Why winterval fiasco continues to haunt Birmingham

Couple of reasons why I think people are right to get annoyed with this each and every year:

Winterval is trotted out every time someone wants to make a point about 'political correctness gone mad' or, more seriously, the destruction of English values and Christian culture. The fact that it was never really an attempt to wipe out Christmas, but rather seems like an attempt to take in several winter festivals of many faiths and none just creates divisiveness for no good reason.

Second, you say Christmas is the right word for a season that lasts for weeks and yet you the mainstream media moan every year about Christmas being too long or starting too early. Just deciding that they're wrong to have renamed the long Christmas period isn't a good reason to turn it into a big scandal. It's just an angle; another angle is just as easily that Christmas can be kept special by keeping it to three days instead of a six-week shopping spree.

I hear a fair amount of casual (and not so casual) racism in my local area and stories like this, repeated and re-repeated by the mainstream media and Church of England bishops, fuel the idea that we the white British are under siege. It's just laziness, with damaging effects.

My correspondent tim@timellis.demon.co.uk writes about
the National Press continuing to mis-represent Winterval as an excuse to (a) complain about political correctness gone mad and (b) laugh at Birmingham,
He goes on: "As a newly coined portmanteau word, there was a degree of confusion as to what it meant. Had it not been for publicity hungry clergymen, and a sensationalist tabloid press more interested in creating headlines than actually investigating stories then it would probably have become no more meaningless than "edutainment", "telethon" or "blog".

As i said, the council failed to explain adequately why it had invented the word winterval when perectly adequate Christmas had served for centuries.
There are plenty of sources to back the perception that "winterval was regarded as a ridiculous attempt to avoid mentioning Christmas in case ethnic minorities might take offence", including the clergymen already quoted in my blog.

I'm quite happy to champion Birmingham's sensible decision to have nothing to do with winterval. It doesn't take the likes of me to make the city look stupid. The events of 1998 live on today.

I remember years before Birmingham’s Winterval being given direction by misguided public affairs people, as they were called then, to embrace political correctness and write about festive lights instead of Christmas lights.

The myth of that lady has long been outlived by the myth of Winterval and we may never really get to the bottom of it.

What I did see was a new, enthusiastic head of events who wanted to big-up Birmingham’s Christmas celebrations and, after suggesting various titles in a committee report, actually borrowed the title Winterval from elsewhere. (A web search today can’t find where it was borrowed from because no-one seemed to be too upset in the Welsh Valleys or wherever and because Google is now swamped with Birmingham references)

The myth Birmingham now lives with is a bit like the EEC insisting on straight bananas and a Euro-sausage. It serves a political purpose for some people and it works because enough people want to believe it.

Richard Morris is right that there were official council spokespeople valiantly denying and rebutting, but there were enough politicians around (locally and nationally) many with their own agenda to keep the story going and help the tabloids on their way. I seem to remember the story was given its greatest airing a year after the event when a clergyman called Santa was a tabloid editor’s gift.

Birmingham, along with many other places and organisations, went through a period when so-called political correctness was fashionable. We had chairs instead of chairmen, utility inspection chambers instead of manholes, and spokespeople. That’s now history and our language, as well as some of the people, have grown up and moved on.

I can barely hear Paul Dale for the sound of his furious back-pedalling. His claim that "Birmingham City Council ... airbrush[ed] out the word Christmas from its official celebrations" is a lie. No more, no less; and his more recent wittering about "perception" is a smokescreen to hide that.

I was in the process of drafting a rebuttal of some of the false claims he makes in this piece, and in his recent article in the Birmingham Post, when Mike Chubb contacted me to put his side of the story, which is now on my blog (http://pigsonthewing.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/winterval-the-truth/). Mike was Head of Events for BCC at the time and he makes his points more eloquently, and with more authority, than I could.

Dale clearly has an antipathy towards the Labour Party in Birmingham. Of course, he's entitled to hold such views, and to express them. I'm ambivalent on such partisan matters; but when he can only express those views by making provably false claims, then it not only weakens his arguments, but it brings the veracity of all of his work into question. When the Post's editor so dismally fails to correct his misrepresentations, it does the same for the newspaper - and with it having recently relaunched in the face of a shrinking market, can they really afford for that to happen?

Dale's Post article (http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-news/2008/10/23/birmingham-christmas-lights-to-include-christmas-65233-22100276/) claims that "the council controversially rebranded Christmas as Winterval to avoid offending non-Christians". It did no such thing, not for that reason, nor for any other. Again, Dale is promulgating a lie. The "Winterval" brochure produced by BCC, a copy of which I still have, includes the word "Christmas" many times, alongside pictures of angels, and invites people to attend a Christmas Carol service. That Christmas, The Council House was - as usual - decorated with a banner reading "Merry Christmas".

The reason why "there are plenty of sources to back the perception..." is because journalists like Dale post mischievous falsehoods such as those identified above.

It's not unusual for the London, or indeed overseas, media to repeat the "BCC renamed Christmas" canard, their ignorance and laziness in research, if not mendacity, is to be expected, But when local hack, writing for a local rag, does so, in the face of contrary evidence and advice, it does not merely reflect badly, as Dale seems to desire, on the party in power at the time; nor even on the City Council in general, but on the City of Birmingham as a whole. And we Brummies really are entitled to expect better from the Post and its employees.

