Black Country Dialect II

I have been thinking about the revival in the Black Country dialect in the 1980's. Of course the theory is that it is a residue from before the Great Vowel Shift and its persistence is due to a sense of isolation, lack of social mobility and the small number of educational opportunities for what is a region of a million people.
After all Wolverhampton has had its City status for a very short time and a University for only a little while longer. Economically the sub-region was probably in economic decline from the end of the First World War. With larger scale industry developing in the North West, Birmingham and places like Coventry. The Black Country today is still a place of small firms and family owned businesses.

Well in the sixties and seventies the Black Country had been undergoing a marked change in its fortunes with high levels of development. With relatively progressive local authorities improving education and the communications of the place, an area notoriously difficult to get around.

Then came Mrs Thatcher and more importantly Geoffrey Howe, his budget put paid almost overnight to large swathes of Black Country industry. Much of which was admittedly fairly low in terms of skills, technology and therefore productivity. The scale of the disaster was such that the area is only now beginning to recover from the devastation that the almost total collapse of manufacturing had on the area.

Culturally this political polarisation lead to alternative comedy and punk rock. The Black Country was no exception to this but something else also happened. The culture fell back on itself. There was a renaissance in the Black Country variety show, The Black Country Night Out. It was almost as if we fell back on the old gags, monologues and songs to keep our spirits up.

This variety show, made local stars of Dolly Allen, "Hello, me luvers!" and Tommy Mundon, and others like the king of dialect doggerel, Harry Harrison, well known for his dialect verse in the Black Country Bugle and Jon Raven, folk singer and collector of traditional Black Country ballads.

I remember Dolly Allen telling the joke about the westkit or waistcoat in around 1987, forty years after it was mentioned in Ingram’s book about the North Midlands. She I have no doubt had never heard it from a book but was part of the oral tradition.

This variety show toured almost continually with various changes in personnel although the very dark days of that recession. A cheap way to go out and keep up your spirit and make you feel good about who you where and where you came from and about the resilience which had kept the place going. This was I think why the close social fabric held the place together through these dark days. Whether it has also held us back as times have change is another matter!

But I have no doubt that the dialect revival a badge of local pride was revived thanks to Mrs Thatcher.