Lyr Req: 'the town itself has moved uphill'

Subject: Lyr Req: 'the town itself has moved uphill'
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 03 Dec 11 - 06:31 AM

I'm looking for a poem about the development/industrialisation of an English town. It has a line about a once quiet place, once outside the town. The place is still there but the town "itself has moved uphill"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'the town itself has moved uphill'
From: GUEST,999
Date: 03 Dec 11 - 03:26 PM

Do you have any other info, Philippa?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'the town itself has moved uphill'
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 12:49 PM

no, I think it may have been about Newcastle and I think I heard the poem at a seminar. Always remembered that line and what it was about.
I also tried a search for "itself has gone up hill" though I think "moved" is the right word. Just hoping someone who is familiar with the poem will see my query.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'the town itself has moved uphill'
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 04:10 PM

For what it's worth, it's true that towns sometimes move uphill.

The village of Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin relocated to higher ground after a flood.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'the town itself has moved uphill'
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 01:34 PM

in the poem I have in mind, I believe it was more simply a case of the town growing, expanding

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'the town itself has moved uphill'
From: Gurney
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 02:13 PM

I think it is called Brummegem. I have it on the LP 'The Wide Midlands.' Again, this is off the top of my (failing) head, but I'll look later if no-one gets there first.

'Now he lives beside a smoky mill, in the middle of the streets of Brummegem!'

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'the town itself has moved uphill'
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 02:31 PM

Thanks to Gurney:

@displaysong.cfm?SongID=2805

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'the town itself has moved uphill'
From: GUEST,999
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 02:32 PM

Sorry, that Guest was me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'the town itself has moved uphill'
From: Gurney
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 03:05 PM

That's the one I have, 999. Sung in a Brummie accent, which makes the last line of the verses 'Ah kor fynd Brummegem.'

Incidentally, that is what Birmingham is known as in much of England, just in case you didn't know.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'the town itself has moved uphill'
From: GUEST,999
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 03:07 PM

News to me, Gurney. How would a guy say/pronounce it?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'the town itself has moved uphill'
From: Gurney
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 03:58 PM

Brum ee jum. In the vernacular, Brum for short. We had a thread on it a couple of years ago. My contribution to the thread was to point out that in the Doomsday Book, in that area, one of the several villages that no longer exist was called Brymwitcham, something like that.

For the benefit of 999, may I invite contributions from Poms as to what you call that great city? Mine is from Nuneaton, 20mls away, but is general for all the midlands conurbation. From Derbyshire, my Gran called it Burningum, an old mispronunciation.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'the town itself has moved uphill'
From: Snuffy
Date: 13 Dec 11 - 08:47 AM

Often pronounced Burnigum in the Vale of Evesham, but "Brum" seesm to be the most common.

Bromwicham makes sense, with Castle Bromwich to the east and West Bromwich to the west of it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'the town itself has moved uphill'
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 13 Dec 11 - 09:37 AM

The Oxford Dictionary of Place-Names gives Birmingham: Bermingeham, 1086 (Domesday Book) = 'Homestead of the family or followers of a man called *Beorma', or 'Homestead at the place associated with *Beorma'. (*-conjectural form)

Brummagem and its relatives appear to come along in the later middle-ages.


The songs was posted by Charlie Noble in this thread: (2001) BS: Going back - - a good or bad thing" and also here (2005) Lyr Add: Old Fiddle, The (C. Fox Smith)

As well as appearing in Jon Raven's Victoria's Inferno, the song was also printed in Roy Palmer's A Touch On The Times (from a broadside by Jackson of Birmingham, BM 1876 e2, the same source as Jon Raven used), where he has these notes:

"The song was written by an entertainer called James Dobbs and sung by him for the first time a the Theatre Royal, Birmingham, in 1828 to the tune of Duncan Grey. It was issued on broadsides and remained very popular for a number of years. Apparently it was often sung by passengers travelling on the top of stage coaches. A version relating to Coventry also appeared...".


In 2003 Cordwangler, in this thread Lyr Req: I Can't Find Coventry, did ask if anyone knew anything about the Coventry version, stating it was not in the Coventry or Birmingham libraries. There were no replies. I can add that it doesn't seem to be at the Bodleian, nor in the Roud index.


Mick