Interested in the MA in Gender & Sexuality? Come talk to me this Saturday at our postgrad open day. (Or just email me, that's cool too.) www.birmingham.ac.uk/study/postgr...

For Remembrance Sunday, a short reflection on the life and death of my great grandfather in the twenty years after his return. botheringmiancestors.substack.com/p/the-trench...

Back onto historic pub interiors today. Here's one of my favourites, the Seven Stars in Smethwick in 1964, showing the reality of life beyond the headlines in that year: drinkers quietly getting on together. Most pubs in the town had a colour bar, but not this one.

Got to live the dream this afternoon by researching pies (open the pic for the full view). This is Albert Lawrence, landlord of the Royal Exchange in West Bromwich, pictured in 1962 with his new food offering, Dormston Pies. The company went on to invent the Black Country classic, the Balti pie.

BBC News bulletins leading on the story of an Algerian man being mistakenly released by the prison service. Funnily enough I don't remember these cases ever leading the bulletins when an average of ten prisoners were mistakenly released a month in the final year of the last Government

Hoping this helps our colleagues across the industry

Your once-in-a-while reminder that I have some capacity for freelance work and I am here for all your historical research, indexing, copyediting and photographing documents in archives needs. Get in touch via my website: helenglew.com

We've just added more historic Ordnance Survey maps of Ireland to our website. You can now compare first edition one-inch to the mile maps dating from the 1860s to 1870s with second edition maps published between 1898 and 1902. maps.nls.uk/os/one-inch-...

Have to work in a Costa this morning and there was a Christmas song playing as I came in, so I've put some early Swans in my headphones and am indulging my most misanthropic tendencies over a cinnamon bun.

among all the "yass slay" responses, I think it's worth considering that glamour mag believes that trans ppl+allies are a bigger consensus than the gc dogma in the UK and that is a SIGN

I once interviewed the boy that Enoch Powell said was the only white child at West Park Primary in Wolverhampton. Lies then, lies now.

I knew I was right to hang onto books from my MA 15 years ago - I'm a long way from KCL but every so often my inner geographer emerges. Today I'm trying to find the quote about "knocking through" in Jonathan Raban.

It's Maude's 12th birthday - seems very fitting that it's Halloween.

#ArchivesWM member Dudley Archives is hosting 'Working Life', a pop-up exhibition by the Dudley Caribbean & Friends Ass. as part of their Culture and Heritage Community Project. Further information on can be found at: Black Country Roots: Windrush Voices #archives @blackcountrysoc.bsky.social

Dogs are now allowed at the Black Country Living Museum! This is like Christmas for me. www.instagram.com/reel/DQbfAdI...

I'm currently sitting with a hot water bottle on my back after pulling a muscle doing basically nothing, so this is a bit close to the bone

Interested in the history of Seven Dials or London or the 1920s and 1930s? I'm doing some walking tours of the Dials with @stanfordstravel.bsky.social on Sat 15 Nov. There's loads to see, but Seven Dials is so small you don't need to walk far. manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/events/songs...

Welcome to The Children of Men timeline.

Really shocked to just hear about the passing of Bunny Bread, who created (among many others) the murals of Benjamin Zephaniah in Handsworth Park, and Malcolm X in Smethwick. His work was so detailed and full of life, how sad.

Pity he's an amoral void who's doing it as a cynical piece of political positioning

Thanks to @reaktionbooks.bsky.social for making my history of protest in England's public spaces into a beautiful, well produced book with a fab cover. Buy it here reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/contest...

Busman's holiday today, down the mine at Hopewell Colliery.

King Prince Charles is visiting the Vatican today, presumably to request Prince Andrew be moved to a different parish after some trouble.

Join colleagues from @csis-liverpool.bsky.social and the International Slavery Museum for this in-person / online event: How do we curate slavery? Topics will include exploring their relationships with slavery and how they are engaging with themes of race and violence. Thurs 23 Oct, 5.30pm

Spending my day off with a holy well and mushrooms.

