Memory Lane: interviewing people looking for work in 1975

Those nice people from MACE, the Media Archive of Central England, have just posted a television report I did for 'ATV Today' (the news programme that covered the English Midlands) on 25 July 1975. Interviewing people in Birmingham looking for work https://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-25071975-unemployment-crisis

Further down Memory Lane

Another couple of items from my days with 'ATV Today' in the Midlands in the 1970s. First a report on the court appearance in August 1974 by 7 men charged in connection with IRA bombings. IRA bombs were nothing unusual in the West Midlands around that time. Let's hope Brexit doesn't lead to a revival

https://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-05081974-birmingham-bomb-explosions-arrests

Then from July 1977, a report on villages in Leicestershire persecuted by very heavy traffic, who were very keen to see the M69 motorway (pictured) built to siphon the juggernauts away from their streets.

https://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-08071977-m69-villages

Tales from the European Referendum - of 1975. No 2. The voters speak.

Here I am ‘vox popping’ people in Birmingham in the run-up to the 1975 vote on Europe asking them how they think it will go. Interesting how many people did not seem to know we were already in Europe, and to hear the same complaints you get today that they do not know enough to make their minds up. Perhaps that just confirms that this is a very complex issue, and more suited to being decided by a general election than a referendum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBsycaKZGMU&feature=youtu.be

Here is my interview with former Prime Minister Ted Heath featured in my post of May 20.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjWLZpCKK6o&feature=youtu.be

Bloody Sunday and the Birmingham pub bombings - no more double standards

The British government has spent up to £400 million trying to find out the truth about Bloody Sunday in 1972, when 13 civilians were killed by the army, with reports that a number of soldiers may face being charged with murder.

Less than three years later, in the Birmingham pub bombings of November 1974, 21 people were killed by IRA bombers, and 200 more seriously injured, but the authorities seem to be a good deal less enthusiastic about getting to the bottom of what happened.

Inquests on those killed were closed when six men were convicted of the mass murder, but they were the wrong men, and they were released in 1991. No one has ever been found responsible, and now some of the victims’ families are trying to get the inquests reopened, but West Midlands police are apparently going to oppose them.

Last week the police interviewed a Dublin solicitor who was the IRA’s ‘director of intelligence' at the time of the bombings. He expressed his ‘shame and regret’ over them. But as you will see from my earlier blog of November 21, 2014, there are some very odd things about the police investigation. The authorities have decreed that an independent review of it should remain secret for another 54 years, and a lot of evidence, including another bomb that failed to explode, has gone missing.

My earlier blog:-

http://disasterhistorian.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/birmingham-pub-bombings-40-who-were.html

Memory Lane

Back in the 1970s, I used to be industrial correspondent at ATV in the English Midlands, appearing mainly on ATV Today. Two of my film reports from that era have just appeared online:-

The effects of the British Leyland toolmakers' strike on supplies of the Mini in 1975 - 
http://www.macearchive.org/Archive/Title/atv-today-11031975-british-leyland-toolmakers-strike/MediaEntry/22814.html

The British hot rod team practising in 1974 - 
http://www.macearchive.org/Archive/Title/atv-today-21111974-british-hot-rod-team-practising-at-hednesford/MediaEntry/22279.html

Birmingham pub bombings + 40. Who were the killers?

Forty years ago today, I was a reporter at ATV (the forerunner of Central Television covering the English Midlands) covering the Birmingham pub bombings. Two pubs in the city centre were blown up by the IRA, killing 21 people and injuring more than 180 others in what was then the worst terrorist attack in British history.

Today we still do not know who was responsible. The ‘Birmingham Six’ were wrongly convicted of the crime, and were released in 1991. Devon and Cornwall Police later conducted an inquiry into the West Midlands Police investigation. The authorities have decreed its contents must remain secret for another 55 years.

Julie Hambleton, whose sister was killed in the bombings, has been highly critical of this decision. The current Chief Constable for the West Midlands, Chris Sims, has maintained the investigation remains open, but Ms Hambleton has accused the police of lack of commitment to investigating Britain’s ‘largest unsolved mass murder,’ saying they seemed to be waiting for evidence to ‘drop on their desks’.

Another blow to those wanting to bring the killers to justice was the revelation that 35 pieces of evidence had gone missing, including a bomb that failed to explode. Mr Sims said it seems the items had been disposed of in the 1980’s, and that this was ‘not unusual at the time.’