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Ansells

Valerie Dunbar

Valerie Dunbar

master brummie
This is a small piece that I have taken from the recollections of Aston that I am writing.

Factories

Aston was a very industrial area so in nearly every street there was a factory of some sort. These factories were diverse in their manufacturing including button makers, a tea company and also two very large factories along the Lichfield Road called HP sauch and Ansells Brewery.

My Mum used to work on the production line at Ansells and I used to go up there to say hello to her most evenings after arriving home from school. Ansells always used to fascinate me and although children were not really allowed into the building, I used to slip in unnoticed by the management to see mum and all her work mates, who used to take me on a nightly tour whenever I visited.

I was only a very small girl but loved these visits. One of the first things I would see as I entered the building was the long conveyer belt of rollers that used to carry all the cases of Ansells beer along to the end of the line. This conveyer belt used to circle all the large machines that were each doing a particular job. Then cases were packed and put on the conveyer belt for transportation elsewhere as a finished consignment.

My mum used to work on the bottle washing machines, these were large circular revolving machines that sent the bottles around and around under a steady stream of water until they came out sparkling. The noise from these machines was very loud and you could hear the tinkling of the glass bottles as they went around on the different machines. Every bottle had to be inspected for chips and cracks by my mum, as well as making sure that the washing process had been done correctly. If there was a problem with the bottles mum had to take them off the machine as rejects, making sure that the empty spaces were filled up with other bottles. Because it was a constant production line no one could leave the area where they were working unless they had someone to stand in for them. Even so my mum would always come across when she knew that I had arrived.

The smell of hops was very strong and most of the time the floor was wet, but I loved visiting the place where mum worked, it all seemed so big, noisy and interesting to one so young. Before I left to return home I was always given a few bottle tops to keep. I ended up having quite a collection to play with.

Valerie Dunbar
 
Valerie: You don't say what years your Mom worked at Ansells. I grew up in Vicarage Rd at the Ansells end. In the late 40's and early 50's they had horse-drawn drays for delivering the beer. Every evening the drivers would bring the carts to the yard a couple of doors away from us and then take the horses back to the stables - right inside the brewery. I had a few trips around there too, because I played with the head groom's daughter, Doris Charlesworth. Can't remember just what year they stopped delivering with the drays but it was probably about 1955.
 
Hello Jean

I myself would be talking about the late forties or early fifties. I was very young and now that you mention it I seem to recall the horses. Were they the ones that had all the brass finery strapped around their necks? Strange how the memory is though I did not associate them with Ansells at all. Thanks for the memory jog it just puts another piece in the jigsaw of my young life.

Incidently I was born and brought up in Lichfield Road and right at the bottom of our entry there was a place called Thornley's and a public house one side then a bombed site and the next entry that had a butchers and vegetable shop called Frenche's or something like that do you know anything about this section of Lichfield Road? There was also a haberdashery shop called Goldbergs, a tobbaconists called Diggers (later to change to crisps) or vice-versa another green grocers called Robinsons, Matty's and of course Thompsons any info would be welcome.

Valerie
 
Hi Valerie:
I remember that part of Lichfield Road quite well, French's used to have skinned rabbits hanging up outside. I think there was a Wimbush's bakery there too (lovely crusty cottage loaves). Between the pub and the bakery there was a long yard of houses going uphill with a very high wall at the top end. That wall was the back of our house and the council never did cure the damp. My first boyfriend (when I was 9), redhaired Roy Cook, lived down an entry across from the pub. I also remember that at the Victoria Rd end there was a dentist who was so old and doddery, everybody was afraid to go to him. Incidentally, my maiden name was Dykes and I went to Vicarage Rd Junior School and then to Manor Park Girls School.
 
neighbours

Hello Jean

I think that we must have been living very close to each other. I lived up the entry just before the pup "The Gunmaker's Arms" I think it was. The entry I am thinking that could be where you lived had some families that went by the name of Scrivens, the Conways (They had a son named Brian Johnson his mum married twice), He was lovely and often used to talk to me over the back yard wall. There was also a family called the Magee's who had two grown daughters called Geraldine and Molly. Another girl named Hazel also lived in that section she used to be my sisters best friend.

