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Lennox Street

sparks

sparks

knowlegable brummie
This fantastic site has 201 streets named, but I can’t find Lennox Street, so I will go back 70+ years and see what I can remember. Hopefully, some of your members may be able to fill the gaps.
Starting from the Farm Street end the first grocery shop was on the right, and shortly after, on the left, was a second grocery shop with the Brook Tavern a couple of doors away.
I am sorry that I can’t remember the names of these shops, but I can name the third grocery shop on the right because it was ours, Sparlings at number 72.
In those days all the butter and lard came in large blocks, which was cut and weighed to your requirements, and wrapped in brown paper. Woodbine cigarettes came in open packets of five that we sold singly.
Two doors up from the shop was a coal yard and yet another shop two doors up from that. How did we all ever make a living?
Half way upon the right was a small factory dealing in metal plating and creating a stink and opposite was a yard where they kept the large dray horses for delivering beer. Finally, on the corner of Clifford Street, our local Fish and Chip shop and on the other corner my favourite shop. One a week, on a Tuesday, they had a delivery of ice cream from Midland Counties, and they would be sold out within an hour, so on our lunch break from Lozells Junior School, we would rush to the shop for our weekly treat.
There does seem to have been a lot of businesses in such a short street, I hope my memory has not let me down.
 
Sparks it was lovely to hear your memories of Lennox Street. My own gt.grandparents lived there at the end of 1868 at McCarthys Buildings, and then in 1871 they were at 9 Gough Terrace, both addresses were in Lennox Street. Your up-to-date memories of the street start to give me a picture of the area and were so interesting to read. I wonder if the above addresses were still in the street when you lived there in the 1940's?

Judy
 
I had an Aunt & Uncle who lived in Lennox St from the mid 50's until they were moved out in the late sixties. They lived in a back house near the bottom of the road and both worked on the buses.

The Uncle was football mad, and always had something to do with the local amateur team wherever he lived.

Phil

Lozells Lennox St 1968.jpg
 
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I do remember Gough Terrace but not McCarthy Buildings. I would like to get hold of a sreet map for about 1940, it would help jog my memory. Lennox Street no longer exists as I knew it. In 1965 the council decided that we lived in slums, bulldozed the lot and moved everyone to Chemsley Wood on the outskirts of Birmingham.
 
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Hi Phil. many,many thanks for the picture and that is the ice cream shop on the corner. It is the first picture I have seen of Lennox Street and it brought back many memories.
 
hi sparks i am looking for pics of no 1 frederick terrace. you can just see it in the 1st pic i am posting. the 2nd pic is of the brook tavern. hope you find them interesting. thanks for you pic phil. i will show it to my friend who was born in frederick terrace. christine is her name i must ask what her maiden name was. maybe someone may remember her. wales.
 
here you go sparks. 1940s street map. you will have to zoom in and juggle about but lennox and surrounding street are there. hope this jogs yer memory. wales
 
Thank you so much for those pics. I has been 60 years since I used to go to the Brook Tavern outdoor to fetch a jug of beer for my gran and I never thought I would ever see a picture of it to jog my memory. I must confess to a little moistening of the eye, but don’t tell my Jean, I like to keep up the macho image.
 
dont worry sparks your secrets safe with me. i was born in paddington street. not far from lennox and im still struggling to find any pics of that and the vine pub that was in villa street. hope the street map is of use to you. if there are any more streets you are after let me know as i may have them. wales
 
I have just blown up the maps and have been travelling the roads. How could I forget walking to Handsworth Park on a Sunday morning and taking out one of the lightweight skiffs to race round the lake. Going to the Porchester Arms with mom and dad, and getting up to no good down the narrow Furnace Lane. It is strange how I have tried to shut out the memories of my chilhood and how they are now coming back, thanks to the great people on the forum.
 
hi john. how do i get on to your website. got pics of furnace lane if you would like to see them let me know. wales.(lyn)
 
hello john. i have read your website with great interest and may i say firstly that you are not a grumpy old man. although a tad younger than you i completely agree with you on the way the world is now. but we cant change that. you clearly had a difficult childhood with not much love shown but your natural parents must have had a very good reason for you being adopted and dont you think it could have been much worse. you may have spent most of you childhood in care homes. how brave of you to at the age of 65 and with the help of a loving family go in search of your roots. maybe you havent quite got all the answers but it seems to me what you did find was a loving caring extended family. i take my hat off to you for your website and recommend others take a look. i noticed your references to furnace lane. the globe and gower st school. i have photos of all these and many more of the area. as this is the lennox st thread i will post a couple for you but it may be best if you want any more if you send me an instant message giving me your email address and i will send you more via email. my very best wishes wales (lyn)
 
