- 1 week ago
Beloved local historian and broadcaster Professor Carl Chinn talks us through the history of central Birmingham, including fascinating insight into how its places got their names, while also discussing his incredible life journey, from bookmaker to the dole, to becoming the Second City’s leading historian.
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00:23Welcome to Ollie's Midlands and it's a
00:26big welcome from the good intent in the
00:28great Western Arcade in the middle of Birmingham City Centre. Today we have
00:32got a very special guest for you. It's none other than Professor Carl Chin,
00:37hot foot from so many places. Absolutely, it's great to have you on the show.
00:42Welcome. Thank you, I bet you say that to every guest, a special guest, only the nice ones.
00:46But only the very special ones, Carl, yeah. Right, okay then, so from pubs to
00:53communities, from industry to identity, you've been helping Brummies with their
00:59identity, helping us to understand everything about Birmingham. I think the
01:04thing about history, social history, which is what I'm engaged with and infused by,
01:10it's about people. Yes, buildings matter, jobs matter, of course everything like that,
01:15the economy matters, but it's people at the heart of everything. And for me, if we don't understand
01:21our past, we can't find out why things have gone wrong today or why things are going right today,
01:28and how we can redress those problems in the future. The Gaelic speakers of Ireland have a saying that a
01:38people who lose their language lose their soul. And I feel that the people who lose their history,
01:44who know not their history, have lost not only their soul, but their very being.
01:49But surely, Carl, there are buildings that we have around us that, you know, make us Birmingham.
01:53I mean, we're in the Good Intent pub, a relatively new pub, only a few years old,
01:57in the Great Western Arcade. But what does this pub mean as part of that history?
02:01Well, the pub is part of this stunning Grade II listed development.
02:06It is nice, isn't it? It is nice. It's lovely. And it's emerged in the mid-1870s,
02:10at a time when the Colmore Row neighbourhood was changing drastically. It would have been owned
02:17by the Colmore family, who in the later Middle Ages and early modern period were the most powerful
02:23and also dangerous family in Birmingham. You did not cross them. Really?
02:27And after they made a lot of money as merchants and buying and selling goods, particularly good quality
02:34goods, probably involved in the cloth trade as well, they decided to become landy gentry.
02:41So they bought an estate in the country by Birmingham, Newhall, Newhall Street.
02:47Oh, really? So where Great Charles Street and Newhall Street meet is about where their Newhall would have been.
02:59Great Charles Street is named after Charles Colmore. Lionel Street is named after Lionel Colmore.
03:04Edmund Street, Marianne Street, etc., are named after them. And from the 1750s and 60s,
03:12they were granting building leases on their land. Birmingham was growing. It was greedy for
03:19new land to build houses, factories on, to bring in all the people from the rural West Midlands who
03:25are flocking here for work. And those building leases were originally related to developments of
03:33fine Georgian structures around St Paul's Square, which they paid. Well, they gave the land for
03:41St Paul's Square because they couldn't attract people to live so far outside the town. So they
03:46give it to the church, didn't they? They gave the land for a church to be built. They had to
03:50raise money
03:51for the church. So if you look at St Paul's Square, it's our only Georgian Square. Those houses there,
03:58those buildings were put up at really high quality, upper-middle-class homes in the 1770s.
04:08But the rest of the estate started to decline up here on their ridge. We're on the Red Sandstone
04:14Ridge here, Mike, above the River Ray. So down below it drops down to the Boring. It's a steep drop
04:22from
04:22St Phillips down New Street. We forget we're a city of hills, aren't we? That's right. Small hills.
04:28Small hills, yeah. And so the building leases were, sorry, the leases of the buildings were
04:36coming to an end in the 1870s. And the Cornwalls decided, well, the people who had taken over the
04:43estate, the Crigos, hence Crigo Street, who were from Cornwall, Cornwall Street. Doesn't quite fit in
04:50as a Birmingham name, Crigo, but it's from Cornwall, where they've got a different language, of course.
