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Please feel free to use this excerpt on your website, some of this was
already used in the OLRA and Ladywood History group publications.
Family History: Michael Frederick Brain.
Born: 27th. May 1937 at 3 back of 20 Bellis Street, Edgbaston, Birmingham.
The house was rented by my parents Frederick Charles Brain, and Lily
Brain (nee Watts). Edgbaston is a city suburb, and Bellis Street was off
Monument Road, which itself was off Hagley Road. Bellis Street contained a
pub called "The Home Brewed", a Fish & Chip shop, and an electrical Repair
& Wireless ( Radio) Shop.
Our house was up an alley that opened out into a courtyard of four
houses. The "yard" had a wash-house with a cold water sink, a "mangle" for
squeezing dry, the wet clothes, and a "copper" or Boiler with a fire lit
beneath it to heat the water . There was also a washboard for holding dirty
clothes against to apply soap to them. Also in the "yard" was a line of
three outside, unlit toilets, each one to be shared between two houses.
Number 3 had a cellar where Father kept his tins of paint, but it's
main purpose was to store the deliveries of coal, as fuel for our open fire
in the downstairs living/dining room. During the period 1939-1945 it was
used as an air-raid shelter, for protection against bombing raids during
World War 2. The outside door led straight into the living room, which was
lit by gas lamps, to the left was the cold water kitchen, with a sink, and
gas cooker. Opposite the kitchen was the door leading to the cellar. The
stairs between that space led up to two bedrooms, that were unheated. Later
on in the mid 1950's, we converted to Electricity for light & power. The
living room had a fireplace with a "black-lead" grate, and small side ovens.
Each morning, mother would get up first, to lay the old newspaper, small
sticks, and lumps of coal, to light a fire, sometimes holding a sheet of
newspaper over the area of the chimney hole, to create a stronger "draught",
helping the fire to burn more easily. There was a large floor to ceiling
wall cupboard, for storage of canned food etc.
Back down the "yard" led to Bellis Street, and number 21 where Aunt Ada
lived with her husband Reg Sheldrick. He was a stockman working ( or had
worked?) for Wathes , Cattel & Gurden, a Dairy Company. Their house seemed
to be older than ours, and had a smaller "kitchen", just wide enough for a
sink, because the cooker was in the corner of the living room by the door
leading to upstairs. There was a first floor bedroom, and an attic bedroom,
where I used to stay, when my Grandmother visited us, sleeping in my room.
My brother David was born in 1943, but apparently, there had been an
earlier male child after me, that had not survived! When he was a little
older, we both shared the same bed (in fact for almost seventeen years,
right up to 1959.). During the War (WW2), I joined the Sunday School of The
Church of The Redeemer (Baptist) , which met in the afternoons. When older,
I joined their Lifeboy brigade, and later still Christian Endeavour. My
parents only contact with any Church was for my christening at St,. Georges
Anglican church, which was not far from Five Ways, or the Botanical Gardens.
Although my father did join "The Redeemer's" Fireside Circle for Men, and
actually met & listened to Mr. Carter, who had discovered the Tomb of
Pharaoh Tutankhamen.
At age 5, I started at Clark Street Primary School in Ladywood, just off
the Icknield Port Road, and near to the Edgbaston Reservoir. To begin with,
I was walked there each day by my mother, and she would return at morning
break times , particularly in winter, with a jug of hot cocoa. The Juniors
was called Osler Street.
Mother worked part-time as a cleaner for a lady in Carlyle Road , who was
called Mrs. Trinnaman , an ex-actress married to retired Colonel, and before
starting school, and during
summer holidays, I would play with my soldiers in her large rear garden.
During the War, the
City of Birmingham was a target for the invading German Bomber aircraft, so
the Edgbaston Reservoir was drained partially, to alter it's shape, to
"fool" the Luftwaffe. One morning when my mother was cleaning the front
bedroom in Carlyle road, she saw an aircraft approaching, so she waved her
duster out of the window, but as it came lower, she saw it was a German
fighter plane! Sometime later, I was taken to see a crashed Heinkel bomber
near the War Memorial, off Broad Street, in the city centre.
