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Bull Ring 1930s - 1950s

mm.jpegAbout the mid fifties (I think.)
The Bull Ring as seen from the top of St. Martins.
 
Hello ragga the packaging certainly resembles what is used today for date packets.
 
My mom used to wear those, scarf's around her head and tied with a bow at the front

how I hated those dates, we had them every Christmas in our family.
paul
 
A bit out of focus, but a wonderful atmospheric picture, conjures up how I remember the Bull Ring market, around Christmas time from my boyhood.
paul
 
Stitcher said:
View attachment 79672 1926.
This picture of the Bull Ring is from todays newspaper.
I have sorted through a large number of old pictures of Birmingham and its suburbs. It has taken quite awhile but I have never seen this one before.
Click to expand...

Just look at the swing the trams took out of Moor Street more than half way across Digbeth and quite a trampinch for the oposite direction. Looks like a couple of Midland Red SOS single deckers going up the hill.
 
Alan (Astonian) I am glad some of these pics stir your memory because your comments are always interesting.
 
Hello David, it does seem a wide sweep on that corner but I suppose with very little traffic about and most drivers being regulars it would not be too bad. I would like to see a similar thing work today though.
 
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Street Seller..jpg.....Market Hall.jpg
These two were in todays paper, there is no reference to the date for the street seller.
 
As you say Paul a nice image of how it used to be. The Mail archives which I have never looked at must be very interesting. I never seem to have time to go delving around other web pages.
 
Seeing those pictures reminded me of the Escapologist in the Bull Ring in the late 40's. I can remember seeing him as a child. He had chains all over him and always managed to get free of his restraints.

Judy
 
Hello Jayell, I also have memories of an escapologist (vague ones) in the Bull Ring, it would have been Saturday mornings when mom took us into town to do some shopping. I loved it because of all the sellers shouting and offering fruit, but the best was having a small serving of shrimps, cockles or penny winkles. On a good day I would even get a few small crabs claws.
 
Oh Stitcher! Crab claws! My Dad used to get those from the market for a treat sometimes. You've made my mouth water just thinking about them. And yes, I too loved the noise, and the hustle and bustle of the street vendors. The Flower sellers and the women selling 'andy carriers!

Judy
 
I had read somewhere that the Escapologist that used to frequent the Bull Ring in the 1950's was a man called Johnny Eagle. I came across his Obituary...
not sure where this appeared. He is at rest in Witton Cemetery. There is also a very short clip on the British Pathe News site of one of the tricks Johnny used to perform.
Not sure if it is him in this video. https://www.britishpathe.com/video/buskers-concert-at-royal-albert-hall
Obituary
Johnny Eagle, the gypsy strongman, (Born Circa 1916 – Died 2001)was buried today at Witton Cemetery near Birmingham. Born in Belfast about 84 years ago, Eagle spent most of his life at the very top of his various trades. As a street entertainer on Tower Hill in London, performing extraordinary feats with a minimum of trickery, he was unsurpassed in his time. He drew the crowd by swinging a 20 foot chain like a whip, making it crack like a rifle shot, then wrap it round his neck and have 6 strong men pull at each end so that his feet were lifted from the ground. He would then bend an iron bar by beating it over his biceps, swallow a watch and chain before your very eyes, or correctly guess the amount of money in your pocket. He claimed to have pulled a bow top wagon from Scotland to Appleby Fair, by hand, and he once pulled a wagon onto Appleby drawn by a donkey and a goat. I personally saw him pass an eight inch hatpin through both cheeks, with no blood and no apparent pain, and then laugh as people fainted. In his later years he revealed that his parents had pierced both his cheeks as a child to enable him to earn a living with this trick.

He spoke four languages: Romani, Sheltie (The Irish travellers' form of Gaelic) North Country Tinkers' Cant, and English. His street performances were delivered with a highly distinctive, penetrating, rhythmic, falsetto voice, calculated to be heard above the street noise and entice curious passers-by into the circle of astonished punters. He had an extraordinary memory, and so became a shrewd dealer, for whom buying and selling in order to turn enough profit for the day's food and drink was as natural as sleeping. Once he had settled into his tiny ground-floor flat in his last years, people came from all over Britain to see him, to trade gold rings or talking birds, horses and harness, or just for the craic. Hardly any of them came to ask him to teach them his trade, and so it mostly died with him. There were few like him, and they are all dead.

He seldom missed one of the Northern Horse Fairs – Appleby, Lee Gap, Yarm, and the rest - not just to pitch his gypsy strongman act, but to meet up with friends, to buy and sell, and to let everyone know that the Eagle was still alive.

He admitted to six children, (three sons, three daughters,) and there was a host of grandchildren and great-grandchildren at the funeral. The cortege left St. Peter's Church in Bloxwich and travelled for and hour or more to a piece of waste ground near Witton, where the coffin was transferred from the smooth stretch-limousine hearse and into a magnificent horse drawn carriage, drawn by as fine a pair of black Friesian stallions as you could wish to see.

The procession from there to the graveside took another half an hour: the immaculate liveries of the horsemen set off by the tall black plumes on the heads of the snorting stallions, and a long train of mourners. Black leather jackets and blue cashmere suits walked beside divine looking women and girls, dressed in everything from Spice Girls clubwear to ancient widow’s weeds. Heavy gold chains hung from male and female necks and wrists, hardly an ear or finger but was weighted with gold rings, and real tears dripped from the cheeks of serious fighting men.

At the grave, when the priest had performed his final acts of devotion and then sensibly retired, a portable music centre was produced and wedged into the mound of earth at the head of the coffin. There was hardly a movement for ten minutes as it played Eagle's favourite songs. No one was in any hurry. Roses dropped into the grave. Another five minutes passed. Half a truckload of flowers was carried from the road, carefully unwrapped from their plastic covers, savoured and laid gently onto the coffin. More time passed. Then a shout from behind the crowd: Hey boys! Six spades were handed through to brothers, sons and grandsons. Cashmere jackets were removed, and shiny shoes set to work, strong and steady. In a few minutes there was just a grave mound, and the other half of the truckload of flowers was laid out - hearts and flowers, horses and songbirds. There was a definite but understated sense of pride in having cut through the ritualised, impersonalfuneral gestures, and into something so personal and final as burying the Man with their own hands. The idea of having anyone else bury Johnny Eagle was simply unacceptable – Romani pride and Romani dignity did the job in style, and in person.
 
That was a fascinating read Jenny Ann and an interesting video clip. Johnny Eagle must have been the man I saw doing his tricks when I was a child. The memory of seeing him has never left me as it was so exciting watching him get out of his chains and do his various tricks. I seem to remember him doing his act near to the statue of Nelson (?) which had railings around I think.

Judy
 
They still have the original gas lights Stitcher they still had some when I was around 14, and I remember the lamplighters walking around Birmingham with there short 'A' frame ladders.
paul
 
A man used to light the lamps in our road but I was very young and I remember the first electric lights going up in our area when I was still a nipper.
 
David. I may be mistaken about the electric because I think ours were gas with pilot lights.
 
The Bull Ring in the winter of 1947..jpg1947.
The Bull Ring when we had snow drifts up to five feet deep in many parts of the city.
 
....................not only in the City Stitcher. I lived outside the City and it was worse in many way as there was little traffic or snow clearance. But....even though the snow was deep (up to my chest at the age of 10) everyone still attended school. None of this nonsense today with closures. I guess the closures are due to staff living too far from the school.
 
Hello Alan, I did not mean the city centre only, I was just generalising about Birmingham as a whole. I was born in Acocks Green and as you say it was rather dire.
 
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