04:55Well, they had to take the Cornwall name as well to get the land, because it was willed to them
05:00by
05:00Caroline Cornwall. Caroline Street. Do you know, it's really nice to know that there was so much
05:05thought that goes into even the street names, because they mean something. There's a relevance
05:10to our city. They do, but the problem with the street names so often is that they're only to
05:16do with rich people. What about our folks? What about our people? So the area was redeveloped,
05:22Mike, from the 1870s. And it became, Cornwall Road became Birmingham's Premier Street,
05:27with the new council house at one end, with the Grand Hotel of Mr. Isaac Horton at the other end,
05:34in a French Renaissance style. And when the new cutting for the Great Reston Railway was made to
05:40Snowhall Station, they built this stunning arcade. I have a lot of memories of this arcade as a kid.
05:46I don't know if you ever come there as a kid.
05:48I certainly did, and it was super posh, and it still is, isn't it?
05:52Well, it's even more super posh now. In them days, there was a fantastic toy store on the corner.
05:59Ooh. Barnaby's.
06:01You are a bit older than me. I am a bit older than you. And you'd go into Barnaby's Lorraine,
06:05and it was, oh, it was stunning. And you used to be looking at all these things. Our kid was
06:09always drawn into the aeroplanes, because you could buy models. I've got two hopeless hands for
06:15making anything. Right.
06:16It was more soldiers that I... More of an academic than an arseys.
06:20More of the soldiers. But then we would come along here with my auntie, my mum's aunt,
06:23who was the younger sister of our nan, and nan and our Winnie would take us to the Midland
06:28Counties Dairy. Oh, yes.
06:30Which was here. And we'd go upstairs. The bread shop was downstairs with the cake shop. But you'd go
06:37upstairs and we used to have sausage, chips and beans. And a lot of happy memories. But they blagged
06:43us on one occasion, our Winnie and our nan.
06:45Did they? Tell us, Carl. Get it off your chest, mate.
06:47You know where the Wesleyan is now? I do, yeah, yeah.
06:50That was a big picture house called The Goldmont. I went there.
06:55It was a... What did you go to see?
06:56Wild Geese was the last one. Well, not a bad film, actually.
06:59Well, you would have lucky seeing that, because at the age of about eight,
07:02our nan and our Winnie said, we're taking you to see a war film.
07:06The Sound of Music. Oh, wow.
07:08It wasn't a war film. It was set in Austria in the war, but it wasn't a war.
07:13Well, we sat there. It was on at The Goldmont for about 25 years, I think.
07:19I think you might have exaggerated that.
07:21I have exaggerated it.
07:22Carl, I'm going to pull you back to where we are.
07:23We've got to pull him in, haven't we?
07:24We're going to pull you back in.
07:25So, what I love about the Great Western Arcade, where we are now,
07:30is that there are still the original features.
07:32It really is a gem.
07:33But when it was built all those years ago,
07:36what did it mean for the local people, the everyday people?
07:40What was their experience of this site?
07:42Well, for the everyday people, Lorraine, they couldn't have afforded to come here.
07:45Right.
07:45So, what we're seeing...
07:46It's just for the wealthy.
07:47Yes.
07:47What we're seeing in the 1870s, as the financial district emerges,
07:52because of the rebuilding on the Colmore Estates,
07:56Yes.
07:56as that financial quarter emerges,
07:59so too does the civic quarter become part of the financial quarter.
08:04So, you've got the council house, you've got the museum,
08:07and you've got the art gallery, you've got all the grand buildings.
08:10Colmore Row has probably got more Grade 1 listed buildings
08:13than any other stretch in Birmingham.
08:15Yeah, that's true, yeah.
08:16But what we were seeing is a division between civic and financial Birmingham,
08:22wealthy Birmingham, and working-class Birmingham in the ball ring.
08:26Because until the council house came along,
08:29the council used to meet down in Moore Street.
08:33And then what we see, yes, it used to meet in Moore Street.
08:37Whereabouts?
08:37In the public offices, which were knocked down much later.
08:40Next to Moore Street Station?
