I am touched that someone has remembered my father, Alfred Holloway. May I share my memories of this stretch of Church road, Yardley in the 1950s-60s.
On the northern corner of Wroxton road at 228 Church road there was a very nice grocers shop. It always seemed cool and fresh. Cheese was cut and wrapped in grease-proof paper and all around the outside of L shaped counter were large, square metal tins containing loose biscuits (plus one for broken ones).
On the opposite corner at 226 was 'Christine’s' a ladies hairdresser. I think she was of Italian extraction and reminded me of the actress Miriam Carlin. The salon was full of mail order catalogues as she was an agent for them. In those days, these salons had substantial net curtains so that men could not see in!
212 was Mr Dawkins newsagents shop. It was not a shop on the 1939 ‘census’ so he must have converted it. He was a kindly man and as a purveyor of sweets, comics, ice-cream and fireworks, was an important figure in a child’s life. He had a very glamorous wife and daughter. When the latter married and bought a house nearby, her living room décor was so original it featured in the Birmingham Mail.
At 210 was a charming, elderly widow called Mrs Green.
208 is where I first lived and where my parents lived from 1938 – 1953. 208 and 210 were converted into one house in the 1960s or 70s.
Glynn Vaughn (d.1980) lived at 204 but also had a residence somewhere in Wales and always had a sheep dog with him. For many years he ran 204 as a barber’s shop before changing to antique dealing. His wife died when his daughter, my friend Carol was quite small. In the back garden he kept many hens. Carol was a buyer for Rackhams department store before moving into selling vintage jewellery at 204.
202 was the third shop in the row and was a greengrocer run by Bert and Lillian Edmunds. They had demolished the ground floor front wall and had replaced it with shutters so they could spread out their wares. They sold fresh fish on Fridays.
In the first house next to them at 200 was an elderly widow: Mrs Harper.
202 and 204 were converted into a Citizens’ Advice Bureau in the 1980s or thereabouts which was opened by the Princess Anne. My cousin, a CAB volunteer witnessed the event. These are now houses once again (as is 206) but have lost their bay windows.
Going back to 206; my great grandparents and grandparents rented the house next door while waiting for 206 to be built (as a house, called Ferndale) which was between say 1903 – 1908. My father was born there in 1908. It was then in countryside and in the county of Worcestershire but under the jurisdiction of Solihull council (Warwickshire). There were fields opposite down to Stoney lane and I am told that one could walk directly across fields to Sheldon church. I think these Edwardian houses were built on former farm land as there was (still is probably) the back of a large barn at the end of our garden. Early on, my paternal grandmother, Matilda used the front room for her dressmaking/ladies’ tailoring business (my then infant father remembered wealthy customers arriving in horse drawn carriages) but later converted the room into a ‘fancy goods’ and records shop and from that it developed into hardware. My father took over and built up the business after she died in 1953. We moved in to 206 and he and my mother Florence spent the rest of their lives there.
he can never remember names of roads.
