Description:The Moor Pool News was a newsletter printed for residents of the <a href="http://www.surburbanbirmingham.org.uk/engine/resource/default.asp?resource=1415">Moor Pool Estate</a>, and appears to have only run for four years between 1910 and 1914. Like similar publications by the Bournville Village Trust the magazine was intended to help build community spirit and advertise the variety of sports and other recreational clubs on offer.<small><sup>1</sup></small> Residents were well catered for with facilities including allotments, tennis courts, a bowling green and a social hall which opened in 1910. The magazine extolled the benefits of outdoor activities, fresh air and exercise. There were regular articles on gardening aimed at the male head of households and housekeeping tips for women, emphasising the gender-bias of the paper, which also published a virulent article condemning the Suffragette movement.<small><sup>2</sup></small>
With the absence of administrative records for the estate and its clubs, the Moor Pool News provides our main source of information on daily life. The letters pages were a relatively democratic forum in which residents could air their views on life on the estate. Most were pleased with their homes and the facilities on offer, but there were also complaints. Some felt that certain committees were dominated by revolving cliques and that social activities were thrust upon them.<small><sup>3</sup></small> Advertisements in the paper suggested that retail outlets catered to the middle class consumer, with one writer accusing Moor Pool Stores of attempting to open up a ‘second Harrods’ on the estate!<small><sup>4</sup></small>
The following letters make particularly lively reading as they record residents’ views regarding proposed restrictions on the sale of alcohol at the social club. They highlight varying attitudes of residents towards the issue of ‘moral reform’ and the attempts by those who dominated the various clubs and societies to exercise some degree of authority and supervision over tenants. One tenant, Fred Holly, argued the temptation of drink would have a detrimental effect on the estate and its people, whilst another felt the proposals too draconian and that people should not be dictated to. In reality, it was never intended that tenants be isolated from the rest of Harborne, one <a href="http://www.surburbanbirmingham.org.uk/engine/resource/default.asp?resource=1469">oral history interview</a> attesting to the wide variety of nearby shops and pubs in Harborne at that time. The estate’s proximity to Harborne railway station and cheap tram and omnibus stops allowed working class residents to re-visit old haunts in the city centre when necessary.
<font color="#666633"><small><sup>1</sup> Michael Harrison, Bournville: Model Village to Garden Suburb
(Chichester: Phillimore and Co. Ltd., 1999), pp.82-6
2. The Best of the Moor Pool News
(Birmingham: Harborne Tenants Silver Jubilee Committee, 1977), p.6
3. The Moor Pool News, vol.1, no.9 (September, 1913), p.1
4. The Moor Pool News, vol.1, no.10 (October, 1913), p.2</small></font>