Black Country Bugle

Thursday 17 May 2012

Old Style imbibers in Great Grandad's Day

THIS ICONIC photograph of a gather- identify which one? ing outside a typical Black Country watering-hole of a century or more ago has been kindly loaned to us by reader Dennis Jones. We wonder if

Here, there and everywhere!

IN THE LAST instalment of Bill Pace's life as a college lecturer, the New Wulfrun College had just opened and the staff and students were enjoying the start of a new era in further education at

Support to save a former trap makers premises in Wednesfield

The Black Country has a strong manufacturing tradition that goes back several centuries, when each town or village could boast a certain expertise. There was glassmaking at Stourbridge and at other

A radioactive Dudley Dowell

The unmistakable Dounreay dome in Caithness, Scotland.

Once again we have to thank Bugle readers for their marvellous response over the past few years to our constant search for what we call 'Dudley Dowells' items made in the Black Country that have

The Olympic flame will burn brightly for Blind Dave

Blind Dave, proud as punch to be an Olympic torch bearer.

Symbolism is an important part of the Olympic Games, and as well as the five rings that symbolise the five continents of the world and their peoples who are invited once every four years to compete,

The 'touch' that bridged ten millennia

A close up of the blade on the flint tool shows wear and tear.

Even though a small piece of flint measuring just 3.5 cm and recently found in the Pedmore Pass near Stourbridge hasn't been expertly examined, it bears all the hallmarks of a Mesolithic tool,

Were you at this Darlaston nursery seventy years ago?

ANOTHER smashing image from long ago has been supplied by Mrs Jill Loach of Wolverhampton. This shows an unknown group of Darlaston children at a day nursery held at a local chapel during the war

Picture Gallery

Palfrey pupils sixty years ago

IN a recent Bugle (1027), Mr Bond from Aldridge, supplied the names of pupils at Palfrey Junior Scool, 1950/51. One of the names on this list is my cousin, John Birch, who at the time the photograph
How Stewarts & Lloyds shells and pipes helped us win the war

STEWARTS & LLOYDS, the steel firm who operated huge factories at Coombs Wood and Bilston until a few short decades ago, featured prominently in our 26th April editon, thanks to a book produced by the
'All the nice young teachers

Like many of his generation, Bill Buckley of Pensnett has a wealth of powerful memories of a childhood spent in the shadow of the Second World War. And while many of us express the intention of
Killed at work on day of football trial with the Albion

INDUSTRIAL accidents are thankfully few and far between these days, one of the benefits of modern Health and Safety restrictions. But go back a couple of generations and they were all too common; and
When the bells were ringing for Dollie & Gilbert

WHAT a happy and heart-warming photograph this is, showing a young Black Country couple emerging from the church on the day of their wedding, watched by joyous family and friends, way back in the 1923.