Thursday, 31 January 2013
Wednesday, 30 January 2013
welovebearwood: Battle of Bearwood's Brains!
welovebearwood: Battle of Bearwood's Brains!: Calling all Bearwood Brainboxes! Do you enjoy testing your general knowledge? If so, get your name down for Thimblemill Library’s Mega Q...
Tuesday, 29 January 2013
Birmingham's John Bright MP, friend to President Abraham Lincoln and anti-slavery campaigner.
The Birmingham MP who persuaded President Lincoln to abolish slavery
Many of us will visit our local cinemas in the coming weeks and watch Steven Spielberg’s film ‘Lincoln’. I haven’t yet seen the film, but I am confident that they will not show how a Birmingham MP (and that’s Birmingham, England, not Birmingham, USA) persuaded him to make the ending of slavery completely, a central issue of the American Civil War.When the Civil War began, Lincoln’s stance was that slavery could continue in the Confederate states, but any new states would be slavery free. Indeed, Lincoln prohibited his Generals from freeing slaves in captured states. In 1861, Lincoln sacked Major General John C. Frémont, the commander of the Union Army in St. Louis, for freeing slaves in captured terriorities.
It was John Bright who persuaded President Lincoln to harden his stance on abolishing slavery. On 22nd September 1862, eighteen months into the War, Lincoln announced his Emancipation Proclamation, where every slave in the USA would be freed as of 1st January 1863.
Indeed, John Bright’s friendship with President Abraham Lincoln was so important, that when President Lincoln was assassinated, on his body was found a newspaper article about his presidency by John Bright. In Lincoln’s study were two portraits, one of which was a photograph of John Bright. And today, just inside the main entrance of the White House is a bust of John Bright, which was found by Jackie Kennedy in the 1960s in the basement and put back on display.
John Bright never corresponded direct with Abraham Lincoln. Instead John’s letters to US Senator Charles Sumner were widely read across the US Senate, including by Lincoln. It was through this correspondence that John Bright persuaded Lincoln to make the abolition of slavery across the entire USA a central platform of the Civil War.
On 23rd October 2009, a statue to John Bright MP was unveiled inside Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. The statue was jointly unveiled by Councillor Ernie Hendricks who campaigned for this statue to be put back on display; Bill Cash MP whose great grandfather was a first cousin of John Bright and Stephanie Hightower, President of the USA athletics and field team.
This statue was original unveiled in 1888 and an exact replica exists in the Parliament, London. After decades of being in a Council storage facility, this was restored and cleaned ready for the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Bright in 2011. It is back in its original position in the Museum at the top of the main stairs.
Lincoln described John Bright as “the friend of our country, and of freedom everywhere”. It was John Bright who also stopped Britain from supporting the Confederates in the US Civil War. How much John Bright was considered a hero in the Unionist states is shown in the following paragraph from Harpers Weekly, a US political magazine, on 22nd March 1862:
“JOHN BRIGHT VERSUS JOHN BULL
It is not surprising that the name of John Bright, whenever it was mentioned at the great meeting at the Cooper Institute on Washington’s birthday, was hailed with a tumult of applause. Thoughout our difficulties of the last year John Bright has been one of the few men in England who has truly saw and frankly stated te scope of this rebellion. When Great Britain flamed into rage at the Trent affair, John Bright laid his finger upon the arm of John Bull, and begged that old person not to make himself ridiculous by losing his temper in advance of the occasion, but to wait and hear whether an insult was intended, or whether it was an accident.”
The Trent Affiar was a diplomatic incident between the Union states and Britain, which resulted in British forces mobilising on the Canadian border ready for an attack on the Union states. History shows that john Bright successfully calmed the hawks in London.John Bright was not perfect. He did support giving the vote to women. Neither did he support Home Rule for Ireland, instead believing in reform in Ireland. He also believed that trade unions prevented free trade.
I believe that John Bright should be forgiven for these faults. These views were common in his time. John Bright should be remembered as the man who pushed forward the boundaries of progressive politics: giving the vote to working men; making campaigning for peace acceptable and most importantly contributing to the freeing millions of black slaves in the USA.
welovebearwood: The Mad Hatter's Walk!
welovebearwood: The Mad Hatter's Walk!: This year the Warley Woods' Walk for the Woods is taking place on Saturday 2nd March and in between practising her laps around Warley W...
Monday, 28 January 2013
welovebearwood: Building Bearwood's Future!
welovebearwood: Building Bearwood's Future!: The Times Educational Supplement and Clearspace Buildings are running a competition for schools to win a building and Bearwood Primary...
Saturday, 26 January 2013
Morning all.........
