Maybe it was the school you went to? My best mate from Dublin went to the same Secondary Modern as me. But an awful lot of Irish children went to RC schools or RC junior and infants. He wished he had too as they all seemed to stick together. He used to be excused assembly with the handful of Asian children but that was daft as it was the same, for him, it was Christianity, just prayers and hymns and a do as you would be done by theme. The Salvationist children attended too. Ironically he stayed with an Asian family when they first came over in the 50s. Caribbean children would not be necessarily be Catholics would they?.
What is a routin house?
Rowton House I presume
could be routon house or hotel house alcester street, big dirty looking victoian building can`t miss it
The Rowton House's were set up by Lord Rowton in order that the working man would have clean lodgings at a very reasonable rate
Rowton
Hello Jim, I was born on Garrison Lane of Irish parents, myself and my brothers went to a catholic junior school, now it's not the catholic bit that's important, it's the fact that every kid there was the same as me, English but also Irish. we mixed with Irish people all the time. On Sunday, down to mass, and then visiting Irish relations that also lived in Birmingham. I ended up going to a catholic secondary school and now I was mixing with English kids, no, wrong, they were all Irish, first generation English, we all thought and identified as English, we thought at the time that none of us were Irish. Anyhow, it's over 50 years since I grew up in Garrison Lane, I now live in Ireland and I am always fascinated at the amount of my old school friends who live here now also. My memories of an old England are warm and happy but places like Birmingham are alive and change rapidly and vastly, and the direction of change that the place was going in around the year 2000 was not where I wanted to be. Miss the place every day.
I love this thread. A large amount of children I grew up with were Irish. In Coventry. It is interesting to read Birmingham had areas where different nationalities lived. Not sure about the demographics here but I lived opposite a Catholic church & school. Our neighbours both sides were Irish. We had Irish lodgers for different reasons & I was refused enty to the school as we were 'not of the faith'.
I left Small Heath in 1974 aged 18. I've lived in many places since then and am now now retired in Ireland. Small Heath was starting to change when I left. I drove down the Coventry road around five years ago for the first time in forty years. A noticeable thing was that all of the pubs were either gone or closed, including the Brighton Arms where I often had an undreage pint and the Malt Shovel, that great old school Irish Pub. My Irish registered car got a few strange looks! Times moves on and change is always happening in big cities but I did regret the passing of the Small Heath that I remembered from the sixties and early seventies.
My friend used to own the Tower of Song in Kings Norton. Tommy Dempsey used to play regularly up until quite recently, his band now being called Dempsey's Lot. Brilliant performer, as much a stand up comedian as singer. It's under new management now so I don't know if Tommy still plays there.
