Tales from the Black Country
My Sunday afternoon dérive* started on a car park in Brierley Hill, next to an abandoned shopping trolley and overlooking a sign about the regeneration of the town.
Brierley Hill is in the metropolitan borough of Dudley, but has a distinct identity of its own. I know it well, but my aimless wandering opened my eyes to parts of the town I have never noticed.
A car park led to a lane with a ‘NO ENTRY’ sign, past strange metal squares in the pavement concrete, satellite dishes, weeds, palm trees, Alms Houses, a park I didn’t know existed, brickwork repair, a war memorial, tower blocks, a carpet superstore, commonwealth graves in the churchyard, drug paraphernalia, litter, bins, residents, dogs, derelict pubs, Mecca bingo, a Victorian water fountain, religious psalm graffiti…all the way back to the shopping centre where my journey began.
The highlight was a chat I had with a lady who was walking from her sister’s flat in the tower block after a day caring for her. We talked about loss, love, mental health and schizophrenia, caring, crime, benefits, families and the town. She called me flower and asked if we would meet again on our respective dog walks. I very much hope so.
There’s a poem or story in all of this exploration and discovery, but more importantly there’s connection. People make places too and I love a good natter with a Black Country wench**
*The dérive (French: "drift") is an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, in which participants stop focusing on their everyday relations to their social environment.
**a colloquial term of endearment for a Black Country woman