08:41Close to it, but Moore Street Station really ended.
08:44That area, yeah.
08:45So, this kind of like...
08:47So, it would be 1838 when the council was set up.
08:49Yeah, 1838 the council was set up.
08:51So, it sort of pulled the rich and the poor.
08:55That distance was sort of damaged at that point, wasn't it?
08:58Yeah.
08:59So, what you had originally was places like Park Street,
09:01which now as Selfridges overlooks, had big houses.
09:04Many wealthy families lived there.
09:06But they were too close to the factories and workshops that were being drawn to that area by the canals
09:13and then the railways.
09:14And their gardens were filled in with back-to-back houses.
09:17So, they moved, many of them moved up the hill to Old Square.
09:21They wouldn't even know it's a square now.
09:24And that was filled with fine Georgian houses.
09:26But from the 1820s and 30s, the wealthier Birmingham had been drawn away from the St. Paul's neighbourhood, slowly but
09:35surely, slowly but surely from Old Square to Edgbaston.
09:39Why? Because Edgbaston is on the south-west of Birmingham.
09:44Which winds are the prevailing winds? Which direction do the prevailing winds come from?
09:48Oh, well, they come over the Urals, don't they?
09:52No, that's the east winds.
09:53Oh, I think the south-west is the prevailing winds.
09:56Oh, you're educated as always.
09:59So, the poor live in the middle amidst the smoke and smells and pollution or downwind in the east.
10:06Isn't it funny how we're so disconnected from this nature nowadays?
10:10Yes, it's so important.
10:12So, they begin to move to Edgbaston, it's upwind.
10:15Right.
10:15It's mostly owned by one family, the goth Calthorps, who restrict building development there.
10:22No factories, that's the Calthorps, but it still owns it.
10:25Yes.
10:25Now, the Calthorps were not from Birmingham, nor were the goths.
10:29The goths were originally wool traders from Wolverhampton.
10:32They bought two manors, Perry Bar, part of Perry Bar, and Edgbaston.
10:36They were fortunate to have Edgbaston.
10:38They still don't live here, do they, the Calthorps?
10:39No, no.
10:40So, you've got the Calthorps and other families, like the Gooch family, are tied into other parts of the country.
10:48So, the Gooch, for example, Gooch Street, got their land from Bishop, Sherlock, Bishop Street, Sherlock Street.
10:55They've got land in East Anglia, Suffolk Street.
10:58So, that history is all embossed over Birmingham for the street names.
11:02Yes.
11:02But the Olly family is not mentioned, there's no Roe Club, there's no Chinbrook, but I'm sure it's...
11:10Well, we used to believe that Chinbrook was named after my great-great-grandfather, who was a tenant farmer.
11:16No, it wasn't.
11:17Unfortunately, I destroyed the family legend when I found a document from the mid-7th century, the 600s, at a
11:24time when the Anglo-Saxons were settling in this area, calling the Waters of Chinden.
11:29So, we never took our names from it.
11:31Carl, I'm going to have to interrupt tonight, because we're going to go to a break, aren't we?
11:35Yeah, yeah, but it's so interesting.
11:36So, hopefully, in part two, we can hear you more.
11:38We're going to come back after the break, if we can get any questions in, and we're going to be
11:43asking you about your life from...
11:46Well, did you ever have a proper job, whether a historian?
11:48Of course I did.
11:49Well, we're going to find out in a second.
11:51Don't start up there like that, yo.
12:00Welcome back to Olly's Midlands, where we've been joined by Professor Carl Chin.
12:05Yeah, Carl, I'm back.
12:06You're still here, fantastic.
12:07Yeah, thank you.
12:09First question, Carl.
12:10You're an historian now.
12:13I've known you for years.
12:14You've always been an historian, but you must have had a proper job at one time.
12:17Yeah, cheeky sounds.
12:19As bad as my older cousins, when I got my doctorate, I had Johnny and I Kenny, both dead now,
12:24my mum's cousins, very close to them.
12:26They'd come up and say, when are you going to leave school, Carl?
12:30Love it.