I stumbled across Sport Radio after I followed
a link from the Bears facebook page and came across you this morning ....I must
admit as a Villa fan (and what a rubbish time to be a Villa fan after the
Bradford debacle and last night's Millwall disaster) all of the Blue noses whom
your station seems to cater for with 2 out of 3 shows being Blues-orientated
must be laughing all the way to Small Heath (I call Blues fans 'Small
Heathens'), mind you at least at The Vile we don't wash our dirty Chinese linen
in public with Sammy Chung, the Chinese hairdresser about to be jailed for
money laundering I am glad we have Randy Lerner at least he obtained his money
honestly through his former ownership of American credit card company
MBNA.....anyway to cut to the chase I would love to become involved in Sport
Radio in Birmingham if possible......
My love of sports is ranked in the following
order:
1) Rugby Union - I am a former local Junior
Rugby player with Dixonians Rugby Football Club for over 30 years and a former
Moseley RFC season ticket holder (C'mon Mose!) and England Rugby Union follower
who hates 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot' so disrespectful to black people in my
opinion....... and sung by Public School Tw*ts!
2) Cricket - former Mitchell's & Butlers
3) Soccer - Aston Villa fan for over 50 years
1962 - present day....I saw Charlie Aitken, Villa's record appearance holder
and Colin Withers play for the Villa in the early 1960's and grew up supporting
a Villa team which always had a big, bustling centre-forward...from Gerry
Hitchens to Tony Hateley to Andy Lochhead to Andy Gray to Peter Withe to Dalian
Atkinson to the current incumbent who could be the BEST....Christian
Benteke......we shall see.....? I was a Villa season ticket holder in Martin
O'Neill's first season when my ticket cost me the princely sum of £200 in
2006....bargain, until I sat there and was bomabarded by the insults from the
opposing fans in the lower Doug Ellis Stand who were standing and swearing at
us from their vantage point 30m yards away in the stand.....nightmare and not
something I enjoyed....I went to football to watch the game rather than to
taunt and bait the opposition fans......I know that is unusual for most soccer
fans......not something I was used to being a rugby fan where most folk are
impeccably behaved except when they are lighting their farts with a match in
the rugby clubhouse after the game following a surfeit of alcohol....but we
shan't mention that....shall we....?
4) Lawn Tennis.....see below.....
5) Hockey.....see below
6) Basketball
7) Cycling
8) Rugby League...it has been professional
since 1895 whereas Union only went 'pro' 100 years later in 1995....100 years
of dishonesty......Our 'Friends in the North' who play Rugby League have always
been more pragmatic and hard-nosed and in my opinion Rugby League is a better
game to watch than Rugby Union....and I say that as a Rugby Union
player........
I have some ideas for shows for Sports Radio
shows in Birmingham
I played rugby for my club Dixonians Rugby
Football Club for over 30 years and even met my wife at the club (and before
you start...NO she was NOT the hooker....!!!)
Mary cooked the post-match meals which up
until Mary's cordon bleu cheffing skills were enlisted comprised mostly of pie
'n' beans.
Mary introduced goulash, curry, chillis,
stews, ragouts, hot pots etc. etc. and I was always at the serving hatch
'asking for more' and chatting her up.....in the end I got more than I
bargained for.....22 years of marriage. 2 lovely teenagers (one of whom is an
elite hockey player, playing women's 1st XI hockey for Harborne Womens' Hockey
Club as a 16 year old 'Sports Scholar' at Edgbaston High School for Girls where
my wife teaches PE. My son is studying Sport and Exercise Science and
Psychology at Nottingham
Trent University
Anyway.....I have an idea for a show on local
Rugby Union having played and coached Junior Rugby for Dixonians RFC, where we
celebrate our centenary 1913 - 2013 in September 2013 with a 'Grand Centenary
Dinner' at The Botanical Gardens in Westbourne Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham
which I am helping to organise. As part of our centenary I have put together a
'History of the Old Dixonians Rugby Football Club' which I am debuting the week
of our centenary as on Wednesday 11th September I am giving the talk outlined
above to the Smethwick Local History Society (Dixonians RFC are based in
Bearwood at Lordswood School in Hagley Road, Bearwood/Edgbaston) at the
Bearwood Baptist Church in Bearwood Road, Bearwood at 7.30pm.
I have unrivalled knowledge of the local
junior and senior rugby scene having been a Moseley Rugby Season ticket holder
for many years firstly at The Reddings, now a Bryant housing estate in suburban
Moseley with the money from the sale of the land still bankrolling the club 15
years down the line at their new home at Billesley Common where they rent the
ground (a former piece of parkland in South Birmingham) on a 99 year lease from
Birmingham City Council where I worked in the BCC Planning Department for
nearly 20 years before being made redundant in September 2010.......
I am now a freelance writer with my company
vehicle: 'Greensward Enterprise Limited' and I am having a couple of articles
published in February and May in South Birmingham general interest magazine:
'The Gem' published by Gem Media based in Highfield Road, Edgbaston about Lawn
Tennis and its origins in Birmingham, the sport being invented by Major Sir
Harry Gem and his pal Spanish merchant Augurio Perera in his large garden at 8
Ampton Road, Edgbaston in 1867.
