A Black Country poet – Jim William Jones

On November 9th 2024 as part of the Black Country History Day to be held the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, I will be presenting (with help from Emma Purshouse) some of the poetry of the Black Country poet Jim William Jones, to illustrate the industrial, social and built environment of the region in the second half of the 20th century. Jones was a sharp eyed observer of his beloved Black Country and his poems give a deep insight into the area and its people over that period. This is a rather different way of “doing” history, but hopefully one that will both entertain and inform. I write below to give some brief details of his life and work, since this information is not generally available elsewhere.

J W Jones by CLEBAK, From Black Country Society Calendar collection 1976

Jim William Jones was born in Coseley on February 15^th, 1923, and spent his childhood and school years there. After leaving school he began work with the engineering firm Joseph Sankey and Sons as a junior clerk. He was conscripted into the army at the age of 18 in 1941, taking part in the Normandy landing in 1944 and also serving in India and Ceylon, reaching the rank of Warrant Officer. After the war he returned to Sankey’s and was trained in works management, before leaving industry to join local government in 1955 where he worked in education administration, marrying Jesse Ralphs at Wednesbury in that year. He was a qualified teacher of speech and drama and a member of amateur dramatic societies, hosting a radio programme on Beacon Radio and working with the Black Country folk music group Giggetty. He had a strong Christian faith and was a gifted speaker and Methodist local preacher. He became a very well-known Black Country poet, both for his dialect poetry (Black Country ballads) and for his poetry in more conventional English. Some of these can be found in three small publications by the Black Country Society – “From under the smoke” from 1972, “Factory and Fireside” from 1974, and “Jim and Kate” from 1986, all sadly long out of print. He contributed numerous poems to the first 25 years of the Society magazine, the Blackcountryman from 1967 to 1992. He died in 1993.

Some of Jim Jones poems were included in a 1976 anthology “Widening circles” edited by Edward Lowbury. Following Jones’ death, Lowbury wrote an appreciation for the Blackcountryman (26.4, 1993). He acknowledged the humour and the pathos in the dialect ballads, which at the time of publication of “Widening Circles” he felt to be more successful than the poems in standard English. By 1992 however he had somewhat modified his views and concluded that his standard English poems were perhaps “nearer to the heart of poetry than the more immediately entertaining dialect ballads”.

In a much later Blackcountryman article (45.3, 2012) Trevor Brookes again writes in appreciation of Jim Jones, and in particular his dialect poetry, emphasising that as well as humour, they contained much that showed a profound understanding of people and their lives. He regretted that these were not easily available, being scattered across many newspapers and other publications, and not accessible to modern readers.

Personally, I first became aware of Jim Jones work in the early 1970s, when my mother gave me a copy of “From under the smoke” as a Birthday present. This little volume became a prized possession and has travelled around the country with me over the last 50 years, regularly read and re-read.

To enable others to either reacquaint themselves with his work, or to enjoy it for the first time, some of Jones’ poems have ben published in a short series of Black Country Society blog posts from 2022 that can be found at the links below.

The Blackcountryman poems of Jim William Jones Part 1

The Blackcountryman poems of Jim William Jones Part 2

The Blackcountryman poems of Jim William Jones Part 3

In addition, the Black Country Society has scanned “From under the smoke” and “Factory and Fireside” and these are available for members on the Society web site (password required). I have also produced a compilation of 33 of his poems that span the period from 1968 to 1992 – from “From under the Smoke”, “Factory and Fireside” and the Blackcountryman. This is again available to Society members on the web site. These three volumes will be available for purchase as pdfs from the Society online shop at some point in the near future.

Most, but not quite all, of the poems in the compilation are in standard English. Another volume could easily be produced containing a selection of his dialect poetry, but as Trevor Brookes noted, these are more scattered, and the collection of them would be a major task. Nonetheless it is perhaps something I will attempt in the future.