Steve Brazier
If you are reading this, you are probably a Wulfrunian. If you still live in Wolverhampton, you may rarely think about that. If like me you live elsewhere, you will be used to people asking where you are from and thinking and talking about your origins more often. But what is it, that makes us Wulfrunians?
I have not lived in Wolverhampton since 1965, when I left the Municipal Grammar School. I am often asked where I come from, without hesitation I say "Wolverhampton". Over 40 years residence in Nottingham does not influence my response. What is it then that puts such an indelible stamp on my identity?
Perhaps the vivid childhood memories? Miss Fenton says that she envies my good memory. You do remember Miss Fenton ? We have been emailing each other since she appeared in this Newsletter recently. She does not remember me but did only teach me English for two terms before she left to get married in 1960. She has fond impressions of her Muni years but few detailed memories.
Perhaps the continuity of old friendships? I attended Old Pupils events and helped arrange a wonderful year-reunion in 1998. I kept in touch with school friends for years but gradually we have drifted apart. I drove over to see my mother, aunts and uncles often. But they are all now dead. I spent weeks there clearing my mother's house and arranging her funeral. It was a great comfort to be surrounded by the accent, the sayings, the humour, the few streets and buildings that are left from the fifties and early sixties. But I don't go anymore, so the warm glow of my Wulfrunian identity cannot depend on personal contacts or frequent fixes of actually being there.
I do come across old friends from time to time. Have a day on the train to Birmingham to reminisce with my old class-mate Roger Nash. Bumped into Pat Ault at my aunt's funeral and again at a cousin's party. I fell in love with her twice: once at Graiseley Primary where she bewitched me in blue gingham, sitting sewing in the sun. Again at the Muni, a County sprinter adjusting her running spikes on the school field. Such stuff as dreams are made on. At a party in 1964 she came up to chat but I was tongue-tied and overwhelmed. This time, 50 years on, her partner and my wife as witnesses, I confessed all.
Undoubtedly, my lingering accent contributes to my Wulfrunianism. Miss Day once told our Latin class that extremes like Lower Gornal dialect were beyond her (do they still name children there after Old Testament characters?). But she said, she did like our accent. I was mystified - at the age of 12 it wasn't me that had an accent - she did. Later, after college friends claimed they had barely understood me when we first met, I realised how much I owed the lecturers who had interviewed me for a place at such a prestigious university when they must have struggled to understand me too. I had not emulated the strenuous efforts, my brother made to lose his accent. He'd attended the Boys' Grammar and suffered some class-prejudice. He quickly acquired a mid-Atlantic accent reminiscent of Cliff Richard. Dirk Bogarde was seriously posh (his dad was the Art Editor of The Times) with an idyllic boyhood somewhere like Surrey. His autobiography vividly describes his banishment without warning to an aunt in Glasgow. He was so physically abused at school that he transformed his accent in weeks.
After Miss Day retired, Miss McCunn taught French In the very same room. Her Northern Irish accent was remarkable. We already spoke French with a Welsh accent because of Mr Parsons et al. My French is still reasonable but I think the vowels are more Celtic than Gallic. I met Mr Pearce, my history teacher again 15 years ago. He had left teaching to be ordained in the Church of England so I finally got to say "More tea, Vicar ?, which I think he appreciated. He explained why he taught in Wolverhampton : if you were born in Wales and had a degree, it was the nearest place to find work. My professor in London characterised the West Midlands in his British regional geography course by saying that everyone there had a Welsh grandmother. For years, I thought I did. My mother assured me that her mother was born in Wrexham. Her maiden name was Phillips, so I bought a Welsh rugby shirt. Then someone did the family tree and found that everyone back to William the Conqueror on both sides was born in Wolverhampton. So much for wanting to appear more exotic. Someone I lent the shirt to for a fancy dress party put it in a hot wash and it went all pink.
