Attached is scan of a late 19th century linen map. Unfortunately there is no date on the map but as Corporation Street is there replacing Lichfield Street in other parts of the map, it is probably 1890s. Notice the main Gower Street School is not there but the smal lone in Gower Street is. The Gower Street main school does have the look of early 20th century architecture.
That linen print takes me back...
When I finally left Holte Comp I went looking for a draughting job. I haven't mentioned this before; but my favourite subject at school was Technical Drawing followed very closely by Art.
I digress a wee bit here. I went into the Comprehensive and had a very bad hair day on opening day.
I discovered that I wasn't allowed to do both subjects :-(
I chose Technical Drawing because realistically my job prospects were much higher; but I used to paint in my spare time, mostly on the weekends.
So, I went for a job interview at Cadwallader Shopfitters on Aldridge Road, Great Barr. I was asked to take some artwork with me. By that time my art folder had become quite plentiful. They hung on to my folder after the interview.
Quite a while later, and many other interviews elsewhere, I received a letter in the mail asking me to come in.
I put that down to them returning my artwork; which was in a double elephant sized folder.
Not only did they give me the folder; they gave me the job too.
I had been working there for sometime by now and had gotten used to the awful smell of ammonia. For those of you not in the know already; we used to draw on good quality tracing paper and we had a home made light box emperor size.
There were three fluorescent tubes inside. We would lift the heavy lid and lie the finished drawing face down on a sheet of glass (almost the same size as the box). then we lay a sheet of light sensitive yellow coated paper over the drawing.
Then it was down with the lid and on with the lights. It was a bit of a guessing game when it came to exposure. Somewhere around thirty seconds; we used an analogue timer. Then we had to quickly grab the exposed paper and roll it up and put it into a plywood curing box (another hand made item). This box was obviously longer than the width of paper and less than 12 inches wide and less then twenty-four inches high. Two compartments: upper where we'd put the rolled up paper (to be cured) via a door in the end of the box. And the lower compartment contained half a cup of ammonia; that too had its own door. The divide between upper and lower had holes in it to allow the fumes into the upper chamber.
And after a minute or so; voila a blue print.
Whenever we had to submit a drawing to the council though; it had to be a linen print. So yours truly had to hop on a bus (46?) to Perry Barr with the drawing rolled up in a cardboard tube. And wait in reception. The place was near Lynton Square on the same side of the road and nearer to the dog track than to the square. I shall never remember the name of that place.
It wasn't until decades later that I witnessed a linen print being made. That was here in New Zealand when I worked at Pacific Aerospace; I used to do the prints myself then.