Features

Michael Caine eat your heart out... the star of the Italian Job is of course that Sixties icon of icons, the Mini Cooper!

Built at Longbridge, it's Brummie born and bred... and 1967 was a seminal year for the West Midlands' favourite export, with the unveiling of the much anticipated Mark Two.

Ian Robinson, from the Halesowen Mini Owners Club, was lucky enough to own one during the Summer of Love.

Andy Silke went to meet him:

We tend to take for granted that today we live in one of the most culturally diverse areas in the country - even back in 1967 we were starting to be recognised as an increasingly multicultural community.

That summer Birmingham was honoured with being the setting of the BBC's first ever drama series with a leading black actor -- anyone remember "Rainbow City"?

Even so, for people settling in the West Midlands from overseas, things weren't always plain sailing.

Andy Silke's been hearing one remarkable lady's experience:

Fashion in 1967 was all about short skirts and heavy eye make up.

Kay Anderson from Birmingham was in her twenties in the late sixties.

She's remembers that time so fondly she's hung onto quite a few of her old clothes.

Maleen Saeed went to her home in Sutton Coldfield and had a rummage through her cupboard:

What do you think of when you think of the Summer of Love? Drugs? Surely not..!!

Whilst the effects of most of them lasted only a few hours... there was one that changed the lives of young women forever.

I am talking, of course, about the contraceptive pill - which, combined with the Abortion Act that came into force in '67 - gave women the freedom to control their bodies and plan their families like never before.

Glenda Powell was starting her family in Birmingham at the time.

She talks to Andy about her experience of The Pill:

By far the biggest contribution Birmingham and the Black Country made in 1967 was the music.

From The Moody Blues to the Applejacks to Velvett Fogg, our region was a hotbed of band activity...  with The Move - of "flowers In the rain" fame - the biggest of them all.

Andy spoke to drummer Bev Bevan about our region's musical heyday: