The raw and mixed emotions in the days and months after the Birmingham pub bombings

This week marks the 45th anniversary of the Birmingham pub bombings. David Hallam who was a city council press officer at the time, talks about the hidden cost of the atrocity which tore the heart out of the City. Here, slightly updated is and article David wrote to commemorate the forty-fifth anniversary.

Fifty years ago, on Thursday 21 November 1974, two bombs exploded in Birmingham city centre pubs. Twenty-one people were left dead and nearly two hundred injured. Most of them were young people having an after works drink.??No one has yet admitted responsibility for the outrage and the families of the dead continue their heroic struggle for justice.

In the grounds of Birmingham Cathedral there are two plaques commemorating the events of that evening. One is rightly in pristine condition, with the names of the dead inscribed in gold lettering, often decorated with floral tributes.

The other is now scuffed, cracked, hardly visible and largely forgotten. It’s a paving stone immediately behind the statue of Birmingham’s first Bishop Charles Gore. It reads “MIDLAND MAN OF THE YEAR AWARD To the citizens of Birmingham for their steadfastness after the bombings of November 21 1974 Presented by Mitchells and Butler”.

I was working in Birmingham City Centre at the time as press officer to the City’s social services department, I often enjoyed an after works beer or meeting contacts in those very pubs. Fortunately that evening I was having dinner at the home of a journalist. We were interrupted by a call from one of her relatives in Ireland who was expressing disgust having seen a newsflash on RTE.??

We tuned into the new BRMB commercial radio station, realised the extent of the attack, and I made my way into the city centre. There I saw the raw and mixed emotions that were to emerge in the following days and months. I was told “those Irish bastards have blown up The Tavern in the Town”. At the same time, black cab drivers were loading the injured and driving them free of charge to the local accident hospital.

In the previous months, there had been several bomb attacks, one of which killed a bomb disposal officer and another a bomber preparing his explosives. These were mainly aimed at banks and building societies following a warning.

During that period the city’s main newspapers were being run by skeleton staff as the National Union of Journalists had called a full-blown strike. So many of the stories of the attacks on the city’s Irish community went largely unpublished.?

Friends??in factories told me of Irish workers, especially those known to have Republican sympathies, being chased out of work. Irish businesses and pubs were attacked. The young Irish women in my own office block locked themselves into the ladies’ toilet and had to be escorted to the bus stop.

Then there were the suspects, picked up on their way to Northern Ireland for the funeral of the bomber who had been killed. One local Labour councillor called for the noose. Stories quickly circulated, and approvingly repeated, of their mistreatment at the hands of police and prison warders.?

Less than 24 hours after the bombing I had a call from a senior social worker in Birmingham. The families of the arrested men had been taken into protective care fearing for their lives.?

He was convinced then, and subsequently proved right, that these men were innocent, possibly even set up to take the blame whilst the bombers escaped. I provided, with some discreet assistance from an NUJ official, advice about how they should handle any press intrusion.

The most public recognition that the Irish community was being collectively held responsible for the attacks was the cancellation of the 1975 St Patrick’s Day Parade, which not was held again until the mid-eighties.

1974 was a time of political and social turbulence. The year had begun with a miners’ strike and a hastily called General Election on the theme “who rules Britain”, six months of minority government led to a second election which produced a barely sustainable majority government. Inflation was running at over 11%. There were the first signs that the UK was entering a post-industrial society.

Many community leaders were brave in their support of our Irish neighbours, there were amazing acts of heroism and generosity. However, those days and months following the bombings showed how quickly respect for the rule of law can collapse, how quickly a community can turn on our neighbours.??Forty-five years later, it is time to acknowledge that.

Originally published in the print edition and online: https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/birmingham-pub-bombings-45-year-17297032