I lived in the next entry to this and yes, there was a great big wall at the back. In our section lived the the Williams family, then the Hem's, then our house was at the end. My maiden name used to be Dolan and my dad and mum were called Frederick and Winifred.

I also remember that across the Lichfield road just at the bottom of our entry was a grocery shop called Cox's. They had a daughter called Mavis who I saw years later working in a florists in Sutton (not sure if she owned this shop! My mums best friend lived next door to this shop and she was called Joyce, I have a picture taken in a local pub of the two of them together.

Well Jean hope this brings back a few more memories for you as I see that you do not live in this neck of the woods now. val
 
Working at Ansells...

It was all my fault really, I guess I've always been a bit dim..
Friends who already worked there said 'You've got no chance, there's a two year waiting list just to get in'
As I said, being a bit dim, I simply by-passed the gate security, went straight up to personell and asked if there were any vacancy's..
They said I could start Monday...
It was a temporary post of course, I think that's all they took on in those days, It was August 1974.
The money was brilliant, I 'Earned' 80 pounds a week plus two beer tokens each shift,
I remember my first day there, The Foreman sat me down in front of a light, before which, passed row upon row of bottles, the job was to throw out the ones that hadn't been filled correctly..Oh man, what a drag that was! Unless you kept your head still, following bottle after bottle made you feel at first giddy and within the space of minutes...sick.
I remember the Forman asked me what I thought after the first day..
I'll save the moderator some trouble here and not type it.
The next morning he put me on another job...it was to straighten up the beer barrels as they joined one chain track on to the next...We did this, simply by kicking them straight
At the end of the shift, I had a right leg like Popeye..I also walked round in circles..I could have won Come Dancing without even trying...
The Foreman asked me if THAT day was better...
Mutter...mutter..mutter
I lasted 5 days in a job people were queueing up to get...well, they could bloody well have it!
You see, I am a Plumber and Corgi reg Engineer..yep, one of those devastatingly attractive to women type of guys...how could I work as less?
Besides, I was young and handsome...they could keep their bloody shiftwork..
Les Robinson
 
I was interviewed for an office job at Ansells in about 1960. It was a huge office and very dirty. I got the job and the boss said he would whistle for me when he wanted some typing doing, so I said "Thanks, but no thanks. Nobody whistles for this girl".
 
You know how to whistle dont you Steve?

Well done Jean! brilliant answer!
Hope you're well.
 
To get to school (Upper Thomas St Juniors), I used to walk up Upper Portland St every morning with my mate Billy Whitehouse. We would always look through the bars of the glassless windows that ran up the side of Ansells.

At the bottom of the hill, they were too high to look through, but as you got towards the top, opposite the back entrance to Victoria road cop shop, there was one that was right near the pavement. You had to kneel down to look through it. Billy used to look through this one every morning and scream to make the blokes working in the brewery jump.

One morning however, they were waiting for him and he knelt down, opened his mouth to yell and was showered in cold tea. The look on his face still makes me chuckle to this day. I can see him now. Dripping and in shock. His mom was up in arms about it but it was the last time he did it.
 
found a picture of my mom on the bottling machine at ansells in 1937(astonbrook through astonmanorsite) and she is still going strong at 87,her maiden name was stella findon
 
Can't add anything to the meat of this thread. Just want to say that I have enjoyed every word and knowing the area that was somewhat and the aromas that surround it, the words mean so much more. I realise that it is possible to be living so close to someone and only meet here all these years later. Well done all.
Regards
 
The boiler room for the brewery was on the Lichfield Rd side. If you were on the Station beat on nights from Victoria Rd. nick, as you passed the window of the boiler house, a sharp tap on the window would result in a bottle of beer comming out of the window. If you kept your truncheon up your sleeve the bottle would fit nicely into your truncheon pocket. you must return the empty bottle before shift change. :police: :knuppel2: :police:
 
I worked at ansells in 1940 during the blitz in the bottling department .i was only 16 then . Norman salter.
 
