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Bomb Pecks

S

sylviasayers

master brummie
Hi John,

I remember the bomb peck between Wilkinson Street and Miller Street, the Germans must have been aiming for Millers and the factories in Bracebridge Street and Aston Brook Street.

We played there many times, I wonder if there was a factory on that site as we discovered lots of objects that looked like cuff links, one side was
coloured enamel and the other had the word "gilt" stamped on it. In our
ignorance we confused gilt with guilt and thought the police would be after
us if we took them home!!!

There were also bomb pecks in New Street on both sides of the road, and
also in Whitehouse Street, a friend of mine was staying with her grandma
in Alma Street and although only about 3 years old remembers her gran
carrying her to the shelter when the bomb fell as it was just behind their house.
 
:shock: Er... does anyone know why were these bomb sites/bomb craters were known as 'pecks'?
 
Thanks everyone. :lol: At last I can rest easy in my bed at night again. :roll:

Sweet dreams all Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! :wink:
 
Bomb Peck

Our favourite past time as kids was playing on the bombed peck which was next to the park and almost opposite St Annes school in Devon St. it still had bombed buildings on part of it. I presume the Germans target was the gas works a few hundred yards down the road.
Funny as kids you never questioned why is was called the Bomb peck!
 
Bomb Peck

I too played on what we called Bomb Pecks, I know though that some the house and building remains were due to the demolition process rather than bomb damage. Funnily enough they sometimes became the sites of wars between rival schoolboy gangs, all played out very seriously at the time, but looking back, what fun :lol: It's a real wonder we wern't maimed for life by the use of heavy ammo(HOUSE BRICKS) :roll: Whatever the word peck meant originally, to me it meant an adventure playground.
 
Bomb Pecks.

Just to add to the bomb peck discussion. When I was a lad living in Queens Tower in Nechells, we called any bit of old demolished and dormant land a bomb peck. There was one right over the road from Queens Tower, next to the side of Loxton Street School, and I spent many happy hours there, doing daft ladish things like catching butterflys, playing hide-and-seek, and starting your own fires up against the school wall etc. Until the local policeman would come around the corner and catch you red handed, and administered his own form of instant justice ( normally a clip round the ear ), with the threat that if it ever happened again, he would take me home and tell my parents. Boy, did that have an effect? Anyway, great times in a great place, thanks for the memories.
 
We had a bomb peck over the road from where we use to live. In between Charles Arthur street, Nechells and Rocky Lane. I have recently been informed it was not bombed but houses that were dimolished by mistake. How true this is, I am not sure, any one know of this?
A block of high rise flates were built up the one end and the Prince Rupert Pub the other.
On the bomb peck we use to gather fire wood for guy fawkes night, it got bigger and bigger each year. Lots of fun for all the kids, not so sure if the people in the falts thought it was fun. Not sure if the block of flats were called Camrose Tower?
 
In " Our " world around the Coleman Street area they were know as Bomb Peck. l heard of a sad story of a man who refused to go to the Air Raid shelter and one night his house had a direct hit , this was on the corner of Lupin Street and Willis Street,he may have lived in the corner shop that once stood there. Only pleased that l found this out after we had stopped playing on there otherwise l may have been spooked out. If all will forgive me for saying so. Why did we play on the peck ?
it was the only place we could dig holes to play our marble games.
 
EARP said:
We had a bomb peck over the road from where we use to live. In between Charles Arthur street, Nechells and Rocky Lane. I have recently been informed it was not bombed but houses that were dimolished by mistake. How true this is, I am not sure, any one know of this?
A block of high rise flates were built up the one end and the Prince Rupert Pub the other.
On the bomb peck we use to gather fire wood for guy fawkes night, it got bigger and bigger each year. Lots of fun for all the kids, not so sure if the people in the falts thought it was fun. Not sure if the block of flats were called Camrose Tower?
Click to expand...

Do you remember the Wood Yard Earp :)
 
Hi my hubby keeps going on about the bomb pecks around devonshire street and york terrace, talking about york terrace has anyone got any old photos of the back to back houses in york terrace, he used to live at 1 back of 7, myself had never heard of bomb pecks until he was going on about them the other week, it seems you all used to have alot of fun on them, fantastic site!!!!!
 
