Friends and Pledgers,

I have some good pre-Xmas news to communicate.  All the copy and proof reading, indexing and art work for 'Our City: Migrants and the Making of Modern Birmingham' has been completed and it has gone off to the printers. The book will be officially published on 7th March 2019 and you should get your copy at least one month beforehand. I hope that you'll enjoy it.

The arguments…

Fifty years ago next month Enoch Powell, shadow Conservative defence minister, delivered an unprecedented speech by a mainstream politician at Birmingham’s Burlington Hotel. His speech stoked ancient hatreds and fanned the flames of racism across the country. In dire tones he warned of the dangers of Britain being overrun by immigrants ‘like a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre…

After the Xmas and New Year holiday there has been a real pick-up in momentum around the book.  We’ve now got over 150 supporters who have pledged financial backing. There are a core of people from Birmingham but the interest has gone much wider in recognition that how cities address the realities of migration is a global issue. Pledges have come from across the UK; there is significant interest from…

On Christmas Eve I was with Jane, Jenny and my sister going out for a walk along Birmingham’s tiny River Rea. Heading for Cannon Hill Park, I bumped into Sam who I hadn’t seen for more than ten years. He was out cycling with his wife and two teenage children. He greeted me by saying, “Ah, it’s Jon Bloomfield. You’ve just written a book about migration. It’s all over Twitter and Facebook.”  So, many…