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    Eastcroft Garage, Coleshill Road Question

    Not that I knew of and in the 50's as a young lad I wandered everywhere (especially where I shouldn't) It may be a coincidence that the man across the road was called Binks,a not common name. He was well to do, had a new Rover 90,110 every year and certainly could not imagine him with dirty...
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    Eastcroft Garage, Coleshill Road Question

    In the mid to late 50's as far as I am concerned.
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    Eastcroft Garage, Coleshill Road Question

    A late reply but yes the garage did have 2 rows of garages for rent behind it. My father rented one for the family car as we lived in Victoria Road and there were no garages. Slight correction,the house on the corner owned by te Binks family had a garage in Upper Holland Road as did the house...
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    School Discipline

    I'm amazed that people say that the threat of caning moderated their behaviour. We had caning,slippering,ear pulling,even the occasional thump to the side of the head but I think we regarded it as an occupational hazard. It was yet another manifestation of the odd world of adults and teachers...
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    Rudders & Paynes Chester Street

    Denis Rudder,one of the sons, was Chief Librarian at Sutton in the 50s and 60s . A lovely man who passed on his love of books to all he could.
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    Tamworth field trainspotting

    When I was about 12/13 the school world seemed divided into train spotters and the rest (bus spotters were a sub species). Never got it myself as I was more into girl spotting (a precocious youth) but one could never doubt their enthusiasm. I see the fascination is still alive and well,very...
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    Sutton Park

    Steele-Bodgers rather more famous for Rugby. Steele-Bodgers XV v Cambridge University a fixture for rugger fans.
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    Birmingham's Image And Status

    Manchester (502,900) is smaller than Leeds (750,700) Sheffield (551,800) and Bradford (523,100) Birmingham is1,085,400. Hebden Bridge 11,549. So both Manchester and Hebden Bridge can shut up and take a back seat.
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    Riland Bedford High School for Girls and Boys.

    Couldn't agree more, the 60's and 70's senior school generation in Sutton has much to thank Bill for. His tenure at Bedford ensured that within a few years there was little or no difference in opportunity at Bedford, Willmott and BV,with "A" levels etc. He set up Willmott and handed on a very...
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    Sutton Coldfield

    That is difficult, BV has been there for hundreds of years, Sutton has its own MP since 1945 and would not have had one on a population of only 24000. George Rose had a green grocers in the 50's and 60's. He wasn't old enough to have been there pre war. Iona school was there in the 20's but I...
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    Crossroads programme

    Many years ago a friend went for an audition for Crossroads. He didn't get the part because he kept remembering his lines!
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    h.c.smith rea street

    I worked there for about 8 months in 1964 in the boot and wellington section. We had a full time packer, a great bear of a man and I learned how to wrap the most difficult of parcels from him. That is all I learned that I can recall but it has proved useful down the years. It was next to or very...
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    Royal Hotel, Sutton Coldfield

    The back bar at The Royal was our local in the 60's. Crowd of us there every night before moving to whatever party was going .The bar man was Paddy Delaney. The front bar was for the older people,incuding Eddie and Mollie. He was a retired bookie and would always buy you a drink, a very nice...
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    ABC Minors !!

    To be honest although The Empress was part of my childhood it was a very ugly building. The shops on the Lower Parade were all in converted houses and where of themselves nothing special. It is the individual shops that are missed like Gills, Frosts, Coombes and all the specialist little ma and...
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    ABC Minors !!

    The Empress, The Parade, Sutton Coldfield for me after using my sweet ration in Coombes across South Parade. Also the Odeon, Sutton but I can't remember what the Sat morning cinema club was called there.
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    Coffee Roasters

    There was one in Victoria Road, Sutton Coldfield from the early 50's until the mid 60's. The aroma of coffee was the smell of my childhood.
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    Castle Bromwich Aerodrome

    Re: Castle Bromwich Areodrome I remember cycling over to the Aerodrome from Sutton in the late 50's or early 60's and there was a section you could get into through the fence which contained wrecked 'planes from WW2, British and German. They were little more than scrap but for a lad brought up...
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    Royal Coronations : Birmingham response

    We had a TV for The Coronation and the neighbours came in to watch, (through a glass darkly in those days). It must have been my mothers idea as the concept of The Royal Family was certain to send my father incandescent with rage. He was arrested in Derby Town Square in the 30's for breaking the...
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    Old birmingham car dealer, evans and kitchen

    I knew the Kitchen son when I was a teenager in Sutton. The family did very well out of it, the son had a Morgan kit car still in the crates stolen from the garage and it was months before he noticed. He also had a Lamborghini Miura stolen and when he went to report it at Sutton nick they were...
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    W M Taylors of Erdington

    Re Nortons in Erdington Mr Norton who owned the shop was married to Olive M Norton who wrote books, also under the names Kate Norway, Bess Norton, Hilary Neal, in particular nurse stories based on her past as a nurse. They and their 3 children lived in Holly Lane, Four Oaks, Sutton Coldfield.
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