A Beer Biography of The Author in Words and Pictures.

Photograph Gallery

This site is run by Kieron McMahon, a bloke with a passion for pubs and drinking a top notch pint of beer. This has evolved into writing a bit about my experiences and, as the years have rolled by, a fascination for the histories of the boozers.

As a kid in 1968 I didn't like beer. The fact that I found beer revolting at one time will shock those who know me now - but it's true when I was a wee whippersnapper I hated the stuff. My mum and dad once kept an off licence and general store in the Black Country and I can remember one Christmas that, when I finally got permission from the old man to have a sip of his Ansell's, I nearly wretched on the stuff. "Ugh, it's 'orrible" I said as I almost spat it out - couldn't quite do the latter as I'd have been sent to bed before my deadline of when the end theme to Coronation Street kicked in. How I hated that tune! And, unlike today where hoards of brats are running around the pubs, I hardly ever visited a boozer when I was a kid. It was on the odd occasion when my parents nipped in for a few drinks on the way back from somewhere exotic like Stourport that I was allowed a bag of crisps and a bottle of pop whilst I sat outside in the cold as they enjoyed a beer in the boozer. Pubs were simply places where you were bored waiting for them to come out or where you played with some other little urchin in the beer garden.

I was born in The Lye, a Black Country town in Worcestershire once packed with old boozers. Always a little impatient, I was born four weeks premature in a shabby two-up, two-down hovel in The Dock. They had to go and fetch the midwife who'd supped a skinful in the bottom Bell - probably the reason why I've got the most ridiculous belly button in the western hemisphere! My old man was a steel erector in those days - looking for work, he left County Monaghan after the war. Named Michael Kieron, he named me Kieron Michael - how original. He married Wolverhampton-born Shirley Green in the early-mid 1950's and they somehow wound up in The Lye. I was born in September 1958, making me slightly younger than Madonna - and almost as pretty. I'd look great with that tin cone pointy bra thing over my tits.

I'm extremely proud to hail from a grotty Black Country town such as The Lye. Lye Waste was first settled by gypsies around the River Stour. These early settlers built crude mud dwellings centred on Lye Cross. In 1699, 103 such dwellings were recorded as standing on Waste Bank. Subsequently, Lye was often called Mud City. This term was first recorded in 1780 when the Birmingham historian, William Hutton, wrote 'If the curious reader chooses to see a picture of Birmingham in the time of the Britons [Celts], he will find one in the turnpike road between Halesowen and Stourbridge called the Lie Waste, alias Mud City. The houses stand in every direction, composed of one large and ill-formed brick scooped into a tenement burnt by the sun and often destroyed by the frost.' Describing the inhabitants, he added 'The children at the age of three months take on a singular hue from the sun and the soil which continues for life. We may as well look for the moon in a claypit as for stays and white linen in the city of mud.' In the 19th century the so-called "King of Lye" Constantine Folkes became very unpopular after he attempted to establish a proper observance of the Lord's Day. Indeed, religion was late arriving in The Lye which adds to the town's mythology. One imagines church leaders in neighbouring town's not daring to venture into The Lye for fear of heathens! The Lye Wasters [as they were known] were widely regarded as a lawless and Godless lot. Naturally, I like to boast that I'm a true waster!

Despite the fact that I was born in Worcestershire, I grew up across the River Stour in Staffordshire after my parents bought an off licence on Reddal Hill Road, between Cradley Heath and Old Hill. In those days [early-mid 1960's] beer was dispensed through handpulls and jugs. I can still picture my father hammering the tap home in the barrel down in the cellar. And they were barrels not firkins or kilderkins. Customers would come into the shop with a bag full of empty pop bottles or suchlike and my mum or dad would pull the beer into a jug and transfer the ale into the bottles - quite tricky when the beer was full of condition. For pocket money, it was my elder sister's job to re-stock the shelves with bottles of Mackeson, Manns, Guinness and Light Brown and me, being the wee eeegit, had to take all the empties and fill up the crates to be taken back to the brewery. The offie was free-of-tie but my parents seemed to buy lots of products from Ansell's of Aston and in return we got loads of goodies throughout the year. For example, the sales rep would always bring a big turkey at Christmas.

Most yoofs these days seem to start drinking by the time they're ten years old. In my case, I had to wait until the ripe old age of sixteen. The Hawthorns on The Ross in Blackheath must have been desperate for custom in 1974 and turned a blind eye to delinquents like me asking to be served. So teaming up with Pip Oldaker, Terry Parkes, Steve Attewell and other mates from Rowley Regis Grammar School, we were able to use the bar frequented by the town's old lags. They used to enjoy seeing us suffer by offering us their Capston cigarettes and watching us coughing and spluttering between sips of our Ansell's Mild. Another haunt of our misspent schooldays was the Foxhunt in Old Hill's Garretts Lane where we'd drink Banks's Mild in the back room. Most of the pubs in my area were tied and sold Banks's, M&B or Ansell's. Although my local was the Waggon and Horses on Reddal Hill Road, I became a regular of The Bell on St. Anne's Road, Cradley Heath. This was an Ansell's house and I liked their bitter a lot in those days.

One of the regrets of my teen years was the fact I didn't have a mentor who could steer me towards places selling Batham's and Simpkiss - I would have to wait a few years to experience the delights of these smaller breweries. I sort of fell into the crib team for The Bell and I would play away fixtures in many Banks's or M&B pubs. However, even the M&B pubs sold proper cask ale in those days and the Springfield Bitter was fair to middling.

My beer horizons were broadened in 1977 when I left home for Yorkshire and discovered Theakston's beer when it was something to behold. Punk didn't seem to get as far north as Northallerton but The Fleece was a pub with beer to make your hair turn spikey. Other discoveries - and remember I was but a mere novice - were Marston's Pedigree in the Cross Keys at Bellerby and Samuel Smith's in the Oak Tree at Catterick.

