• 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
  • HI folks the server that hosts the site completely died including the Hdd's and backups.
    Luckily i create an offsite backup once a week! this has now been restored so we have lost a few days posts.
    im still fixing things at the moment so bear with me and im still working on all images 90% are fine the others im working on now
    we are now using a backup solution

Bluebell Wood

Di.Poppitt

Di.Poppitt

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
It's been such a beautiful day here in East Anglia, we spent a lot of our day in the garden pruning and cleaning out the pond.

I was walking back down the garden and as I rounded a corner I saw that the bluebells are through, and I stood thinking about my lovely Aunt Jane.
She worked all of her life, and her main reason was to keep their car on the road. They bought a car before the war, and it spent a few years in a rented garage. They didn't have children, and she always told me that when the war was over they would take me in the car for a picnic. We went to the Shropshire borders and drove until we found a bluebell wood, where we sat under the trees among the flowers.

I wonder why we've lost those lovely wild flowers in open country side. Mine were in the garden when we came here and I am glad I've got them.
 
I have bluebells too - but someone was telling me they may not be english bluebells??????????

I have a lovely embroidered pictured of a bluebell wood - close up it looks a right mess - but stand well back from it and its awesomeeeeeeeeeee
 
My memories of bluebells were not as far afield as Shropshire but in the woods alongside the River Tame near Hamstead Village. :)
 
Where we live is part of what were the bluebell woods of Chelmsley Wood.
We have bluebells in our garden and every time they come into bloom my husband tells me the story of how as children he came with his mates on their bikes from Alum rock to see the bluebells.A bottle of water and a sandwich and they were away all day.
The developers, 40 years ago, left a few patches of woodland and they are full of bluebells in the late spring.
 
Alberta,
'Twould seem a stale jam sandwich and a bottle of corporation pop was standard rations for cycle trips to bluebell woods. I took exactly the same supplies with me. :)
 
Every spring we would go to the Lickey Hills to see the bluebells in the woods, I always wanted to pick them but my parents wouldn't let me, I was disappointed then, but realise how right they were as Igrew a little older. such a lovely sight. I think spring is wonderful and I think the Parks Dept. should be congratulated also on their displays, both in parks and on roundabouts etc., it lifts the spirits to see crocus, daffodils and other flowers again after the dark days of winter.
 
I couldn't have wondered too far from the village in my young years Paul,
'cause I don't remember a bluebell wood. Just the watercress beds on the edge of Hamstead.

My blue bells are our own native species Sue, not the spanish 'invaders'.
Great pictures from Rod. :D

It does lift your heart to see the spring flowers Sylvia. I'm waiting for the Cowslips to come up on the banks of our lane. They are a real sight to see.
 
Its daffodils that trigger my memory each year.
Back to the small village of Dymock in Glos. where I was evacuated to during the war years.
The fields would be awash with yellow in early spring, the war was a million miles away.....
 
Colin Williams wrote

we would go to the bluebell woods near frankley beeches it was like a carpet ..

In the 1970,s we learnt of a wild primrose wood near Oddingly . which the family went out to .

We have a host of snowdrops in our church just died off this week .
Daffs are out and crocus on the way.
Click to expand...


(sorry Colin the thread went off topic, due to me :oops: , so Ive cut and pasted your 'on topic' comments)
 
Dianne Do you remember the Blue Bell Wood at Chelmsley. I spent many a happy hour there watching the Birds, Feathered variety. Packington Ford ,fishing for cat fish, stickle backs etc. Oh happy days long gone now.

Regards Jim
 
hi
i still love bluebells, we moved to kingshurst when i was five and nearby was yorkswood, us kids were'nt allowed in there unless you found a gap in the fence! but seeing that lovely sea of blue for the first time made me catch my breath, i had never seen anything like it and even now when i see bluebells i still remeber that first time!
think i'm getting soppy in my old age!
lynn
 
Hi Poppitt
Yes its been a beautiful day here in Suffolk East Anglia.
We have had our Blue Bells out over two weeks and now they are moving on. We are spoilt living on the edge of a Blue Bell wood but we love it.
 
