1976, a place, Walsall

I was born in the Manor Hospital, Walsall, at about eight o’clock in the morning. I had no opinions on the town at the time.

It’s not very famous, Walsall. It’s one of the few towns with a league football club that people seem not to have heard of. It was briefly ‘Europe’s Fattest City’ but it lost its crown after a year (to somewhere in Germany, I think). Then for a while it was the town in Britain with the most registered birth defects. I don’t think it’s the best at anything now.

Other people from Walsall with two Js in their name include Jerome K Jerome, Jorja Smith and John Major’s dad.

Would I recommend it for a holiday? The art gallery is very good. It holds the Garman Ryan Collection which is one of those rich-people-with-very-good-taste-gift-their-collection-to-a-town collections. It contains some really nice stuff. The leather museum is temporarily closed. The illuminations in the arboretum stopped in 2008 but were, in my opinion, far better than Blackpool’s when they did exist. Largely because they were in a park instead of along a road. Bit more magical, a park.

I wouldn’t really be the person to ask though. I have probably been to the centre of Walsall five times in the last twenty years. If you are looking for a restaurant recommendation you need to ask somebody else.

According to Tripadvisor, the best restaurant in Walsall is a Hungry Horse pub but I don’t think that can be true. There’s a Nando’s on the opposite side of the road. Nando’s is better than Hungry Horse, surely? And even without visiting Walsall for the best part of a decade I confidently reckon there at least a dozen Indian restaurants that are better than Hungry Horse and/or Nando’s. A quick Google search brought up a place called Five Rivers that looks pretty fancy. Maybe go there.

The shops I loved as a kid, Bridge and Sundown Records have both long gone but now there is somewhere called Eclipse Records. Might be good. The Ottakar’s (where, a very very long time ago, I read the last poem I ever entered into a competition) is now a Waterstones. (I came second btw. Not bad, eh?).

Towns are towns innit. You’d find something to do.

I worked in Walsall for a while before I went to university. I printed logos onto stationery and promotional items. I once printed some biros for Boyzone. In hindsight, I’m not sure why Boyzone needed two thousand biros. It was a different time, I suppose. I mean, we had mobile phones but they didn’t do everything they do now. Northern Uproar went with wallets but I didn’t print them, Martin did. Different sort of printer, your wallets. I usually did screen printing.

The photo shows the entrance to the estate where I printed those pens for Ronan, Stephen, Mikey, Keith and Shane. It’s a garage and a butchers now. The pub where we once ate half-a-dozen eggs and chips is a car park. The shop I used to buy my Monday morning hangover cure breakfast (microwave burger, lucozade, tub of smarties) is still there. Just goes to show. Only the newsagents can survive the passage of time. Even Boyzone have apparently done their last ever gig (6th June, 2026).

The reason I don’t have anything more useful to say about Walsall is that, at some point, it stopped being where I am from and became where I grew up. I’m not sure I noticed the change. I have lived in quite a few places. When people ask me where I’m from now I say Littleborough, or near Rochdale, or Manchester, depending on how far from home I am. Sometimes, people will then bring up my accent. They usually say, ‘Is that a Birmingham accent?’ and I usually explain, politely, that it isn’t, not quite. Occasionally they say, ‘Am yow a yam yam?’ and I will say, ‘Ar’.

But what of the Walsall of 1976? What was it like then. Couldn’t tell you, mate. I was a baby when I was born. My eyes weren’t developed enough to see the window, let alone what was outside of it. And I’m only assuming the ward had a window because the room in The Royal Oldham Hospital I was standing in when I first held my daughter had a window. I remember that. It was snowing. But I was born in July, in 1976, during a heatwave so it probably wasn’t snowing then and… errrrrrrm… yeah… Walsall.

Cool.