These were the days when to sample different beers you had to travel a bit and by 1980 I was living and working in Hampshire. Most of the pubs seemed to flog Courage beers so I sought out a few watering holes that sold Ind Coope Bitter from Romford. However, I wasn't far from Surrey so it was possible to find exotic treats in Farnham where pubs like the Queen's Head sold Gales. There was one particular pub just outside Aldershot that sold an extremely dark mild - black almost. We'd be in the boozer just after the gaffer took the bolt off the door and we'd drink around twelve pints of the stuff whilst playing bar billiards, then head off for a curry. Invincible - that's what you are in your early 20's. You can drink up to two gallons and still be up for a monster dish of spices - and feel nothing the next morning. Up for a cooked breakfast even.

If Farnham was considered exotic then I was in for a culture shock in 1981 when I headed to Berlin for a few years to sample Berliner Weiße and a lot of Schultheiss Pilsener. After drinking a lot of this cold fizzy stuff for a few years I found it difficult to get back into the swing of things when I arrived back in England to drink 'warm' bitters. Quite often I'd find myself ordering a lager - there, I've admitted it.

A music devotee all my life, in 1989 I opened a record shop in Dudley's High Street. Not dissimilar to the shop featured in Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity", it was a slog making money but was rewarded by the number of interesting people that walked through the door. I still drink with some of the friends that I made in those five years. A weekly ritual used to be the short pilgrimage to the Lamp Tavern where a good measure of Batham's Bitter was consumed.

Another boozer that I enjoyed in the early 90's was the Wharf at Old Hill, a Scottish and Newcastle pub but kept by an enthusiastic beer bloke who sold lots of interesting ales. Still drinking with old school pals Pip Oldaker and Robert Mears, trying the beers on the chalkboard was a very hit and miss affair. However, I developed a taste for ales like Hook Norton Old Hooky. This was also the era of the Allied-operated Holt, Plant and Deakin empire and fine pints of Entire could be found in a variety of outlets.

There was a key event in the early 1990's that really got me interested in real ales. A couple called Trimble and Spike took over the already-excellent Why Not Inn at Cradley and, suddenly, a local pub of mine started to stock beers with strange names that I'd never heard of before. Apart from The Bell in the 1970's, this was the first pub I used to frequent at least three times a week. And every time I walked into the pub Spike, a nutcase and beer monster, used to collar me and encourage me to drink all the strange brews he'd had delivered. It was a fabulous period of enlightenment though I'll never know how I managed to stagger home after a night on something like Dent Kamikaze.

For some bizarre reason, I decided to undertake a post-graduate course [I'm a geographer by the way] in Further and Higher Education. My days as a teacher and lecturer were short-lived but it was during this time that I met my partner Emma. My first tactic in getting her interested in real ale was to introduce her to Batham's Mild. A decade later, she's a complete real ale nutcase and is a devotee of the beers of Belgium. Indeed, during our extensive travels in search of that next great pub or beer, Belgium is a regular destination for us, particularly events such as the Poperinge Festival of Hops.

So there you are - a very brief beer biography. As for the components of the website - well, they just tie in with my own interests of geography, history, architecture, walking, cycling and sitting in a classic pub drinking a heavenly pint of beer.

I did once have a drink with George Best - it wasn't my fault, honest guvnor, but it ain't all been about drinking - I have managed to do other things in life. Being featured on John Peel's show was a highlight of my radio fame and I did once get to do Desert Island Discs - it didn't quite have the same audience figures enjoyed by Kirsty Young's guests but I hope somebody was listening to Radio Shropshire that evening! Backstage with Black Umfolosi was a hoot and I've managed to meet some of my heroes like Billy Bragg and Richard Thompson. Not that all my encounters with the rich and famous have been with people I'd like to share my last beer with - I remember trying to tell a crap joke to Jim Bowen - his face was a picture. I once got a promotion on the basis of trying to headbutt the Radio 1 D.J. Simon Bates whilst he was on stage [the bouncers got to me first] and I've even had dinner with Joan Collins - how freaky is that?

Incredibly - for a beer drinker that is - I have been an active sportsman and I guess my best physical achievement was cycling up Snowdon in 1989. Running the Berlin Marathon was a piece of cake in comparison. I've pretty much tried most things - rock climbing, abseiling, boxing, canoeing but I was only sort of good at orienteering and did have a collection of trophies before I had a bit of a life laundry. But on the latter score, it is the mountain of CD's and books that clutter the house though the dawn of the MP3 era is a possible salvation.

Unfortunately, bicycles take up much more space than CD's and it's getting hard to find storage space for more bikes. And yet the collection is still growing. I have always pottered around on two wheels but, in something akin to a mid-life crisis, I have become more than a little obsessed with speeding along on a carbon machine - as a Mamil [Middle-Aged-Man in Lycra]. I fully realise that I am on the inevitable decline that we all have to face but I am determined to make the most of my latter years. It can be dangerous and I have spent quite a few hours in the local hospital. But it's not all about RPM's and I do enjoy a two-wheeled pub crawl, often with our dog in a trailer!

Football remains a bit of an obsession. My father was the member of the Irish clan who drifted the most southerly when he arrived in the Black Country. The rest of the family didn't drift far away from the ferry and settled in Liverpool. Consequently, despite growing up in Cradley Heath, frequent boyhood visits to Lancashire resulted in a life-long love affair with Everton. My mum took me to my first game in 1969 when they played at The Hawthorns, home of West Bromwich Albion. Everton lost 2-0 but it did nothing to stop me covering my bedroom wall with posters of players such as Joe Royle and Alan Ball. These days I also keep an eye out for my local team of Halesowen Town. I even managed to get them elected into Danny Baker's "Totalitarian League of 2009."

