When the streets looked like a Lowry painting
During the early 1960s the mass of ordinary workers walked to their place of employment.
Very few people had cars and so you had to travel to work on public transport or by walking. The 1960s was a period of full employment and so not only Black Country towns but towns all over the country bustled with urban movement and activity.
As most factory workers started work between 7am and 8am, unless they were shift workers, the streets were alive with people of working age moving to work in a purposeful manner. The chattering, the clicking of heels on the pavement was to one’s ear a symphony of urban expressionism.
Clocks
Regardless of the weather, hail, rain or shine, one saw the same people at the same time, and at the same time every day. The clocks of the nation could have been set by this movement of human beings, instead of Greenwich Mean Time.
The scene of workers leaving or going to a place of employment was similar to the paintings of the ‘stickmen’, produced by the artist J.S. Lowry.
A gentleman called Fred Ross, a bridle maker aged 89, travelled from his bungalow in Bescot Crescent, Walsall, on the bus to the station which is in the centre of town. When he alighted from the bus he walked via Henry’s, The General Post Office, past The Fountain Inn, and up to the factory of Jabez Cliff at the far end of Lower Forster Street, at least 15 minutes.
He wore a bowler hat and had pinstriped trousers, the attire of a member of the professional class.
This walk was done five days a week, without a walking stick. Quite an achievement for an 89 year old. What a different era!
Michael Doyle, 26 Bernard Street, Walsall, WS1 2LE