Carl Chinn presents: Life & Death in Backstreet Birmingham

Back-to-Back and Up the Yard: Life and Death in Back-Street Birmingham, 1880-1960
Professor Carl Chinn MBE

Back-to-back and up the yard was the lived experience of hundreds of thousands of poorer Brummies from the early 1800s to the late 1960s. Built hard and fast by factories and innumerable works, back-to-back houses were embedded in a gloomy setting, blackened by smoke and smog. It was as if light was dowted in their neighbourhoods with fresh air driven out by the stench of industrial pollution. Scores upon scores of thousands of working-class folk had nowhere else to live. And yet here, where the environment was so hostile and harmful, back-to-back Brummies strove to stay clean and battled for decency. In the purportedly best-governed city in the world, the bitter cry of the poor went unheard except amongst themselves.

Those whose address was back of fought against an unjust society and the implacable enemy of poverty through bonds of kinship and neighbourliness. And in that fight and despite an often-violent patriarchal order, women took a pre-eminent role. Over half a century since the last back-to-backs were cleared, their struggles and resilience should not be forgotten.

The author of 36 books, Carl Chinn is the son and grandson of back-to-back Brummies.

For accessibility enquiries & carer tickets, please read the accessibility document on the Hare & Hounds website.

Age restriction: 14+ / U16s accompanied by an adult