Mike maybe Pete passed a few through the window to you????. #5. I am sure the dentist in question was Mr Wickam who was indeed very elderly but a lovely man who extracted all my dads teath. I went to have a tooth removed as I knew Mr Wickam through going with my dad and when we arrived he had retired and his replacement was a butcher. Jean.
 
Ansells pub on the Cattel Rd/Coventry Rd corner with the well known Horse Trough. Len.
 
Great memories of Ansells,but no one mentioned what a wonderful end product it was.
I still have an unopened bottle of Ansells Aston Ale,from 1977.
How sad is that ?.
 
Ray Pete has an unopened one too. A bottle of IND COOP July 29th 1981. Will take a photo and put it on shortly. Has the glasses to go with it. Jean.
 
Here you go Jean,I also have the bottle and two glasses.

God bless H.M.S.Ansells...and all who sail in her.
 
Hello Jean, A bit of history about Allied Breweries. Len.

Ind, Coope & Co was founded in Romford, Essex, England. In 1799 Edward Ind acquired the Star Brewery, that was founded by George Cardon in 1709 at Romford. In 1845 Octavius Edward Coope and George Coope joined Edward Ind and the company was known as Ind Coope. They opened a brewery in Burton-on-Trent in 1856.[7]
Ind Coope merged with Samuel Allsopp & Sons in 1934, then with Ansells and Tetley Walker in 1961 to form Allied Breweries.[8]
 
Len,
Do you remember when it used to be known as Ind Coope & All slops.
Thank goodness,when they joined Allied breweries and their pubs started selling Ansells draught.
 
Ray, The Swan Hotel was Ind Coop & Alsopps beer, we always refered to it as Ind Coop & All Slops in fact in the 40`s/ 50`s i saw the barman putting beer out of the slop bucket into a pint glass, my mate, me & our girlfriends stopped using The Swan after that. Len.
 
Up till the early 1970s many Birmingham pubs didn't have a slops bucket as they had "the Economiser", which fed the overflow back into the mild
mike
 
Mike would this still have held true in the 70s or was it hearsay. I well recall that if the mild was iffy everyone would say the slops had been poured in but I remember being told that it wasn't possible to add to the (metal) barrell because the tap was sealed (or something like that)! Of course that didn't stop them starting a pint with the contents of the drip tray but I just wonder if this was perhaps a story handed down from earlier days. True, some pints tasted as if you were drinking the whole contents of the slop tray and there was a free meal in the bottom of your glass! Fortunately that seems to be very rare nowadays

Bob
 
With regards the slops or dirty pipes I will ask Pete when he gets up as when he was on the drays he would also help with the pubs pipes or put a new barrell on for them. He still says he can tell if the pipes have not been cleaned properly. Jean.
 
Bob
I am told that the economiser was particularly prevalent in Birmingham. Certainly it was used up to around 1970, and i had thought into 1971-72, though i am not certain over the last dates. There was a pipe that ran down from the drip tray down into the cellar . I gather it could only go into the mild , as it made the beer cloudy and this would be noticeable with the bitter. I gather that at the time it was not illegal, but that the use of it was made illegal, not because of quality issues with the beer, but on a health issue (though the alcohol content would have killed any bugs ). On your point about the barrells, this was with the older type of barrels. Certainly it would be difficult to do it with modern sealed barrels.
Mike
 
Pete said that is correct about the pipe from the drip tray into the cellar and as you said Mike it could only go back into the mild. Jean.
 
When the Social and Working mens Clubs had a waiter service for the concert room,I can recall topping up pints of mild from the contents of the drip trays! It seemed to be common practice! That was in the late 70's and early 80's.
Although there was a wastage allowance,this practice minimised the amount wasted and covered other losses and helped balance the books on stock take day.Another practice was topping up bottled sherry with sherry from the wood or "Pony".
When I worked at Butlins in the 70's, in addition to the above,the contents of many a leftover glass went into the Pimms!
 
When the gaffer of a Summer Lane pub was spotted emptying the slops into a bucket he was asked,"hey! what you up to?" his reply was "it's for the policemen wanting freebies in the outdoor"
 
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