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old brum mag pics..

i think they did rupert..seem to remember it under disscussion but would need to try and find the exact posts about it and to be honest i may not have posted it under this thread in the first place...hopefully someone can help us out on location...

lyn
 
sorry about the poor quality of these pics but they are on very thin paper from old mags...there are no locations either but just say images of brums back houses...i dont think it matters really as to me every pic tells a story..there is some writing on the wall of the brewhouse on pic 4 but i cant make it out...

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Every time I look at these last awfull vistages I am filled with sadness at the human condition. That they were allowed to exist for so long in an otherwise prosperous location. The Empire was rotting from the inside outwards.
 
hi rupert i hear what you are saying but in those days they did not know anything different..dont forget many things had not been invented back then.and we only look upon that way of life as pretty dam awful and sad because it no longer exists...it was just the way life was..its called history..who knows in 150/200 years time people will look back on the way we live now and think it primative...

lyn
 
Lyn, even at the turn of the century...I think they knew...I believe they knew. The abodes were decrepit even then. Fifty years later I know they knew. We tend to pass it off by saying...ah but we had spirit, everyone was friendly and so on...there may have been such circumstances but it was not general. General would have been the corner pub and the feeling of hopelessnes and being damp and rarely warm and comfortable, unless huddled around a single coal fire. General would be the galvanised tin tub to fill with water from a kettle, for a bath of sorts once a week. I don't think that all of those years into the future people will say...we only had one fully equiped bathroom with shower...or only a fitted kitchen with refridgerator and dishwasher and microwave. No replicator (Earl Grey hot-make it so). It's science 'fiction' and most of what is going to happen has already happened by now. Certainly we can look upon the cold water tap in the yard and youngsters with sadness though and wonder about the inequality...self contrived or otherwise...that supported it.
Please don't take this as critiscism of yourself. I am just portraying my personal feelings and realise they are mine only...perhaps.
 
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Not far wrong Rupert from what I know.

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of course i dont take it personally rupert..i do understand that there were differnt degrees of hardships back in the day...i also realise that maybe the back to back house where i was born was most likey in better condition than other dwellings that were around so i count myself lucky..ive spoken to many who were not so lucky and only have bad memories of the conditions they lived in so you are not alone in your thoughts..

cheers

lyn
 
I agree with everything Rupert says about living in Backto Back houses, no one
nowadays seems to realize just how poor people were in those days, wondering
if you had sixpence if a child was ill and you wanted to call in the Doctor!I was onc
at a meeting and someone me"Arnt you proud to born in Balsall Heath? I said Are
you joking? In a flea bitten Victorian slum. Bernard.
 
Wonderful Pictures . Many thanks for putting them up . We lived in Willis street which had a courtyard when you went down the entry . I shall only say one thing that they did have in those days and that no one died lonely , These days you could die in your bed and not be found for days . We are emotionally poor these days . Our elderley are neglected and isolated and certainly in Birmingham the city centre is no place for them .
My mum had milk fever after having my brother .. it was neighbours that came in and looked after us kids and tended to mum and the baby . They didn't need any jumped up Prime minister telling them they had to have community spirit . Grrr ! Me , well I hold my head up high that I came from a working class background :)
We do still have poverty but in a different way . But no one misses the bed bugs .. it makes me shudder to think of them now but we had them until we were finally moved out when I was 7 . .. In one back to back house Mum Dad .. us 5 kids and gran .
Nostalgic or what :) Jean
 
These photos of back to backs are important to see as they're our history, sometimes that means they're an uncomfortable reminder. But that has important role; the occasional reminders from history hopefully help keep us grounded. For me that's what these photos do well. When the whinging starts about what a financial mess we're in today just compare it to the lives of these people. Viv.
 
My first experience of a back to back was at the age of 26 after coming out of the RAF in 1956, because of lack of housing points (my 8 years service counted for nothing) I was offered a 2 bedroomed flat in Telford new town, take it or leave it, I had just started work with PO Telephones in Birmingham so that was no good to me. The house (?) was in Vicarage Road, Aston (1/128) with a private Landlord and what a cultural shock, NO kitchen,No bathroom, sharing an outside Toilet with 2 other families, sharing a 'brew house' with other families, rotting woodwork, damp (mainly due to gas cooking in the only downstairs room. It was an out and out broken down slum, how we stood it for so long I don't know. Its only advantage was low rent (12/6) so we could save our deposit for a house that much quicker. Those reconstructed back house on show in the City do not show the real back to back as it really was. Eric
 
I agree with you Eric those buildings are way too clean and Tidy . Many thanks for your story It saddens me but at the same time ,by the way we were brought up or had to manage in those days it made us not afraid of hard work ( Elbow Grease as my nan called it ) We are fighters and know how to get our heads down and graft for what we want . I dont blame a lot of our society but they just would not know how to manage , this is not only young people . I know it made me fight for my future and I strongly believe in education .
Seeing these back to back reminds me that the Rich factory owners had their own slave labour ( With the exception of a few like Saltaire in Bradford and Mr Cadbury who had a social conscience ) But that's one thing that hasnt changed , the rich have got richer on the backs of the poor . The only difference is it is Global .
Yours cynically Jean
 
It's important to have these photos, to show what it was like. I've never experienced such conditions, I'm very lucky that we lived in a 3 X 1 terraced house with front and back garden.
As you say these images are very different from the reconstructed back to backs!
Lets hope we never see the like of that poverty ever again xx
 
It could be Highgate St. But after I zoomed in I thought it looked more like 11 Ct, Rolfe St!

Could these pics be Smethwick?

Paul
 
hi mike it could be highgate..thanks everyone for your very interesting posts on this thread...will sort out some more pics later on today...

lyn
 
Just a thought - weren't a lot of these photos taken as a historical record shortly before the buildings were to be demolished? That is the reason for the chalked location details (e.g. at the back of the court).

So this means we are seeing what were amongst the worst properties in the city at that time, not average ones.

Paul
 
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