As my brother David grew a little older, taking care of him during
out-of-school play activity was my responsibility- my school friends and
near neighbours at the time, Peter Kimber, Ronnie Rowe, Malcolm Clark, and
Jimmy Wright, did not appreciate it!. Some of our activities were
"scrumping" (stealing) fruit from the gardens of the larger houses, and
"conkering"- collecting horse chestnuts. When David was older, he went to
St. Georges Primary School ,in Beaufort Road, near to the "Plough & Harrow"
hotel, which was opposite The Oratory Catholic church, on the Hagley Road.
At first we had a radio that was powered by a rechargeable glass
"accumulator", and I was given a "crystal set" which was a simple radio,
which I sometimes "smuggled" up to our bedroom, and listened to "The Man in
Black" mystery stories, under the covers.
During the War years, and until he retired, my father was a maintenance
Painter at the Austin Motor Company, in Longbridge, a long journey, of
several miles, needing to catch two buses, or a Number 8 bus, and a Number 3
tramcar (that went all the way to the Lickey Hills.).Always a "sporting man"
,who liked a wager on the Horses, and Greyhounds, he also, briefly, was an
illegal "Bookies runner", who took "bets" placed by his workmates, for a
Bookmaker, (as gambling was not allowed at work). There was the inevitable
temptation not to pass on the stake money of "bets" that he judged were
likely to lose, and after taking a loss, learned his lesson! His interests
were Billiards & Snooker, and Coarse Fishing, plus belonging to the Ryland
Street Male Voice Choir. During that period, we often went on "Charabanc"
outings (coach tours) with the choir, and met the son of one of the members
who was part of the professional singing group "The Hedley Ward Trio", one
of whom later married the comedienne & actress Beryl Reid.
Our house had a tin bath, which took a long time to even half fill from
a kettle, or sometimes from the wash house boiler, so Mother mostly used
that. Father & I, and later David, went down to Icknield Street Baths, once
a week for a hot bath. There were "attendants" who would fill the bath to a
certain level with hot water, using a key. Customers could operate the cold
water tap themselves. The Icknield Street Baths was also for mixed swimming,
and I was taken there for a few lessons in school time.
During my early childhood, Dad would take me out for the day, on a
Saturday, teaching me how to fish in Canals & Rivers around the Midlands,
always stopping at lunch time at a pub, for his two pints of "mixed" (mild &
Bitter Beer, often Mitchells & Butlers), and my Lemonade, or Vimto. Also as
children, we would go out on a Sunday afternoon, on the Outer Circle Number
11 bus, to a pub, where both parents could have a drink, sitting in the
"Beer Garden".Other times, travelling by bus around Birmingham, we would
often point out to our parents, where they had taken us for "pop"& crisps.
Travelling by Midland Red bus out to the "countryside"was an adventure
for inner city
children, the outing often taking a whole day, just to travel to nearby
places like Stratford on Avon. It was there, on the grass banks of the River
Avon, along from the famous Shakespeare
Theatre, having a picnic with our parents friends, that toddler David
wandered off on his own, was discovered missing, and found under the water,
in the River, having walked down some steps. Fortunately he survived, but
that was probably the first of many little "adventures and
"scrapes", as he was much more bold & fearless, than me. With his friends,
he was known to
climb on the rooftops of houses, and even larger buildings, plus the
attraction of "bomb sites" which were the aftermath of the War. On one of
these "adventures", Mother went with me to find him, and shouted over a high
wall, for him to come to her at once, as it was tea-time. As he came back
over the wall, backwards, she grabbed him and smacked his bottom, only to
find out that his friend had come over the wall first!
During the War, Father was very sociable, and despite food rationing,
would invite American Servicemen he had met in the "Ivy Bush" pub, to come
home for supper. We all stayed up late one evening, listening to a Black US
Private play and sing on his guitar . Another time Dad brought home the
autographs of the whole of Charlie Chester's "Crazy Gang", who were
appearing in a Show at the Theatre Royal, and had "digs"( lodgings) nearby.
Thank you so much for sharing your memoirs with us, we are honoured.
