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Walsall, like Birmingham. still has grammar schools. I went to one myself (all girls) and I think it taught people how to apply themselves to their work. Both my children attended grammar schools and whereas it suited my son, my daughter wasn't happy at hers. I think that, if you go to a...

When I worked here, it never crossed my mind to ask! I know Philip Harris did a line in scientific instruments, and they used to display surgical trusses in one of their windows. I worked in the Export Department, which provided laboratory equipment to schools around the world, as well as rats...

We caught some (many years ago, that is!) from the stream that flows out of Little Bracebridge in Sutton Park. We took them home in a jam jar but then we didn't know what to do with them, so we tipped them into our neighbour's pond. They couldn't understand why their goldfish suddenly had...

My grandmother liked to recite the rhyme 'Adam and Eve and Pinch-Me went down to the river to bathe. Adam and Eve were drowned. Who do you think was saved?' And then she would pinch me gently. There was also 'Round and round the garden like a teddy bear. One step, two step, tickle under there!'...

This used to be just outside the park, roughly where Windley Leisure Centre now stands. The miniature railway ran round it. I wasn't allowed to go there on my own (but I did sneak in once!)

I believe this may have been Air Industrial Developments. My father was the A.I.D. man at nearby Castle Bromwich Aerodrome from 1940 until the end of the war.

My grandfather, William Sawyer, was stationery buyer at Fort Dunlop before his death in 1947. An obituary notice, saying how much he was liked, appeared in the Dunlop magazine. I know he lived in Sutton Street, Aston, and he travelled to work on a canal barge, so this must have been in the 1920s...

Yes, it was! I went to it because it was the only infant school around at the time. When the new school was opened at Banners Gate, we went there instead. I had to catch the school bus from Sutton Oak Road to the school, which seemed a very long way at the time. The school hall was divided into...

I was told by someone who has known the area well for many years that the 'beach' at one side of Bracebridge Pool was deliberately constructed during the war so that people could imagine themselves to be at the seaside on holiday!

My great-grandfather was Richard Deathridge, who moved to Birmingham from London. His family members were baptised at St George's Church, Tower Street, including my grandmother Leah Deathridge and her twin sister Beatrice.

I used to catch the 113 bus out of Birmingham c.1962, and when it reached the Boar's Head it forked right and ran along College Road. You then had a good view of a bungalow which had a front garden full of gnomes! I'd love to see a photo of it but of course at the time it never occurred to me to...

My mother used to push me in my pram from 'the terminus' (by the Yenton pub) to 'the village' (Erdington). Once, my grandmother had visited the fishmonger at the terminus and had purchased a fish. She brought it home and arranged a piece of newspaper neatly round it, which she then gave to me...

The S73 (known to us as 'the little bus') ran from 'the terminus' (where the trams terminated by the Yenton pub) along the Chester Road, possibly terminated at the Hardwick Arms, and at one time probably travelling along Bakers Lane and for a short distance continuing via Sutton Oak Road and...

Anstey was a P.E. college and its students ran classes as part of their training. I was deemed to be round shouldered and flat footed and had to attend them. I remember that we had to balance on narrow beams and pick up bean bags with our toes. The old college has long since gone and the site...

I worked at Philip Harris c.1962 and I remember purchasing a dead rat from them so that my friend could practice dissecting it for her biology 'A' level!