The Black Country and the White
Staffordshire. By Phil Drabble. (Robert Hale. 15s.)
Tans volume in the County Book Series is packed with interest. The author has a deep knowledge of the county and its people, although I suspect he is more at home in the Black Country than in North Staffs. He rightly divides the county into two parts, and stresses the differences, as well as the similarities, between the people. The men of the White Country are mortally offended when North Staffs is confused with the Black Country and they are not ashamed of the white powdery clay on the clothes of the potter that gives the name. Mr. Drabble has an intense affection for Staffordshire men, and writes of the countryside with deep understanding. He describes Castle Ring on Cannock Chase, " The solitude seems almost personal then ; pigeons (quicety-cocks,
we call them) come sweeping over the hill, to go clattering to roost in the woods below, and the sky is quite empty now they have gone ; the rabbits, frolicking round the edge of the wood, freeze at the chattering warnings of an old cock blackbird, wishing bad luck to the night's first marauding stoat or cat ; and, as likely as not, the very isolation will be emphasised by the eerie ribaldry of a woodpecker down below in the Bean Desert Park."
This volume makes no pretence to be a guide book. The chapters on early history, dialect and superstition were most to my and the author has a more intimate understanding of the industries of 'South Staffs than he has of pottery manufacture. No attempt is made to hide a nostalgia for the past or criticism of the present. Mr. Drabble does not like Governments or local authorities or officials or gamekeepers, but no Staffordshire man does. I am glad he writes of Staffordshire hospitality as he does, for there are no folk so hospitable in Britain and none more uniquely independent of mind.
A comprehensive account is given of strange remedies for the cure of illness. Many of them are, I think, degenerate practices of what Paracelsus taught, particularly that of " mummia." The comfrey leaf is widely used for poulticing and to encourage the healing of wounds and it is only recently that the analytical chemist has shown us that it contains as much allantoin as the umbilical cord of a newly born child. The author deplores the passing of a dialect whose roots are in the Anglo-Saxon tongue. I once heard Sam Clowes, the Member for Hanley, welcome fraternal delegates from the pottery industry in America. He spoke for an hour, and Chaucer would have understood all he said. The American potters understood none of it, but were greatly impressed.
The book is well printed and the photographic illustrations are attractive. If the whole series is as good as this volume on Stafford.. shire, the publishers have conferred a boon on the public.
B. STROSS.
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