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Beeches Road Primary School

Vivienne14

Kentish Brummie Moderator
Staff member
British History Online describes this school as:

“THE BEECHES COUNTY PRIMARY SCHOOL, Great Barr. Beeches Rd. Council Sch. opened 1935 by Birm. C.B.C. in temporary buildings accom. 288 JI. More huts provided and permanent timber buildings (accom. 320 SM) opened 1937. Permanent I and JM blocks (accom. 720) opened 1938 and sch. reorganized for SM, JM, I. Huts still used by JM and I. SM dept. closed 1940. Children transferred to Aldridge Rd. Council Sch. and buildings used for Civil Defence and later by the primary sch. until SM dept. reopened 1951 as a separate sch. (see next sch.). Name changed 1954. Accom. 1955: 27 classrooms, 2 halls”

Here are the children at the play centre receiving US toys. Viv.
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I was at Beeches Road School Infants in 1942 and don't remember any toys from America, but the photo shows them so they must have been there ... :grinning: Perhaps I missed them when I was off for six weeks with Scarlett Fever.

I do remember being in the huts when the sirens sounded warning of expected enemy action. We were rushed from the huts to one of the eight concrete shelters half buried in the hillside by Sandy Lane. In the shelters we sat on long benches until the 'all-clear' sounded.

During one alert we did actually see a ME110 fighter bomber flying over low as we ran to the shelters. These long range aircraft flew over at high speed in daylight carrying out machine gun attacks. There are comments elsewhere on the forum about such attacks in the Birmingham area.

The aerial pic below shows the school in 1945. The huts are shaded and a dotted line shows our route to the shelters which can be seen as white spots half showing out of the hill.
BeechesWartime.jpg
 
Preparing for performance of “April Fool”.

Viv.

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Source: British Newspaper Archive
 

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Just found this forum, loving going through some of the threads. When I lived in the police houses on Beeches Road I used to go this school. This was back in the late 60's early 70's. My mom and I moved to Canada in 73, maybe 74. I go into Google Maps now and it all looks so different from the way I remember it. I do remember playing field hockey and rounders on the field.
 
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