On the cerebral front, I did once enter the National Scrabble Championships and somehow wangled my way into the quarter-finals. Trouble is, none of my friends will play with me anymore. My best friend is my partner Emma who really is a treasure. I guess there's some inevitability in the fact that many couples end up doing the same things, but we really do share a great deal - from vegetarianism, ersatz socialism, ethical values, cynicism, a broadsheet crossword, musical tastes, walking, cycling and, of course, beer - a key cornerstone of my life.

Any list of favourite pubs is going to be completely outdated in no time at all. Pubs change or, even worse, close. So, this shortlist represents a sample of some of the pubs that have brought much pleasure in my beer-drinking life:
A La Mort Subite - Brussels
All Nations - Madeley
Beehive - Bradford-on-Avon
Bell - Smalley
Blue Anchor - Helston
Britannia - Poperinge
Britannia - Upper Gornal
Brouwzaele - Ghent
Brugs Beertje - Brugge
Chase Inn - Colwall
Duke of York - Elton
Fat Cat - Sheffield
Flying Childers Inn - Stanton-in-Peak
Grooten Moriaen - Wervik
Hawne Tavern - Halesowen
King Arthur - Reynoldston
Labrint - Kemmel
Lamp Tavern - Highgate
Malt Shovel - Northampton
Plough - Prestbury
Red Lion - Litton
Red Lion - Snargate
Royal Exchange - Stourbridge
Six Bells - Bishop's Castle
Twelve Bells - Cirencester
Verschueren - Brussels
Waggon and Horses - Halesowen
Waterhuis aan de Bierkant - Ghent
Woolpack - Slad

Like the list of pubs above, my list of beers has changed over the years - and continues to do so. But here is a list of beers that, at some point [usually the first taste], blew my mind or made me wet my pants with excitement:
Ilkley Black Summit, Rochefort 8, Purity Ubu, Sint Bernardus Prior 8, Batham's Bitter, Schneider Aventinus, De Ranke Guldenberg, Oakham JHB, Whim Hartington IPA, De Ranke XX, Durham St. Cuthbert, Van Eecke Poperings Hommel Bier, Newby Wyke Bear Island, Stanway Stanney Bitter, Cannon Royall King's Shilling, Holden's Special, Six Bells Big Nev's, Westvleteren Extra 8%.

I would never get a list of music down to just 8. Here's a few that have stirred my soul. For more music recommendations try my Top Tunes website.

"Sova" is taken from the 1995 album "The Truth." Every Madagascan CD I have stumbled upon over the years has brought pure joy. I love this album for its sheer vibrancy and the fact that it is the sound of Africa and Asia in sublime collision - a real melting pot that perhaps could only be fashioned on this island - it's real soul music. The trio on this recording is Justin Rakotondrasoa, Romeo Tovoarimino and Cllement Randrianantoandro. There is a Mediterranean influence as they were accompanied by the Italian Carlo Rizzo. The star of the show of course is Justin Vali [his Parisian alias is derived from his instrument], a bamboo box harp that found its way to Madagascar from western Indonesia. Plucking rather than caressing the strings [the more traditional method], he is an innovative player. One of 13 children and having played the valiha since the age of five, Justin Vali's early life was one of hardship and poverty. He tried selling cakes in the capital city before working as a charcoal maker in his home village. His original surname means "to bring happiness" and, since his belated recognition, he has bestowed this upon an appreciative worldwide audience.

If this album is missing from your collection you should address the matter with the highest priority. A majestic piece of work from Sufjan Stevens, one of the most gifted of people on the planet, this album featured in every rock magazine's "Best Of" lists in 2005. Journalists and critics spiralled into a mass frenzy to heap praise on the Michigan-born singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. And yet for all the plaudits, Stevens regards himself as a failed writer rather than gifted musician. "Illinoise" is the second in an ambitious project to record an album for each of the fifty American states. I'm not convinced that Stevens will make it before burning out because of the profundity in each recording, combined with his prolific output - he followed this with a 21-track album of outtakes that also drew accolades. The eclecticism manifest throughout his compositions, coupled with the subject material is nothing short of breathtaking. On this track he examines the life of a Chicago-born serial killer, a former charity worker who hid the bodies of his victims beneath his floorboards, before the chilling allusion to the inner secrets and dark side within us all.

Picking one stand-out track from "Lorelei", a superb album was oh-so-hard. With more than a nod to the C-86 generation, Monograph were such a quintessentially English indie-pop jangly guitar combo. Indeed, had Monograph been around a decade earlier they'd have been N.M.E. darlings and no doubt signed to the Bristol-based Sarah Records, home to many a shoe-gazing bedroom poet. As it happens, this album appeared on Shinkansen Recordings, a label set up by former Sarah co-founder Matt Haynes. The Monograph in question is North London-based Rob Crutchley who wielded his guitar with great aplomb throughout the self-penned set. Never afraid to let rip when necessary, the jangly bits often make way for power and feedback, but not overly so. On tracks like "To Be Loved" it's rather like Aberdeen's Geneva. Sadly, I'm old enough to spot some riffs from former times, such as "Gallant Losers" where I can hear "Indiana Wants Me" buried in there. "The River" chugs along like a classic Teenage Fanclub melody. My choice is "Finding New Rest For The Ghost", a beautiful ballad, laced with laconic drumming and Rob Crutchley's very own killer hooks and melodies. Pop heaven.


The late Charlie Gillett awarded this album 4 Stars when he reviewed the CD for The Observer Music Monthly. When Charlie Gillett dished out four stars I sat up and took notice. I hadn't heard of 17 Hippies before but the review had me reaching for my mouse to press the 'add to basket' button on the Amazon website. Accordingly, two days later, when the parcel dropped through the letterbox and the disc was shoved into the player, my life was considerably enhanced when the loudspeakers emitted the most wonderfully eclectic collection of songs. This is an album that is almost impossible to tire of - there is seemingly something new and fresh to enjoy every time you return for more. The band are a collective based in Berlin and play their material with a free bohemian spirit. I cannot better Charlie Gillett's references of a mixture of Cajun, Cole Porter, French chanson, and Leonard Cohen - it's all here and more. Inevitably, Bertolt Brecht springs to mind, along with sprinklings of Slavic folk music. There's even a corking cover version of Jerry Lordan's "Apache." My choice is "Deine TrŠnen" - simply joyous throughout.

