Black Country put the region on the map by winning the British competition and making their way...

It meks yer mouth waerter

IT may look quite a grisly sight to modern eyes, but nothing made the mouths of our ancestors water more than an ox roast. In fact at the one pictured on our front page, the organisers made use of a strategically-placed ladder to keep the hungry...

Happy New Year, all on ya!

WE’RE taking a trip back to New Years past with this week’s front page photograph. It shows revellers attending a New Years Eve Ball in West Bromwich on the last day of 1970. Do you recognise anyone among them?

He's behind ya

PANTOMIME is a peculiarly British phenomenon, and no Christmas would be the same without it. The singing, the dancing, audience participation, slapstick for the kids, innuendo for the adults, two actors each playing one end of a horse, and of course...

Christmas party, '60s style

HOW many of us remember the days when the Black Country’s countless large works and factories would put on a Christmas party for their workers’ children? We turn the clock back more than sixty years with these photographs that originally appeared in...

Drawing on the past

IT’S been a while since we’ve heard from retired firemanturned-illustrator Wayne Law, but as you can see, he’s back and better than ever. Wayne has now been retired for two years, and has plans for a book of his drawings in the near future, but in the...

A round of drinks at the Round of Beer

THE Black Country has a wealth of pubs and breweries serving the local population of its towns and villages, and Bugle readers will know that one of the experts on that subject is our regular columnist Steve James. Now Steve has brought together some...

A bridge to the future ...

IT was a big day for Dudley back in 1969. A big chunk of the historic town centre had been swept away, taking the bottom end of Hall Street away completely, and replacing dozens of old shops and houses with a purposebuilt shopping complex, the...

A lads and dads day out

THESE photographs, along with the one on this week’s front page, were handed in together, anonymously at the Bugle’s front desk, back in the late 1990s when we had our office in Cradley Heath. They show some of our forefathers in three guises; at...

A close shave ?

ATTENTION Coseley kids – here’s a school photograph from Mount Pleasant Senior School at some point in the 1950s – see if you recognise yourself, a friend or a family member. The picture was put our way back in 2003 by Tipton reader Flora Harvey (nee...

A Black Country bonfire

THIS week’s front page picture takes us back a mere 45 years to November 5th, 1980. It was taken at the big bonfire on Victoria Park, Smethwick. Featured are, from left to right: Matthew Jones, Chris Davies, Jennine Jones, Tracey Lissamore and Peter...

Black Country fright night

THE leaves are coming off the trees, the clocks have just gone back ... as we say round ’ere, the night’s am drawrin’ in. But before we start counting the days till Christmas, our first stop is Halloween. These days, with the huge influence of...

Whatever happened to Slade?

FOR a while in the early Seventies, Slade were pretty much the biggest band in the country. Between 1971 and 1974 they could do no wrong, with their bombastic, shout-along singles dominating the charts. In that period they had twelve records in the...

50% OFF FOR SIX MONTHS*

GET YOUR NEWSPAPER FOR HALF PRICE FOR 6 MONTHS*

Glass workers whoe were a cut above

THE story of the Stourbridge glass industry is one of ups and downs, with prosperity and poverty in equal measure. Nothing exemplifies this more than the history of Tudor Crystal. The photograph on this week’s front page shows the glassworkers at the...

Digging for black gold

THIS week’s front page photograph comes to us from our regular contributor John Sparry of Wall Heath. It shows a group of miners, and their bosses, from the Old Park Pit, Dudley, 99 years ago, in 1926: If you’re wondering where the Old Park pit was,...

Mr Marsh’s gift to the town

MARSH & Baxters, the Black Country sausage and pie makers of legend, will need no introduction for most readers. Their huge factory in Brierley Hill was a big local employer, and their wares were popular right across the region and far beyond. Though...

A steam-age seaside trip

THESE days Dudley Borough has one of the most modern and capacious Archives buildings in the country. But for many years the borough’s collection and its staff were squeezed into a Victorian former school building in Coseley, and 22 years ago, when...

Dapper dads’ day out

MOST of us have hopefully managed to enjoy a bit of a holiday over the summer, even if it’s only been the odd day trip to the coast or the countryside. We take such excursions pretty much for granted these days, but a couple of generations ago these...

That’s a pie an’ alf ay it?

THESE two photographs from the Bugle collection show one of the main shopping streets in a Black Country town, roughly fifty years apart – do you recognise it? It’s Church Street, Bilston, and the only obvious constant in the two photographs,...

Suits you, madam ...

NOTWITHSTANDING the fact that crime was much more drastically dealt with at one time than now, it certainly did not have the effect of stamping it out, or reducing it to anything like an appreciable quantity. Robberies some fifty or sixty years ago...

Jamboree at the Junction

THIS week’s page 1 picture takes us back well over a hundred years to when the trains were most people’s only alternative to Shanks’s Pony. It was taken at Stourbridge Junction Station in 1903. Whether it was a special occasion is not clear, but there...

Pub’s unique wartime link

ONE of the reasons I relocated to the Black Country in 1974 was that I liked the locally-brewed beer served in traditional local street corner public houses. And thanks to my eldest son Dan, I discovered a gem in The Chindit on Merridale Road,...

