Birmingham's brass

Gerda Cohen

Sorry chaps, but I really did like Birmingham. Heaven knows why. Maybe it's the time of year, quickening, or the contrast with dingy arrogant Oxford where I caught the train north, past the mir- ror flooded water-meadows, spring barley, upflung orange willows in a high wind- blown sky, to the unexpected mid-point of Birmingham. It's hilly. I hadn't expected hills. Nor the clean striding station full of daffodils, greed and energy. Up at street level, airy arcades and a high spurting foun- tain which thundered spray right up to the roof. 'They turn it off at night,' scoffed a young man nearby, 'trust Birmingham!' His voice slid down the name and up, like the roller-coaster hills. 'They've cut ten pee off the rates and they've done down the dinner ladies. Typical Birmingham'. He must have been about twenty, with sandy reddish hair, impudent nose, and beautiful fair skin. Was he perhaps one of the 100,000 local unemployed?

'I'm self-employed. I am Mr Meritend, Meritend Hair. I drive around doing people's hair at home'. Mr Meritend took each sentence to a brink and then pulled it up short in surprise. 'What's my accent? West Bromwich. I cover a nine mile radius of West Brom because I need 30 cut-and- blow-dry a week to break even. Look,' he said engagingly, 'how about a cappuccino?

There's a nice Pakistani place '. The cafe teemed with young people like him, brown, black, quick, assertive. 'Lots are doing jobs on, the side; no one can live on the dole. Bet you won't find anyone living on the dole, not in this town'. Feeling guil- ty, I paid for us both. Mr Meritend put away a great quantity of cold bread pud- ding and pizza, in slabs, while extolling the ingenuity of his business title, which had a nostalgic reminder of Meriden, the defunct motor bike works, and also hinted at Den- tend where the industrial revolution began, almost, down the road. And where, in the past few years, it had almost fizzled out. A third of all manufacturing jobs have disap- peared in the Midlands. Birmingham alone lost more jobs than Scotland. Great engineering firms had to shut factories wholesale and cut jobs by half, merely to survive.

More employment will certainly vanish. The industrial giants are putting money into robots and computer control, to compete in a slit-throat market. Lucas Industries, for example, the electrical and aviation group which had already reduced their workforce, will now 'shed' 700 jobs in Birmingham to justify planned investment. Tube In- vestments, the impregnable TI, which suf- fered terribly from the run-down in engineering, hold on basically because a robot can weld quicker than a skilled welder: Such is the language of economics. You don't sack anyone. You shed labour. But neither does one find an unemployed statistic wandering the streets. Exactly the reverse. Even the Job Centre in New Street had plenty on offer: 'People won't consider anything under a hundred quid a week, unless they're desperate'. 'You get the odd pregnant typist'.

Birmingham struck me with a sense of relentless drive, ruthless adaptability. 'Knock it down and start again — they're always in a bloody rush,' the security man at Tube Investments kept on laughing. 'Pull it down,' he laughed away, 'they call it recycling. I recycled meself from a capstan setter. Know what that is? No, you wouldn't'. Outside TI head office, a marble gentleman minus a hand stood looking forlorn at his plinth, engraved 'Peace and Temperance,' the ringway spewing traffic at him and a bold new office block in sun- tan brown, like a whole beachful of sunglasses ogling the midland sky. It is 'Horizon Holidays' on the up and up. 'The first thing they do with redundancy pay,' said a smart girl manager, 'is to blow it on a big package holiday. Mauritius,' she thought, 'they've gone off Miami — vulgar place!'

GKN alone spent £200 million compen- sating redundant staff. Where are they? One served me lunch at the Grand Hotel, boisterous Birmingham Corinthian done up in a swirl of gilt and caramel, instant-whip baroque. 'The Poet Laureate liked it.' So did I. 'We're booked solid every weekend.' They took me round the banqueting hall, its pilasters new-gilt, erupting in greed and energy, nude bacchantes with turbine thighs draped over the bar; 'we just had a Jewish wedding here. Blue an' white carnations up to the ceiling — marvellous! Jewish chaps run the Council. We don't mind: it's a well- run city, Birmingham.' Was the council Tory or Labour? They couldn't say for sure. It made no difference to the policy. It never has. Frantic entrepreneurial zeal tore up the city under Labour and Tory alike, drove ringways through homely slum or Victorian shrine, ate up the neighbouring 'My money's on Gaddafi.'

