It's all guns blazing in Culture bid
Dec 14 2009 By Mike Olley
IT’S official, Birmingham is a contender for the status of UK City of Culture 2013.
Last Wednesday evening the great and the good assembled at the Birmingham Hippodrome and made it so.
Sharon Lee, Birmingham’s delightfully enigmatic boss of leisure and culture presided over the occasion. Sharon is a rare combination of pure ability, charm and sincerity. She is the city council’s number two and despite her seniority actually lives in Birmingham.
Speaking as a bit of a “know it all”, I was shocked when Sharon pointed out that the Hippodrome is Britain’s best used theatre.
Presumably a lot of people know that, so there could be no better setting.
Politics is about people and when we entered for the European City of Culture some years ago, the politicians got it so wrong.
We received a sound thrashing from Liverpool on that occasion.
We deserved a good kicking.
Birmingham made several catastrophic mistakes. We felt that inclusivity of culture was exemplified by the marriage of ballet and opera. We completely ignored the fact that culture “is what people do” – by people who are not exclusively polite, posh middle class types who have never heard of X Factor.
Sharon Lee promised me that the city would be inclusive. The city would include the culture aspects of allotment holdings and the gentle pastime of darts. And if Sharon Lee says that, I believe that.
Yes, if you are an avid collector of 1970s’ beer mats, get involved. You will be welcome. In fact, tell them online at www.canvasbirmingham.com
The city has created a blank canvas and they want your ideas.
Remember you can be sure they really do want your ideas as Sharon Lee says so.
This will be the first time that the city will combine working class and high class culture in one celebratory feast and I can’t wait to see how this pans out.
On a personal level, I would like to make a special plea for recognition of our industrial offering. I started out life several years ago as a gun maker apprentice at BSA Guns. They are still there in Armoury Road, Small Heath, hanging on, selling a fantastic range of modern air rifles.
Gun making is Birmingham’s essential thread to the past and present.
Making guns, which – let’s face it – kill people, is not quite on a par with charity work, yet it was guns that made our city great. It was guns which gave us the rich industrial diversity it so proudly boasts of today. Gun makers are only fully employed when there are wars to fight. So in peace time those skills instead make any one of a thousand other things. BSA made motorcycles, cars and got involved in all sorts of engineering practices.
So for Sharon Lee my idea for the big blank canvas is recognition for the gun makers of Birmingham.
Those gun makers who created the foundation of Birmingham.
Foundations that made us a mighty industrial global warrior and the passionate city of diverse culture we now are.
