Second City Stories – Greg Stokes

‘In the lifetime of one government, decades of relative prosperity dissolved as even the mighty west midlands went down the tubes.’
From Popper States in Second City Stories

A collection of 29 short stories from Greg Stokes all set in England’s second city, Birmingham. Greg writes; “I was born and bred in the Black Country, the old, and some would argue the first, industrial region in the English west midlands. There are as many definitions of what exactly constitutes the Black Country as there are people in it. There is one commonality however, it ay bloody Birmingham. Birmingham is our next door neighbour whom we are first to deride, and first to protect if the insult comes from further afield. As with all neighours, we know each other well. I have worked there, courted there, and married into a Brummie family. There is far more that binds us together than the banter would suggest drives us apart. There are differences however. Birmingham is a huge city of a million souls and at one time a thousand trades. It is truly the regional capital, and the second city of England, with all the facilities that go with that. It has evolved into a vibrant international city of the twenty first century. The politics of the late twentieth century however, the politics of Thatcher, put Brum and the Brummies under the cosh. The process of social engineering has been continued under Blair’s New Labour. Sometime in the mid nineties I decided that I’d put together a collection of stories all set in Birmingham. While the stories range from the Victorian period to the present, there is a theme through to book that highlights the nastiness of Thatcherism as it affected the city, and the society that Blair, son of Thatcher, is perpetuating. Some of these stories were written back in the 1980s.” For full synopsis click here.