jobs, intervening with audacity.SPecor counties, and now has set about coining I had telephoned the City Council ten- tatively wondering if someone might see Me about their promotional schemes. Tool; row, shot back the answer, at 6.30 pm wit, the Chief Executive. Oh thanks, I said, at' who's he? 'Well he's got a staff of 50,000 and a budget of half a billion. He'll be g°- ing to the Bruckner concert, the City of Bic' mingham Symphony Orchestra, and Y°ti can drop in beforehand. Just ask for TO Caulcott', Trust Birmingham; they may ,.be brash, but at least they're quick. To c°'",- plement the Chief Executive, I though', someone less exalted — could they PerhaP,s suggest a minor enterprise? 'Well there s Aston Science Park. We put in a milli°,1/ and Lloyds put in a million.' It seeme,u. rather much for an afternoon flip-roun 'We're helping medium firms expand,' said the voice at the other end patiently, `gun makers, computer systems, cooked meat whatever you fancy.' I settled for a sausag` king at Stirchley. Once out of town, past the scudding municipal emptiness of new turf and On; crete, a grittier landscape took over, litiL Tudor pubs, velveteen sofas out on tit,' pavement, junk shops,

m

dael I r

gardens and factory she s n up me

a0 A notice read'Stirchley T ad d h d g r v e nYa Estate, Mucklow'. Trolleys piled with whole legs of pork stood near a car par' and a sleek bronze Scirocco. 'That belongs to Stirchley Bacon. The white rac,i1 Porsche belongs to Mr Nigel.' Mr looked about 22, fair and insolent, ing me a nod in the warm stench. 'We started in butchery, went into sausage, and now we're expanding into cooked meat.' Mr Nigel had just broken ad leg ski-ing at Courchevel. 'Yes,' he agree grudgingly, 'we're doing okay; got a 1090 from the government; maybe the Council West Midlands, I don't know • • smoothed a fair curl. `Dad's out ;- delivery. Kevin '11 show you round'. To "fci surprise the sausage king only emPI°Y', five men. 'That's average for BirminghaTi; Kevin showed me a large 'tumbler' wine massaged the meat. 'It will take two IWO" dred legs at one go'. While tall, shan1131,Y Kevin waded round, he levelled a butcher.s blade at each expensive machine: 'made 1!1 West Germany, we've lost the art here; lunging at another complicated piece machinery, 'filler for sausage skins' e felt the blade edge sadly, 'imported from bloody Hamburg'. I still had an hour before meeting the Chief Executive of Birmingham City Conn' cil, budget half a billion. Faint with anxiet):1 or nausea I went into the staid 1vlidla,11h, Hotel. A girt was cleaning her teeth in u'i Ladies. 'I've got an audition,' she said, 'a Sutton Coldfield.' Apparently the night-lite took some beating. Her magenta eY'c-, sockets clashed with her tempest of rey, ringlets. 'They're pre-Raphaelite,' she told me, 'd'you know the pre-Raphaelites in Sir- mingham? Marvellous!'

Mr Caulcott came out of his grand office

looking small and exhausted. But as he began to talk, his very blue mesmeric eyes, Oddly pale drastic gestures, exerted a curious fascination. You could tell the team working for him were fascinated, even in love. Torn Caulcott had only been head of the city for a couple of years. Before that, he had been one of those career civil ser- vants who hold immense power, unknown: private secretary to Chancellors of Left or Right, a potent name in the Treasury. Yet he reminded me of young Mr Meritend, the same transparent fair skin, and Mr Nigel, a certain native impudence and unconcern. Yes, Mr Caulcott was native to the Midlands, schooled at Solihull Grammar. He had gone far. 'Imagine,' he said engag- 1nglY, 'a budget of half a billion. For

,_

eaven's sake get the noughts right. Birm- ingham loves a big spend, a dramatic

gesture. It's brash, I don't deny that, brash and go-ahead.' No one would ever guess about the clapped-out factories and reeking little firms. Listening to Mr Caulcott, you forgot about the 100,000 unemployed and the junk shops; his promotion unit has given them a slap of Brasso; in the current hyperbole, Birmingham is not only the beating Heart of England: its handy little suburb (Stratford-on-Avon) offers a bite of culture to the peckish businessman, while Warwick Castle can lay on a banquet without even noticing. 'It's a city of drama,' we walked out of the Council House, teeming with coarse Corinthian, flatulent dome on top, 'the denouement is never clear,' Tom Caulcott raised a baro- que hand to heaven, 'that's what Europe understands. Birmingham is really in Europe.'