THE BLUE GATES

In Black Hearts And Blue Devils Abraham Lively has cause to visit an inn in Smethwick called the Blue Gates. It stood in the High Street, just around the corner from Rolfe Street railway station facing, and opposite, an old tollhouse, the junction of Brasshouse Lane and beyond that the railway line, and the canals which feature prominently in the novel at this stage. Turnpiked in 1760, eighteenth century maps mark the location of certain ‘Blugates’, almost certainly a set of toll gates painted blue and from which we can safely assume that the pub got its name (two pubs before the present incarnation in fact). The road in question was the Birmingham to Dudley turnpike which passed through Oldbury continuing on after Dudley to Wolverhampton. The road was de-turnpiked in 1876, more than 10 years before our story, and, although the remains of the gates might still have been there at the time, I do not mention them in the story. The old tollhouse does still stand however, picture attached.

The current Blue Gates Hotel was not built until 1932. Unlike the one in Black Hearts, it is no longer sandwiched between large ironworks and a fire station, although there are still some “corporation buildings”, in the form of the local public library. A picture of the present building is attached. It hit the national headlines in 1965 when it was visited on 12th. February by Malcolm X, the black civil rights activist: the pub had separate rooms for whites and non-whites, with “coloureds” not allowed to come into the whites only bar. When Malcolm X tried it, he was ejected (and nine days later he was assassinated). By the 70s such practices were not even a dim memory to the young people that visited that large venue for a night out. I remember that there was a small downstairs room, possibly part of the cellars that played mostly rock music I believe: I can particularly remember ‘Nutbush City Limits’ blasting out full blast, while in the big room upstairs there was often a ‘disco’. And it was that room that I visited last, in the 1980s. I have always been able to avoid trouble, and it has always avoided me. Not so my brother, who I was with one night in 82 or 83. Words were exchanged between a Buster Bloodvessel lookalike and my brother, who I remember swatting away a crafty punch. We decided to leave and the bouncer, who I don’t think liked my brother (unlike me he had been a regular) let us out (once out at that time of night you were not allowed back in). But then, the conspiracy. He also let out Buster and a fleetingly famous Royal Marine (if only locally famous thanks to the Smethwick News Telephone, if not even the Birmingham Evening Mail) – “just back from the Falklands.” My brother’s question, “Hello lads, what do you want then?” was of course rhetorical: they wanted to rough up a couple of little blokes. All ended surprisingly amicably actually, after we had subdued them… Anyway, that was the last time I set foot in that place, only going back to take exterior shots a few years ago.

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