Oh yes, it’s that time of year again, when I attempt to summarize the Sunday parade madness. Things kicked off with mass at St Anne’s Church, where Father Murphy asked parishoners to ‘Remember St Patrick gave us the mass…he never gave us Guinness.’
After mass things started gearing up for the Parade, and this for me was one of the best bits, watching the musicians and dancers wander the Digbeth streets with their instruments and outfits.
By far the best outfit for me was Brian Fitzpatrick’s dead ocelot Susan.
Brian, from the Northfield Caledonia Pipes and Drums, assured me that Susan died of old age in a zoo. Brian was interested to hear about the newer residents of Digbeth, as his father-in-law worked here in a factory on Cheapside shortly after he came over from Belfast in the 1960’s.
After chatting to Brian I wandered up to the parade starting point at Camp Hill to look at all the floats and vehicles assembled. The variety of vehicles was great. There were tractors.
There were bubble cars.
There were vintage double-decker buses.
But the most impressive of them all was Brian’s trike ‘Lady Diana’, a labour of love undertaken by Brian when the outer body of his Robin Reliant was written off 23 years ago.
The level of detail on this bike is astounding, it truly is a work of art.
Shortly after having a little chat with Brian the parade itself kicked off.
All walks of life made their way down the main Digbeth High Street (or High Street Deritend, as Carl Chinn prefers to call it).
Although the sun had come out especially for parade day it was very windy. I thought this poor man was going to blow away.
Parade day this year felt like much more of a family affair, although the atmosphere was lively I didn’t feel the lairy edge that’s sometimes been there in past years.
Maybe this was down to an increased police presence.
After the parade I took a little time out to chat to Councillor Martin Mullaney and Carl Chinn. As Gebby said on The Stirrer’s forum, ‘Carl “knows his stuff” there’s no doubt about that’. He is a mine of local information.
After my little history lesson from Carl I retreated to the Adam and Eve pub, where quite a few were enjoying a post-parade pint of Guinness.
I’ll be popping up a parade links post shortly, as there’s lots of YouTube films and photo sets out there already. In the meantime, a very happy St Patrick’s Day to you all for tomorrow!
The other week I did my neck and shoulder in. I don’t know what happened, I just stretched in bed and something sort of went. I was in effing agony and couldn’t hobble much further than the end of my street. Luckily all the great stuff going on over that weekend was just down the road at Friction Arts’ The Edge on Cheapside, starting with Happy Artist on the last Friday night of each month.
‘Happy Artist is a joyous celebration, a place where you can really let your hair down and a place where the concept of ‘cool’ is completely banned.’ And let our hair down we did. There was singing:
There was dancing:
There was being utterly charmed by brooding foreign artists on the sofa:
As with most beautiful things My Street is a simple idea brilliantly executed. Diana and Babak went to Cuba armed with cameras, which they gave to people asking them to take some pictures and write some words that tell the stories of their street to someone who’s never been there. The results are astounding. Many talk of a very real love they have for their street, almost as if it’s a person:
We loved each other in all possible ways, kissing every detail on our surfaces, smelling our secrets, enjoying our presence. It is a genuine love, true love, love without condoms….
What they’ve achieved with this book really blew me away and thinking about parallels with my talk about local work, I left with my head buzzing and the number of a good chiropractor from Sandra.
Next weekend The Edge are hosting Jonathan Kay and the Nomadic Academy of Fools.
They’ll be around right up until the Flatpack Festival weekend, hosting workshops in the art of fooling during the day and performances during the evenings including scratch cabarets, performances of Richard II (not like the RSC, one bit – well worth a look) and some solo performances by Jonathan Kay – if you’ve ever been to one of his amazing Glastonbury shows, you’ll know this is absolutely not to be missed.
Now if Friction say this is ‘not to be missed’ then you’d better believe it – get your arses down there and get your eyes well and truly opened.
By the way it seems Friction Arts have copies of My Street for sale at £9 a pop – well worth the money.
New events and how to find out about them | – My, my, there’s lots going on at The Edge on Cheapside. It’s becoming a big bee hive of creative activity, some by Friction Arts and some ‘Off The Edge’ events by others making good use of a great space. Here they list in detail what’s in store, such as:
18th Feb, 4.30 – 6pm Postcards from South Africa – a seminar about Friction Arts’ recent residency in Johannesburg.
26th Feb from 8.30pm – Happy Artist Social Club – ‘a place to hang out with other artists without ignoring someone else’s art in the process’.
27th Feb – Artists seminar by Diana Ivanova (Bulgaria) and Babak Salari (Iran/Canada/ Wetherspoon’s) launching their new book documenting their My Street project in Cuba.
6/7th March – Hacking wonderousnesses from Fizzpop
13th March West Midlands Filmmakers for Haiti are putting on an evening of short films and a disco in aid of the disaster.
But they’ve saved the best until last, namely:
And last – until we announce the next cavalcade of fun - and certainly by no means least – from 19th until 28th of March we are hosting a residency by Jonathan Kay and the Nomadic Academy of Fools. I cannot stress how foolish you will be to miss some, or indeed any of the workshops and performances, and bad foolish, not good foolish. I’ll be posting more fully soon, but until then, go here and get NAF.
I took a stroll down Cheapside today to take a look at what was left of the D&P Textiles warehouse after the massive fire yesterday. As you can see from the photos, quite a bit of damage has been done – the roof of the storage area has completely gone.
One of the guys clearing up said, “It’s made a lot of mess. But it’s made the news, it’s made this area famous.” Although I’d like to think Digbeth can be famous for a bit more than a fire, he’s not wrong:
BBC News reported on the ’suspicious’ nature of the fire and the building’s asbestos roof, which apparently ‘poses no risk to the public’. Good to know.
