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Birds Custard Factory.

Was it SAXA salt with the little bird being chassed by the little boy and it read ' see how it runs'? Was Sifta salt the one with the sailor?

Perhaps I have them the wrong way about.

Maggs
 
maggs said:
Was it SAXA salt with the little bird being chassed by the little boy and it read ' see how it runs'? Was Sifta salt the one with the sailor?

Perhaps I have them the wrong way about.

Maggs,
It was Cerebos Salt with the little boy chasing the bird.
Click to expand...
 
Just picked this thread up - my grandmother, Elsie Spencer, worked in the packing department at Birds, and when they moved to Banbury she decided not to go, but to retire instead and stay in her house in Inkerman Street. I have a clear memory of the annual open day they used to have, when family & friends of employees got a guided tour of the factory and a fairly generous "goodie bag" at the end of it.

Graham
 
Thank you Motor man Mike,

My memory is not as good as I thought it was, but was there a sailor in one of the salt ads?

Maggs,
 
Look carefully at the poster in the background of this Old Square photo & you will see an advert for Bird's Custard. I love the idea of this being in the context of the time & the people who would have used the custard.
 
Thank you Dave,

I thought it was Sifta Sam. When we were children, I think advertising hoardings (which were everywhere then), were very clever and I can remember studying them. Oxydol, Persil, Fairy Soap, Spratts biscuits for dogs. I noticed on one of the Brum photo's 'Barber's Teas' with the little lady in her striped dress. I had actually forgotten about that one. Do you remember BEV and BON bottled coffee.

Maggs.
 
maggs said:
Thank you Dave,

I thought it was Sifta Sam. When we were children, I think advertising hoardings (which were everywhere then), were very clever and I can remember studying them. Oxydol, Persil, Fairy Soap, Spratts biscuits for dogs. I noticed on one of the Brum photo's 'Barber's Teas' with the little lady in her striped dress. I had actually forgotten about that one. Do you remember BEV and BON bottled coffee.

Maggs.
Click to expand...

They all come flooding back when you mentioned them, - The Spratts
advert with the word Spratts woven into the shape of a dog, the Barber's
tea advert with the catch phrase 'Barber's Teas always please', and of course Bev coffee in the bottle - rather similar to 'Camp' coffee (you wouldn't call it that today would you!! I believe both of them were
either partly or wholly 'synthetic' and the main ingredient was chicory.
I cant remember 'Bon' though.

Kind regards

Dave
 
Thank you for the photo of the Birds workers factory day trip, aAtoness. My, what a men only outing it was & how rugged they must all have been to be so exposed to the elements in the name of fun!
 
guides and staff of the birds custard factory...date unknown...

pic courtesy of carl chinn
 
Thanks for the picture, Lyn. Looking at the hairstyles I wonder if the photo was taken in the early 1960s when "backcombing" first became fashionable & hair flicked up was in vogue? I think we moved to Banbury about 1964 so if the picture had been taken in Birmingham it would predate that year.
I was taken on one of the tours of General Foods Birds & Maxwell House coffee production but I must admit that it was the production processes that fascinated me at the time.
 
hi folks..took these pics on my walk to the crown meet up on sat..

as some of you prob know this is what will be the fate of birds custard factory in digbeth..now why am i not suprised....

lyn
 
That has made me feel so sad Lyn. Thanks for taking the photo's and posting them.
 
My mom used to work at Birds in Brum her name was Joan Powers she always says that she would have gone to work for free as it was such a brilliant place to work packing the custard powder and the jelly !! Anyone out there remember her? Look forward to hearing from anyone out there !!
 
Hello again, I seem to remember Birds being taken over by General Foods from the USA, didnt they move down to Banbury or somewhere down that
way. cheers Bernard
 
Does anyone know the exact address of the Birds / General Foods factory that was in Bradford St in the 1960s? It must be searchable on Google, but I cannot recall the exact location of the building.
 
Here is a chimney from what was once the Birds factory being demolished in 1970. I think it must have been the coffee factory, as it is described as being on a site in Warwick St.
Mike

demol__of_chimney_from_birds_factory.jpg
 
I took some photos of Tudor Grange House off Blossomfield Road in Solihull - see this thread for more Tudor Grange, Solihull - former home of Alfred Bird


Tudor Grange House - off Blossomfield Road, Solihull by ell brown, on Flickr


Tudor Grange House - off Blossomfield Road, Solihull by ell brown, on Flickr

Tudor Grange is Grade II* listed - see Heritage Gateway here TUDOR GRANGE HOUSE AND STABLE BLOCK

A large suburban house with attached stable block. It was designed and built in 1887 in a loosely Jacobean style by Thomas Henry Mansell of Birmingham for the industrialist Alfred Lovekin with panelling by Plunketts of Smith Street, Warwick. The house is of red stretcher bond brick with ashlar dressings and a tiled roof and has two storeys with attics and basement. The stable block is T-shaped in plan and attached to the west side of the house.
Click to expand...

in 1901 the house was sold to Alfred Bird, son of the founder of Bird's Custard Company. He enlarged the house, adding the library and a sizeable conservatory to the east, and had Blossomfield Road moved northwards, away from the entrance front, and built a new entrance lodge at the end of the re-configured drive. He also employed Robert Bridgeman to ornament the house with statuary and furnished it with an extensive art collection which included paintings and also with panels of C16 and C17 Flemish stained glass, which survive in situ. Alfred Bird became M.P. for Wolverhampton West in 1910. In 1920 he was knighted and in 1922, the year of his death, he was made a baronet. His widow lived on at Tudor Grange until her death in 1943 and the house is believed to have been used as a Red Cross auxiliary hospital during and after the Second World War. In 1946 the house was bought by Warwickshire County Council and became a school for children with special needs until 1976 when it became part of Solihull Technical College.
Click to expand...
 
Re: Birds factory move

I worked for a small plating company in Bradford Street just prior to joining the army in Feb;1948, and seem to remember
Birds having a warehouse down the bottom end,Fisher and Ludlow also had one, they used to have the big sliding doors
open in the summer months, Bernard
 
In the Birmingham Mail's list of 100 things that makes Birmingham great, Alfred Bird and the Custard Factory have made it to no 63.

Bird was a Gloucestershire-born man who registered as a pharmacist in Birmingham in 1842 and opened an experimental chemist's shop in Bull Street. Bird is most famous, however, for his custard creations - as the inventor of egg-free custard in 1837, to be precise. Bird died in 1878. His former premises, The Custard Factory in Digbeth. The five acre site was redeveloped from 1992 as an arts and media complex.
Click to expand...
 
My Uncle, Harry Smith also moved to Banbury with Birds. He had lived in Harbourne and worked, I think, in maintenance at both sites until he retired.
 
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