Here are three of his pictures from Castel del Monte, Reggia de Caserta and Taranto.

Good on ya Bez! And we now have our very own Bostin Italia shirt here>>

As I’ve mentioned before I have taken a great deal of influence from visits to Belgium. The lowland countries of The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg have contributed greatly to the development of heraldic art and this is beautifully clear when looking at their flag culture.

When you do visit any town in Belgium and you find the town hall you’ll also see a number of flags flying side by side – and importantly they are different flags! As example here is a photo that I took when on holiday to Leuven (the ancient University town and centre of brewing in Belgium) late last year.

With Belgium having such a deep and extensive heraldic tradition not only does the country have arms and a flag but so does it constituent areas, counties and even towns. The flags on the town hall in the photo show that they proudly display their Leuven (red with white horizontal stripe), Brabant (yellow lion on black), Flemish (black lion on yellow), Belgian (black, red and yellow vertical stripes) and European identities (yellow stars on blue).

A criticism often directed at flags and flag waving is that it can be very jingoistic and even xenophobic – like when certain groups appropriate flags and try and load often very negative political spin onto them. This can be perfectly true, the American flag culture that focuses so greatly on one flag can easily been seen as a bit over the top and insular. However flying different flags like this is the ideal way to combat jingoism. This is because this method is far more inclusive and friendly. Whilst I was in Belgium on that holiday most of the flags had no relevance to me as a Halesonian, Black Countryman and Briton, but the inclusion of the European Flag still made me feel welcome.

The method also allows the local (in this case a Leuven citizen) to be more understanding about their place in the world. The use of a unique flag for that town still makes the town special but flying it with others provides a sense of being a part of one big and rich tapestry rather than one place being better than anywhere else.

Finally, the use of flags side by side allows for a wider sense of pride as hinted at in the previous paragraph. As part of a big and rich heraldic tapestry if there is one particular place that you are proud of (say for instance your country) then the flags that fly next to it will gain some prestige simply by association. For example you can be proud of a level ‘up’ because it includes the constituent of which you are proud, or you can be proud of the level ‘down’ because it goes into the make up of the larger entity.

The combination of these effects creates a culture that actively discourages jingoism through making visitors feel welcome, giving locals a wider sense of identity and sharing out emotions of civic pride. It balances the need to be unique and individual with the fact that at a basic level we are all just humans walking around the surface of the planet – and we should be proud of both of these elements.

That is why that I think it is so important that I not only push for a Black Country tartan but also for the town flags – that way, where possible, community, county, country and continent flags can fly proudly side by side – bringing social positives to the wider world as well as the area itself.

Thats right, one of the biggest and busiest shopping centres in Europe will now be stocking Bostin tees. The shirts will be located in the Created in Birmingham shop, almost opposite the Apple store, only yards away from the world famous Bull shown below with one of our Bostin Models.

Bostin Bullring

In fact if you look in the background to the left, you may even see some of our shirts!

Naturally our shirts will still be available online with our excellent turnaround time on deliveries, but sometimes we like to go on some retail therapy, so why not The Bullring?

If you would like to stock some of our top quality shirts in your retail outlets, please get in touch with us at bostinshirts [at] gmail.com (replace [at] with @)  or use the contact form on our blog here.

Blakenhall (and not Blakenall!) is situated just south of Wolverhampton and has a very close bond with its neighbour, in no small part by being home to the Royal Wolverhampton School – whose coat of arms I have used as a base to my design but modified to reflect the history of the town.

I have taken the blue background with three golden orbs from the school arms but rather than leave the orbs plain they were ideally suited to being modified to include sunbeams, which of course denotes the Sunbeam motor car company that was once established in the region. The chevron, whilst being an element in the Royal School’s arms is also a common element amongst the arms of the other local schools, it is kept white to be bold against the vivid gold and blue background. As a final touch a black wolf head is added to the top of the chevron in order to symbolise the shared history that the town has with Wolverhampton Wanderers who originated from St Luke’s school in Blakenhall.

Bentley has a big historical claim to fame despite the fact that there is not much physical evidence left of it. However there is some notable heraldic evidence that exists and it only seemed right to base the Bentley flag on this.

When King Charles II was escaping after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester he stayed in Bentley Hall, which sadly no longer exists. Then a woman called Jane Lane helped smuggle the King to Bristol and then out of the country, she returned to Bentley but discovered that her role in the Kings escape had been discovered. She subsequently fled the country as well, joining the King’s court in exile. After the Kings restoration he rewarded Jane with the prestigious right to augment her coat of arms with the three royal lions of England in the canton.

As such, to commemorate this important moment in history the Bentley flag that I have designed is a stylised form of the augmented version of Jane Lane’s personal arms. I felt it was important to use the augmented arms in order to fully capture the reference to  these historic events but this caused some difficultly. Her arms had not been designed to incorporate a canton originally and as such when it was added the design looked a little awkward and this effect was only increased when transferring the design to the rectangular shape of a flag. As such I decided that the arms would need to be stylised by simplifying it. So I removed the chevron as that was the main element that physically clashed with the new canton and just made the overall look a bit too busy as well. This leaves a background of blue and yellow with counter changed stars (counter changing is where the background and foreground colours swap over areas of the flag or shield). In the canton I have added one royal lion as a reference to these important events and the role that a child of Bentley had in them, I found the inclusion of three lions  made the one corner of the flag look too cluttered and disproportionate to the rest of the flag.

So there we have two flags that show history at work in a design in different ways. One design references its comparatively modern history that all helped to develop the town at breathtaking pace and bring it to the fore of British football and the motor industry. Whilst the other design references one mighty historical event where the future of the country hung for one moment upon a small town in the Black Country.

