When town's illuminations were cancelled because they attracted too many Black Country folk

Our accent has long been lampooned.

Television has enforced the stereotype, with characters from our area often portrayed as dim-witted, often the brunt of jokes in sitcoms and TV ads.

In fairness, Brummies suffer the same negative PR.

Here, we are more enlightened and cosmopolitan. We know Cockneys don’t strut around in Pearly King and Queen outfits when their shifts as chimney sweeps are over.

We are used to the barbs and misconceptions because Black Country residents know how to laugh at themselves.

But one slight against this region went well beyond the pale. It remains a slap in the face fuelled by anti Black Country sentiment and snobbery.

This is the untold, near forgotten story of one of the greatest Midlands attractions axed because it drew too many visitors from Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall and the surrounding areas.

Today, such an action would be headline news on television, internet news sites and in newspapers. There would be vox pops, with the public asked would you want someone from the Black Country living next door?” MPs would have their say. Lenny Henry would speak out.

Back in the 1950s, the decision to end the Leamington Spa Lights – a neon extravaganza staged at Jephson Gardens that attracted 500,000 visitors – on the grounds of pure prejudice caused barely a ripple. In fact, some whispered: “The residents have a point.”

Councillors ruled Black Country folk were not wanted in the Warwickshire royal spa town of Leamington. They were harming its profile.

In a council meeting where necklaces jangled in a show of frustration and men became increasingly hot under their winged collars, one member announced: “Jephson Gardens was born to be a great lady, not a good time girl.”

Today, with every city and town has its winter attraction and Yuletide fair, it’s hard to comprehend the pulling power of Leamington Lights. It was an illuminated, six week fairytale of tableaux with titles such as Never Never Land, Aladdin’s Cave and the Ocean Bed. Children took an enchanted ride on the Pixie Railway.

There were fireworks, there were bands.

One newspaper painted a vivid picture: “Captain Hook lurks menacingly amongst the bushes, crocodiles with goggling eyes snap at your heels, a waterfall tinkles down a bank and Peter Pan, Wendy and the rest of her family fly through the lower branches of the trees on their series of delightful adventures.

“Floating leisurely on the still waters of the Leam is Hook’s pirate galleon.”

In an era when there was still a corner in living rooms that would one day be filled by TV sets, kids – Black Country kids – would’ve been left wide-eyed in amazement.

The north had Blackpool. We had Leamington Lights and factories ferried workers and their families to the spectacular.

Yet, launched in 1951 it lasted only a handful of years, a lifespan that brought close to 1,500,000 visitors to the town.

Despite the cash those outsiders pumped into local business, the event was scrapped because of the Black Country invasion. The well-heeled set running Leamington believed it was better to be posh than to make a handsome profit.

There was an unwelcome smell attached to new money.

The Lights years were plagued by bickering, with claims of the beloved Gardens being vandalised. A petition was raised in a bid to prevent families from making the annual pilgrimage to the children’s paradise.

Those wanting the Lights switched off were particularly opposed to the beer tent and dancing area.

The death knell was sounded at a September, 1956, public meeting, with a bid to save the attraction defeated by 32 votes to 15. The plug was set to be pulled.

In an incendiary speech, Councillor Leslie Overell said: “Frankly, the attract the wrong kind of visitors. I got into trouble at a recent council meeting for saying we should not become s playground for the Black Country, but I will say it again.

“I have nothing against Black Country people, but if I wanted to spend my time rubbing shoulders with them, I would go and live there.

“This is a different kind of town, so let us treat it differently. This project has lowered the tone of Leamington.”

The project had become an “intolerable nuisance”, a member of the public declared to loud cheers.

It wasn’t Councillor Overell’s first pop at our region. In a meeting of the full council three months earlier, he “challenged the conception of the entertainments committee that its function was to provide funfairs for Birmingham and Black Country people”.

“I don’t think those sort of people are any benefit to the town and I say so bluntly,” he told colleagues.

The Lights themselves were certainly a benefit to Leamington. And those visitors that Councillor Overell detested contributed £8,630 for improvements at Jephson Gardens alone.

We had our supporters in the spa town – and let’s pay tribute to Mr H.E Dormer, of the Leamington Society, who pulled no punches at the public meeting.

“Though Leamington is gay and progressive in some respects, another part of its tradition is stuffy, stuck-up, stupid, standoffish and dull,” Mr Dormer bravely proclaimed. The Lights had brightened the lives of thousands of people and “relieved” the rates to the tune of £20,000. A very handsome sum close to seven decades ago.

Alderman B.A Petherstone-Dilke pointed out times have changed: “The nobility and gentry are no longer to be found walking the gardens.”

The town council heard “the illuminations were a pleasure to Black Country workers who may not see natural and artistic beauty from one week’s end to another”.

Steady on! We didn’t all live in back-to-backs, our vision impaired by blanket smog.

John Clews, also a leading light in the Leamington Society, courted a possible vigilante backlash by stating: “The Black Country is, in many ways, better off than Leamington Spa which is surrounded by countryside , mostly cultivated land not open to the public.

“The Black Countrymen, of whom I am one, have plenty of common land to add to parks.

“Since Leamington does so well from the takings from the Lights, let me suggest part of the money be put on one side to provide free coach trips for those residents who are robbed of the pleasures of Jephson Gardens during the 10 weeks of the illuminations. These trips could go to the Arboretum at Walsall, Brunswick Park at Wednesbury, Dartmouth Park at West Bromwich and various other places which offer some of the lost relaxations of Leamington.”

The voices supporting our region were drowned out – and the Lights lost.

Interestingly, in 2022 plans were unveiled to bring the tourist attraction back.

Dave Clargo, part of a steering group tasked with making the dream a reality, told the BBC: “There’s always been, I think, in the town an ambition to try to bring back, reinvent, reimagine what the festival could be.

“So a small group of us got together and have now got some money from the Arts Council to run a feasibility study. That will really look at the possibilities of how we would run a new festival that very much celebrates the heritage festival, but is very much about telling the story of Leamington today.”

The good folk of Leamington should be warned. If you thought we could be a nuisance back in the 1950s…