I think there's something going on about the era of closure and remediation too. The Black Country had massive waves of mine closures in the 1870s and 1920s, they were just left to rot. It's what planners always commented on in the 1940s.

This is interesting: the idea of the "post-industrial" or "deindustrialised" region is really pervasive, when in fact there's a lot of historical specificity that's missed out. The trajectory and technology of mining, diversification of industry, local/national tensions eg motor industry...

Black Country Society History Day 8/11/2025. After Agenoria: Aspects of the Railway Revolution in the Black Country. Organised in cooperation with the Black Country Living Museum. The programme for the day and booking details can be downloaded from tickets.bclm.com/127979/127980

Between the National Trust taking on Blists Hill, and Puy de Fou arriving, some interesting times ahead for living history interpretation in Britain. BCLM lies halfway between the two (geographically...).

I don't really approve of politicians on principle, but if you're quoting Benjamin Zephaniah rather than Enoch Powell you're doing a sight better than some.

I *knew* I needn't have bothered trying to learn what epistemology meant

We're excited to announce the call for papers for #MBS26, the next Modern British Studies conference, at Birmingham in June 2026. We'll be launching the #MBS Association at this event, to support further regular conferences in Modern British Studies. www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/moder...

I have thoughts all over the place about this. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

As everyone knows, the gift shop is the main bit of a museum, and my excellent colleagues at BCLM have just updated ours - now featuring Punks and Chancers teeshirts, exclusive Black Country Type prints, merch from my pub and a lovely book section.

Playing cricket at King George’s playing fields, West Bromwich, 1967 brownhillsbob.com/2013/10/09/e...

I have a piece in this weekend’s Observer in which I use the legendary Apache Indian to take down the definitely not legendary Robert Jenrick observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

Alan McKinlay's "Dead Selves" in the journal Organization is a brilliant study of marginalia in bank ledgers and might be useful. My own "The Broken Cotton Speculator" dissects the annotations and scribblings on a single anonymous postcard. Not exactly the same but some parallels I think.

Here’s some images - more of a scrapbook but I still reckon it would be worth reaching out him. More generally, take a look at various projects under umbrella of Piston, Pen & Press led by Kirstie Blair and Mike Sanders www.scottishmaritimemuseum.org/collections/...

Not quite the same but there may be a few stylistic similarities - we've got some examples of rank and file (CPGB associated) workplace bulletins from the 1920s/30s - some of the Rufford Stars are up at cdm21047.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/coll...

This is about scrapbooking (but by a boss, not workers) www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Yay yes!!!! There are lots of folks working on ms magazines - Kirstie Blair and Lauren Weiss on mutual improvement society Mags, @kghist.bsky.social on girls MS mags, me 😊 on children’s school MS. Kathryn’s article has a really good summary of the field: academic.oup.com/ehr/article-...

I have a set of hand-drawn comics/gossip sheets/newspapers donated alongside our aluminium foundry at @bclivingmuseum.bsky.social, dating from (I think) late 1940s. Does anyone know any lit that will help me explore this as a source? I've found work on company mags but this is very different.

I'm here in the Caribbean Heritage Centre in Wolverhampton (formerly Enoch Powell's constituency office!) to hear @warinderjussmp.bsky.social, Roger Mackenzie and most importantly Angelina Osborne talk about her research into links between transatlantic slavery and the Black Country.

This could end up being fun - witness Trump Vs Vertigo angustior in Co Clare carnegiemnh.org/snail-foils-...

Veteran statue-hugger and former letter-writer to museums pitching to be the next pound-shop Enoch Powell every Brummie understands what racist trash this is from the Shadow Lord Chancellor—and if you don’t know our second city here’s your prompt to pay a visit! www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Looks like there's a few tickets remaining for this tomorrow evening in Wolverhampton - should be fascinating, Angelina Osborne is doing some tremendously useful work for Black Country history. wolvestuc.org.uk/researcher/

happy sunday, remember that you are completely expendable to your employer and that when you die they will forget you ever existed within weeks and easily replace you

l appears that this particular vicar labelled the occupation of 99% of the mothers of 'illegitimate' children as "Strumpet."