Pulled apart by the pits beneath

WALSALL artist and animator Leo Wright was gobsmacked earlier this year when he discovered his Black Country-themed stop-motion film, The Big Bad Wolf, had been nominated for an international award at Sony in California. Leo promised Bugle readers...

Ow bin yer, Charlie?

HAVING been Prince of Wales for so many decades, it’s still taking some getting used to for most of us, referring to the monarch as King Charles III. He was Prince Charles for well over half a century, and forty years ago this year, he made one of his...

Working on the waterways

THIS week’s front page photograph shows a Black Country working boat, pictured in the 1950s. Though the canals were nowhere near as busy with industrial traffic as they once had been, there were still a fair amount of working boats to be seen plying...

The lives of 1920s twins

ANN Henworth once told me she remembered seeing the Duchess of Windsor outside Himley Church, wearing what she described as a bouffant-ish style coat in yellow and black. Having once seen a Pathé News compilation showing the Duke of Windsor and his...

A grey day on the railway

THIS week’s front page photograph is one from the archive, that takes us back just over sixty year. It was taken on a grim and drizzly day in 1964, at Smethwick Rolfe Street Station. There are no trains in sight, but at this point in time there may...

JOIN Slimming WORLD FOR FREE

Black Country Lionesses

WOMEN’S football has faced an uphill struggle – with the FA literally banning their games from taking place on any pitch used by one of its member clubs for five decades, you could be forgiven for thinking that the powers-that-be wanted it stamped out...

Town Hall’s award-winning restoration

THE Victorian Society’s Birmingham & West Midlands Group has announced its tenth annual Conservation Award made to Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council for their project at West Bromwich Town Hall and Library. The restoration of the historic...

Churchill glass set for return

ONE of Dudley’s missing treasures, the Churchill Screen, which once spanned the width of the Churchill Shopping Precinct in the town centre, is set to be returned to public view – but at a new location. Stourbridge Glass Museum has been awarded a...

From the pit to the pitch

LIKE me, I am sure you will have been questioned on more than one occasion, as to where the Black County is? Normally, I would answer this type of question by recommending the purchase of an Ordnance Survey (OS) map printed by the Great Britain...

Making sweet memories

BLACKHEATH and Rowley Local Interest Group’s May 2025 talk should appeal to any Black Country folk with a sweet tooth – its theme is ‘The Blue Bird Factory.’ The talk by Julian Hunt will explore the history of the famous sweet factory at Romsley, just...

War is over ... VE Day, 80 years on

IT was the day the people of the Black Country had been yearning for after nearly six years of war. Although the Second World War was still being played out in the Far East, the evil Nazi Germany oppression across Europe had finally been – almost –...

The pythons’ big day out

A lot of things have changed at Dudley Zoo over the last forty years or so – it’s no longer considered appropriate to keep many of the animals we remember seeing there in our youth in zoos anywhere. But who remembers seeing a dragon? Or a lion on the...

40% OFF

*Terms & conditions apply

A long crawl to Cornwall

BOILERS, those huge cylinders of riveted-together sheet steel, were a mainstay of the Black Country’s heavy industry. The name of Danks is one of the best-known associated with the trade, but there was more than one firm of that name. It began with...

Just a casual stroll ...

BACK in our March 19 edition we brought you Part One of the story of The Strollers, the beat band formed in 1961 by a group of apprentices at Boulton Paul’s aircraft factory in Pendeford, near Wolverhampton. We left them having been spotted at...

God’s Wonderful Railway

HIDDEN behind Wolverhampton railway station there is another which once served the heart of the Black Country and gained the title as the ‘The Holiday Line’. It was known as Wolverhampton Low-level Station and today has been renamed Grand Station, an...

A quick pint on the way

AS German forces swept across Europe and country after country was occupied, Britain and her Empire stood defiant in the face of Hitler’s all-conquering forces. Service men and women from occupied countries such as Norway, Poland, France, Belgium and...

A rock ‘n’ roll apprenticeship

DOES the phrase ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’ apply in the world of popular music? In the UK, there are some well-known examples where musicians have stopped performing to take on the mantle of band management. Dave Dee retired from performing with...

Sixty years of hurt – but I wouldn’t have it any other way

THE 20th March marks the sixtieth anniversary of my first Wolves match. As my Molineux debut was late on in the disastrous 1964-65 relegation season I never saw a Stan Cullis-managed Wolves, but I witnessed his replacement Andy ‘The Flying Doctor’...

A sad end for the stunning Palace of Glass

THUMBING through the 1989 edition of the Black Country Bugle Annual, my attention was well and truly grasped by the period photograph we have reproduced here. Judging by the age of the motor cars, the scene dates to around 1910, revealing the lives of...

Teamwork in the Twenties

THIS week’s front page photograph is an interesting one, which we’re hoping Bugle readers can help us with. It was put our way more than thirty years ago by the Willenhall History Society, who told us what little they knew of it – it shows the...

