Mr. Fox of Jewellery Quarter
- GutBer English
- Oct 21
- 4 min read
Mr Fox from Jewellery Quarter decided to join us on our walks through Birmingham city centre during GutBer Travels.
The black night sky highlights the coppery red of the brickwork covering the facades of the buildings in the Jewellery Quarter. After dinner, we leave our hotel to explore the area through deserted streets soaked by the gentle Sunday drizzle. We walk, distracted by the cold, discussing the route to take and the chances of finding what we're looking for: the West Midlands Tram station, which is supposedly close by. We won't go far. The idea is to walk quietly and take in our surroundings. We've already located Saint Paul Square with its church and the area's nightlife. And, despite being a part of the city famous for its musical scene, the Christmas season being just before New Year's Eve, and it being dinnertime, silence reigns. Not a soul is in sight. From time to time, we pass a car, carefully looking for a parking spot.
The old factories of the Jewellery Quarter and the buildings where workers from the Industrial Revolution lived, now renovated and converted into modern residential apartments, primarily for tourist use, are lined up in narrow, straight rows, creating a network of streets where it's easy to mistake one street for another. The canal flows between them, accessible by bridges, which, along with the Metro and train overpasses, make navigation on Google Maps complicated. We're always traveling on two levels, and when the two meet, confusion reigns. This explains why we can't find the famous tram stop, which is hidden behind buildings, as if it were just another branch of the canal.
As we turn a corner, our conversation is interrupted by a completely unexpected sight. An animal crosses the street diagonally from the other side of the street to ours, looking at us sideways as if wondering what we're doing there. It looks at me. I look at it. Is it a dog? No! It's Mr Fox!
A beautiful fox with an elegant copper coat confidently and briskly crosses the traffic-free roadway, flaunting its majestic golden tail in the breeze while its inquisitive, black-dart eyes fix on our presence. Have we interrupted your routine, Mr Fox?
Mr Fox passes by us and disappears into the square on our right; an open space between buildings that serves as a parking lot for local residents. I follow him with my eyes, trying to process the fact that he's a real fox in the middle of Birmingham, and that, despite it being the first time I've seen a fox in the wild at such close range, the contact feels strangely familiar.
He disappears into the darkness surrounding the cars in the parking lot, and I realize the anecdote is over. But I can't help but retrace my steps to confirm that it really is a fox that has stared into my eyes. And yes, there he is, prowling between the wheels of the parked cars. Instinctively, I speak to him, "Good evening, Mr Fox." And he turns. Toward me. And stares at me. And redirects his direction. He begins to walk nimbly: toward me! He returns along the side wall of the building that surrounds the parking lot, right up against the wall, disciplinedly following the narrow cement sidewalk that leads him back to the street we were walking on. We continue our way uphill, slowed by my constant glances back to check that Mr Fox is still there. He's following us. He doesn't shy away from contact, nor is he a threatening presence in the least, but he maintains a prudent distance, and so do I.
I look back again, and there's his little head, just around the corner, with those small black eyes shining against the darkness of the sky and standing out in the dim light of the streetlights. His body is hidden by the wall of the building that separates us by a few meters, within arm's reach, his gaze fixed on us, smiling and curious. "Where did you come from?" he seems to say. "Do you want to come explore with me?"
But we haven't stopped our leisurely march, and he decides to cross the road again and return to the side from which he emerged as if from nowhere. Agile but calm, he slips under the fence of another parking lot and once again wanders among the cars, sometimes glancing our way and finally disappearing between the wheels. Only then do I react enough to try to capture the moment and take a photo where only Mr Fox's now-passed presence can be guessed at. It's the small proof that Mr Fox is real and that our brief moment of connection existed.
The next day, reflecting on our encounter with Mr Fox, I realized that the fox is a constant presence in English culture. It constantly appears in TV shows, movies, literary works, and more. But what significance does the fox have in British popular culture? Follow us on GutBer's Travels to find out...
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