12:31Well, what did you do before you became a Birmingham treasure?
12:35Dad was a bookie.
12:37Yes.
12:37And I worked in the betting shops down the lane, the Ladypool Road.
12:40We always called it the lane.
12:42Right.
12:43From when I was 13.
12:45And I worked Saturdays, worked school holidays at the age of 16.
12:49I was managing a little shop on my own in Highgate Road.
12:5316?
12:54Yeah.
12:54Well, what had happened was they had always been knocked out.
12:57Right.
12:57And there were hardly any houses left.
13:00There was the pub left on the corner.
13:01I think it was the junction.
13:02There was our betting shop and just perhaps half a dozen houses here and there.
13:06So we basically had no punters, but you had to hold on until the council could do proper compensation.
13:12Of course, you had to nudge it up, did you?
13:14Yeah, you had to try there.
13:14So that was then at 17 and a half, I think it was 17 and a half, I was working
13:20in our betting shop in Thornton Road in Spartanbrook and we got robbed, no robbery with the first half robbery
13:26of the betting shop in Birmingham.
13:27And they pissed to whip the manager and it was quite scary.
13:32Yeah.
13:33You was there, Carl?
13:34Yeah.
13:34I was there.
13:34I had a gun pointed at me.
13:36Oh, yeah.
13:36A gun pointed at me.
13:38Yeah.
13:38And so I worked a lot in the betting shops and I worked throughout my time at school.
13:44At Mosey Grammar.
13:46I worked throughout my time at university and during my time when I was first doing my doctorate, so I
13:52was still working in the betting shops.
13:53I was doing a lot more work then for dad because dad had been poorly, etc.
13:59And so I was really doing half and half.
14:02And then we married me and Kay in 1978.
14:05And in 1980, I thought, I'm just going to look after the betting shops, which I did for a long
14:10while.
14:11But then by 1984, we sold up.
14:13The reason being, the game was changing.
14:18The thatcherite era had come in.
14:20Factories locally were closing down left, right and centre.
14:23And it was decimated manufacturing.
14:25So your punters were disappearing.
14:27Punters were disappearing.
14:28And on top of that, it was getting, there was more violence.
14:32And on the occasion, we had an armed robbery.
14:34The guy held a starting pistol to me.
14:37So not one, but two now.
14:39Yeah.
14:39Was it a particularly violent time?
14:42No, it wasn't really.
14:43I suppose.
14:45No, I don't think it was.
14:46I love Lady Paul Road.
14:48I love Sparkbrook.
14:48I love it today because I spent a lot of time there.
14:51Yeah.
14:51Mum did all the shopping down there.
14:53It was a waste shopping centre.
14:54I still go down there for a bounty at Shababs.
14:56But it was a difficult time in many ways.
15:01And another occasion, we got attacked with a machete.
15:03Oh, no.
15:04And it was, this is a funny story.
15:06This is with a machete.
15:07A funny story with a machete.
15:09I'm flotting in this one.
15:09We trust the car, go on.
15:11The bloke was performing and I was with my auntie Mavis.
15:14And I threw him out.
15:16And as I threw him out, he spat all over me.
15:18But it wasn't just, it was on his throat.
15:20And I talked to him out.
15:21Anyway, I made this rag dad and my brother and the best mate come down and went to the
15:27next meeting shop and had a bit of a boss up with him.
15:29And about an hour later, he comes in with this great big machete and he's swinging it,
15:33stabbing it through the counter.
15:36And dad's saying, drop that machete and fight me night with these.
15:39I'm sorry, come it down.
15:41This is bookching, isn't it?
15:42Yeah, yeah, yeah.
15:43And anyway, only kidding you.
15:44He's waving the machete, he's stabbing it through.
15:47It's a packed betting shop.
15:49And one bloke come up on one side of him, another, another.
15:52And one bloke says, Carl, as he's waving the machete, push the fiver on that one at
15:56Press London.
15:57He says, God is my judge as I'm here to fear.
16:00Oh my God.
