Warwickshire or West Midlands?

Thanks for pointing that out Slim. I was born and grew up in Coventry, Warwickshire, I have lived away for many years but always ensure that any correspondence I send to friends or relatives by post always addressing them to Warwickshire, as far as I know I have never had a non-delivery. How dare they deprive me of my birthright? Similarly I remain a subject of my Queen, I refuse to be a citizen of the EU

I wholeheartedly agree Roger, well said. All correspondence I post to Coventry, (mainly Christmas Cards these days) states 'Warwickshire' and like you I have never had a non-delivery. A very similar situation happens here where Banff and the surrounding Coastal villages and towns now, due to Boundary changes, come under Aberdeenshire named after a City on a totally different Coast line. The locals about me all address Banffshire as the County, as I promote when receiving mail from Coventry ! Maybe I should change my Forum location indicator to suit !

I was once told by a policeman friend that all that is needed by the automated postal system is the number and the postcode, e.g. 13 BS9 1XZ anything else then presumably becoming superfluous and so ignored. The West Midlands is a fictitious county dreamt up by the bureaucrats in the early seventies. If you look at the map, to the east of Brum there's an appendage that sticks out like a malignant growth to swallow Solihull then Coventry. Everywhere to the north, south and east of Coventry is still Warwickshire. Some years ago they invented the County of Avon (according to the signs when driving south down the M5). It obviously didn't work as they later scrapped it. After all, Avon means river!

I believe that at one point Coventry was a county in its own right.

Coventry has far more in common with the West Midlands conurbation than with rural Warwickshire with its collection of small towns. The West Midlands County was created as an entity by the government in the early 70s for better administration and it worked remarkably well. I worked for the WMCC as well as other councils, including Coventry, and it was easily the most efficient and effective of any of them. It is correct that, prior to 1974, Coventry was a unitary authority and not part of Warwickshire in any meaningful sense other than for postal addresses, but it was too small to operate efficiently, and still is. There has always been a resistance to the West Midlands idea in Coventry as people perceived it as being 'part of Birmingham'. That was never true, of course, Birmingham was just one of the seven parts of the West Midlands. Coventry was no different from, say, Wolverhampton administratively. It all worked very well for 12 years and would have continued and thrived had it not been abolished for vindictive political dogma. However, we still see resistance to the joint authority principle despite the investment it will bring, simply because of this Birmingham paranoia. I have never felt part of Warwickshire, probably because I never have been. As for being somebody's 'subject' - not likely! Absolutely I am a citizen and will always be so. I am subservient to no-one!

Yes, County of Coventry recorded, the account is documented in the Victorian History volume eight, also that for a short period in history, the administrative capital for the UK. From Wiki, "By the 14th

If you look at travel to work area, Coventry has far more in common with Warwickshire. The links between Birmingham are about the same number each way. Back in the 1970s Coventry had car factories that used components made in Birmingham and the two cities had more economic links. This is no longer true. Coventry needs better transport links between Warwickshire, especially Nuneaton, and South Warwickshire. The city's business parks were built in out of town locations to make them appeal to the skilled workforce that moved out to Warwickshire. This is one reason why the city centre has become a bit deserted in that respect. One key aspect of Friargate being a success is the KNUCKLE railway links and, looking further, better links to places like Oxford and Nottingham.

Coventry wasn't ever capital of the UK. Parliament was held a couple of times at the Priory. This was when Parliament tended to move around to where the king summoned people (Parliament of the Devils was one). The county was a 'Country Corporate'. They were separate counties, but still retained links with the surrounding counties which retained some functions. Post-medieval they were irrelevant, just a title, and were mainly abolished when the parliamentary system was reformed. It was mainly used to allow important or wealthy towns (that have generally supported the Monarch!) their own powers.