From Bilston to the Albert Hall Bilston boys who flirted with fame in the sixties

DANNY Robinson – a man born to be a lead singer in a rock ‘n’ roll band. Last year, the Robinson household, on the outskirts of Upper Penn, held a trio of celebrations. In January, Danny Robinson reached the age of 80 years young and then, in early...

Sixty years since Malcolm X came to Smethwick

IN early December 1964, the wife of Dr Martin Luther King rang him to say he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; aged 35, he was the youngest ever recipient. In King’s acceptance speech in Oslo at the Nobel ceremony on 10 December 1964 he...

Why Elgar loved to stay in the Black Country

THE most recent candidate for a cherished Blue Plaque awarded by the Wolverhampton Society has unearthed several intriguing occurrences associated with one of Britain’s foremost composers. It’s all to do with a young woman who inspired a classical...

Fun day for the forgemen

OUR front page photograph this week takes us back to 1960 or thereabouts – 65 years ago, hard as that is to believe. The picture was sent to us by reader Mrs E Marshall of Bloxwich, who told us that the men gathered were all employees of the Walsall...

Estate set to celebrate 100 years

CITY of Wolverhampton Council are appealing to anyone with a connection to the Low Hill estate to get in touch and share their memories of their time there. It’s all set to go towards a project by a memories group who are based at the local...

Casting an eye over the foundry

ON the front of this week’s Bugle is a photograph that could not be more Black Country if it tried. Taken inside a foundry in the early twentieth century, it shows workmen in bib overalls, flat caps and rolled up sleeves, with a selection of ‘forms,’...

The Castle on the hill

THANKS to historian and author Ian Bott, who loaned us his copy of an Oldbury business guide from 1949, we can take a look behind the scenes at a couple of the town’s firms in those tough post-war years. First up, Parkes Classic Confectionery, Ltd.,...

Walking in a winter wonderland

THIS week’s front page picture is one we’re sure you’ll struggle to recognise today. Though it looks like a countryside scene, it was actually taken in Oldbury – Gipsy Lane, to be precise. That address no longer exists, but we believe it was what is...

Let it snow!

AS we went to press, we were still hoping for a white Christmas – we don’t get them very often these days, but as the weather department hadn’t completely ruled it out, our fingers remained crossed. And we’ve dug into the Bugle archive to find a...

A train almost frozen in time

HERE are a couple of photographs sent in, as requested, by readers who have been out and about capturing winter scenes. Both were taken during our only fall of snow so far this season – on the right, courtesy of Jim Cooper of Wolverhampton, is a...

The Earl’s own train set

THESE two photographs are from the same place, half a century apart, and very different occasions. The top picture dates from circa 1905, and shows a steam train pulling into a pretty deserted Stourbridge Junction station. In April 1957 however, when...

A milk round in the ’20s

LAST week we were treated to some wonderful photographs of the Whitehouse family’s farms in Oldbury, courtesy of Tewkesbury reader John Whitehouse. This week we have more pictures and more memories. John continues the story ... “My grandfather John...

A farm in the heart of the Black Country

WE’VE been contacted by reader John Whitehouse of Tewkesbury, who has a fascinating follow-up to one of our recent ‘Blasts from Bugles Past’ pieces, which reproduced an article originally published fifty years ago, in 1974. The article on page 15 of...

The meat factory motor racers

WITH a hundred and twenty years of producing highly-praised sausages, pork pies and other popular meat delicacies for Black Country folk, customers across the country and even members of the Royal Family, several of the Marsh & Baxter family owners...

Britain’s longest pub crawl

REGULAR readers will be familiar with Pete Hill and his gang of merry men, the Black Country Ale Taisters. Originally little more than a bunch of mates who made it their mission to have a drink in every Banks’s pub, the Tairsters grew in number and in...

Class of 1896

IT’S rare that we feature a school photograph as old as the one on this week’s front page [and with a close-up on the right]. It dates from 1896 – not only were very few taken in those late Victorian times, but the majority will have succumbed to the...

Steady as she goes ...

THIS week’s front page photograph is one of those that doesn’t even need a caption – everything you need to know is there in the image. Evidently a huge boiler made by that famous Oldbury company Edwin Danks and Co., it takes us back to the days when...

Family tradition at the foundry

OUR thanks go to reader John Fox for the excellent photograph above, and the accompanying image on this week’s front page. They couldn’t be any more Black Country, with the men in their flat caps and waistcoats, mufflers round their necks and sleeves...

A baby boomer’s memoir

AFTER a 25-year career at a local university, Wolverhampton man Bob Perry is no stranger to writing. But now in his late sixties, he has put the academic papers and learning materials behind him and turned to something new – what he calls his first...

Born a Baggie ... warm memories of home and the Hawthorns

THIS year West Bromwich born Ken Lord celebrated the 80th anniversary of watching his first ever game at West Bromwich Albion. He celebrated by being guest of honour in the media area at The Hawthorns where he met current Albion manager Carlos...

Mr Walker and his wagon

THIS week’s front page photograph is a real gem from the depths of the Bugle archive. It takes us back to the days when the ’oss roads genuinely were built mostly for horses, and motorised transport was a relative newcomer. But every business that...