Black's Head

I was surprised to see The Blacks Head in Tean still sporting its long-time name.  A lot of these kinds of pub-names are now deemed politically incorrect, as they hark back to a time of widespread racial prejudice.
For example: ‘The Black Boy’ at Cobridge, whose sign showed a young black lad in servant’s livery, closed for economic reasons some time ago, but had had issues with the community…

The story of the ‘Labour in Vain’ pub in mid-Staffordshire is the daftest, as its sign related to a folk-tale of two ignorant peasants trying to wash clean the first African lad they ever came across. The sign was taken down in 2003 as politically incorrect, but put up again in 2009 (as it was re-interpreted: as ‘part of local tradition’).

It’s all very confusing, and is part of the problem that anyone has in trying to ‘correct history’.  (Should we leave statues up of Oliver Cromwell – whose troops massacred so many in Ireland?  It’s a moot question).

But I do notice that the pub-owners here in Tean have not attempted to put up a pictorial pub-sign.  Neither has another ‘Blacks Head’ – the one in Stoke.
It’s probably for the best.

Link:  Labour In Vain sign restored