Welcome to Brinsley, blink and you might miss it. Situated on the A608 between M1 J27 and Eastwood, it’s a shining example of a former coal mining community, tinged with just a hint of closet racism. Keeping the village white is a well practised art, with minority families being made to feel just unwelcome enough, but without any traditional racism, that they decide it’s probably in their own best interests to move away.
Old Brinsley, mainly along the A608 is home to the ‘legitimate’ benefit claimants and work shy unemployable, being as it’s closest to the only Post Office left in village. This makes it easier to get your giro when it’s due. From there it’s a short walk to the Brinsley Lodge for a cheap pint and even cheaper food.
New Brinsley, although full of old people, is the posh half of the village and also the one less tolerant of outsiders. If you don’t know anyone who lives there, I suggest you steer well clear. Do not be tempted to turn off the main road, even if your TomTom says it knows a short cut.
Things to see and do in Brinsley include going to the chippy, going to buy a lottery ticket and some ****, or getting your ****** prescription refilled. Once you’ve got all of these things you can head down to Brinsley Headstocks and drink cheap cider from the bottle while enjoying the sights and smells of fresh fly-tipping. When you’re suitably drunk enough, stumble up the little used footpath towards the Parish Hall and take a **** on the crown bowling green, or just hang about at the tennis courts with the other *****.
That being said, as the average age of the population gradually creeps above 60, give it a few decades for the old guard racist protectors of the village to expire, and it might become somewhere you could raise children that would turn out better than your average Frogmella, Spudulika or Canoe.
