Winterval remembered

It was 25 years ago this Christmas when a notorious, hated new word entered the lexicon, and apparently signalled the end of/renaming of/banning of Christmas in Birmingham (the precise stage we were at depended on how uninformed the individual commentator was or how little evidence he/she had analysed).

The Winterval furore has been well documented, in part because it was presented to the Leveson enquiry in 2012 as an example of media distortion. Academics too used it as a case study of urban myths which gain traction in the public mind – and yet despite clearly articulated evidence-based rebuttals refuses to fully go away. Like a forest fire in the summer which keeps re-igniting in patches despite repeated dousing.

As someone who was a bit player in the Winterval story, raking the controversy up after so long may seem a bit pointless. But I personally remain staggered at what was a grotesque pile-in onto a professionally designed, harmless and quite effective sub-brand name for a series of council-backed events from Halloween through to January sales (including a host of Christmas events - all clearly labelled as such).

It IS worth re-telling the story not just because a misrepresentation of the truth went viral (in advance of C21 social media becoming established) – but the fact that “grown-up” opinion formers were swept along with it - all with no reference to the facts. The presentation of Winterval by journalists, bishops, and politicians in 1998 made no mention of even the basic details of the programme at all. In reality this was a sub-brand title drawn up by the events team at Birmingham City Council under manager Mike Chubb to cover a whole array of divergent public events from Halloween through to the January sales – which had in fact been introduced in 1997 for a smaller events series. It was hardly contentious, and a minor part of leisure and culture promotion in the second city. But out of nowhere, on Sunday November 8th 1998 the Birmingham-based Sunday Mercury announced that the fight was on to save Christmas.

With no evidence presented whatever, the Mercury informed us that Birmingham had replaced Christmas with Winterval and that Bishop Mark Santer was apparently manning the barricades. Of course this provided an accidentally amusing headline – bue the article was clearly seeking to stir anger and was in no way looking for laughs. And it certainly lit the touchpaper of a barely credible media storm.  

In 1998 many local authorities and charitable sector organisations WERE attempting to address what was perceived as an over-dominance of white British culture in service provision in multi-cultural cities like Birmingham. On occasions one or two interventions were pretty clumsy, but Winterval was most definitely NOT one of these. At the time Vector Research was becoming the preferred supplier of market research services to Birmingham City Council’s Leisure and Culture Department. The Head of Marketing and PR showed me an outline flyer in October, and I was impressed by the proposition. Winterval was an imaginative package title and was to be used as little more than a strapline. Such a series of events made marketing spend more efficient, and our brief for evaluation would become much more straightforward. Halloween, Bonfire night, Aston Hall by candlelight, through to the New Years Eve party, the January sales and Chinese New Year. The council was working with public transport providers to introduce inclusive tickets and other discounts for the portfolio of events. In 1998 Birmingham City Council had a reasonably well-funded and imaginative programme of events most of which were evaluated (by us) and supported by professional marketing and communications campaigns (evaluated by us).

Within days of that meeting at Baskerville House the dam burst. The Mercury “story” that Christmas in Birmingham was to become Winterval included no Council copy or images (such as the above poster) and certainly no list of the range of seasonal events covered by Winterval. The Mercury’s sister paper the Evening Mail weighed in the day after with the “silly re-naming” of Christmas – quite remarkably it included a quote from the Council’s (labour) deputy leader in relation to a totally fallacious headline about an innocuous initiative from his own officers.

November 1998 was just one year into the Blair New Labour Government – and I can only surmise that he/they were hyper-sensitive about a labour council becoming drawn into defending a political correctness position – even though this was not remotely the case in terms of Winterval.

Bishop Santer had decided that as a result of the Winterval sub-brand that….wait for it…..”Christianity is censored”…..and that “the secular world is embarrassed by faith”. Evidently Santer too had not been presented with the Winterval flyer, poster images or events listing (dominated by Christmas events but involving Halloween, Children in Need and Bonfire night, each with no relation whatever to the nativity . I would have loved to have heard the Bishop’s position on how the annual ritual burning of a Catholic plotter could be fitted into the Christmas story. And to ask him if during that winter of 1998/9 whether he took the 200 metre walk from the Cathedral to Victoria Square – where the massive illuminated “Merry Christmas”  was affixed to the front of the Council House, over-looking the huge Christmas tree and the Christmas Market (which in 1998 was en route to becoming the biggest Christmas market outside Germany and Austria). In reality it was pretty much Christmas as usual in the city.

