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Bordesley green

hi Marie I know the area well but am a little younger than you but how strange how we treasure the same memories I was born 1945 , I used to go carol singing down Charles rd big posh houses down there and we used to get called in and given a few pennies and mince pies home made of course such happy but poor times though we never thought ourselfs poor we had an orange small tot and threpence and we thought that was great .
 
I agree Jean, it was thriving then!. I remember the coach company.
Jan
 
Well, Jean. Johnny Ray would certainly 'cry' if he saw what has happened to Bordesley Green over the years! :)
 
Dr Lloyd and his wife were our family doctors, we went to them after, for some reason leaving doctors down past the Kingston. Dr Loyd was wonderful to my father who suffered a lot of ill heath. Their was also a lady Doctor called Dr Troup. They had a garden wall which backed onto Grange Rd park.
Jan
 
Yes Jan thats where i broke his window from the park he was decent about it but his wife was a nightmare and it was a complete accident . I don't know what agegroup you are , I'Mm 60 now and used to go to the gravel park in Charles Road and Grange Road mostly did you go there or are you a different age Bernie
 
Yes she was a dragon. I went to those parks all the time but after you - I am 51.
Old haunts, hey!
Jan
 
Hi Jean
We came to live in Birmingham in 1939/40, Dads firm sent him there. A big house in Charles Road was the 2nd home we had. It really fascinated me I was getting on for 2 years old when we moved there. It had two staircases and there was a row of bells in the kitchen. They must have been really rich folk who lived there once.

I dont know whether it was the weather and frost burst the pipes or whether it was the result of a nearby bomb. But, when I was sitting on the kitchen table having socks put on the ceiling caved in and the water just gushed over me. I cant swim, I have always been afraid of the water since then.

Not long after that we went to live in Bordesley Green Road. We had an anderson shelter and at the bottom of the garden was a barrage balloon. Mr Ratclifffe two doors up was an air raid warden. One night he went home after being on duty to find bullet holes in his pollow from the Germans strafing the road during the night. If he hadnt been on duty he would have been killed.

Does any one remember going to Victoria st. Baptist church? I went from the age of 4 till I was 14. I loved the Anniversaries. I always had a new dress. I remember mom buying a white satin nightie from the 2nd hand shop halfway down Victoria street, for a shilling, with it she made me my anniverary dress.

I also remember the 2nd hand shop at the top end of Victoria street, I used to buy old records from there to play on dads old wind-up gramaphone.

Billy Jones our neighbours lad and I used to go caol singing, when we got back he gave me his share of what we collected., I was a bit younge r than he was. We always gave a good performance, More than one carol and usually all the way through before we knocked the door.

You are right poor but happy, I think it was because we had no great expectations, so we had no disappointments. Of course I suppose that didnt apply to everyone though.

Marie
 
Hello Bernie

No, It was the baptist church, Was the Elim church the Humpage Road Mission? Went there once, very dark and small and crowded. wasnt keen. Didnt go again. Marie
 
I think its so sad when u think what it was like we were poor "ragamuffins" but we was taught our manners and no vandalising or defacing of property kids have too much these days get all they want so not taiught to appreciate or value"stuff"
 
docs at the kingston was a sad loss they were great Docbrown & doc rodgers they were ours too
 
my mom used to go to the rag alley much to our shame ..not she was a scott and came to brum to do war work hence I appeared at end of war. We lived in old lode lane had a bathroom and hot water, then moved to herbert rd when I was 5 no inside toilet bath or hot water and 3 families to a toilet in the yard and ours was shared with man who had consumption not that we knew wot that meant but it was always in a shocking state so mom would not allow us to us it (or the newspaper cut in squares ) haha anyway we had to use a bucket till mom persuaded the council to build us one in back garden thank god...my god the things that come back to you.
 
Mariep the Elim Church was in Victoria Street by the no8 bus stop near Bordesley Green and another one on Golden Hillock Road by Walford Road Bernie
 
Mariep I went to Sunday school in the passage between Humpage Road and Norwood Road very spooky and the bloke who taught us .Bernie
 
Direct Coach Tours

68, Berkeley Rd East, Birmingham, West Midlands B25 8NP. Would this be the Direct Coach company moved from Bordesley Green?. Len.
Tel: 0121 772 0664
 
There were at least 3 coach companies local to Bordesley Green. Direct Coaches in Prince Albert Street, one in Victoria Street (late 70's) and Evans' Coaches near Fordrough Lane. Then there was Bowen's in Cotterills Lane.
 
berniew said:
Mariep the Elim Church was in Victoria Street by the no8 bus stop near Bordesley Green and another one on Golden Hillock Road by Walford Road Bernie
Click to expand...

Wans't there one in Muntz St, about 100yds from coventry Rd, opposite side th the Malt Shovel ?
 
Yes, Col H, there was an Elim church in Muntz Street, near Wright Street. Was the Baptist church in Victoria Street also known as 'Elim'?
 
