Chronicles tell of lost Black Country

He preferred Black Country Obituary, marking the death of a region and an era which have almost passed from memory.

The surprise is not that Tom was talked into "Chronicles" but that his hugely readable book has finally appeared.

I have known him for about 10 years. I cannot recall a time when Tom Larkin, 78, a former Labour councillor in Bilston and a founder of the Black Country Memories Club, has not been talking about his research.

This is a labour of love and of a lifetime. At times the project seemed to be drowning under the weight of yet more interviews, more recollections, more research.

Tom and his publishers, History Press, have done a good job turning thick sheaves of typescript into what the historian Professor Carl Chinn calls: "a compelling work that emphasises human resilience".

Tom who lives in Portobello, is caught between two conflicting convictions. The first is that life was "more caring and civilised" between the 1920s and 1950s than it is today. The second is that it was damn hard.

The moment he begins analysing the "good old days," you wonder what sort of human kindness could ever compensate for the grim and unforgiving nature of life as he recalls it.

He tells how thousands of families existed on a diet of meat scraps, stew, potatoes and rabbit. Some children lived on bread-and-dripping sandwiches with jam as an occasional treat.

After the misery of the 1926 General Strike, he describes Black Country families dragging wooden pushcarts or old prams to scavenge scraps of coal from old mine workings.

In the 1930s Depression local shopkeepers sold cheaply food which was deteriorating.

Good old days? Tom Larkin tells of local families queuing to buy "all kinds of bruised fruit, cooked meats, fly-blown meat, rotting potatoes, any type of stale confectionery and, of course, out-of-date cheese".

Why didn't British workers follow the Russian example and stage a revolution? He concludes that "for some reason people retained a stubborn, outmoded conviction that affairs of state were best left in the hands of the aristocracy and the establishment," combined with "the ever-present influence of disapproving religious leaders".

The 1930s dreams of a better land were put on hold until the Second World War ended and 1945 ushered in the welfare state and the NHS.

Yet the old contradictions continue. On one hand Tom condemns the "awful back-to-back properties" of his youth.

But in the next breath he denounces "the destruction of traditional neighbourhood loyalties" as slum clearance began and new estates were built.

On one page he recalls fondly the bows, ribbons and "smart white shirts" of the traditional Sunday school parade, yet on the next he remembers the "sheer boredom of a typical Sunday" when Sunday schools were so popular.

He waxes lyrical about the courtesy and efficiency of the old corner shop but rages against their appalling hygiene.

The sheer hard slog of being a housewife in the 1930s, from emptying chamber pots to polishing the brass ornaments, is recalled in harrowing detail.

Some will wince when he suggests that families found "great amusement" in the bath-night procedure, as a whole family shared the bathwater. Amusement, Tom? Come off it.

He ends his book on a funereal note, lamenting his lost world. It is as though the 21st Century with its cheap, hygienic food, its welfare support, universal education, home-ownership, hi-tech medicine, clean air and green technology, counts for nothing.

Tom writes of his contemporaries: "They now feel that the industrial legacy created by previous generations, through their hard work and dedication, has been destroyed and the region is fast becoming nothing more than a uniform collection of dormitory towns made up of endless DIY stores, charity shops, banks, office blocks supermarkets, leisure centres, takeaways, along with site after site of small engineering firms employing only a handful of people.

"Future historians will find it difficult to explain how this area of immense industrial power was allowed to simply wither away well before the end of the 20th Century."

It is a bleak view. But you don't need to share Tom Larkin's politics or his conclusions to appreciate this little book as a grand read. It is a fine social document and has been well worth waiting for.

* Black Country Chronicles by Tom Larkin is published by History Press at £9.99. Proceeds from sales go to the County Air Ambulance, Birmingham, and the Down's Syndrome Association.

By Peter Rhodes.