I've read your site too john and was shocked by the way you were told "you're not ours anyway" - the bottom of your world must have dropped out at that moment.
Were you given any more detail later, or did your adoptive parents refuse to discuss it?
You have showed by your actions that you were determined to make something of your life, and by your marriage and family that the event did not kill the spark of love in your heart. Thank you for sharing your very personal story.
 
Hi Lloyd
I was very proud of my reply when I was told, I held my head up and said “I already know that, I’m going to bed”. But of course I didn’t know that and I remember that I cried all night, and next day I went to visit my favourite aunt who lived in Nelson Road Aston. The adoption was never discussed again and I spent as much time as possible with my aunt until I was old enough to join the RAF as a regular.
I think that I am drifting into the History and Nostalgia rather than Streets.
 
hi sparks. good reply you gave. must have been hard for you. were the last 4 pics i posted ok for you. wales.
 
hi john. so glad the photos were ok. emailing you some more that i think may be of interest to you. (well i hope i am. ive not long got the hang of this) lyn
 
Hi Wales
I am beginning to build up a picture of so much of my youth that I had forgotten, from your photographs. If you look at the right hand side of the picture of Reeves Polishing Co, almost hidden behind the large van, you can just make out a built up area that was the loading bay. At the weekend we used to find large empty packing cases that had been left out, and we used these to build our den on the loading bay.
Thanks again.
 
ha yes john. i remember me and my brother building dens. in trees under hedges. just about anywhere realy. we also made our own go carts from a couple of planks of wood 4 wheels off and old pram and string for the steering. it didnt cost much in those days to keep us happy did it. hope the previous 6 photos were ok. lyn.
 
Hi Wales
We must stop meeting like this !!!
I am in the process of enhancing all the photographs you have sent. When finished I will upload them to my photo website. If you think that there has been any improvement you can download them or invite any other forum members to view them. I will send details when complete.
 
Hi Wales
To see your Lozells pictures on line the address is www.photobox.co.uk/albums/56116219 If you click on slide show you will get the best results. If you have any more photographs you would like to be added to the album, just send them to me. It does mean that your photographs will be available to other forum members at this address, or any of your friends. If for any reason this is not OK I can soon delete.
John
 
Can anyone remember when a barrage balloon that had broken away from its moorings, landed between the two lines of terrace houses near the bottom of Lennox Street, very close to the Brook Tavern?
I know it was a Sunday when it landed. It had to be a Sunday because I was sat on the kitchen table having my brown shoes laced up, and brown shoes were only worn on a Sunday.
 
This is a photo of the Yob from C V Bull's, circa 1958. (Yob is backslang for boy - the name given to the youngest assistant in a butcher's shop)*. Here he is at home during his lunchtime. At the time the owner was Gordon Bull, son of Charlie. Those of you who remember Charlie will know that he had a distinctive scar on his chin. Gordon was now living in posh Sutton Coldfield. He worked in one of his other shops in the suburbs whose location I can't remember. He also had a shop at Hockley Brook. The manager of the Farm Street shop at the time was Bert Jones and the other assistant was Wally. Wally had no teeth but claimed he could eat any steak sold by Bulls if it was cooked properly.
That photo on page 2 of C V Bull, on the corner of Lennox Street and Farm Street was taken in the early to mid 60's, probably not long before the area was demolished.
*A Yob was always treated as an inferior. His own name was rareley used; if a name was used it would generally be the name of the previous Yob. This was universal. I had a friend who worked in his dad's shop and it was the same for him - his dad called him by the name of his predecesor.
 
hello michael. welcome back. what an interesting story (not a lot of people knew that ha ha) nice pic too. talk soon. wales.
 
hi all. as promised i am putting on my collection of lennox st pics. as i only have these in thumbnail size the quality may not be at its best. hope some of you may even recognize your old house. best wishes wales. please bare with me as i have quite a few. you should be able to see the date they were taken and in some cases the number of the houses.
 
Great pics Wales - do you have any showing McCarthys Buildings in Lennox Street? Just a wild hope, not expecting anything really!

Judy
 
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