Direct coaches sold out so are no longer in existence it was run by the younger Bourne think his name was Alan for a short while after Harold Bourne died they lived and owned the sweet shop that was next to fruiterers opposite toilets top of little green lane ,then turned shop back into house which is still there now .
Jean
 
I spent part of my childhood in Bordesley Green and these are some memories:

In the mid 1950s, for a couple of years my parents owned a little 'front room' shop at 66 Palace Road, Bordesley Green (opposite a WW2 bombsite where two houses had been destroyed during an air raid), and I attended Somerville Road Junior School while we lived there.

Me and my mates used to play on the bomb site, and the people whose houses stood each side of it were always shouting at us to "Clear off!". On one side I remember a Mr & Mrs Harris. Mr Harris once cuffed me round the ear for being the cheeky gang leader of the kids that played there, so my dad crossed the road to pay him a visit and threatened to cuff him if he ".. ever laid hands on my child again!" I thought my dad was a hero until he came back and clipped me another one for causing trouble! I also remember the old lady on the other side of the bombsite was always moaning about us to anyone on the street who would listen. I think she was called "Old ma Davenport". One day we dropped a stink bomb through her front door letter box for revenge. That caused quite another telling off from our parents but I seem to remember they were quite amused by it themselves.

I used to pass a dark and mysterious "Herbalist's" shop on my walk to the school (either on Muntz Street or Charles Road, I think), where I would buy sticks of arrowroot to chew. Rumour had it that women and girls got 'backstreet' abortions there!

My only memory of the school is the playground, where we used to lean flattened "20s" cigarette packets up against the bottom brick of the classroom wall, then stand back a few feet to "skim" flattened "10s" at them. Whoever knocked the final 20 over won it and all the previously skimmed packets lying on the ground round it. Great game, that I was quite good at, but it meant carrying dozens of cigarette packets in my satchell and constantly scrounging for elastic bands to hold them together with. I became a bit of a collector of cigarette packets and still have an old bank ledger book with a a couple of hundred rare packets glued into it!

Another strong memory I have is of standing with a mate on the corner of Bordesley Green and Victoria Street each year in the run up to November 5th, displaying a home made Guy Fawkes effigy and shouting "Penny for the Guy". It was a busy crossroads and I recall we did rather well.

As a youngster I found Bordesley Green a place of hard knocks where hard-up people lived. I remember there were some maisonettes (we referred to them as "the flats") along our road where some very poor people with lots of babies seemed to live. Whitehall Road, the next street that ran parallel to Palace Road, was like another tribal territory that those of us who lived on Palace Road dare not enter. Some older kids from a poor but tough family who lived on Whitehall Road once stole a rather nice trolley of mine that a welder uncle had made for me. It took several months to get it back, and only then after the grown-ups ventured gingerly round there for 'negotiations'.

My family moved from Bordesley Green to Franklin Road, Cotteridge - where I discovered quite a different kind of 'Birmingham'. But that's another story ..
 
Icarus said:
Yes, Col H, there was an Elim church in Muntz Street, near Wright Street. Was the Baptist church in Victoria Street also known as 'Elim'?
Click to expand...

Sorry, I cant remember there being a Church in Victoria St at all.

There was a Methodist Church on the corner of Prince Albert St / Little Green Lane, by The Vic' though, is that the one you mean ?
 
Hi there,

Talking of 'herbalists' in the area, do you remember Mrs Cunliffe's
shop in Cattell Road on the same side, and not far from the Blues'
entrance. She used to have loose sweets on display, but tucked
among them were packets of condoms. I've never understood why!!
A very nice old lady, and the shop had a similar reputation to the one
you mentioned.

Kind regards

Dave
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I do remember the shop in Cattell Road, nice old lady, always said "Much Obliged" when you paid ya money.

PS, I was only buying sweets, honest!!.
 
Could it have been 'Mannys' middle one of three shops - nothing to do with packet of three- between Tilton Rd and Templefield St, on the same side ?

She used to sell 5 Park Drive for 10 1/2d (tenpence halfpenny, bloody computer wont do a half ) and there was a machine lower down that did 1d box of matches. I wouldnt have known about the other stuff she had on the shelf at that age.

There were at least half a dozen shops that sold sweets on Cattell rd, but thats the one I remember as being the dark and dingy one.
 
John T,

I was born and grew up in Carlton Road before the war and also went to Somerville Road School.

The herbalists in Muntz Street was there in those days and I used to buy the sticks you describe but we called them 'Indian Sticks' Don't ask me why. We also played your skimming game both in the playground and in the street but we used cigarette cards not the packets. All of us collected cigarette cards in those days. They had probably finished when you were a boy.

Yes it was rough and we were poor but I look back on it with affection.

Old Boy
 
You guys were a wee bit before me, but I echo it was tough, rough, but a grand way to grow up! Socially and neighbourly - it beats today for me!
There was poverty, children playing in the street with no shoes, that kind of thing, Baker st (Small Heath) was such a mix of social housing, I was one of the lucky ones. No judgements though were ever made.
Jan
 
Jan you did it again got me thinking back....used to hate when it rained and the cardboard in my shoes got wet and soggy........anyone remember daily mail boots omg
jeanxx
 
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