When the album "First Love" was released in 2009, Hong Kong-born Emma-Lee Moss was suddenly elevated to music goddess status. She may even be as kooky as those who have worn the same crown in years gone by, notably Kate Bush and Polly Harvey. She once stated that she "wanted to be like Beatrix Potter and move to the Lake District to live with books and plants." In fact, living on a boat in Oxfordshire has helped shape the way she views the world along, of course, with her books and poetry. In this sense, she is up there with Lloyd Cole and Morrissey and can turn a gob-smacking phrase or lyric. Fans of Camera Obscura and Belle and Sebastian will no doubt have this CD on their shelves. "First Love" also sits comfortably alongside Noah and the Whale and Laura Marling. But I return to the subject of Morrissey because "MIA" is the closest song to come near the epic "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out." Lyrically however, this goes one stage further and paints a somewhat disturbing picture of a tragic car accident in which she experiences the "pleasure and the privilege" whilst the compilation tapes rolls on with the car's interior turning a terrible colour. Genius.

Whether anyone other than a complete surf nut could stand a whole album of The Chantays is questionable. Or any surf album come to that! However, I love the odd track slung into a compilation made up for the car or a party. "Pipeline" is an absolute classic that will be familiar to anyone who watched 'Match of the Day' in the late 1990's because the BBC played it whilst they screened their 'Goal of the Month' competition. You can imagine this being used in a Tarantino film, such is the haunting nature of the guitar licks and keyboards. Brilliant. The Chantays were put together in 1962 by a group of students from California's Santa Ana High School and a year later secured surf immortality with "Pipeline", initially a b-side to dodgy vocal track "Move It". Both tracks appear on this compilation released in 1994 though they are included on an excellent 30-track compilation that showcased Dot Records' surf output: "Let's Go Trippin" on Ace Records.

"What's Inside a Girl" is the fourth track from the ultra camp and downright seedy "A Date With Elvis", the highpoint of The Cramps' career. They spent the 1980's and 90's blending classic rockabilly with monster movies and sleazy sex lyrics to deliver the ultimate in American trash culture. I remember seeing them perform this on some arty section of Newsnight and shocking the presenter (was it Kirsty Wark?) who didn't know what to utter following their strutting performance. The lyrics are completely outrageous....."pointed bra, ten inch waste, long black stockings all over the place, boots, buckles, belts outside....what you got in there you trying to hide?" And guitarist Kirsty "Poison Ivy Rorschach" Wallace dressed the part. She met vocalist Erick "Lux Interior" Purkhiser in Sacramento and, when they discovered they shared an affinity for obscure rockabilly, surf records and junk culture, The Cramps were born. In the mid-70's they moved to New York and, along with guitarist Bryan Gregory and Miriam Linna, they became favourites at the legendary punk club CBGB's. This album was released in 1986 but, oddly, didn't appear in the shelves of American record shops until 1990.

The track "La Engañadora" by Rubén González is pure heaven - in fact, if any recording could capture the act of sex this is it. You've got to hear the development of the tempo to understand what I'm getting at! Being as half the planet has suddenly got into the Buena Vista Social Club you probably don't need an introduction to this magical pianist. Ry Cooder [the man largely responsible for bringing Cuban music to a wider audience] described him as "the greatest piano soloist I have heard in my life. He's like a cross between Thelonius Monk and Felix the Cat." It only took him more than fifty years to make his debut solo album from which this is the opening cut. The album was made in two days, recorded live with no overdubs. But wait 'til you hear this - he suffered from rheumatism and he didn't even own a piano. He used to queue up waiting for the studio to open every day. The thought of him being even better in his younger years leaves me dumbfounded. Rubén González was a god of the keys.

"Tinguiti ´Ta Durmiendo" is the opening track from "From Africa to Camaguey" a quite remarkable album. Los Terry are a family of musicians from the Camaguey province of Cuba. Their unique blend of musical styles includes elements of folklore, classic charanga and modern jazz, creating a bridge across generations. The title of the album reflects the deep African influences in the music and the culture of Camaguey. Eladio Terry, the patriarch of the family, known to many as Don Pancho, grew up surrounded by the music of the Afro-Cuban religions and learned the traditional drumming and vocal styles that date back centuries. Eladio followed the path of the apprentice drummer as he learned the prayers, songs and rhythms that accompany the religious ceremonies. Like many Cuban musicians, he also learned to play popular music styles, incorporating his knowledge of African traditions into the secular dance music of the day. Eladio Terry's influence in Cuban music began with the legendary charanga group Maravillas de Florida, from the town of Florida in Camaguey. In the early 1960s he went to the newly formed Conservatory of Music in Havana where he met fellow music students from Mali who became key figures in contemporary African music when they formed Maravillas du Mali and wrote the theme song for Radio Mali in a Cuban charanga style.


"Don't Cha Hear Me Calling To Ya" is the sort of jazz track designed for those who reckon they don't like the genre. Give 'em two minutes of this orgasmic number and it'll blow their head off. This is such a funky number that Chas Chandler dug it out for the ultra groovy Atlantic Records compilation "Right On." Subtitled "Break Beats and Grooves" is the perfect description for this killer cut. Junior Mance became a bit of a cult dude through his soulful bluesy style. Born Julian Clifford Mance in Detroit in October 1928, his early career included stints with tenor saxophonists Gene Ammons (1947-9), Lester Young (1950) and the Ammons-Sonny Stitt group until he was drafted. Between 1953 and 1954 he was the house pianist at Chicago's Bee Hive and soon after worked as Dinah Washington's accompanist. In 1956 he joined Cannonball Adderley's first quintet. After periods working with Dizzy Gillespie and the Johnny Griffin - Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis Quintet, he formed his own trio in 1961. This selection is taken from his 1970 album "With a Lotta Help From My Friends", a record that became highly collectable but is now available on CD. The track is ultra late 60's cool funk - in fact it's so cool it could be the backdrop to Muhammed Ali, Bullitt or the nightclub scene in Point Blank. And it'll have the same 'Walker' effect on your testicles.


