‘Smethwick…will forever be changing'

When asked about his hometown, the working-class photographer Joe Russell observed that ‘Smethwick is still changing and will forever be changing’. 2 His interlocutor, the local historian Roger Broadbent, then developed this theme, suggesting that there were continuities (‘identity and pride, accents and customs…tradition’) alongside the changes. 3 Smethwick had a long history that, like all urban settlements, was affected by the realities of twentieth-century economic, social, cultural, and political change. As Midlands historian Simon Briercliffe has observed, this dynamism reflected the long-term development of the Black Country within which Smethwick sat. 4 To best understand how the past shaped the present, how that past was understood and identified with, and how it was defined by those who lived within Smethwick, we must therefore take a long view. As argued in the introduction, this book seeks to provide a more comprehensive political history of Smethwick. However, to do so it must be aware of the communities that resided there, imagined and real. This chapter sets out to understand the Smethwick of Joe Russell’s photographs, a dynamic locality with its economy very much in flux, but with established norms, political traditions, and civic identity.