Most of our teachers must have been local. Miss Outlaw, of whom I have written fondly here before, was certainly local but refined. Mr. Langford was a former pupil, so he was local too. I loved his physics lessons, probably chose to do 'O' Level because of him and then was choked to find that he wasn't to teach me. He would throw chalk violently at boys who misbehaved. Bob Baker once caught it and threw it back with equivalent force. Mr. Langford ducked and it hit the big green roller-board. Bob, who was then unsportingly ordered to leave the room, recently chronicled some of his other escapades in this Newsletter which got him the ill-deserved reputation of being "difficult".
Because I was lucky with the Muni and my London college, both socially diverse institutions, I never felt the need to do more than rub the corners off my accent and have learned not to get irritated by people who tell me I sound like a Brummie. On meeting expatriate West Midlanders who know I am visually impaired, I am often greeted in dialect to help me narrow down who they are. Such conversations among the Diaspora can quickly descend to Aynuk and Ayli jokes, declaimed broadly to amuse the locals.
My accent is certainly important in maintaining my Wulfrunian core. But it cannot be the determining factor if people like my brother find it so easy to lose or at least disguise. By disguise, I exclude the feeble attempts to go up-market by pronouncing "bath" or "ask" with a long vowel, like Jack Woolley in the Archers (sadly missed).
Now the oldest survivor of my family, age creeping in a-pace, I mull over what might explain my persistent Wulfrunian self-image : friends, family, visits, memories, accent. The answer, incorporating so many of these now-vanished influences crystallised gradually. But my conclusion is clear: Wolverhampton Wanderers.
One of my earliest memories is of playing in the street on match days. We guessed the score by counting the "oohs" and "aahs" clearly audible in Penn Fields. Confirmation was to be had after the game by asking the men walking home. Men who are going to football matches then were obvious: usually alone, no bags, dressed warmly, wearing a cap and smoking like one of the Kings leaving the Low Level Station bound for Paddington. My Dad took me to Molineux when I was about 10 but although they probably won about 9-0, my first visit was disappointing. I was too young and bored despite the atmosphere of a 45,000 crowd. I returned alone only a year or so later. A band marched up and down the pitch at half-time and even Reserve fixtures got bigger crowds than many League clubs do today. I did not miss a home game. With a friend, I'd arrive two hours early to get a place on the wall behind the North Bank goal and played chess to kill time. Malcolm Finlayson would acknowledge our greeting as he tossed his cap into the corner of the net. I don't think I saw Bert Williams play but remember him presenting me with a Dinky Hudson station-wagon for coming third in the sack-race at Graiseley Primary. Anyway, I was hooked. I even did Miss Fenton's Friday homework on "reported speech" by paraphrasing the radio interviews before Wolves trounced the Villa in the 1960 Cup semi-final. Through the rest of my WMGS and college years I avidly followed the Wolves. My brother posted the "Pink" to me in London and I would read it on the Tube, looking as if I was studying the Financial Times. Up and down the divisions. Even in the dark days of the 80's fourth division in the tiny portion of the ground not closed down for lack of cash. With YTS players and donated shirts. There were compensations : Steve Bull; who has given me more pleasure than all the girls I ever went out with. Andy Mutch, the Sherpa Van Trophy win at Wembley.
Now I only go to Molineux once a year. But I hear every match on the Internet, visualising every kick as seen from the Waterloo Road Stand - or whatever they call it now. The agony goes on. For years, my step-son has had a Manchester United season-ticket. But he has not fully experience football. He has never had to suffer. Only friends who support Hartlepool, Rochdale, Brentford can come close but as they have no higher division experience, cannot know the heights that accentuate the depths.
The Wolves are now the only direct link I have with my roots. They are the palpable thread running through my memories from the early '50's. My relatives are all gone, my friendships cooled and distant. Wolves is my family, my heritage. So relegation once more to the Third Division (now laughingly known as League One) is no disaster. Did not the coat of arms embroidered on the felt Bible cover in school assembly and the Wolves' shirts in the 1960 Cup Final all bear the defiant words "Out of Darkness Cometh Light"? The club does not belong to the owner, players or directors. It belongs to me. That is what determines my identity and like a stick of rock "Wulfrunian" is written all the way through. Black on old gold.
Stephen Brazier 1959-1965
Published in WMGS OPA newsletter 2013