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Nechells

A

angeleyes

Guest
hi i grew up in nechells like kandor. it upsets me to go back it seems only a dream yet it was so real. my parents have died now. but i would give anythink to go back. in those times to be with my parents. we took everthink for granted then . no worries as a child never thought about one day all this would go. so sad. mary gtbarr
 
In my memory..

Ahh you kids of today Mary, you dont know you're born..
I have to say, going around Nechells doesn't upset me..least not anymore.
I find it quite theraputic seeing in my minds eye my Dad walking down the road or my Mom standing on the front garden with her hands in the pouch of her pinny.
Its true a lot of those places aren't there anymore but while my mind is clear and my memory sharp they live on...
Its the little things I miss Mary, like Horse muck in the road and being sent out to collect it with a shovel and bucket...or perhaps the silence of a Sunday afternoon when all the shops were shut and the pubs hadn't yet opened..
I remember how empty the streets were of Cars and of going to Francis St public baths for my weekly scrubdown (whether I needed one or not)
I remember the Butterflies dancing and turning as they flew among our flowers.
I remember the rain as it tumbled out of broken Guttering on to the gardens below.
I remember Hopscotch and 'Outings'
I remember digging long trenches in our back garden then putting sheets of corrugated tin on them as we made our own 'Air raid shelters' and hid from a War long since over.
I remember making Bows and arrows and Go-karts,
I remember making Guys out of old rags and Newspapers
I remember my Dad throwing up into the air a handful of coppers and we scambled to get our share.
I remember keeping Chickens and I remember Mom plucking the 'Broody' ones
I remember shelling peas that we'd grown in our garden..
I remember.......
 
:D Running along the 4th floor balcony of Wickham House knocking all the letter boxes and running up the stairs to the 5th floor to hide in Pauline's house so we wouldn't get caught. :twisted:

Trying to get across Gt Lister st and catch the number 14, or 43 buses to Bloomsbury st Girls. :roll:

Shopping down Gt Lister st on Saturdays. 8)

Going to St Matthews Church on Sunday mornings and sneaking out to go up the top of Ashted Row for a smoke where no one knew who we were. :idea:

Bonfire night where they had the big bonfire on the then empty section at the back of the Gt Lister st/Kellet rd flats. We kids colleted for weeks so that we had a bigger bonfire than the Towers flats and it always had to be guarded so that our stuff did not end up on their fire and theirs on ours. 8)
 
Kellet Rd?

I remember playing all around there as both a kid and young teenager..
I also recall that big old ugly concrete slide come climbing thingy that was on the front of the Flats on Gt Lister St.
Pedleys the Newsagents was in the walkway... we got our Coke or coal from nearby also.
It was an hell of a jaunt dragging the wheelbarrow back up to Ashted Row from there too.
I remember once being down there with my brother Robert, Dad had sent us out to collect floorboards etc for him to sell.
It was only a small wheelbarrow but Dad had showed us how to lay small planks across the barrow to make the whole carrying area a bit wider to load more wood on.
We were dragging it back home up past Lupin St, it had been a fair old hop and we were sitting by the cart having a breather when a Policeman appeared from nowhere and told us to take it back where we'd stolen it from.
His deduction was that we had to turn the barrow round and head back where we came from..we did this quite happily and simply pushed it the rest of the way home to Ashted Row..
 
Mary, Mary, quite contrary..

Oh I remember YOU Mary!
Talk about money people!
Yours was the only family in Nechells with clothes and real underwear.
I had to wear old underpants made of of the 'Sketch' newspaper, y'know, just like they made those paper hats, except mine had two leg holes in the hat....mind you, it always gave me something to read in the toilet..
I think I've turned into my Dad by the way.
I can't go to the loo these days without the complete works of William Shakespeare to read while I'm in there.
By the time I get off the loo, my legs have died on me and I walk like a duck with hemmaroids..hmm..now how did I go off on a tangent like that?
Best have a drink of 'R' Whites lemonaaaaaaaaade.
 
:D Now Kandy 'The Pedleys' were money people :!: My brother was well in with that family and did his paper round for them. Anyway Charlie P who was about a year older than me had everything that came into fashion, even drove around Brum with a surfboard on top of his car playing Beachboys music. He was killed in a car crash while driving his sports car too fast a few years ago. The coke (not the kind the sell around today) would have been from the Windsor st Gas Works, my sister and I did a round of the flats on a Saturday and fetched it for the neighbours charging 6d a time using a 'barra' mom had made for us. Yes and that slide was real cold on ya bum when wearing a dress ( as you would know from what you have said on other threads). :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
I used to get in BIG trouble when I went home with dirty knickers when I had been on the slide in Aston Park, before the days of my navy blue bloomers. :D
 
:D "Yow bin playin in the gutter agin, how many times do I have ta tell ya keep outa that horse road an outa that gutter?" I can hear mom saying it right now and a slap to go with it, dirty knickers were always the give away :)
 
little hall road

do anyone remember the flats in little hall road nechells by melvina road and i think at the corner of little hall road was a grocers
 
Simpson78

Do you mean the maisonettes in Little Hall Rd, because I had friends that lived in those in Little Hall Rd and Melvina Rd. Was the grocery shop you mention on Duddeston Mill Rd opposite the Railway Station. This would be about 1963.