16:01It's like an episode of Peaky Blinders, isn't it?
16:04Well, it is, yes.
16:05When did your interest in history start then?
16:09Well, if I'd have said to you this question, answered this question 30 years ago and I said,
16:14I was always interested in reading historical novels, particularly about the dark
16:18ages.
16:19There was a wonderful historical novelist called Rosemary Sockriff, who influenced many young
16:24people.
16:25There was also Jeffrey Treese, Henry Treese, who I later learned was from Wendsbury.
16:30They wrote about the Vikings and others.
16:32But actually, the real reason I'm so enchanted with history and he grows with it is family
16:36stories.
16:38I was very fortunate, Lorraine.
16:40I grew up well off.
16:41Dad was a bookie.
16:42Yes.
16:43But although we grew up very well off, Mom and Dad were very proud to be backstreet kids.
16:48Dad was very proud of coming from Stubby Street and Alfred Street in Sparkbrook.
16:52He still had that bond with the end because of the shops.
16:54I drank in Sparkbrook for many, many years in the Royal Oak, the Clifton, the Railway,
17:00the Wrexham and a few others as well.
17:04And Mom's family were also very proud of where they come from.
17:08Mom had been a factory worker.
17:09She was a capstan operator.
17:11All of Mom's family worked in factories.
17:13They were from Aston.
17:14Mom was very proud when she died, just before she died.
17:17I said, where do you want me to take you, Mom?
17:20I knew what she would say.
17:21And I'm going to say to my old brummie, the speech, they said, take me back home.
17:25Ah.
17:26So I took her down her street.
17:27There's nothing there now, but where her entry to her yard are back-to-backs would have been.
17:31Her cousins and old school pals stood.
17:34Can I just make the point?
17:35When we talk about history and historians, I mean, my understanding of
17:39history from school was the Plantagenets who were the Tudors and all the kings and queens
17:44and the big battles and all that.
17:45And the Second World War for some reason.
17:47Yeah, but what Carl talks about is not that, although I know you're very enlightened on that.
17:53You're talking about real people's history, aren't you?
17:55Very much so, because it was the stories that Mom's family and Dad's family told,
18:00particularly Mom's family on a Sunday afternoon, it seems in my mind's eye now,
18:03that they all met at our Moms on a Sunday.
18:05Yes.
18:05And they'd have a chat, a few chats, and then they'd start talking about
18:09the Old End.
18:09So for older Brummies, the Old End is the street or the little neighbourhood that they
18:13came from.
18:15For our Mum, it was Whitehouse Street and Aston Cross.
18:17For Dad, it was Studley Street and Alfred Street, Adjoining Street and The Lay.
18:21And they talked.
18:22So later on, as I started to be wider my area of interest, it was the same for the people
18:29from Ladywood and Borsley and Denny Tend and Small Heath and Nichols.
18:33So you've got this real passion about local stories, family stories, the love of Birmingham,
18:41that interest in history.
18:42So how does that transform to being a local historian?
18:46What's that journey?
18:47What journey?
18:48I have to say, journey was eventually we sold the betting shops.
18:51I finished my doctorate and I was out of work for a long time.
18:54I was on the dole case, wages, doing hares for family and friends.
19:00I did a few jobs on the black economy.
19:01I'm not afraid and ashamed to say that because you do what you have to do.
19:05We were lucky we had a well-off family that supported us, but it was a bit tight.
19:10So eventually, I got a part-time job at Furcroft College, adult education.
19:17That was really important for my development.
19:19I just declare an interest as a former pupil of Furcroft and I would recommend that place to anyone.
19:25Anyway, but please.
19:26And so that was important because you learn a lot from being an adult education tutor.
19:32You can't talk down, you talk with.
19:35You're learning from your students as much as saying, hopefully we'll learn from you.
19:38But I'd also started giving talks in libraries.
19:41And when I was doing evening classes for the old universities,
19:45Birmingham University's old extramurals class,
19:48particularly for the Workers' Educational Association, which is a tremendous body.
19:52Still going, still going, doing great work.
