The Nailmakers of Halesowen

The Nailmakers of Halesowen Yo' gets a piece of wire, Yo' puts in in the fire, Yo' teks it out, Yo' giz it a clout, Yo' yods it, Yo' got a nayul. I've mentioned in earlier blogs that whilst I now live in and write about Worcestershire, I grew up over the border in the West Midlands in an area known as the Black Country1 specifically the town of Halesowen. The town itself was once upon-a-time part of the historic county of Worcestershire, but become part of the West Midlands county designation in 1974 (before my time). Halesowen naturally is where I started getting interested in local history a bit, then I buggered off to live a life in London before returning as a much older adult and again starting to research history of the surrounds where I lived at the time and now Worcestershire. Halesowen was historically a nail making town and as the above poem written in the Black country accent suggests, isn’t a particularly difficult industry in terms of its method. You start with iron rods…