Earp
Did you know the Chatins or Chatwins lived on the edge of the peck in Charles Arthur Street
we were so poor we did not have any cups but drank out of jamjars
Happy Times all the same
 
EARP  l guess we probably called Demolishion sites " Bomb Pecks" as well, l think for me it was just a term that was used and did not give it much thought as to being caused by a bomb at the time. l remember using the old bricks lying around to make "Dens", these had openings on the outer walls as windows and was one huge complex that grew and grew untill we ran out of land or bricks,the top was covered with anything that would make a roof and they must have been about a metre high. Who else had a building set as realistic as that to play with ?
 
I cant remeber the wood yard, but i can remember the scrap yard which i use to take the old grates which i had taken out the houses that were to be demolished, i use to get a tannar for each one. I remember two shops Arthurs and Dikes or Dykes. There was an out door around the corner facing the scrap yard. BRS was at the back of our house across the road. Our neighbour were Waddon, Davis at at the end was an old lady cant remember her name but she was nice and smelt of mint.
 
EARP. Got any of those grates today ? Worth more than a tannar today.
When l think of the things as rubbish of days gone by, l wish l had a bigger shed and store it all in for a rainy day. then on the other hand there were too many rainy days so l would'nt have anything left anyway.
 
my mum and dad always said "where's thers muck there's money" should have been a scrap dealer instead of a health care worker :angel:
 
Cromwell. I didn't know the Chatins or Chatwins but I remember us drinking out of a jam jar and my baby sister sucking tea out of an old Camp Coffee bottle with a teat stuck on the top. This is what improvisation is all about when it gets tough. I was born in our house at Charles Arthur St in 1955 we moved out when the houses were being demolished for the new housing estate. We lived opposite the Prince Rupert Pub. Me and my brother has great times playing on the Peck. Another thing I use to do was go to Camrose Tower, the block of flates at the top of the street. I would go through the huge bin cupboard; the caretaker would place magazine which included comics, old toys ect that the tennants had left out side their flat because they would not go down the shoot. It was like an Aladins cave.
 
Previous posters are correct, I think, in saying that any area of demolition was called a 'bomb peck' regardless of whether the Jerrys were responsible for it or not !!

I fondly remember playing on the bomb peck(s)  off Alma Street.  Asylum Road ?? I think was one area we kids played on in the late fifties/early sixties.  I remember some of us hiding behind an old galvanised bath while the rest 'bombed' it with bricks and stones.  Yes, its a wonder more of us weren't seriously injured in some of the 'games' we played !!

I remember playing on the building site of what was to become Six Ways underpass too.

I grew up in William Street but driving through the Six Ways / Lozells area now just fills me with total sadness to see what has become of it all.  Its so depressing - I feel like an outcast in the area I was born and raised in.  At least they can't take away the memories, And you know what ?  I wouldn't change one minute of it.
 
Earp
I was born in '44 by that time Ma had lost a baby and 3 homes in the Blitz dad had been buried alive twice
Dad died when I was 4 and spent some time in Erdington Cottage Home after Ma had a breakdown but she fetched us out when she found out we where bound for Australia to start a new life.
We had it rough bought up on lard or suger sandwiches Ma scrubbed other people house out to feed us and had it rough trying to raise us( 4 kids ) on her own with no help from anyone. I had ricketts and was sent to Gem street for Sun Ray treatment when all I needed looking back was a good meal.
I wore Daily Mail Boots and use to go to the Lord Mayors Xmas party at the Civic Hall (I think, Next to theTown Hall) the outings I use to go on were from Seven Street to Manor Farm which was only a few mile away but to us it was like the seaside. But you know what I would not have changed a thing as I grew up loved and happy.The Bomb Peck were paradise where you could be John Wayne, Sitting Bull or Flash Gordon, its something the kids of today have not got.
We played with Guns, bow and arrows (with milk bottle stoppers bent over as tips) choppers,knives and had Ducker(House Brick) fights, am I a violent person NO I have never hit anyone in my life with the first blow.
And the kids today are told dont play with guns etc it makes them violent What Poppy cock
 
Cromwell. My mum was in Erdington Cottages (children's home) for a short while before going into service at a house in Sutton. Her name was Hilda Kelly. she had bright red hair. I think she might have been in her early to mid teens while she was there.
 
