Postcard From Birmingham, Part Four

Earlier this year, as my wife and I passed Birmingham’s Town Hall during our day trip from the North, we hummed Mendelssohn’s Elijah which debuted in the city’s triennial music festival of 1846. At that point, I felt a twinge of not so much Old Testament prophecy, but of 1980s Brum déjà vu. I have passed through Birmingham plenty of times, but I have only twice dawdled to take part in events, once for a football match and once for another for entertainment I assumed took place in an abandoned warehouse far from the city centre.

Always Worth Saying, Going Postal — *ICC Birmingham, centre.*
Centenary Square is a public square in Birmingham,
Elliot Brown – Licence CC BY-SA 2.0

As we walked through Chamberlain Square and into the paved disappointment of what used to be the memorial garden before the Hall of Memory, the déjà vu intensified. The square is now bounded by the new library, and at the far end, the Birmingham Symphony Hall, a 2,262-seat venue opened in 1991. At right angles sits the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, an auditorium holding 900, built in 1971 but since much altered. Sandwiched between them is the International Convention Centre (also known as ICC Birmingham), which at first glance might seem outdated due to the National Exhibition Centre near Birmingham Airport. But as I type, it’s preparing to host the “Women With Metal” conference as the ladies prepare to ‘fabricate the future’ as part of Advanced Engineering Week.

A much-changed area of the city, the conference centre emerged from the ashes between 1984 and 1991 and incorporates the symphony hall. The previous building on the site burnt down in 1984 during a caravan exhibition. The déjà vu was now off the scale. Is there a unit of measurement? Perhaps the recolectiontron? As the needle began to point beyond the scale, research showed the previous premises was the Bingley Hall which, in a rare episode of personal mild faggotry I attended four decades earlier to watch a popular music combo entertain the pop pickers. What’s more, it turns out to have been a famous gig immortalised in celluloid.

You won’t see me in the crush at the front. I was near the back where there was more space and was more than a beer-tin-throw distance from the skinheads posing next to the loudspeakers. I’m even more likely to be spotted at the start of the film in the long panning shot of the queue to get in. The mini-bus might be visible too. In more innocent times, both in my recollection and the early frames of the film, you parked in the street, or on the pavement, for free. It’s a bit of a 1980s videotape blur but I’ll be the one wearing all the wrong clothes, including a parka with the hood up. The furry bit will pulled out so you can’t see my face or, more to the point, my National Health goggle specs. I was young, it was the eighties.

Not quite Taylor Swift at Wembley, this was a ‘standing concert’ with no big screens nonsense, no health and safety and definitely no seats on the stickie floor. If any VIPs were present, rather than being in their own enclosure they’d have been covered in beer and brawling with the skinheads like the rest of us. The band? If I may paraphrase an esteemed colleague who knows about such things (Phil The Test Manager):

An English mod revival/punk rock band, formed in 1972, who released 18 consecutive Top 40 singles in the UK, including four number ones. Known for their “angry young man” attitude, they combined the fast tempo of 1970s punk with tailored suits and 1960s rock and R&B influences, reminiscent of The Who, The Kinks, and Motown. Leading the Mod Revival movement, their lyrics often focused on working-class life, with biographer Sean Egan stating they brought social protest and authenticity to the charts.

Yes, you’ve guessed it – the Jam – and I was fortunate enough to see them live only months before they broke up and only days after the release of their final album ‘The Gift.’ The album reached number one and included the hit single ‘Town Like Malace’, whose state of the national lyrics referenced the potent changes happening in England at that time under ‘Fatcher. During that particular shouty rant from the stage, those assembled at the Bingley Hall may have noted their surroundings as part of the metaphor. Or perhaps not.

Bingley Hall in Birmingham was a prominent exhibition and events venue located in the city and remarkable for being one of the earliest purpose-built exhibition halls in Britain. In 1839 a temporary wooden hall was built in the grounds of Bingley House on Board Street. During that year’s triennial music festival, this hall housed an exhibition of the manufactures of Birmingham and the Midland counties. Bingley House had been the home of Charles Lloyd, a Quaker philanthropist and industrialist whose father, Sampson, co-founded Lloyds Bank.

The exhibition opened on 3rd September 1849. Charles Darwin and Prince Albert were among the visitors. The following year, the house and hall were demolished and replaced with a more permanent structure which lasted until 1984. Financed by the Midland Railway Company the intent was to create a space for industrial and commercial exhibitions, showcasing Birmingham’s expanding manufacturing sector during the Industrial Revolution.

The design was ahead of its time and built primarily from iron and glass, in architectural footsteps similar to those of London’s Crystal Palace which opened the following year. The Birmingham hall covered a vast area, with over 16,000 square feet of floor space, and could host large crowds. Its spacious, flexible design allowed it to serve a wide variety of purposes over the years, not just industrial exhibitions. In a lesson to the modern-day infrastructure construction industry, it took only six weeks to build. The debut event being the Birmingham Cattle Show.

In the following years, Bingley Hall became a focal point for events, fairs and concerts. Its ability to host significant numbers of people made it a natural choice for political rallies, including speeches by notable figures such as Prime Minister William Gladstone. Over the decades, Bingley Hall played a central role in Birmingham’s cultural and social life. It hosted major events including the Birmingham Dog Show and large trade exhibitions which drew crowds from all over the country. In addition, it gained prominence as one of the city’s main entertainment venues, with live music performances and other regular public gatherings.

However, Bingley Hall’s run as a landmark venue came to an abrupt end in 1984 when destroyed by fire during a caravan event. It took over 100 firemen more than two hours to bring the blaze at the 133-year-old Victorian hall under control. Thick black smoke billowed out of the roof as firemen using hydraulic platforms poured water on flames engulfing the Midlands Caravan Camping and Leisure Exhibition which had opened only 24 hours earlier.

Most of the roof was destroyed, with dozens of stands and a £100,000 Den Caney Universal Travel touring coach being crushed by falling masonry. Firemen in breathing apparatus battled both flames and exploding propane gas cylinders. The loss of the building marked the end of an era for Birmingham’s events and exhibition industry, though its legacy continued. Following the fire, Birmingham continued to develop new, modern venues which took over Bingley Hall’s role.

As for the concert, according to the Atherstone News And Herald, the Jam’s farewell spread in front of a massive modernist-orientated crowd, proved no present-day band could match their pure soul, energy, honesty and raw sexual energy. The fabulous set included ‘Start’, ‘Ghosts’, ‘Down in The Tube Station at Midnight’ (Right-wing routines), ‘Best’, ‘Surrender’, ‘In The City’, ‘The Gift’ and a whole lot more. All lapped up by the dancing, crying, sweating audience at least one of whom can still feel the déjà vu four decades later.