The Birmingham Post quoted a lot of numbers – ‘45 firemen tackled the blaze…ten engines, three main jets and a hydraulic platform had been used to douse the fire.’
The Express and Star disagreed with the Birmingham Post and said there were 60 firemen. They’ve got a picture of three of them squirting hosepipes at the blaze.
The Birmingham Mail predicted Monday morning ‘commuter misery’ due to resulting road closures, which I was surprised by as the Bradford Street entrance to Rea Street was open by the end of Sunday and Cheapside is not a major route road. Did anyone experience any problems this morning?
According to an update report on BBC News today, Managing Director of D&P Textiles Phil King has promised the factory will reopen soon, and ‘he hoped his workforce of 35 women would be back at their machines within the next couple of weeks.’ Let’s hope the mammouth clean-up operation he faces goes as smoothly as possible.
Thank God the only casualties were clothes. However, I did manage to find one surviving item – a lone piece red and gold ribbon. This now has a new home in the DiGpuss Shop of found items.
D&P Textiles warehouse building on Cheapside, which has an asbestos roof, was pretty much destroyed by a ’suspicious fire’ today. Smoke started pouring out of the building this morning, captured brilliantly in this photo by K Canard. Thankfully, it seems no-one was hurt.
The Cheapside road was closed from just beyond Birchall Street down to Rea Street all day and the entrance to Rea Street from Bradford Street was also closed until late afternoon. It seems the bottom section of Cheapside may remain closed tomorrow.
The fire service were working at the warehouse late into the night. The BBC report states:
The asbestos poses no risk to the public, but water run-off to the River Rea has been blocked, says the fire service. Crews managed to save more than half of the building, but fire severely damaged stock and caused severe structural damage.
Now must admit I didn’t really take much notice of the warehouse until it caught fire today, I just saw a building filled with old clothes when I walked past and wasn’t really sure what they did. Here’s the lowdown from their website:
D & P Textile Company Ltd. are graders of recycled clothing, our main business area is the export of second hand clothing, and additionally the supply of nearly new clothing to retail outlets and market stall holders. We also produce graded cleaning cloths to all sectors of industry. Recycled waste products are supplied to the Textile manufactures.
Digbeth Bacon Co. on Cheapside is open to the public Mon-Fri 5.30am-12.00pm and Sat 6.30am-10.30am. They sell things like fresh and frozen meat and fish, milk, eggs, huge tins of beans and, of course, bacon. Which probably makes it the nearest thing to a supermarket around here.
The Margarett Rose Abri Centre are holding their third ‘Lazy Sunday Afternoon’ Acoustic session this Sunday 13th December from 2.30pm.
This month we have a set by Wolverhampton Based Singer Songwriter Mick Burrows who writes very melodic accessible songs influenced by artist like Neil Young, Dylan and the Joni Mitchel. We’ll also be having a set by local band ‘Gravel Road’ who would normally be described as rock-pop-blues but these guys don’t like being pigeonholed and are quite likely to venture into other musical genres…just cos they feel like it! Anything could happen!
Admission is free (but there will be collection tins for the Breast Cancer Charity ‘Breakthrough’ dotted about) and all ages welcome. The cafe is the old Post Office building at the corner of Cheapside and Birchall Street.
It’s the second ‘Coffee Shop Poets’ open mic night for poetry and spoken word at the Margarett Rose Abri cafe this Thursday 3rd Dec from 8.30pm.
The event is free to listeners and performers alike, and is a safe, intimate and supportive alcohol free not for profit venue. Anyone wishing a slot to read their works should try to arrive early.
The Margarett Rose Abri is the old Post Office building at 58-59 Cheapside Digbeth (on the corner of Cheapside and Birchall Street).
It’s the first ever Espresso sized theatre night at the Cafe in the Margarett Rose Abri building on Cheapside tomorrow evening – Friday 27th Nov at 8pm. The audience gets to enjoy 5 short plays:
‘Lovely lady liberty’ by Rachel Taylor
‘Jimmy Lightning’ by Stuart Zola
‘Reverend Sherri Angel’s top ten tips for a long lasting Las Vegas Marriage’ by Rachel Sambrook
‘The Providence Cafe’ by Jan Watts
A ’script in hand’ performance of an untitled Jan Watts Play that ‘involves American tourists and bottom pinching at The Birmingham Museum and art Gallery!’
Tickets are £5 on the door and includes a regular drink and cake in the interval (cheesecake or tarte, no less).
If you’re thinking you’d rather be on the stage than in the audience, there’s a chance to do that too:
We’re also looking for submissions from writers and/or actors who want to put on stuff for Espresso 2 early in the new year. Anyone interested can contact stuartrox@stuartrox.plus.com
The Margarett Rose Abri building is the old Post Office at 58-59 Cheapside, Digbeth B12 0PG.
We got to watch a bit of telly during the meeting – Inside Out West Midlands discussed the Noise Abatement issues faced by The Rainbow and The Spotted Dog. The BBC reporters managed to get their hands on the elusive pre-development noise survey – which only looked at potential traffic noise issues and did not consider noise from local commercial businesses. This prompted Councillor Yvonne Mosquito’s response that there was clearly a mistake on behalf of the planners and a mistake was made by the council, in that checks that should have been done weren’t.
The planning application for a Backpacker’s Hostel on Cheapside has been approved (despite 54 objections) with conditions – but residents remain in the dark about what those conditions are. More worryingly, John Tighe raised concerns about the Birmingham City Council planning meeting where the proposal was discussed – each complainant present should have had 3 minutes each to speak but in the meeting all individual complainants there were lumped together into one 3 minute slot.
The next meeting will be on Monday 7th December at the Paragon Hotel.