Birmingham should celebrate “Winterval”
By Michael Chubb

Google Winterval and you get nearly 18,000 results. Investigate further and you have an amazing array of personal comments from pukka boardsheets to off the wall blog sites to Birmingham’s own Mail, “Christmas has been rebranded Winterval”.

Oliver Burkeman in the Guardian at the time, (headline, “The Phony War on Christmas” ) undertook extensive reportage and found that “There’s only one problem with the PC campaign against Christmas- it’s pure nonesense”.
He goes on;
“Perhaps the most notorious of the anti-Christmas rebrandings is Winterval, in Birmingham, According to an official statement from the Council, Winterval - which ran in 1997 and 1998, and never since - was a promotional campaign to drive business into Birmingham's newly regenerated town centre. It began in early November and finished in January. During the part of that period traditionally celebrated as Christmas, "there was a banner saying Merry Christmas across the front of the council house, Christmas lights, Christmas trees in the main civil squares, regular carol-singing sessions by school choirs, and the Lord Mayor sent a Christmas card with a traditional Christmas scene wishing everyone a Merry Christmas".
None of that, though, was enough to prevent a protest movement at the time, whose members included the then Bishop of Birmingham, Mark Santer, as well as two members of UB40”.
Burkeman speaking to Julian Bond of the Christian Muslim Forum when asked about the de-Christianisation of Christmas, Bond admitted that evidence was hard to come by and further he said "You know, we were in Birmingham for a meeting the other day, and there's a big Merry Christmas banner in the middle of New Street." So is anybody at all trying to abolish Christmas this year? "I haven't come across any examples of anyone doing it this year," he replies. "No".
I think it is now time to put my head above the parapet and declare why I have been asked to write this article . Pretty simple really, I was the one that coined the term “Winterval”
I was head of events for Birmingham, responsible for over 400 events a year from St. Georges Day to Fireworks Fantasia, international Street festivals to… yes Christmas.
As an events division (the largest in the UK at that time) we were always seeking to improve the service to the Birmingham community and whilst we aided specific communities to develop their own festivals, Diwali, Chinese New Year, St. Patricks Day to Gay Pride (mainly because we had the professional expertise to help those communities realise their ambitions) our remit extended to all festivals and events. All were to be totally inclusive and the majority free or at an affordable price.
In my first Christmas, Birmingham received national coverage, Blue Peter launched the Christmas Lights Switch on and Eamonn Holmes “How do they do that” show closed their Christmas edition with a burst of flame projectors on the town Hall.. “and a happy Christmas from Birmingham!”.
As Head of Events with such a professional team behind me, it was always important to deliver bigger and better events more often than not though with reduced funding.
The imperative for delivering these events was to maximize the quality of the experience, increase our audiences and deliver Birmingham as a forward thinking energetic city. Promoting the events to a local, national and international audience and thereby gaining recognition was vital to the Councils overall aims and objectives. Recognition of a city’s innovative approach reflects on all. To businesses considering relocating, to increasing bed nights to the hotel sector, to marketing the city’s retail offer all these are factored in.
So to Winterval. The events division were charged with putting on 41 days and nights of activity that ranged from BBC Children in Need, to the Christmas Lights Switch On, to a Frankfurt Christmas Market, outdoor ice rink, Aston Hall by Candlelight, Diwali (Festival of lights) shopping at Christmas, World class theatre and arts and of course New Years Eve with its massive 100,000 audience. With funding from sponsors and with very many more events to market, the decision was to bring all the events together under a generic banner under which they could all sit. Whilst marketed as Winterval, each event had its own marketing plan but clearly it was Winterval that drove the initiative.
Leaving Birmingham (to another job!)I started to notice the ridiculous banshee that pervaded Winterval. Through Wickapedia I contacted Polly Toynbee of the Guardian re the (now) long running Winterval saga..she suggested that as the originator of Winterval I should stand up and put my name to it.
So as originator, what are my thoughts?.
Rather like Oliver Burkeman of the Guardian..its nonsense and I feel like many stories around the festive season when news is fairly thin on the ground the media seek out what they term “Silly season stories”.
Political correctness was never the reasoning behind Winterval, but yes it was intended to be inclusive (which is no bad thing to my mind) and a brand to which other initiatives could be developed as part of The Winterval offer in order to sell the City at a time when all cities are competing against each other for the seasonal trade.
Each part of Winterval had its own marketing plan..the same as ,for instance, the marketing of a brand whose sub brands (ie chocolate)have their own niche marketing.
I do believe that those who took umbrage did it for their own reasons, to peddle their own message and of course, everybody got on to their own hobby horses in the process.
I am amazed that no-one could see the simplicity of The Winterval brand, but read into it what they wanted; to further and give voice to their own aspirations/prejudices.

It is time for Birmingham to be proud of Winterval and stand up for an innovative initiative that befits an outward looking city.

Maybe, perhaps , the opportunists will now put away their righteous indignation and reflect on what the city has lost..a unique festival that celebrates what Birmingham is world famous for..a city that shares and celebrates with a sense of style and adventure.