ALL counties/shires/countries are 'fictitious' in the sense that they're drawn up arbitrarily by someone somewhere in history as a means of marking their territory, and will happily expand it further if they can. In the past they've usually been separated by large natural blockages - seas, rivers, mountains, forests etc - but these are not the obstacles to people they once were. A map from your childhood will look very different to one of today - countries will now exist that didn't then, others may have disappeared. Boundaries and names are always changing. Political wards are forever being altered due to gerrymandering. Coventry has expanded outwards quite a few times throughout its history - where most Coventrians now live would, historically, have been outside of Coventry. Growing up places like Keresley were put as "nr. Coventry" on any post we sent - not any more. And almost every river name means river - Trent, Severn, Avon, Thames, Exe. Same with things like mountains, hills, forests - almost all of them at one point just meant that in some long forgotten local dialect or language. I agree with both you and MrD-Di about Coventry's inclusion in WM or Warks as it looks odd, but I can also understand why it was done at the time. At the time there was far more interdependence between Coventry and Birmingham due to industry, and politically policies that would have been appropriate for WM and Coventry would have been less favoured in Warks due to a different socio-economic make-up. However, that link is far less important today and a city the size of Coventry should be the principal urban area of its region. However, it's not alone as Bradford is largely subservient to Leeds' needs and often misses out, but has a larger population than us. Ironically, the city of Manchester is actually pretty small but due to some clever PR has managed to wangle its way into being seen increasingly as the 'second city' due to 'Greater' Manchester. This is where I disagree with MrD-Di on the Birmingham 'paranoia' - much of the thinking towards WMCA in Birmingham IS based around it being become known as 'Greater Birmingham' in future to repel this Manchester threat. Their local media often refers to it a such, and even officials sometimes let it sneak in 'accidentally'. All the mayoral candidates are Birmingham-centric. Their desire for a new town around the HS2 station to make it a continuous urban area while vehemently opposing Coventry gaining any meaningful direct links to it show their long term aim. I'm not falling for it.

Should you not swear allegiance to the King/Queen of Mercia rather than this expansionist 'England/Britain/United Kingdom' nonsense fronted by a bunch of Germans?

Bradford's larger population is due to the fact surrounding towns are part of the Metropolitian Borough - large towns such as Bingley and Keighley are counted as Bradford, as are places like Haworth which are a considerable distance away. Coventry has tight borders, perhaps the tightest of any UK city. The better comparison is Coventry and its PUA.

Yeah I do have a bit of a problem with the German connection, but I take comfort from the fact that the present Queen has a guid dose of Scottish in her (perhaps as much as Mr. Trump), now that can`t be bad.

I think there is lots of paranoia about being regarded as part of Birmingham, but I do agree that it is being badly marketed as Greater Birmingham. The Metropolitan Authority was the West Midlands County Council, not the Greater Birmingham County Council. Manchester was the only one of the Mets that referred to a specific city, none of the others did. As I said before, Coventry was never regarded as part of Birmingham in those days so why should it be now? The mayoral election in May is for a West Midlands mayor, but seems to be a bit of a lash-up. Only the residents of the seven West Midlands Boroughs will elect the mayor, but they will chair the West Midlands Combined Authority which covers other areas too, including Nuneaton & Bedworth. We do need to get away from the misnomer of 'Greater Birmingham', although some people would always oppose it no matter what it was called and whatever the benefits. Why on earth should we swear allegiance to any person, least of all someone who we have never elected?

Let me clarify: I used the word fictitious facetiously (mischievously?). I had in mind all those people who maintain "the WM doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned, it was always Warwickshire and still is"; "back in the good old days..." etc. It has certainly prompted much thought and discussion. It seems to be human nature to be proud of one's roots, and belong ; the them-and-us is everywhere. It pervades the workplace, despite supposedly being a professional working environment, with all these youngsters coming in with degrees in HR, industrial relations or whatever; there's a whole army of them now, and they've made an industry out of it (jobs for the boys/girls). There are all these initiatives to have equality, fairness, stamp out bullying (even banter is out - it heads the list of behaviour that could be construed as bullying!). But the "club within the club" with its favoured membership and double standards still thrives. You will note from my tone that I do not consider myself a member of that club, and never have done. When I were a bairn, there were only Warwickshire. But (prior to privatisation) we had the ludicrous situation whereby our gas bills came from the West Midlands Gas Board, whilst electricity came from the East Midlands Electricity Board. As a youngster, I could not understand how we could be in two places at once! I repeatedly asked my parents to explain, but they could not. I like Birmingham. We regularly go shopping there. It's only £3.55 return from Tile Hill on the train, thanks in part to WM/Centro maybe. We live in Warwickshire, but the train from Leamington or Warwick costs more. My Dad's family were Brummies, and I worked in Brum in my twenties. Yet a lot of people look down their noses at Brum and its people; they hate the accent and consider themselves better. A colleague has a mild Brummie accent, e.g. "tuth" instead of "tooth", but gets incensed if anyone says he's a Brummie ("I'm from SOLIHULL", he asserts indignantly). People in London, Bristol and Devon have occasionally assumed I'm a Brummie. I have to point out that it's a different accent there, for example, the public transport in Coventry is a bus, whereas it's a buzz in Birmingham. A good example is Sutton Coldfield. Years ago, it was considered upmarket, rather like Solihull, I'm told, and that in recent years, it has been swallowed up by and is now part of Birmingham. I was recently at a Spice pub meet in the Bottle of Sack, and a local lady, a head teacher, confirmed this, and told me that the Sutton residents hated it, thought they deserved better than being part of Brum, and were convinced that it had devalued the Sutton Coldfield area and its property values.