"Oye China" is taken from the 1996 album 'Rumba Argelina' on World Circuit. I went to see Radio Tarifa at the MAC in an outdoor 'Sounds in the Round' at Cannon Hill Park not long after this album was released. It remains one of the best concerts I've been to. Tarifa is at the southernmost tip of Spain, close enough to North Africa for the sounds of the early morning prayers to carry across the strait. Inspired by this meeting point between Iberia and Africa, Radio Tarifa use the language of Flamenco, Arabic and medieval music to move the listener to a new third place. It is a theme that runs through this sad tale as the forlorn soul tells his lover "I can't stand it any more/I'll go with you/Wherever you want to take me." But to put it into the following words is just inspirational: "Señora, here is the coachman/Who is very upset/He says that he was sent/To post a letter/And he is offended/That he has been demoted." A quite hypnotic recording.

"Descarga En Faux" is taken from the ultra-brilliant 1995 album "Rhythm at the Crossroads" which brought together three of Cuba's top percussionists led by Carlos 'Patato" Valdes. A legend of Cuban percussion, Patato played with Herbie Mann and Tito Puente before leading his own ensembles. Ritmo Y Candela produced two superb albums in the 1990's with Patato's congas percolating at the front of the mix throughout. Incredibly, he is in his 70's on this recording. "Descarga en Faux" was co-written by Patato and pianist Rebeca Maulesn-Santana, and also features timbales legend Orestes Vilats. "Rhythm at the Crossroads" was justifiably nominated for a 1996 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Performance.

"Kalimera" is taken from the 1993 album 'Musique Folklorique Grecque.' I don't care how cheesy you think I am for selecting this I simply must have a track to remind me of our wonderful time on the Peloponese. And I can't resist having a track entitled "Kalimera (Good Morning)" because we used to say this to the people picking olives as we walked along the remotest of tracks on the island. The only problem was when they replied with a long sentence it would have me scurrying through our phrasebook to see what it was they were saying. More often than not we'd get it wrong - but that's the fun of trying to speak in the indigenous tongue - the only way to travel I say. I tried to tell a chef once that the meal he'd just presented us was delicious but the look on his face suggested he was about to go and get his hatchet to me. It's in the pronunciation you see! Anyway, what a place to live - if Batham's and Harviestoun could be convinced to set up shop on Monemvassia we'd sell up and move straight away. And the Sirtos Ensemble's album is the soundtrack for a holiday of a lifetime.

I just had to select a song by this Cuban group to remind me of the night Emma and I went to see them at the Midlands Arts Centre at Edgbaston. It was the most perfect open-air gig - they joined everyone on the floor singing and dancing among us on a warm evening as the sun set. As I write I'm looking at the CD I bought that night. I got them all to sign to cover - the signatures are a bit shaky as the combined age of this five-piece must be over 400 years! 'El Tren' is the opening track on the 1994 eponymously-titled album released on the Spanish Nubenegra label. Although all of the members were retired both from music and from their varied jobs as bricklayers, cabinetmakers, luthiers etc., they were excited by the idea of creating a new group to perform these old songs and recorded their self–titled debut. 'El Tren' is a son, the most popular music form of Cuba which emerged in the Oriente province at the eastern end of the island. The song was written by Miguel Matamoros (1894-1971) a guitarist and composer Santiago de Cuba. He was the leader Trio Matamoros, one of Cuba's most popular and influential groups of the 1920's and 1930's.

People I Could Share a Desert Island With.....
Emma Regen - bead, goddess and the oracle!
Tony Benn - the only cool politician in the last 100 years. A crime that he never made it to No.10.
Nicholas Crane - we could spend ages trying to figure out how to produce the ultimate map of the island.
Gillian Barrett - the woman who made me look at the world in a different way.
Rabbi Lionel Blue - one of the few people on the planet with whom I could really engage in a theological discussion.
Stephen Fry - we could spend endless hours making up questions for the QI programme for the letter Z.
Gyles Brandreth - politics apart, he'd be highly entertaining for a post-dinner chat and a cracking scrabble opponent.

I was born in Lye in the heart of the Black Country. When I was five years old, my mother and father moved to Cradley Heath. This is where I spent my childhood. This was home. Beginning in 1977 I spent twelve years travelling around many parts of Britain and Europe. I worked in France, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Belgium. I lived for extended periods in Yorkshire, Hampshire, Dorset and Berlin. However, when it came to deciding where to settle down, there was no question about my "coming back home". Why should this be so? Having enjoyed the experience of travel, and indeed enjoyed living in these different environments, why should the Black Country act as such a strong magnetic force that I was drawn back to the region? I guess I have never really attempted to answer this question in any depth so this essay endeavours to seek at least some partial explanation to my locational behaviour.

In 1996 The Times published a regular feature in their Saturday supplement magazine in which celebrities discussed their hometown. In one article, the runner Liz McColgan stated that, despite her sport taking her all over the world, she has "always seen Dundee as her centre of gravity". She added that although the town may be grim, from the hill it sparkles like a Riviera resort and that "it's a good place to belong".¹
McColgan, like myself, feels bound to one place. Many people do break these ties but the majority do not. I fall into the latter category and my 'place' is The Black Country. However, I cannot explain my sense of belonging simply by looking at, and defining, the physical landscape of the Black Country. It is true that part of my ties to this region are the familiar physical surroundings - but what part has this environment played in the construction and constitution of my social upbringing which ultimately influences and impacts upon my life?

