Yoo. 
I must have missed something.
I've been seeing lots of these flags popping up around here over the last few months and wondered what they signified. Its the Black Country flag no less!
Apparently a competition was launched in 2012 to design a Black Country flag and a girl from a local school did just that and impressed the judges with her design.
The flag owes its design to a quote made in 1862 by Elihu Burritt, the American Consul in Birmingham. He described the region as “black by day and red by night” — a result of the local furnaces giving out smoke and grime during the day and glowing by night. The flag background is therefore both black and red, with the chains showing a typical product manufactured in the area. The central white area represents the glass cone, a symbol of the region's glass-making heritage since 1790.
The 'Black Country' comprises a number of small towns which were dominated by heavy industry such as Stourbridge (popular for its Stuart Crystal and glass making industry), Lye, (nail making and galvanising) and Netherton (chain making - and where the Titanic's anchor and chains were made) to name but a few. Titanic's centre anchor was, at one time, the world's largest anchor.
The Black Country does not include Birmingham and most Black Country people will deny all knowledge of any link with the city! The folk of the Black Country and Birmingham share a friendly rivally, the Black Country people being 'yam yams' and the Brummies being 'yo yos'. The words are taken from the dialect - which is a whole different post entirely!
The old Black Country saying goes - "Black Country born an' bred, Strong in th' arm and thick in the yed!"
I'm a proud BC girl and similarly get a tad annoyed when people intimate that I'm a Brummie! There are very subtle differences in the accents of each of the Black Country towns and not even the best mimic can pull off a true broad Dudley dialect.
Gorra goo now me luvvers! See yer all soon!!
That 'old saying' gets attributed to everywhere (except Sussex). I first heard it about Norfolk. I like the flag; well done that gal.
ReplyDeleteWe have that saying here in Yorkshire too. About 12 years ago we went to the. Black Country Museum. We had a fabulous day and still talk about the fish and chips we bought from the old fashioned fish shop in the 'street' . I recentley watched the Land Girls series on tv and noticed they had done quite a lot of the filming there. It is one place I would love to visit again. Love the flag! x
ReplyDeleteI heard that saying when I lived in Yorkshire.
ReplyDeleteWe live in Lancashire, and have been told more than once that people have met others who sound like us. When we ask where they were from we are told Bolton or Manchester. We definitely do not sound like Peter Kay, Vernon Kay , Paddy McGuinness or the cast of Shameless! It appears that some people like to lump all accents and areas together. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to put a video/ voiceover on the blog so everyone can hear me!
Accents or at least the different dialects are quite hard for people not from the area to discern. I had a discussion recently with a Canadian friend about the Scottish accent and I said to her there are so many different accents in Scotland and I don't particularly like mine and she found it hard to understand they all sounded so different to me whereas to her they all sound the same! When we were in Florida a few years ago a shop assistant asked us if we were from New York as she didn't recognise our accent!! My mum is from Lancashire and although she's lived in Scotland for 60 years you can still hear her Lancashire accent at times, particularly certain words! Can I also say your scrapbook page (day 54) is lovely, I enjoy scrapbooking too, I'm about to start a new album for our recent American Road Trip.
ReplyDeleteDidn't like the flag until I started reading your explanation of it and now I think it's really clever! I'm not surprised it won.
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