We went to the bluebell woods ,thought they were in coleshill,but know chemlesy makes more sense. Loved going there.
 
Hi. I remember the bluebell woods at Chelmsley wood. We would go there for a picnic with our milk bottles filled with pop, which was made from chali. We had some great adventures there. I also remember the farmer would come and collect our mums, who would jump upon the back of a trailor which was pulled by a tractor to go potato picking at Chelmsley wood. Such happy days as a kid.
 
We still have Woods on a smaller scale , at Meriden Park (where I live), then the larger Alcott Woods (where I walk my dog) then the much larger York Wood, although they are in Kinghurst not Chelmsley Wood and I think there are some more towards Marston Green, Eric
 
There were lots of bluebells to be seen in Bills Wood, Bills Lane, Shirley in the late 1940's and early 50's. I wonder if the place still exists, or has it been built upon?

I have a couple of areas in my gardens where bluebells and primroses grow. Locally there are lots of areas with primroses: you can pick the flower but NOT dig up the plant.
 
Radiorails, I lived in Cranmore Boulevard off Widney Lane very close to Bills Lane from 1935 to early 40's and I remember Bluebell woods, but I am afraid it is no longer there and is built upon like so many other places. Eric
 
Thank heavens for wonderful memories, Eric. I have not been in that area since 1954 so I was unaware, but not surprised, by changes.
 
Have attached a painting of Alcott Woods when I was walking mywalking the Dog Alcott Wood.JPG recently obtained dog Sam in 2001. Sadly Sam died this April aged 15. They have a wonderful mass of bluebells in April/May, I now walk my new dog there every day, Toby a 5 year old Jack Russell. Eric
 
hurcott woods 1.jpg

this picture of my daughter and dogs (sadly both dogs are no longer with us) was taken in Hurcott Woods a few springs ago. It makes me smile and I can feel the sun on my back. I love springtime and wish I could hibernate at this time of year. Parts of the wood is very muddy, but we walk our Dobermann pup there and forage for chestnuts, during their season, most days.
 
I remember the Bluebell woods at Chelmsley Wood, my parents would pack a picnic lunch, then with my sisters and me would all walk from sheldon through the playing fields of king george the 5th and spend the day picking bunches of bluebells, it looked like a sea of blue and occasionally you would spot a white "bluebell" and you would run through the bluebells to pick the special "one". Mum would use all her vases and end up using jam jars to accommodate all the bluebells when returned home. I can still smell those bluebells.
 
We had our Bluebell Woods, just off Walmley Ash Road, facing what is now Asda, and Homebase at the top of Cheswood Drive.
 
In the early 1950s we use to play in the blue bell woods at Frankley then across to play at the reservoir before climbing the hill to Frankley beech trees. Those were the days when you could be out all day without a care in the world. Those were the days!
 
I played in those same woods, John, from 53/54 /55, my sister and my friends, from Hasbury Road, Bartley Green, we would all take an old stera milk bottle tied with string, a packet of Jam Sarnies and walk to the Bluebell woods, by Frankley Resa. Sometimes we would squeeze through the bars to the filter sump, and lay on the pipe and fish for frogs, newts and stickle backs. Some times we would even walk right up to Frankley Beeches, through the corn fields, we would have been no older than 5 or 6, away from 8 in the morning till 6 at night, laughing and playing the whole day, no one worried about us as there wasn't anything to worry about in those beautiful far off days of sunshine, from morning to night. A time gone forever, we had very little as kids in the early 50's, but we had a wonderful life. Paul Stacey
 
Hi Paul
We must of bumped into each other at some stage, (I was coming up to 6yrs old in 1955) I agree with you about being able to go on a days adventure without anyone worrying to much about it and back starving by teatime. I was born and raised opposite Trescott School just below the Dingle (by the blue bell woods). I now live a few miles from the Elan dams, so I can claim I was born one end of the aqueduct and being I have no plans to move I will probably end my days at the other end!
John
 
If you put Bills Lane Shirley into Google Earth you will find that far from being built on Bills Wood is still thriving as are the woods at Earlswood.

I should have said that a wooded area next to Bills Wood was developed some years ago.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top