In a bid to answer these questions, the landscape is discussed but so are less tangible concepts. For example, the role of space in societal behaviour and the identification of "the processes which arise from the use social groups make of space as they see it."² There certainly seems to be a strong relationship between this theory and that of culture being the end result of the way people 'handle' the raw material of their social and material existence.³ Accordingly, the Black Country, like every other place, also has hidden 'codes' for its inhabitants, just like Wessex had for Thomas Hardy and Salford for Laurence Lowry. These 'codes' are not always easy to identify, illustrate or define for they are, more often than not, quite subliminal. However, they are the manifestation by which meaning is constructed, conveyed and understood. They are our 'maps of meaning' by which social life is made intelligible.¹º

Sublime or not, landscape is therefore "a cultural image, a pictorial way of representing, structuring or symbolising surroundings".¹¹ Moreover, its representation can be of an immaterial nature - in canvas paintings, literature, or photography - and yet the impact of these is no less palpable although each and every examination of landscape through any medium "deposits yet another layer of cultural representation".² These cumulative processes make the identification and subsequent definition of our 'place' much more complicated.

Place is more than simply a defined geographical area. Place condenses a whole complex history of economic, social and political processes into a simple cultural image. The seminal phrase by Sauer is still valid in that "the cultural landscape is fashioned out of a natural landscape by a culture group. Culture is the agent, the natural area is the medium, the cultural landscape is the result".¹³ This symbiotic relationship between communities and environments has moulded the characters of regions.²º Consequently, places have identities created by the people who occupy them. In turn, people learn who and what they are in a place, being influenced both directly and indirectly by the others who live there.²¹

My experience of the former grimy Black Country was first hand. Despite growing up in the region during its final years of industrial decline, this experience is perhaps fundamental to my sense of belonging to a region named after its now defunct role. I spent many happy days of my childhood playing on Bearmore Bank [an old spoilheap] where, as a group, we overlooked our very own 'matchstick' men entering fearsome places like Burton Delingpole - a place where enormous furnaces raged and where men toiled amid the thunderous noise of the stamping machines. Today the spoilheap has been removed and the site of Burton's is now a housing estate. Today's children now enjoy new experiences and, perhaps, the people of my generation have now become anachronisms, dinosaurs almost - with fond memories of an age that no longer exists, attaching values to the landscape that are somewhat spurious. But should I lament the passing of the old industries and landscapes with which we seemingly identify? After all, these traditional images of the Black Country were, in themselves, manufactured and our perceived Black Country culture was a product of economic and social processes, and the responses of social groups to their circumstances.²²

The way in which I view the Black Country therefore seems to correlate with the description that "it is not so much what is there as what we believe to be there".²³ Gale adds that "the landscape is not a matter-of-fact reality...it can be a friend or an enemy - the reality lies in what we believe it to be".³º The concept of 'place' is therefore more complicated because it's interpretative boundaries are contested. I therefore turned to 'locale' to try to explain my emotions towards the region.

Almost all of my present social interaction takes place within the contextualised 'locale' of the Black Country. First proposed by Anthony Giddens in his development of structuration theory,³¹ the term 'locale' suggests how the flow of human agency 'binds' time and space. The social interactions involved in this are integrative. Social integration involves individual actors who are 'co-present' in time and space, while system integration involves relations between actors, groups and collectivities outside conditions of 'co-presence'. In both cases, interactions are situated in time and space - a setting which furnishes the resources on which the actors draw in their interaction. It is this context which Giddens labels 'locale'. In an early (1979) formulation he defined it thus:

"'Locale' is in some respects a preferable term to that of 'place', more commonly employed in social geography: for it carries something of the connotation of space used as a setting for interaction. A setting is not just a spatial parameter, and physical environment, in which interaction 'occurs': it is these elements mobilised as part of the interaction, including its spatial and physical aspects......are routinely drawn upon by social actors in the sustaining of communication."³²

On a number of occasions Giddens refers to locales as the characteristic physical settings associated with different types of collectivities: "virtually all collectivities have a locale of operation, spatially distinct from that associated with others"³³ and "all collectivities have defined locales of operation: physical settings associated with the "typical interactions" composing those collectivities as social systems".¹ºº Thus the typical locale of the school is the classroom; that of the prison, the cell block; that of the bureaucracy, the office; that of the army, the barracks.¹º¹ My locale within the Black Country is Cradley and Halesowen. Naturally, I cannot personally identify with the entire Black Country region and so the concept of community is introduced with Giddens' definition. The shift towards the intangible aspects of 'belonging' surfaces here, and indeed begins to overshadow the physical environment.

A community is a social network of people whose members are bound together by a sense of solidarity rooted in an historic attachment to a defined territory and a common culture, and also by a consciousness of being different from other areas. This consideration of a smaller area introduces the concept of sub-cultures and elucidates that these experiences are quite separate from an existence within the vernacular. This seems to confirm that culture is identifiable at different regional levels and that it "is not only socially constructed and geographically expressed"¹º² but it is also spatially constituted.¹º³ So if we identify with culture when we declare a 'sense of place', it is inevitable that these realms are expressed on a small scale.

The outsiders view of our culture helps to clarify this point. For example, T. S. Eliot defined British culture as including "all the characteristic activities of a people: Derby Day, Henley Regatta, Cowes, the twelfth of August, a cup final, the dog races, the pin-table, the dartboard, Wensleydale cheese, boiled cabbage cut into sections, beetroot in vinegar, nineteenth-century Gothic churches and the music of Elgar".¹¹º Despite the gap in years, some of these remain valid. However, living within the Black Country my list, like that of Kureishi, is somewhat different. Indeed, as Jackson argues,¹¹¹: far from confirming Eliot's fears about the homogenising tendencies of 'mass culture', this suggests local, urban, and regional cultures are more distinct than ever, and, in addition, it reflects their changing social geography.

