Life is beautiful

Trip to Birmingham

It was a long weekend and there was no way I was going to spend my time anywhere close to my home. I was planning to visit Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare. Girish Morkhandikar, one of my close acquaintances also had been toying with similar ideas for the weekend. Finally, there was a plan.

Our first destination was Birmingham, a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands county of England. Birmingham is the largest of England's core cities, and is the second city of the United Kingdom. It forms part of the larger West Midlands conurbation and includes several neighbouring towns and cities, such as Solihull, Wolverhampton and the towns of the Black Country.



Girish wanted to see the Venkateshwara Temple and so it was. After having done that we headed to the Birmingham Mint, via the high street, just to reach there to find that it was closed and sold off to a property developer.

We then headed to our next spot to see the Chamberlain Clock at the junction of Warstone Lane and Vyse Street, not very far from where we were. This clock is a tribute to Joseph Chamberlain and was erected in 1903. The clock was intended as a memorial to his services to South Africa in 1902-3. The money for its building was raised by the local people. The clock was unveiled in January 1904. Originally powered by clockwork and hand- wound it was modernised for electricity but did not chime for years. Over time it fell into disrepair, until 1989, when private and public funds were made available it was restored.



The city's reputation was forged as a powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution in England, a fact which led to Birmingham being known as "the workshop of the world" or the "city of a thousand trades". Although Birmingham's industrial importance has declined and the factories have closed down there are some charity organizations which are trying to protect the heritage of the city, it once was. One such place we wanted to see was the Pen Room.

Birmingham was the centre of the world pen trade for more than a century, employing thousands of people, and pioneering craftsmanship, manufacturing processes and employment opportunities for women. When inside room, which once was a factory, one cannot stop but wonder how the availability of cheap fountain pens enabled the development of education and literacy throughout the world.

At the Pen Room, we met Colin and Malcolm who demonstrated how nibs were made to their exclusive audience. Interestingly, there we found a reference to Bombay's Abdul Rahiman street. As I come from that part of the world, I suggested Malcolm that I will help them in whatever way I can to get as much information as possible about the listed manufacturers of the old fountain pens. I plan to do that with utmost sincerity as making that journey would be fun.

I have been given an interesting picture and a list of rules that applied to the factory workers then. I plan to scan both these and post it on the blog along with the other pictures that I have taken.

Then we headed to Stratford-upon-Avon and I shall write about this wonderful trip in my next post.

posted by Mahendra @ 8:29 AM