Philip Tibbetts is the co-founder of Heartland Heritagewear and acts as an in-house historian, philosopher, graphic designer and cultural expert for the business.

The son of an engineer, Philip can trace his paternal line back 500 years, the family having been nailors, brewers and churchmen amongst other things. In this time his family have never lived beyond Cradley so his Halesonian and Black Country heritage are very strong.
He vividly remembers being taught local history in primary school and that lesson must have stuck, because his interest in history has never left him since. As well as this Philip developed life-long passions for rugby and Doctor Who during his youth, the former interest resulting in his ardent following of the Old Halesonians team.
After finishing at the Earls High School, Philip continued his studies at King Edward VI College in Stourbridge. In 2003 he was privileged enough to receive a place at the University of St Andrews in Fife to read Philosophy with bits of Physics, History and Mathematics.
As he spent the years away from Halesowen, Philip started to take more of a passion in his home, realising the real wealth of heritage the area had and his patriotism was spurred on by the unintentional ignorance that so many of his fellow students had of the Black Country.
Driven by his ingenuity and determination Philip started developing many of his passions in life into something more. In 2005 he founded the University of St Andrews Doctor Who society, who’s easy going and fun focused atmosphere saw it gain over 200 members and still continues strong to this day.

His growing understanding and passion in philosophy also led Philip to move into political areas. His inclusive and positive thinking drove him to run large Election-Time style debates between all parties in support of reducing voter apathy before the 2005 General and 2007 Scottish elections.

As a part of his course Philip was offered the life-changing experience to go and study abroad, which he enthusiastically accepted, being sent to Århus in Denmark. Here he immersed himself in a blend of cultures, courtesy of his new location and [importantly] the friends from across the globe that he made there. Philip began to see both cultural areas of distinctiveness but also areas of cultural commonality between these places and people. To this day the experience strongly reinforces Philips belief in the ability to be simultaneously proud in different scales of identity – community, county, country and

continent – in his case Halesowen, Black Country, British Isles and Europe.
Even when abroad Philip’s drive did not desert him, after he discovered that the long running tradition at the University of cooking different nationality meals each week had never featured a British event he was resolved to put things to rights. With typical aplomb he set about creating a team, researching and generally setting his sights on not only cooking a meal for all the other international students but on having a small British Isles cultural exhibition. The event was an unqualified success in terms of bookings, profit and
feedback – many people personally admitting to Philip’s team that their beliefs in British cooking had been completely reversed. The success of this event made Philip realize just how popular finding out about cultures could be and how important it could be too.
After four very happy years of studying, in 2007 it was time for Philip to graduate, which he did with a 2.1 and an honorary lifetime membership to the Students’ Association for services to the student body as wall as with a whole wealth of life experience. In the
September of that year he moved to Lancashire to start a graduate training course with an Engineering Company, from which he attained a permanent role in International Strategy.

One skill that Philip had picked up along the way was graphical design, and he was naturally drawn to heraldic arts – where history meets graphics. This further combined with his patriotism and he began sketching ideas for symbols to represent the places he knew and loved, constantly refining his ideas until 2008 when he began the push to start a local identity and civic pride campaign. He started promoting his ideas and designs and quickly caught media and public interest.

As the end of 2009 approaches it is heartening to see the progress Philip has already made: the tartans are now official symbols, other institutions have started asking him to design symbols, Halesowen is now committed to having a real flag chosen from a campaign, and of course Heartland Heritagewear has been set up.

His passion is still as bright as ever, and his bond with the area is kept strong by the friends and family who remind him of his own Heartland.

Philip Tibbetts