I am not sure that I agree with Jackson's argument that a 'tension' exists between these 'high' and 'low' cultures (because of adoption of mass culture [see later]). However, I do concede that Peet's¹¹³ argument is valid in that regional cultures are being eroded by the globalising tendencies of capital accumulation. This is manifest at different levels. Some of the more prominent signs are the increasing homogenisation of our high streets, the creation of shopping malls, and the closure of local cinemas in favour of multiplexes. However, the increase in leisure and tourism (with higher visitor numbers) and the increasing mobility of the population (in search for labour) is a seemingly more clandestine attack on our unique regional cultures while the concept that the 'geography of culture' is itself becoming a contested terrain.¹²º

Nevertheless, the infiltration and subsequent dilution of culture is actively resisted, opposed or subverted which helps to champion Clarke's 'cultures of difference'.¹²¹ On other levels, some ostensible defence mechanisms merely result in the commodification of culture - as in the Black Country Museum - which is a world away from the economic activity of today's inhabitants. This questions whether or not culture can be recreated in this fashion because it is intrinsically historical in origin and is developed over many generations. It cannot be reconstructed through the 'looking glass' concept. This only serves to erode culture - a highly valued component of our 'sense of place'.

The adoption of mass culture has also played an important role in the erosion of regional cultural differences. Moreover, this has diminished class differences - another key element in culture differentiation. The power of mass media, and in particular television, has been credited with the eradication of these differences. Indeed, the spread of television, and its penetration into the home, has been responsible for the dispersal and absorption of a generalised culture. Today's teenagers, who are seemingly besotted by Neighbours and Home and Away, are likely because of television, to abandon local colloquialism in favour of the latest Australian terminology. Indeed, not only does television threaten to nullify intranational cultural differences, it also endangers the retention of international cultural distinctions.

The subject of colloquialism introduces another important component of distinct regional cultures - that of linguistics. I am unashamedly of the Black Country and I make no attempt to conceal the explicit component of my speech which is another element in my 'sense of place'. In fact, I resolutely defend my 'dialect' which is an outward symbol of my locality. My voice states who I am, although I call it 'accent' because dialect (which some describe it as) is used to describe differences of vocabulary and grammar as well as pronunciation.¹²² Indeed, the Oxford Dictionary describes 'dialect' as a "subordinate variety of language".¹²³ This is abhorrent. As Jackson observes: some languages or dialects are treated as separate languages and, rather than being of equal stature, are regarded as inferior.²ºº These distinctions are invariably made on political rather than on linguistic grounds. Unfortunately, different dialects attract different degrees of prestige - and the Black Country 'dialect' is bottom of the heap.

Nevertheless, Harrison and Livingstone highlight the centrality of language in structuring people's subjective experience and in rendering what is experienced personally interpretable by a wider community. "Language, they argue, is significant as the principal medium through which intersubjective meaning is communicated, playing a crucial role in structuring people's social and cultural identities".²º¹ The possession of shared belief systems, myths, and ideologies, as well as common language is characterised by the communication within linguistic communities.²º² Language is clearly an important component in our 'sense of place'.

A 'sense of place' however, does not fully express the individual's feelings towards 'home'. Once more, it is conceivable that a love of place can only effectively be engendered by a child's physical relationship with the environment. The experience of environment is different as a child. Certainly, the vividness of images witnessed as a child cannot be replicated by adults because during this period a child is not tied to proximate objects and surroundings; a child is capable of conceptualising space in different dimensions appreciating subtleties which escape adults. Indeed, "unburdened by worldly cares, unfettered by learning, free of ingrained habit, negligent of time, the child is open to the world".²¹º With this type of reception, the experience of the most commonplace environments and events are somehow charming and the images of these are often retained forever.

Environmental perception is not altogether straightforward for different adults either. Human polymorphism determines that no two persons perceive and evaluate their physical surroundings in the same manner. Indeed, no two social groups make precisely the same evaluation of the environment.²¹¹ However, despite this, human beings, individually or in groups, tend to perceive the world with "self" as the centre. This trait, known as egocentrism, is the habit of ordering the world so that its components diminish rapidly in value away from self. However, our dependence on others does place some limitations on this experience, although within our social groups, we do still identify between home ground and alien territory.²¹² One of the most manifest examples of this human trait is the belief of many urban inhabitants that their rural counterparts are rustic and uninitiated indeed even backward. Ethnocentrism (collective egocentrism) plays an important part of defending specific cultures because it is a bulwark against the forces for cultural homogenisation. Tuan suggests that, in today's "shrinking world"²¹³ it is hard for some regions to maintain that they are at the centre of things, although continued prosperity is seemingly dependent on such faith. This is apparent within the modus operandi of town councils who proclaim their municipality's centrality. For example, Birmingham City today still use the term the "workshop of the world" as part of their marketing rhetoric.

These new values placed on the environment have, at times, embedded the heritage industry with controversy. Post-industrial regions like the Black Country are increasingly treating landscapes as an aesthetic and spiritual as well as a commodity which, in an age of decline, can be marketed as a celebration of former glory, status and achievement. Perceptions of the past, of scenic beauty and of landscapes as embodiments of certain beliefs and nostalgic images can be moulded, promoted and exploited.²²º Despite, the earlier criticisms of this, a positive element can be the increased understanding of a region's cultural history and experience in the context of its physical setting which may assist in identifying what it is that makes certain environments preferable to individuals - a preference which seems to stem from heritage and early experiences. This is an important concept in which an overlap is manifest between culture and environment. However, again our polymorphic nature determines differing perceptions. My description of a place from memory will differ from another person's largely because of divergent experience. In addition, there are discordant perceptions related to differences in sex, age composition and whether environments are translated by visitor or native.

Visitors and natives focus on very different aspects of the environment. The visitor's view and perception is often a matter of using their eyes to compose pictures. Their evaluation of environment is essentially aesthetic. The natives, by contrast, has a complex attitude derived from the immersion in the totality of their environment. Consequently, while visitors can easily explain what they see, an expression of the environment by a native can only be conducted with difficulty and indirectly through behaviour, local tradition, lore and myth. My two years of residency in Berlin during the 1980's could never furnish me with the interpretations of The Wall that the city's long-time residents certainly had.