Pmc1947
 
duddeston mill road

yes the shop was at the corner of duddeston mill road and little hall road but when i lived there they were flats the station used to give me the creeps when it was dark my brothers friend got killed on the railway track
 
greenbank house

do anyone remember greenbank house denby close and the tom thumb pub im glad they pulled down greenbank they had a doctors underneath
 
I remember the Tom Thumb, I remember it opening, we used to hang about in the park opposite. We sometimes would walk up to the El Greco Cafe bar on Nechells Green.

I used to go in to the outdoor of the Tom Thumb and talk to the gaffer for hours, can't remember his name, he was an ex policeman and I think he saw it duty to keep our little gang on the straight and narrow.

The Tom Thumb was also one of the first places I had a drink (slightly underage). To be quite honest I didn't rate it much as a pub.

pmc1947
 
I dont remember my first day at school (Saint Matthews) but I do remember the second day. Mom dragging me all the way there from Coleman Street. Funny now but not so funny then.
 
Nechells.

I remember one dinner time going with "the gang " to get some wood for the bonfire from a corner derelict shop at the corner of Dartmouth Street and Great Lister Street. So what happened was we made ourselves late for school, I reported back in the afternoon and gave the reason for being so late. I was rewarded with the cane whilst the rest had the half day off.
So much for life.
 
Nechells or was it Duddeston or Ashted ?

I have in the past looked for a book written about the above districts, much to my disappointment I have not been able to find one. I will however try to post as much as I can about the 1940's and 1950's and hope that it will be of interest to anyone of that place and time.
I would urge any of our younger readers who know any old folk from the area to direct them towards the website so that we can get their memories before they are gone. I am sure that they themselves will read the postings with great interest. I feel surprised that so few people are on this site when I think of the hundreds that used to lived in the area, I can only guess that the word " Computer " may frighten some people away from buying one but I would never be without mine. Perhaps one day maybe a book could be written.
 
A Book on Saltley, Duddeston & Nechells

Hi Ger22van

There is a book covering these areas and it it published in the Images of England Series compiled by Maria Twist isbn 0-7524-2279-0 Tempus Publishing and I got my copy from the Birmingham Library.

It has many black and white photgraphs taken from the archives in the Local Studies and History section of Birmingham Library and many of the places discussed on this thread of the forum are mentioned.

Chapter one is about Ashted and Gosta Green with pictures of Ashted Row in 1961, Hennage Street, Henry Street, Great Lister Street, Coleshill Street, A.B.Row,Fisher Street.

Chapter two: Is about Industry and it has pictures of Dudeston Flour Mill, Park Mills and Pool, Union Glass Works Duddeston, Bag workers & machine works at Smith, Stone & Knights paper Mills, Metropolitan works Saltley, J Wright & sons, Windsor St Gas Works, Gas Explosion at Saltley Gas works.

Th part that interested me the most was the Duddeston and Nechells chapter because that is where my ancestors lived for nearly two centuries and where I was bought up in the 1950's & 60's.

Pictures are of Vauxhall Road, Great Brook Street, Lupin Street, Windsor Street, Midland Street, New Canal Street. Richrd Street, Rowland Street, Lawley Street, Bloomsbury Street, Landoe Street, Holt Street, Lawford St, Adderley Street, Bloomsbury Street and so many more.

There are not just pictures of buildings but of people too.

On page 82/3 there are pictures of the inside of a house in Bloomsbury Street dated 1950's just like the one I lived in and of Nechells Place 1968 and High Park Corner Nechells with Wimbushes Cake Shop right in the fore where the girls from Newtons factory later called GKN used to get cakes in the lunch hour. Lathams the drapers is on the other corner and the chemists was facing that but I cant remember the name of it and I should because that is where my mother used to take me for sulphur tablets to purify the blood and liquorice root for your bowels.

Old Dr Gibson used to be a few doors up from Lathams and then Dr Rogowski took over. I remember when I was about 8 my sister and I had yellow Jaundice and had to stay off school and be good while my mother worked her shift in Newtons on the hand rolling section. We were feeling pretty sorry for ourselves and the doctor told my mother we could have boiled potatoes and a bit of fish but no pop, so as my mother was at work we sneaked my fathers bottle of lemonade which was kept under the living room table and we drank it between us. I was never so sick in the whole of my life and I got a good hidng into the bargain being the eldest and 'responsible'.

The funniest thing was that the doctor told my mother to get us to pee in a bottle and bring it to the doctors for a test. needless to say we both peed in the same pop bottle and being the eldest I had to take it to the doctors as my mother was at work, but the doctors was closed so only being 8 and not understanding I left it on his step. The pop bottle had no name on it or anything and I often wonder how I thought the doctor would know who it was from and even more I wonder what actually happened to it.

Anyway my sister and I got better even without the test. It makes you think about the amount of responsibilty the eldest child in the family had in those days especially if both parents worked.

It would not happen in todays worls but I think that despite it all the amount of life experience I learned through it all has benifited me greatly over the years and although I didnt appreciate it at the time it has actually stood me in great steed and I dont let anything beat me now.
 
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yes, i lived little hall rd. flat 6/23. i had two children, heavly pregnant with my 3rd, she was born in the flat, anyways they had cockroashes in them, and i had to move i was petrefied of them always screaming lol, rember all the shops close by, does anyone rember the old lady statue with the boobs and ugly head near the bus stop facing the malvina club, i always use to climb on it and wave to the passangers on the bus lol, also my children played on her too... is she still there.. ? anyways the daughter what was born in the flat, were both going to visit nechell in the summer holidays...:D
 
Another book you may find usefull is " TAKE HEART BIRMINGHAM "
It is an excellent book about about people, history and change in the HEARTLANDS. ;)
 
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