Spoken Word
Going Home, 2012 © Margaret Drabble
Between May and July 2012, the author, Margaret Drabble, travelled the Black Country by bus accompanied with local author and performance poet, Emma Purshouse, to meet with local women and listen to their stories with the aim to produce a series of short stories about Black Country Women’s lives.
The stories were presented in a magazine we produced called ‘Black Country Women’ that imitated ‘My Weekly’ , a popular older woman’s magazine.
Margaret visited a number of local places including Teddy Gray’s Sweet Factory in Dudley; Crossroads Café in Willenhall; Susan’s Hairdressers in West Bromwich; and Pat Gorman’s Pork Pie Factory in Bloxwich.
Martin Parr collaborated on this project to document the people and places Margaret visited.
The three short stories read by Emma Purshouse can be heard below.
Artist Biography
Dame Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of eighteen novels including A Summer Bird-Cage, The Millstone, The Peppered Moth, The Red Queen, The Sea Lady and the highly acclaimed The Pure Gold Baby. She has also written biographies, screenplays and was the editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She was appointed CBE in 1980, and made DBE in the 2008 Honours list. She was also awarded the 2011 Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime’s Distinguished Service to Literature. She is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd and lives in London and Somerset.
Hot Pork Sandwich, 2013