Earp
My brother was planning to break out ( if thats the right term to use) and had it all planned to swim across the cut and across the park but our Ma came the night he was going and got us out
 
Cromwell.
My memories are pretty much the same. There were 5 children and a dog (Pat) Even though my dad worked almost non stop, they found it very, very hard to get by week by week, always 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' we never went on holiday and we never knew when we came home from school if there would be any electricity on but these are the moments I now treasure. Me and my family taking it in turns to sing a song, mum or dad would make patterns in the air with their lit cigarettes. Many a time mum would go with out food so that the kids were fed as best as she could do. They were given no hand outs (I wonder if there was help in the 50's from DSS) Mum had no washing machine, no electric appliances but our house was spic and span with just using soap and water. The love mum and dad (and dad still does, mum died 1998) gave us kids was pure nectar. They taught us right from wrong. All of their kids have always been in work and still are today as they taught us to. As a grown women, with all the mod cons, I appreciate even more what my parents did for us.
Getting back to the Bomb Peck this was my grocery and veg shop, I played for hours. Stones and rocks were any think from pretend sweets to potatoes, grass and doc leaves were any type of green veg that my customers wanted. Us kids had wonderful imaginations.
 
Earp
Remember making shadow pictures on the wall at night with you hands by candlelight ( horses,birds etc)
and do you know how I learn to swim ? a neighbour taught me in a bucket of water
He told me to kneel down and when I could duck my head in the bucket and hold it there till I could count to ten I would be able to swim, and you know what I worked as I did it counting up to fifty till I was dragged out they thought I had drowned, Happy Times
 
I certainly do and setting my hair on fire, by leaning to near to the candle.
 
I think I can solve the mystery why we call waste land in Brum, Pecks (or Bomb Pecks)
In 1730 Peck lane ran from New St to Dudley St and it was always a right of way
The town council sold the land and right of way for the building of New St Station and all the building and surrounding's were gutted in the 1850's they spent 10 years trying to get the right of way back unsuccessfully but as a concession the Railway company provided a footbridge over the station which became a right of way once more by its constant use over a 100 years, when the present station was built the right of way was maintained.
During the war when the houses were blown up in the blitz it became quite easy to get from one street to the next across the Peck the good old Bomb Peck........
 
hi everybody andy anybody ,whom may be able to answer me a question ,
years ago i lived by tthe summer hill ice skating rink at spring hill
and along the road there is a place they call the sand pits ,
what i was always curious about how they got therte , or how they formed
is there anybody on the forum whom could explain to me how they was there or formed
i know they have been there for years , and they are still there
i hope some one can tell me , as they say curiososide killed the cat
many thanks for anybodys attention in this matter ,
best wishes , astonian ,;;;;;
 
I can remember playing on a bomb peck in Farm Street, Hockley, a stone's throw away from Aston. I think the last time I played on it was when I trod on a rusty old nail. I can remember what looked like washing-up mops lying around but they had multi-coloured strands, rather than white, and bits of the old carpets they used to make then, made up of little 1" (or some similar measurement) squares. This was across the road and down a bit from a factory called McEvoy & Pinnington, if I remember rightly.

By the way Cromwell, you reminded me of the dripping 'pieces' we used to eat and later we enjoyed HP sauce on a piece and tomato sauce pieces, too. Used to absolutely love the dripping sandwiches, with a bit of salt and pepper on.

Chris
 
Chris, I wonder how many kids heard their Ma shout "Just going down the Peck to see the old man"
Many many years ago............
They took the 3 buildings down fronting Peck Lane to enlarge the prison in 1757 and stayed Brums only prison until one was built in Moor St in 1795.......Peck Prison was knocked down in 1806 and all the building material was sold for £250
 
Happy days, Crom, when our only worries (although I know you don't worry!) were how many friends we could get out to play with us on the pecks.

I'd never heard of Peck Prison, either, where was it?

Chris
 
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