The article is to promote the AEGON Classic at
Edgbaston Priory Tennis Club in Sir Harry's Road, Edgbaston (named after 'Sir
Harry Gem, inventor of the game of Lawn Tennis) in June.
The game of Lawn Tennis was hijacked by the
London Victorian Sporteratti and Wimbledon, that genteel suburb in South-West
London has become home to British and indeed world Lawn Tennis whereas in
reality it SHOULD have been Edgbaston, that learned suburb to the West of
Birmingham City Centre and home to my Alma Mater: the University of
Birmingham.
Edgbaston has a rightful claim to be
considered the 'Home of British Lawn Tennis' especially as Edgbaston is still
home to the oldest existing Lawn Tennis Club in the world in E.A.L.T.S: the
'Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Society' tucked away down a little lane off
Westbourne Road, Edgbaston, behind the Botanical Gardens.........the first Lawn
Tennis Club in the world was founded in Leamington Spa by Major Harry Gem in
the 1870's.
As you can tell I have a deep and broad
knowledge of local sport in Birmingham
I have a degree in Economic History: a
Bachelor of Social Science in Economic History gained in 1979 from the University of Birmingham
and a degree in Modern History and European Politics from the University of Nottingham
also studied for a postgraduate PGCE in
Secondary History Teaching at the University of Birmingham in 1988 and taught
history and coached Rugby at Solihull School from 1987-89 and I taught History
and PE at Handsworth Grammar School in 1989.
I would love to meet with you all and outline
my plans for the rugby union show that I have in mind....
By the way I am also a Villa fan, having
supported the club for over 50 years having first been taken to Villa Park
travelling on the number 11 Corporation 'buzz' 'Football Specials' from the
King's Head in Bearwood, as a 4 year old in 1962 by my old man Les Bracey and
his Dad Wilf Bracey.
They were both Villa fans and brought me up to
be the same, the 3rd generation of Villa fans in my family....not surprising
really when you consider my family history.
The Braceys lived in The Gun Quarter in the
'Back-to-Backs' in Price Street
My Dad went through the Second World War as an
Aircraftsman Fitter in RAF's 'Bomber Command' on Lancasters and Stirlings at
places like RAF Wattisham and RAF Downham Market where he risked his life and
many of his friends gave theirs that we might be free and live in liberty....He
always said the RAF 'was his University' where he mixed with people from all
sorts of backgrounds and all walks of life.........
Enough already! I think I have gone on for
long enough........my diatribe gives you and idea of what I have to offer
Sports Radio in Birmingham and what I can bring to Sports Radio
Birmingham.....enthusiasm, love of my home city Birmingham and its sporting
heritage, and a deep knowledge of many and varied sports in Birmingham and
their shared history in the City of Birmingham, our motto being :
'Forward'!"
I look forward to hearing from you..........
Yours in Sport
Cheers
Up the Villa!
Keith Bracey
Greensward Enterprise Ltd
1 The Orchard
Oldbury
B68 9LS
Office: 0121
541 2154
Personal Mobile
Friday, 25 January 2013
welovebearwood: Another Corker Of A Competition!
welovebearwood: Another Corker Of A Competition!: Eliza Harris run the White Flamingo Gift Company with her daughter Ellz. Regulars at the Crafty Muthas Fair, Eliza and Ellz make all sort...
Thursday, 24 January 2013
welovebearwood: Snow!
welovebearwood: Snow!: Samantha Davis took these wonderful photos today of Bearwood in the snow. They're just gorgeous. Everything's all white! Warley...
welovebearwood: Ten From Ken!
welovebearwood: Ten From Ken!: Avebury Stone Circle, Wiltshire We had seen Ken Harrison with his camera at Lightwoods Park Festival and the Mary Portas Pilot Walk s...
welovebearwood: Old Bearwood
welovebearwood: Old Bearwood: The Birmingham Antiques and Collectors Fair takes place this Sunday. We went to the fair at the Birmingham Centennial Centre on Ickni...
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Monday, 21 January 2013
Sunday, 20 January 2013
Friday, 18 January 2013
Thursday, 17 January 2013
welovebearwood: Bearwood’s Bear!
welovebearwood: Bearwood’s Bear!: Follow that Bear! It sounds as if the Bearwood Chapel Team had a great time at their New Year Arts weekend. Pastor Dave told welovebearw...
Monday, 14 January 2013
welovebearwood: From Little Nibbles to Mighty Icons...
welovebearwood: From Little Nibbles to Mighty Icons...: 2012 was an amazing year for one of welovebearwood's favourite bands...Dexys! Not only did they release their first album for over 27 ...
Friday, 11 January 2013
welovebearwood: Keith Bracey: Bearwood Born and Bred
welovebearwood: Keith Bracey: Bearwood Born and Bred: We love hearing about the history of Bearwood and what it used to be like living here so when Keith Bracey sent us his ‘Happy memories ...
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