Back in Time for Birmingham, review: an inspiring insight into 1950s and 1960s immigrant life
4/5
The hugely likeable Sharma family were given lessons in hard work, cooking, and communityByAnita Singh, ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
20 June 2022 • 9:01pm
The Back in Time “living history” series started off in 2015 as a food programme. Back in Time for Dinner took one family on a culinary journey from the 1950s to the present day, which meant children staring in horror at a plate of bread and dripping. Over the years it has expanded its remit – we’ve had Back in Time for the Factory and Back in Time for School – and now we’ve arrived at Back in Time for Birmingham (BBC Two), which doesn’t make much literal sense as a title but there we are….20 June 2022
Back in Time for Birmingham tells the story of immigration in postwar Britain
For all its banalities, the BBC’s warm-hearted recreation of the lives of previous generations of British Asians is welcome, even necessary.
In all sorts of different ways, Back in Time for Birmingham, the BBC’s latest reality-cum-social-history show, is tediously predictable. You know the drill. The series temporarily transforms the lives of a Birmingham family, the Sharmas, the better that they might experience what life was like for their forebears, who arrived in Britain half a century ago. Whizzing them through the decades from the Fifties on, the idea is that they will be thoroughly shocked and appalled, but also (albeit more rarely) delighted and thrilled.
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if you like this then maybe you’ll love my first book from 1988
The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker on Amazon
but in Translations Galore on my websites, the whole world is reading it
but I’ll probably be “discovered”, never
The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker Kindle Edition
The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker is a comedy drama about a street of shops in Old Forge and Singing Anvil in England . Here’s a flavour Wayne buys a derelict pub and his wife is pregnant with twins , things could not be worse , Mrs Murphy comes to the rescue with a loan , and 2 sets of twins the builders work for nothing , God looks down and helps too , Wayne discovers a hidden cellar underneath the cellar , its full of 40year old whisky left over from the war WWII , the pub was where the local black marketeer left everything . Wayne and family are saved The Undertaker has a feud with the traffic warden for putting a parking ticket on his hearse. On the way there’ a Jazz funeral, a teddy bear called Patrick, a dog called hairy Amjit who has a mind of his own. The Undertaker’s son leaves the business and Percy is at a loss, his son returns with a Prodigal Son plea for forgiveness, “Father forgive me, I now know that computers are not for me, there is no love in computers , but in our business there is love and compassion . The Undertaker tries to blackmail a bent builder who is going to demolish the street of shops where they all live. Peace is restored so the Undertaker becomes the election agent for the builder and takes him on a tour of all the rest homes, so that the builder ends up getting into the Houses of Parliament. The dodge bookie Smiling Paul has a bet on the election and wins 1million pounds. The Undertaker is furious until her hears that Smiling Paul had a road to Damascus experience and gave away all the money to help save the Chinese restaurant business of his Chinese friends. So Smiling Paul becomes a man of honour, and gets a stunning girlfriend on the way, because the Chinese must honour him. .
I finish with a poem from Percy the Undertaker
The Dead and The Living (c) by Michael Casey I first saw a deceased when I was nine years old, my father said not to worry as the dead are the same as the living, only the laughter has left them , the sparkle has gone from their eyes , the worry has been lifted from their shoulders , and their voice has vanished to eternity. In paradise the sparkle will return for it is the twinkle of the stars, the laughter will return too for it is the morning breeze and the turning tides are their sides shaking with laughter.
To Chinese readers, I have a Shanghai wife so if you buy my book we can Visit Shanghai again, see our photo at http://www.michaelgcasey.multily.com My Chinese name is Panzi which means FAT FAT BOY To European Readers if you like Don Camillo you will love my books
I've updated this 18th March 2022
I'm Michael Casey from Birmingham England, the fat silver haired writer in shades.
Beware of Others with the EXACT SAME NAME, they are not me, and would not want to be me ...
use Google UK to find me, otherwise Posh Americans pop up
I've done loads of writing, about 2,000,000 Words worth over 34years now
But before I started to write, I LISTENED to BBC Radio 4 for 20 years,
from the age of 10 or younger
Frank Brown our lodger, went back to County Tyrone and he gifted us his Bush Radio.
He'd be nearly 100 now if he is still alive, so say a prayer for him
54 years in love with words, and I still look so dashing.
I have a picture in the attic, just like Dorian Gray
I've also had an interest in Politics for 54 years
with my dad heckling the tv and Politicians.
I almost immediately had a hit, a play called Shoplife was accepted but not finally
produced by a Theatre.
The Kenneth More Theatre, so thank them for sparing you all. This was back in 1989 yes, 30 years plus ago, the play was written in 1988. So since then I'm more than good enough, as a writer. Anything else.....
I also ignore those who just cannot write, pick your own candidate
I tend to write Comedy as I'd rather make you laugh than cry
I have written over 2000 short pieces of writing, yes 2000
" (c) by Michael Casey"
If you include "chats" 3700 samples, all told,
the chats do NOT go into my books when I compile them.