Article is written by Phillip Tibbets, researcher of Heraldic Art and co-founder of Heartland Heritagewear

What is Bostin news for our local teams is that while listening to a recent Radio 5 debate, there was a number of players mentioned who you maybe familiar with.

Namely;

Emile Heskey – Aston Villa

James Milner – Aston Villa

Ashley Young – Aston Villa

Gabriel Agbonlahor – Aston Villa

Joe Hart – Birmingham City

It has also been mentioned that rather than Fabio Capello choosing two players for each position, he will choose players who can play in more than one position.

What do you think?

He was featured in his own Bostin Around the World video here>>

Here he is at the race track in Valencia looking as Bostin as ever in his Bostin t-shirt.

These towns all have symbols that were used in the Aldridge-Brownhills civic coat of arms, and whilst there were other towns governed by this body it is these towns that have the extra bond due to heraldry. We have already seen the flags of Aldridge, Brownhills and Walsall Wood and they have all used the symbols utilised in that coat of arms – which leaves one symbol: the beacon of Great Barr. So here is the final family member with the beacon as the proud centre piece of the design, coloured silver and orange to reflect the badge of Great Barr school.

Further to that claim to fame the town can also pride itself on being the home to one of the foremost scientific societies of the Victorian age: the Lunar Society, who got their name as a result of meeting during full moons and are still going strong today. In honour of this, Great Barr has eight commemorative ‘moon stones’. I decided that not only including a reference to that would be fitting but also would provide a strong visual cue for the flag. I put eight moons in an orbiting placement around the beacon, though to have plain circles would not be a clear enough reference to the moon. As such I used each of the eight moons to show a different phase of the moon in the night sky, with the full moon taking priority positioned at the peak of the cycle and the top of the flag.

To finish off the flag I needed a field colour. The first thing that I thought of was black to tie in with the moon theme and contrast strongly with the silver and orange already chosen for the design. Researching more into the schools past I discovered some forms of their logo that were coloured green – this in turn made me think of the shade ‘Midnight Green’ which dovetails beautifully with the moon motif. When I first used the shade I wasn’t happy so I have modified it to be a lot darker, which provides a sharper contrast and finished off the flag very nicely.

Another flag with a family link is that of Heath Town, though its family relationship is much lighter than those described above. Heath Town’s name is a simplification of its original name of Wednesfield Heath, which we’ll see is referenced in the design.

The flag blends three distinct elements together – historic, sporting and academic. Beginning with the latter I found that the badge of Heath Park Business & Enterprise College to be 10 alternating rays of blue and white radiating out in a semi-circle from a school building on the bottom edge of the design. The school building would be a little intricate for a flag as well as being too specific to the college, but the rays were a wonderfully bold symbol and I elected to use them, though it transpired I would have to modify them a little.

On the sporting side I discovered that Heath Town Rangers football club have a simple logo based on a red ellipse, which gave me a colour and a shape to add to the mix. However if an ellipse were to be used then the background rays would not gel if they originated from a point on the bottom edge of the flag. So I took some license and doubled the rays over to make a gyronny (that starburst pattern) and placed the ellipse in the middle. A gyronny is usually 8, put this is a bit special, a gyronny of 20!

Red was a bit garish for the ellipse so I decided that white would look better and put a red centre-piece in instead. For this I turned to some historical knowledge and to the aforementioned fact that the town was called Wednesfield Heath. So to reflect this ancient association I added a Saxon coat of arms from the Wednesfield civic coat of arms, coloured it red and added it as the finishing piece to the Heath Town flag.

So there we have two great examples of how common heritage can create flags with common ‘genetics’ in different ways. The heritage between Wednesfield and Wednesfield Heath shows how one town can help generate the name of another in a paternal sort of way. Whilst with Great Barr the symbolic history it has with the other three towns gives it a shared experience that ties them together more like friends, cousins or even siblings. Both ways show how these shared heritages can be referenced and even highlighted within a design without losing any uniqueness – just like human families.

Sedgley Tartan

Beginning with Sedgley I felt that the best inspiration for a tartan was from their existing flag, which also makes use of a slightly altered town seal. This gave me some beautiful and even slightly unique colours to use. White and light blue are the dominant colours in the flag which I duly used, though I was very keen to make strong use of grey which references Sedgley beacon tower – a local landmark and centre piece of the towns seal. These three main colours are finished off with touches of green and gold also taken from the seal.

Again it only seemed fit to honour Pelsall with a tartan inspired by their flag which had in turn had inspired me. In this case the flag is simply black and white which would not only be great in terms of heritage but it would also make a very bold and exciting tartan. However I decided to add some flashes of colour to the design because black and white on its own would be a difficult pattern to be distinctive – both Northumbrian and Menzies being prominent black and white plaids – so highlights of other colours would serve to make the design more unique. I chose red as a nod to the towns football team (Pelsall Villa) and green which denoted both the cricket team as well as the beautiful common that the town is so proud of.

Pelsall Tartan

What is nice to see when looking at both the designs together is that the strong use of white gives both tartans a very classy and noble look. In tartan terms they look like ‘dress tartans’; those that were worn at the poshest events (dress Gordon probably being the best known example). This doesn’t make these proposals better than any of those that I’ve done for other towns, but I do believe it is a nice coincidental bond between Pelsall and Sedgley that symbolises the pride that they both share in their heritage.

Article is written by Phillip Tibbets, researcher of Heraldic Art and co-founder of Heartland Heritagewear

Thats right, ar mate! We had some amazing entries again into our latest Bostin t-shirt competition and many thanks to everyone who entered.

The winner was suggested by Jackie Brown from Tysley and the £50 of Bostin goodies is on the way to her now!

And here is the design available in our shop now!

Below are some pictures from Andy who travelled to Sauze d’Oulx in the Italian Alps with his Bostin Hoodie.