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Bomb Pecks

Allesley Street

Hi Astonian
I tried to post these pictures earlier but for some reason I couldn't. I've sorted out the problem now (too many pixies or pixals!).

The first picture shows the junction of Allesley Street & Aston Road North. The newsagents can be clearly seen on the left. Over the road is The White Hart. The road leads to Aston Cross and Ansell's Brewery.

I've posted the photograph of The White Hart darts team because I'm sure I know the man on the left but I can't put a name to his face.

I can't remember the people you mentioned but hope these photographs might be of some use!
 
:angel: Hey guys I was either born in the rooms above that shop or the upstairs rooms of the house down the entry at the side of it... My view of Allesley St shows the entry.
 
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I've never seen that photograph before Pomgolian, brilliant! I lived in Stratford Place near a shop run by Mrs Crowe, half way down Allesley Street.
Just down the road from the shop on the corner was a courtyard. I remember as a child going down the entry that led to it and all the sheets on the lines on washday!
 
Born in Selly Oak but brought up in Nechells (Cato Street) and later Inkerman Street which I seem to recall was nearer to Aston than Brum City Centre (hence my claret and blue affiliations).

We played on Bomb-Pecks all the time, as kids.

Found a whole load of army stuff on one occasion including gas masks and live ammunition (but no guns to fire the ammo from, (un)fortunately).

I also remember the "Ducker Fights" whereby we would split up into two teams and throw stones at each other.

I still bear the scar (proudly, I might say) of when I stuck my head above the parapet and got squarely hit by a quarter house brick, right on the eyebrow.

When I got home my elder sister screamed and almost fainted (amazing how much the eyebrow can bleed and gush - I fully understand Henry Cooper's problem) but no real harm done.

When I remember what we got up to , I'm amazed we all survived (or have I gone "soft").

Kids bounce and maybe we ought to let our kids also bounce, once in a while, rather than wrap them up in cotton wool.
 
Re: Bomb Pecks.

Welcome to the Forum, BuunyGee, and thanks for your first contribution.

It's good to see an old thread like this revived. Is there any chance that members can contribute photos to replace those which were lost in the hacking incident a few years back?

Chris
 
Though I wasn't born until the war was over, there were still plenty of bomb pecks around as I grew up as a child. They certainly got more use as play area's than the local parks did, after all the local bomb peck was more often than not in your own road. Then as Birmingham rebuilt itself after the war the local demolition site became the latest bomb peck.

Here we have a couple of pecks manufactured by Birmingham Council in Nechells and Small Heath and then a couple manufactured by Herr Hitler one in Balsall Heath that was used as a winter ski slope and the other also in Balsall Heath utilised as a speedway track.
 

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Thanks, Phil. My memories of them get a bit muddled up - memories of not long after they had been created and then the several postwar years when they lingered, either still derelict or now used for some purpose or other, sometimes used car pitches. What I do remember is how quickly Nature started to take over. Willowherb seemed to appear out of nowhere. How did that find its way back into deepest Aston?

I once jotted down what I recalled of my child's view of all this, from the upper deck of a Midland Red. Probably from a time when the war was still raging.

........Then off again, turning right in front of Snow Hill Station into Steelhouse Lane and, once past the General Hospital, left into Loveday Street. We shall now have moved away from the central area of the city but the buildings will still be tall, towering over the bus. Every so often there are gaps where the Luftwaffe has done its work. These bomb sites will sometimes have been cleared but more often still contain a great pile of rubble covered by dull, winter vegetation and the remains of last autumn's willow herb. Usually they are bounded by a sheer, blank wall, that of an adjoining building which has somehow survived, and sometimes shorn up by vast timbers. Such walls fascinate me. They are often studded throughout their height by rows of little fireplaces, the colour of the tiles still bright and a small rectangle of the surrounding wall bearing the flowered wallpaper of a living room or bedroom. I find difficulty in reconciling these sights with my own experience. Fireplaces should be on the ground floor, in a lounge or dining room, or perhaps one storey up, in a bedroom. But not stretching up three or four floors, almost up to the sky. And who used to sit around them and where are they now?

As the bus passes through Aston along Summer Lane the buildings will become smaller, side-street after side-street of back-to-back terraced houses, sometimes with a gaping hole in their midst or a row of homes damaged and boarded up. Past the Crocodile Works..................​

Chris
 
Bomb Pecks.

Just to add to the bomb peck discussion. When I was a lad living in Queens Tower in Nechells, we called any bit of old demolished and dormant land a bomb peck. There was one right over the road from Queens Tower, next to the side of Loxton Street School, and I spent many happy hours there, doing daft ladish things like catching butterflys, playing hide-and-seek, and starting your own fires up against the school wall etc. Until the local policeman would come around the corner and catch you red handed, and administered his own form of instant justice ( normally a clip round the ear ), with the threat that if it ever happened again, he would take me home and tell my parents. Boy, did that have an effect? Anyway, great times in a great place, thanks for the memories.
My nan & aunt lived in Queens Tower after being forced to move from st clements road. If I remember rightly, this was in the late 60's, early 70's. You may have known them. Their surname was Howell.
 
Hi michaelwicks54. I'm sorry but i don't recall the name Howell. Do you know what number they lived in ?
Hello BazzM. Unfortunately, I can not remember what number was their flat. I can remember looking out of their window & being able to see duddeston. I can not remember what floor they was on either. I think it around the 4th floor. I know we had to turn to the right as we got out of the lift.
 
I'm afraid i can't help either. We lived at No.27 on the 8th floor facing Loxton Street School.
 
I'm afraid i can't help either. We lived at No.27 on the 8th floor facing Loxton Street School.
I know they was not there for long as they moved into a block of flats in aston. I think it was number 6 or 9 that they lived in.Will have to dig out an old photo of them & upload it on here.
 
Did anyone play on the bomb peck in Lozells, just behind st Pauls Church, backing onto Bennetts street? I lived in Wilton Street during the 70's. I had friends living in Bennetts Street and Chain Walk who used to play there. And there was that little play area called the dragon, health and safety didn't exist back then :)
 
Did anyone play on the bomb peck in Lozells, just behind st Pauls Church, backing onto Bennetts street? I lived in Wilton Street during the 70's. I had friends living in Bennetts Street and Chain Walk who used to play there. And there was that little play area called the dragon, health and safety didn't exist back then :)
Hello Morvenna. I never got to play on the bomb pecks in Lozells. I was too old. I was working at Fine fare on Lozells road in the 70's & had a friend who also lived in Chain Walk, before it was all demolished & changed. She used to work at fine fare with me.
 
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1964/65 spent many a happy hour on the bomb pecks around the Lucas factory. Plenty of lead pipe and cast iron window sash weights to take to the tat yard. Made quite a few bob.
Never heard the expression bomb peck until we moved from Edgbaston to Hockley.

Happy days
NoddK-D
 
Hello Morvenna. I never got to play on the bomb pecks in Lozells. I was too old. I was working at Fine fare on Lozells road in the 70's & had a friend who also lived in Chain Walk, before it was all demolished & changed. She used to work at fine fare with me.
I remember fine fayre, 'where you can be fair to your family, and your purse' the ad said. It was our local supermarket where we would shop every Friday. My friend who lived in Chain Walk was Sharon Davies, her dad was a postman. We stayed friends for years after moving, but lost touch over time.
 
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