Bob Davis
Bob Davis
What a fascinating forum, like Lady Penelope I used to travel to 'town' on the 5 or if I was going to my grans in Harborne the 7 and then change at Five Ways. Originally the 5 which carried the destination- Perry Common 5, turned at Enderby Road (The Ring), but once the houses were built up Witton Lodge Road it went to the 'spinney' it became the 5a. The 5 still ran at peak times. But to the point of this, am I right in thinking that on match days at Villa Park, the trams used to be parked up in ?Trinity Road? at the back of the field of dreams? I was a bus anorak (still am, this weekend did the Flying Scotsman/Tornado trip at SVR...still believe that GWR King George V was the iconic engine). If I had spare halfpennies and pennies and the threepenny bit that Gran at Harborne always gave me, I would amend my mother's strict travel instructions on stay on the bus until town....and use the 3x, come back on the 33 to Birchfield, 11 to Stockland Green and S67/S76 home. My mother always believed that the buses had been slow and the queue at...wherever it was.....that I was shopping for had been long. Those carefree days seem a long way away. Finally in the late forties, when I first cut my teeth at Villa Park (let the little one get down the front), Dad used to point out those players, mostly defenders, leaving the Witton Arms fifteen minutes before kick off. This in the days of Callaghan and Gallagher and Alan Wakeman and the Moss brothers.