Within hours the Catholic Archdeacon of Ason John Barton joined the fun, condemning Winterval as “unwarranted political correctness” and the BBC website described a “lukewarm response to the re-branding of Christmas”. Again (what were they playing at??) there was no description of what Winterval was in terms of the programme of events, with no images of any advertising executions (and of course zero in terms of Council minutes/emails or instructions to staff). The local media had effectively created a story, with a cohort of London-based opinion journalists waiting with open arms to take the story still further into the absurd. Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail was one of the standard bearers for Fleet Street rage in December 1998:

The pressure on Christians……part of a wider onslaught on Western culture through the hijacking of or censorship of language - thus Christmas has been renamed in various places “Winterval”

Our whole cultrue was at stake! Her paper became obsessed with Winterval – and produced no fewer than 78 individual articles with a Winterval mention, followed by the Sun (67) and the Telegraph (61), whilst the Times/Sunday Times kept up the critical momentum with three inclusions of Winterval in Christmas quizzes! Without exception these articles described the banning and re-naming of Christmas by Winterval. A simple, logical and effective composite brand-name word for a seasonal series of popular events had become morphed into an onslaught on Western culture and was heralding the replacement of Christmas with a politically correct alternative.

How such a fabricated story could snowball and subsequently remain in parts of public consciousness decades afterwards reflects badly on every level, and implies that emotive issues and underlying attitudes can so easily be manipulated.  A lampooning of the Council by my (generally)  liberal friends become part of many social gatherings that winter of 1998 - despite forlorn attempts to defend or explain on my part. Mike Chubb, long retired from his role at the City, is rightly proud of Winterval and appears pretty relaxed about it these days according to a 2021 press article. Indeed there have been two saving graces. Firstly, and as a result of the efforts of many unaligned bloggers and campaigners, the Daily Mail was forced to climb down from its threat to western civilisation positioning in 2011, as follows:

“Winterval was the collective name for a season of public events both religious and secular which took place in Birmingham in 1998. We are happy to make clear that Winterval did not rename or replace Christmas”

The above correction (to 78 individual articles) was buried in their corrections page small-print - and it didn’t fully prevent the anti-Winterval angst rising up elsewhere on subsequent occasions. However, I was in Glasgow a few weeks ago – and their Winterfest was up and running without anarchy, societal breakdown and happily operating with Christmas as the centrepiece……..who would have thought? Perhaps the people of Glasgow owe Birmingham their gratitude for absorbing the angry ignorance of the journalistic mob.

So I hope you all had a Happy Christmas. And feel free to join me in a small toast on the anniversary of Winterval too (anytime between October and the end of January).

Welcome to WTF? Writing a few wrongs

Kicking off soon…………..

A series of blogs based initially upon objectively gained intelligence from Vector Research’s 25 year traverse of UK life as we know it (and sometimes didn’t know it). Plus occasional opiniated stuff from the blogger-in-chief (which will be clearly marked as such!). Starting this autumn with a couple of issues which could do with an airing……..

Midlands Engine - Is there anbody there?

Some legitimate observations on what we nicknamed the Marie Celeste of regional development. An organisation with a brief for regional development and levelling-up operating without footsoldiers? Does that matter? And has it made a difference thus far? We have asked a few people. Blog/report coming shortly……..

January 2024 - 10th Anniversary of Channel 4’s launch of Benefits St

Time to remind the publicly-owned Channel (and Benefits St apologists in the tabloid media) of its grotesque misrepresentation of a not untypical terraced melting pot neighbourhood - using Vector’s evidence from extensive research in that very street. Such neighbourhoods have a diverse mix of households - achievers, grafters, strugglers (and yes, wasters) are all there - but not just a handful of paid exhibitionists. I may have been a dog with a bone on this very issue since 2013 - but I want one final blast at getting a response from C4!

There will be plenty more to follow on a range of subjects - poverty, planning and transport, employment & skills, the arts, leisure & sport, minority groups - and the good the bad and the ugly of trying to make a difference through research over 25 years. Do come and join the discussion.

Above views are my own, wholly my own and nothing but my own

(S. Paul Baker Sept 2023)