19:54And so I was doing lots of bits and pieces.
19:57And when I was on the dole, you could only earn £5 a week more than on top of your
20:04dole money.
20:04Anything more they took from you.
20:07And I was sent for a re-training scheme just after I got my doctorate in 86.
20:14And they sent me for a re-training scheme.
20:16And the bloke looked and said, you've just got your doctorate and we sent you for a re-training scheme.
20:20He says, have you ever thought of me becoming a self-employed historian?
20:25Oh.
20:25No.
20:26So what it was...
20:27Well, you don't, do you?
20:28No.
20:28What I think was the enterprise allowance scheme.
20:31I don't know if you've ever heard of that.
20:33I don't know if you've ever heard of that.
20:33Yes.
20:33The deployments.
20:34Yes.
20:35Yes.
20:36Employments.
20:36They pay you £25 a week or something?
20:38It was, yeah, £100 a week.
20:41A week.
20:41And then they would make it back up to what you bid on the dole, if that was a bit
20:46more.
20:46But what you could earn then, you kept.
20:49Right.
20:49So you weren't out of pocket.
20:51So you was a state-sponsored historian?
20:53Yes, that was social historian.
20:55I was the only one in the country.
20:57Yeah, and doing a job...
20:59You still are, Mocko, you still are.
21:01Doing a job that you absolutely love, that is the prize, isn't it?
21:05It is, but when you're out on the dole, it's soul destroyed.
21:08Can I ask, what gave you the boost as our local, trusted, friendly historian in Birmingham?
21:15I was very lucky I had a tutor at university, my doctoral tutor,
21:19Dorothy Thompson, an esteemed historian who wrote about the women in the Chartist movement,
21:23whose husband, Edward Thompson, E.P. Thompson, started off social history with the making
21:29of the English working class.
21:30And she gave me the confidence to write about the people I belong to.
21:35Not that they belong to me.
21:36No, no, but writing about them, I belong to them.
21:39Now, you're still writing for the Birmingham, are you?
21:42No, I haven't started that yet.
21:43So, I'm doing talks at libraries, and the libraries were really supportive.
21:48I would then get a part-time job at Birmingham University, at the same time as I got a part
21:54-time
21:54job at Fircroft.
21:55However, still signing on the dole in the summer, because there's no work in the summer.
22:00No, of course.
22:00And then in 1990, the libraries and a wonderful bloke from Birmingham University, Professor John
22:09Gremble, who was a German-Jubish refugee and worked his way up from being a guard to a top
22:15international historian. He believed in me, and they came together and they found enough money to
22:22give me a two-year temporary role as the country's only and first community historian.
22:28Wow. Carl, we're going to have to end the show very soon. Can you just, in about 30-odd seconds,
22:35can you tell us what was the biggest boost in your career?
22:38So, getting that job, really, two years as community historian, then became full-time,
22:43and I was giving lots of talks by now in schools, libraries, community events. That's how we met.
22:49Indeed, yes.
22:50And then the Birmingham Mail and WM followed.
22:52And what are you doing now? Where can we see Carl Chin now?
22:55Oh, whenever you can.
22:57You're still doing tours, though, around Birmingham.
23:00No, I've had to stop the tours because my knees have gone.
23:02Oh.
23:03Oh, yeah.
23:03Doing the occasional tour from places like Norton's and the Anchor in town and here and there.
23:09Still very cool, though.
23:10Carl, it's just so interesting, your knowledge of this great city. If you could sum up being a Brummie in
23:16one word, what would you say?
23:18Family.
23:20Carl, we've got to end the show now. I think we need to do a whole series on this bloke,
23:24don't we?
23:25Will you come back?
23:25Yes, please.
23:26That would be absolutely lovely.
23:27Great to have you on, mate. Thank you very much.
23:29Thank you so much.
23:30And thanks for watching.
23:31Yeah, thank you so much. We've run out of time and it's been great having Carl Chin on the show.
23:36Please join us next time on Ollie's Midlands.
23:53We'll see you next time on Ollie's Midlands.
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