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Sheldon

Interestingly that is not the later scout hut but the original one. The new one was further down in its own fenced compound. I helped dismantle it on what is now Gilbertstone recreation ground and also with its reconstruction.
I had great times in that old hut and we played Wide Games on the George the Fifth park. We also camped in York Woods and pulled the loaded trek cart there and back. St. John's ambulance taught us our medical badge on several visits. I was patrol leader of the Kingfishers and map reading was our particular skill.
I loved the Silvermere scout group. It might have been a year or so before you OldBrummie. I lived in Bray's road then. My parents are buried in St. Giles church.
Hello, our parents ashes are also interred at St Giles Church under the clock. We lived in Fallindale Road and went to Stanville Road School. We 3 girls were married at St Giles Church.
 
Hi I was very good friends with Barbara C and we got into all sorts of scrapes….say no more. She was much braver than me and older, but it was an awful shock to hear she had died. I’m not sure who Alan is though. I married a local lad who lived in Mapledene Road. We were married for nearly 40 years, but he sadly died in 2012. We grew up together and spent a lot of time in the playing fields, just hanging out with a group of others of a similar age.
 
Just stumbled across this post - and this forum. I lived in Brays Road from 1954 to 1962. First 8 years of my life. I remember The Baggies, the rope swing, Singleton's shop etc. Major nostalgia.
 
Just stumbled across this post - and this forum. I lived in Brays Road from 1954 to 1962. First 8 years of my life. I remember The Baggies, the rope swing, Singleton's shop etc. Major nostalgia.
Hi John.. I must be a few years older than you (born late 1943). Lived the first 21 years in Brays Road. Our house was number 90, in what we called old Brays Road, before the development down to the Radleys after the war. Went to the Comp. and worked part time as an errand boy for Shepherds the grocery shop next to Singletons.
As you say 'Major nostalgia' with unlimited access to open fields and places and, of course, first loves and losses. I have sat in the back row of the Sheldon cinema! I do not view those times through rose tinted glasses, there were hard times and cold winters but I think myself lucky and would not have had it different.
 
Hi John.. I must be a few years older than you (born late 1943). Lived the first 21 years in Brays Road. Our house was number 90, in what we called old Brays Road, before the development down to the Radleys after the war. Went to the Comp. and worked part time as an errand boy for Shepherds the grocery shop next to Singletons.
As you say 'Major nostalgia' with unlimited access to open fields and places and, of course, first loves and losses. I have sat in the back row of the Sheldon cinema! I do not view those times through rose tinted glasses, there were hard times and cold winters but I think myself lucky and would not have had it different.
Hi, Bookworm. I guess the flats my family lived in were part of the post war development you mentioned.

The Sheldon cinema was my first experience of big screen entertainment. Captain Video movies at the Saturday matinee. I remember asking my sister what the cinema was like before my first visit, and she said it was like a huge TV without knobs to twiddle. :)

I was too young for back row snogging back then. Now I'm too old.
 
Hi, Bookworm. I guess the flats my family lived in were part of the post war development you mentioned.

The Sheldon cinema was my first experience of big screen entertainment. Captain Video movies at the Saturday matinee. I remember asking my sister what the cinema was like before my first visit, and she said it was like a huge TV without knobs to twiddle. :)

I was too young for back row snogging back then. Now I'm too old.
Hi John... Yes I remember the flats. Opposite the GPO sports ground. High rise (two storeys). I used to deliver groceries there.
When we first lived there the buses stopped at the Swan Yardley. I started my early education at Church Road School... and had to walk there and back. Later at Lyndon Green in Wychwood Cresent, much nearer! The years after the war were lean and hungry. It was a decade of austerity, but we had a freedom unknown to later generations and memories of a simpler and happier early life.
 
I went to Lyndon Green Primary School. One of my earliest memories is standing in the playground, looking up into a foxglove that was much bigger than me as a bee buzzed from flower to flower. Funny the things that stick in your mind.
We moved away from Sheldon when I was eight to a grotty part of inner Birmingham, and I really missed access to green spaces like King George Playing Fields, The Baggies etc.
 
Thanks jmadone.... I have that book and played a tiny part in it when helping in the research while at Sheldon Heath Comp. Another book
Around Sheldon (images of England) has an image of Gilbertstone House, Lyndon. Built in 1866 for Samuel Thornley. It was on the hill where Herondale and Saxondale roads are. They moved there into an older house in 1830 and had a new house built. Apparently he bought up farms land and houses all over Sheldon. We predominantly played in what was the Arboretum which had a boating pool but also went to the Baggies. I was a scout for a long time (in the hut by St. Giles) so King George V sports fields were also a part of my leasure time. Later, when I tried to play football, Gilbertstone playing fields was where my ineptitude was displayed! So much choice. The pond (boating pool) was a magical place. If I close my eyes I can still see it now. It is now the site of a special school and, like so many things, only remains as a memory.
It was possible to see the pond from the classrooms at Lyndon Green School. I was always gazing out of the window and watching the two swans swimming on it.
 
Just stumbled across this post - and this forum. I lived in Brays Road from 1954 to 1962. First 8 years of my life. I remember The Baggies, the rope swing, Singleton's shop etc. Major nostalgia.
I lived in Barrows Lane for the first 20 years of my life from 1947 until I got married. We had a lane alongside our house that led into Wilclare Road. Down this lane used to be the village post office. When it closed it was possible to get into the Willmott Breedon sports ground at the back of it. There was a cricket pavillion - I remember hearing the sound of people shouting "How's that" and cheering the cricketers from our back garden and going down to watch when I got older.

