Newsletter – January 2013

January 2nd, 2013 by JAtkinson

1963 was an auspicious year.  The major world event was the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas but the year started with the Big Freeze in the UK.  Other notable events were the Great Train Robbery, the Profumo affair, Harold Wilson becoming Labour leader, Alec Douglas Home succeeding Harold McMillan and the publication of the Beeching Report.  The Beatles dominated the music scene, the BBC transmitted the first episode of Dr Who and the Compact Cassette was introduced.  In Hagley 1800 buses served the village each week (including the 253, Sweetpool Lane to Stourbridge) and you could have seen a Midland Red bus every three minutes on summer Sundays.  The village was experiencing massive housing growth, the library had been opened the previous year, the A491 was linked to the new M5 and Issue 1 of the Village News appeared.  Into this maelstrom was launched the Hagley Historical & Field Society on 31st July and its first event followed on 28th September with a visit to Buildwas Abbey.  The first meeting was on 15th October, when Len Nock and Martin Lister showed photographs of the rapidly-disappearing old village.

 Alan Atkinson attempted to cover all this (and more) in his presentation at the January meeting, thus setting the scene for the Society’s 50th anniversary.

Comments are closed.