• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Recent content by A.Willoughby

  1. A

    Street furniture

    As I recall it in the square shaped one there was a lockable section in the bottom section of it into which there was enough room to put a cape or mackintosh, if one was out and the weather improved. Oft one found that the bobby on an adjoining beat had beaten you to it and put his in. The...
  2. A

    National Service

    I was trained as a clerk personnel at RAF Hereford in 1956. Presume your typing and shorthand course was organised there. willey, or had the RAF moved on by then and left it to the SAS. I was then home posted for the rest of my National Service to RAF Hillingdon - cushy life there after. Will.
  3. A

    My Grand-daughter again !!!

    Story of one of my daughters, on her first shopping trip for my wife, at a local shop. My wife wrote on a slip of paper 1lb old potatoes. May have been down to how my wife wrote it but going into the shop, we were later told, my daughter asked for "11 bold potatoes". Been a standing story...
  4. A

    History of the Rum Runner Club- Birmingham mail article

    There is a lot of folk lore associated to the times of the Krays. The information that the Krays were, by their emissaries, intending to muscle in on Brum night life came from a source of mine, at another club, and not from the Fewtrells. If the Fewtrells informed another officer it was not...
  5. A

    Holidays of the past

    Old Boy, My late elder sister took me and my mate on a tour of the establishments in North Wales in the early 1950's. Recall the chores of cleaning and washing up before one left en route to the next place. Walking and cycling was the deal except we cheated and with an attractive sister...
  6. A

    When Everyone Wore A Hat...

    Have not worn a hat regularly since the early sixties. Tomorrow, if the sun is as hot as of recent times, I will be wearing my old panama to go to a garden fete. Must protect the old napper these days. Hope I remember the etiquette expected when wearing one. Trouble is one could forget, with...
  7. A

    When Everyone Wore A Hat...

    It was part of the dress, of the day, in the late fifties to wear a trilby style hat in the detective branch. I bought myself a green coloured one with a dainty feather on its side. One evening the sergeant, who was a beast of a man in size had lost a case at court and knew that the 'lucky...
  8. A

    Smells Of The Past

    When coming off night duty and catching the bus from Handsworth to the city centre just after six in the morning. The strong smell of curry permeating the whole vehicle. Would enjoy it normally but not at time of the morning on an empty stomach
  9. A

    Where did you live

    My formative years were spent in Cleeve Road, Yardley Wood but then at the age of seventeen I got the call to serve for god and country. Here they gave me a roof over my head at Cardington- Padgate- Hereford - and then Hillingdon in Middlesex. On demob in 1958 lived in Digbeth then on my...
  10. A

    When Everyone Wore A Hat...

    In the mid to late 50's, as one can see from the old films, the detectives always wore a trilby together with suits and collars with ties were the dress. Remember 'Lockhart of the Yard'? Now look at them! It is called 'progress'
  11. A

    Victoria Law Courts

    Apologies for being off topic but briefly to answer Astonian's query. Some twenty odd years out, my friend, for I was there in the late 1950's and gone by 1960.
  12. A

    Victoria Law Courts

    Astonian, You have a good memory - no that has long been delivered to some scrap yard and ended up in the steel mills of South Wales. Who knows it may form part of the tin lids around - is it Debenhams in Brum.?
  13. A

    Victoria Law Courts

    I have very fond memories of Judge Michael Argyle. One day I went into his court whilst waiting for a case, I had, to come up in an adjoining court. I have no idea then or now of the details of the case, he was hearing, and he was adjourning the court as I entered. Instead of leaving the...
  14. A

    Letters from the front

    Here is a card posted by one brother to another (my uncles) Both were serving originally in the Warwicks but for some unkown reason Jim joined the Leicester Regiment at the end of the 14/18 war. The name on the card, and which he used to join the Leicesters, is false (note the initial 'W' and...
  15. A

    Yardley Wood

    There appears to a few "Yardleywoodites" on the site at this time. I too lived in Cleeve Road from my birth to when I did my National Service in 1956. Although my parents continued to live there until the death of my father and subsequently when my late mother went into a care home in 1992...
Back
Top