On the other side of the lane was a huge house with fruit trees in the back garden. It was pulled down some years ago and new apartments built. Before I started school I used to play out on my tricycle with the little lads that lived in the prefabs on the other side of the big house. We were all too young for school. I remember Stephen, Peter, Paul and also Billy who lived up the road the other way. I had a sandpit in my garden, but we all loved making mud pies with old cups in Stephen's back garden.
Where are you now lads? Does anyone remember the huge house that I think was on the corner of either Wilclare Rd or Brays Road - and the miniature train that used to go around the garden with the owner sitting on it? We used to peep through the hedging at it.
I remember Singletons. Also at the top of Garretts Green Lane there was a grocery shop called Perks? I think this was before or after the shop was called Favours?
Anyone remember the GPO sports ground in Wilclare Road - we loved the annual fair they had there - in the days when you could win a goldfish.

I used to enjoy riding my scooter down Wilclare Road, as it was on a hill.

I remember Wells Green precinct being built, and going to the Sheldon Picture House from an early age.

My parents moved into our house in 1937, so just before the war. The barracks down the road had "ack ack" guns which they fired during air raids. When Coventry was bombed my mum emerged from their air raid shelter thinking their house would be flat. But it wasn't.
My brother who was eleven years older than me, would go round the garden with a seaside bucket picking up shrapnel that had landed in the garden.
 
I lived in Barrows Lane for the first 20 years of my life from 1947 until I got married. We had a lane alongside our house that led into Wilclare Road. Down this lane used to be the village post office. When it closed it was possible to get into the Willmott Breedon sports ground at the back of it. There was a cricket pavillion - I remember hearing the sound of people shouting "How's that" and cheering the cricketers from our back garden and going down to watch when I got older.

On the other side of the lane was a huge house with fruit trees in the back garden. It was pulled down some years ago and new apartments built. Before I started school I used to play out on my tricycle with the little lads that lived in the prefabs on the other side of the big house. We were all too young for school. I remember Stephen, Peter, Paul and also Billy who lived up the road the other way. I had a sandpit in my garden, but we all loved making mud pies with old cups in Stephen's back garden.
Where are you now lads? Does anyone remember the huge house that I think was on the corner of either Wilclare Rd or Brays Road - and the miniature train that used to go around the garden with the owner sitting on it? We used to peep through the hedging at it.
I remember Singletons. Also at the top of Garretts Green Lane there was a grocery shop called Perks? I think this was before or after the shop was called Favours?
Anyone remember the GPO sports ground in Wilclare Road - we loved the annual fair they had there - in the days when you could win a goldfish.

I used to enjoy riding my scooter down Wilclare Road, as it was on a hill.

I remember Wells Green precinct being built, and going to the Sheldon Picture House from an early age.

My parents moved into our house in 1937, so just before the war. The barracks down the road had "ack ack" guns which they fired during air raids. When Coventry was bombed my mum emerged from their air raid shelter thinking their house would be flat. But it wasn't.
My brother who was eleven years older than me, would go round the garden with a seaside bucket picking up shrapnel that had landed in the garden.
I lived on Moat Lane at the bottom of the Barros Lane hill across from the Church, in the winter if it snowed we would slide down on our toboggans. Singletons were the newsagents down Barrows lane from us then. The Cricket field was at the top of Barrows lane and Church Rd. also the Pub Ringa Bells? up there that I was told burnt down, I lived there from 1938 to when I left for the USA in 1957 I well remember the bombing of Coventry and we stood on out front step and saw the Red Glow from the fires. I had quite a collection of shrapnel and fins of incendiary bombs. Does anyone remember this I was 7 years then
 

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I lived on Moat Lane at the bottom of the Barros Lane hill across from the Church, in the winter if it snowed we would slide down on our toboggans. Singletons were the newsagents down Barrows lane from us then. The Cricket field was at the top of Barrows lane and Church Rd. also the Pub Ringa Bells? up there that I was told burnt down, I lived there from 1938 to when I left for the USA in 1957 I well remember the bombing of Coventry and we stood on out front step and saw the Red Glow from the fires. I had quite a collection of shrapnel and fins of incendiary bombs.
John, not too many memories like that!
 
I didn't know that Wilmott Breedon had a sports ground there. The only one I remember was at Bickenhill/Elmdon opposite the airport. Used to go fishing there quite often with Dad who worked at WB. in the 50s/60s.
 
I didn't know that Wilmott Breedon had a sports ground there. The only one I remember was at Bickenhill/Elmdon opposite the airport. Used to go fishing there quite often with Dad who worked at WB. in the 50s/60s.
I was wondering about that, I know Hardy Spicer had a sports field somewhere near St Bernards Grange, could that be the one that is being remembered? My brother was groundsman at WB for many years.
 
I was wondering about that, I know Hardy Spicer had a sports field somewhere near St Bernards Grange, could that be the one that is being remembered? My brother was groundsman at WB for many years.
I also remember another one that belonged to the CO-OP around that area but I could be mistaken.
 
Lived up the street on Moat Lane and Barrows Road Yardley for 23 years left in 1957, Singletons Newsagent and the Bilton Grange Ring O bells remember them all, The Armory is still there I understand
 
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