Yi-Fu Tuan encapsulated the human being's 'love of place', their affective ties with the material environment with the term topophilia. Topophilia, as a response to the environment, can be tactile but is more likely to be more permanent and, as such, is less easy to define since it involves the expression of feelings towards a place because it is home and the locus of memories.²²¹ The appreciation of landscape is more personal and longer lasting when it is mixed with the memory of human incidents. Under these circumstances, homely and even drab scenes can reveal aspects of themselves that outsiders never notice, and this insight is often expressed as beauty.²²²

Moreover, topophilia is not merely a visual experience. The other senses play an equally important role. My development of topophilia is due, partly, to the fact that, as a child, I experienced my immediate environment physically. Our knowledge and awareness of the past is an important element in the love of place. Consequently, we develop a fondness for place because it is familiar, because it is home and incarnates the past, because it evokes pride of ownership or of creation.

Attempting to provide all the answers for this task using geography was not easy because the subject does not claim to be the ultimate synthesis. Moreover, my journey is still incomplete. However, I do now have a more comprehensive understanding of what the Black Country means to me. Furthermore, the subject has helped with the appraisal of the human values, natural resources and environmental constraints that impact on my evaluation of the region. In addition, I can now recognise both a real and perceived world in the region called the Black Country and, whilst it is tied at every stage to the nature of place as the product of the interaction of societies and environments, I now realise that my interpretation of its landscape is unique because of our polymorphic nature. The determinants of place, space, culture, locale, community, a sense of place, landscape, linguistics, and above all, topophilia have all interacted in a highly complex composite to bring me back to the Black Country. Furthermore, the dynamic nature of these components look set to dominate the rest of my life. If the adage "home is where the heart is" holds true then, surely, I am a Black Countryman for life.
Kieron McMahon

Notes/References
¹McColgan, L. (1996) Dundee, The Times Magazine, 20th April 1996; p.58.
²Jones, E. (ed) (1975) Readings in Social Geography, Oxford: University Press.
³Hall, S. and Henderson, J. (eds) (1976) Resistence Through Rituals, London: Hutchinson.
¹ºJackson, P. (1989) Maps of Meaning, London: Unwin Hyman
¹¹Cosgrove, D. and Daniels, S. (eds.) (1988) The Iconography of Landscape, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; p.1.
¹²ibid.
¹³Sauer, C. O. (1925) "The Morphology of Landscape", University of California Publications in Geography, 2; pp.19-53.
²ºButtimer, A. (1971) Society and Milieu in the French Geographic Tradition, Chicago: Rand McNally for the Association of American Geographers.
²¹Johnston, R. J. (1993) "A Changing World: Introducing the Challenge", in Challenge for Geography, Oxford: Blackwell; p.23.
²²Clarke, K. (1984) "There's no place like... cultures of difference", in Massey, D. and Allen, J. (eds) (1984) Geography Matters! Cambridge: University Press; p.60.
²³Gale, F. (1994) "A View of the World Through the Eyes of a Cultural Geographer", in The Students Companion to Geography, Oxford: Blackwell; p.21.
³ºGale, F. (1994) op.cit. (note 11); pp.22-23.
³¹Giddens, A. (1979) Central problems in social theory, London: MacMillan; pp.206-7.
³²ibid.
³³ibid.
¹ººGiddens, A. (1981) A contemporary critique of historical materialism, Volume 1, Power, property and the state. London: MacMillan; p.9.
¹º¹Giddens, A. (1987) Social theory and modern sociology, Cambridge: Polity Press; pp.153-62.
¹º²Jackson, P. (1989) op.cit. (note 4); p.3.
¹º³This argument has been put forward by the work of Gregory, D. and Urry, J. (eds) (1985) Social relations and spatial structures, London; MacMillan.
¹¹ºEliot. T. S. (1958) Notes towards the definition of culture, London: Faber & Faber
¹¹¹Kureishi, H. (1986) "Bradford", Granta, (20); p.149.
¹¹²Jackson, P. (1989) op.cit. (note 4); p.4.
¹¹³Peet, R. (1986) "The destruction of regional cultures", in Johnston, R.J. and Taylor, P.J. (eds) (1986) A world in crisis? Geographical Perspectives, Oxford: Blackwell; pp.150-72.
¹²ºJohnston, R. J. (191993) op.cit. (note 9).
¹²¹Clarke, J. (1984) "There's no place like...": cultures of difference", in Massey, D. and Allen, J, (eds) (1984) Geography Matters!, Cambridge: University Press; pp.54-67.
¹²²Trudgill, P. (1983) Sociolinguistics: an introduction to language and society, London; Penguin.
¹²³Definition in The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary (1983) Oxford: University Press; p.232.
²ººJackson, P. (1989) op.cit. (note 4); p.159.
²º¹Harrison, R.T. and Livingstone, D.N. (1982) "Understanding in Geography: structuring the subjective", in Herbert, D.T. and ²º²Johnston, R.J. (1982) Geography and the urban environment, London: Wiley & Sons; pp.1-39.
²º³Jackson, P. (1989) op.cit. (note 4); p.161.
²¹ºTuan, Yi-Fu. (1974) Topophilia, London: Prentice-Hall; p.56.
²¹¹Tuan, Yi-Fu. (1974) op.cit. (note 31); p.5.
²¹²Tuan, Yi-Fu. (1974) op.cit. (note 31); pp.30-31.
²¹³Detailed in Chapman, K. (1979) People, Pattern and Process, London: Edward Arnold; pp.2-5.
²²ºHewison, R. (1987) The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline, London: Methuen.
²²¹Tuan, Yi-Fu. (1974) op.cit. (note 31); p.93.
²²²Cornish, V. (1935) Scenery and the Sense of Sight, Cambridge: University Press.
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