My first book ,a full length comedy/drama is The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker
You can read translations of it here on this site
Up to 20 different languages/translations have been read on the same day
via this site, here on Wordpress look fo Translations Galore page, and more
And in over 90 Countries world wide too
so you have no excuse, find your own language
and read
The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker
or Quick Stories or any other of the books in Translation on my Wordpress
This proves to me that the humour does travel
I have readers in over 100 countries now, just to repeat myself
From Nepal to American Samoa and all places North South East and West
Or its just a hit man on the run,
or whatever Unknown Region Means
It may also mean that only non English Speakers like my stuff
Coverage but lacking penetration as marketing folks might say
I did get 21,000 readers in 3 weeks for the Polish version of In Search of an Indian Princess.
which is basically the final 3 chapters of The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker
all by word of mouth. And 50,000 plus in Christmas week 2021
If you add up all the downloads from my Wordpress + 13,000 when somebody stole the file.
I have had more copies than Boris Johnson's Churchill book distributed.
Maybe 40,000 copies .
Not made a penny from it, free downloads in multiple languages.
Reverse Logic, if the world knows me, eventually somebody will pay me
But in reality I'll be dead first, and then just 2 pennies to pay the ferryman is enough
I've cut the Plaudits, you can read/decide for yourself
As for my life, I was born in the shadow of a Brewery,
I was a computer operator for a market research company into alcohol sales,
21 years altogether, StatsMR
Call centre guy, like everybody once in their life
I was also a Trainee Betting Shop Manager
I was a concierge and 10 other roles at Crowne Plaza NEC Birmingham for 3 years.
Spent 3 years at Pinsent Masons Law firm in Birmingham
I even hid a copy of my comic novel "BBU" in the Law Library at Pinsent Masons, well just for a day..
I did a few other jobs too, working life in reverse so to speak
and I was an Esol English teacher in an Islamic school, for a year, I knew I could teach.
I got Excellent, Excellent and Exemplary on the external assessment, yes really
And I asked them to pray for me at least once a day
beside which I've had a Shanghai connection for 20 years now, including 2 bilingual daughters
and being a hausfrau a long time too, I'm a great dad, as I've had lots of time with my daughters
I can always make somebody talk or laugh
I believe my short stories could be used to teach English, just package them up correctly
or App them
Or a Tale a Day from Michael, a story telling App
What else, I was brawn and brains, I used to be as strong as an Ox, now I just smell like one
We have a cat called Totoro, my daughters wanted a pet I said they could have a dog if I died , or a cat if I had a heart attack. A few weeks after that in Jan 2015 I had an Unplanned Quadruple Heart Bypass , it was supposed to be a triple but it ended up a Quadruple, 33% extra free so to speak. Now with an add on Hernia, the size of your fist, pushing through my bypass scar, it hurts when I laugh, so don't make me laugh
I also have arthritis and other hindrances that hobble my body and give me pain galore.
But my mind is free, though having read my stories you may wish I didn't bother
But I'll ignore you, and carry on regardless. I do get heckled by my own Tinnitus these past
3 years+, so I have music on all night long to drown it out.
I sleep with Miley, Taylor, Eric Clapton and Will Young,
maybe I should buy a bigger bed, or just get a better mattress.
Tinnitus is a curse, just trust me I know, each day I wake up,
Tinnitus SCREAMS at me for a full hour till it calms down
That's the end of the tidy version of my life
To finish here's the list of my 20 books, so far:-
1.The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker
2.Shoplife
3.Essays and Plays
4.Blogs 2011
5.300 and Not OUT
6.Shorts 2013
7.More Shorts 2014
8.Quick Stories
9.Still Alive 2015
10.Undiscovered Words 2016
11.Still Smiling 2017
12.Altogether Now
13.New Horizons
14.14 Up
15.15 Down
16.Sweet Sixteen
17. 17 Again
18. 18 New Views
19. The Final Cut of the 19th Hole
20. 2020 Words
21. 21 Door Keys, key to the door 21 on Bingo, hence title,
53,000 words so far
I write bullet point stuff mainly now as Tinnitus stops me from
getting in the zone to write, story stories. (c) by Michael Casey stuff
though my bullet points are better than some "writers" discuss, miaow.
That's why I dream of a speed typist, so I could dictate from the sofa
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC to buy ebooks
Loads of Korean and Arabic translations downloaded from my Wordpress, 1000s of them
Quick Stories in Korean is a big hit. Maybe Kim in North Korea should read my books, instead of wasting his countries resources on what? Just keeping one person in power, him? Instead of joining the real world and opening a string on golf courses. That way we could get rid of Trump too. Into the sunset, as they play golf.
Tears for a Butcher will be the sequel to BBU, and it too will be 600pages,
however I really need
a speed typist to put it down, while I sit and dictate like Barbara Cartland, and hopefully my speed typist would be impressed. we'd marry have half Korean kids, and form a Kpop band with our 4 new kids, with me as manager.
And yes this is more for my bucket list, as Tinnitus keeps me awake too much, 6 months of not sleeping till dawn is really killing me
Michael Casey
aka the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham England
https://2.gravatar.com/avatar/efda2dca0de5b9269191b7c8b0102473?s=400&d=mm
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