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They Were Caught In Our Old Street Pics...

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Hi Stephen - I like that song when Gladys Knight sings it and here's the way we were in the middle of the swinging sixties. A young lad has to wait with his posh scooter while his sister chats to her friend. A youngster licks his ice lolly while he guards his mom's shopping bag.
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So you want to take my photo!
It's 1900 and he strikes a nice pose. He could not have imagined that over 100 years later with some wizard electrickery, we could all look at him on the forum !
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Just a thought about the Dad pushing the pram in the first picture, we don’t know that there’s a baby in the pram, perhaps they’ve had a house party the night before, and he’s taking the ‘empties’ back to the ‘Outdoor’
Nick
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Hi Brummie Nick,
I like it, you could be right, but if he's got empties he would have turned left on to the pub car park.
He is heading for Thornbridge Avenue and I remember a small coal yard on the corner of Tideswell Road and Thornbridge Ave. In the 40's and 50's, prams were sometimes used to carry sacks of coal... :)
 
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It's Corporation St in 1964 and a man is running wearing sunglasses, did he try them on in a shop and then did a 'runner', probably not because no one is chasing him and he's running towards the law courts ! Maybe he is just 'jogging' but it's a strange place to jog.
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Above pic linked to post https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=35337&p=439269#post439269

This photo looks a bit weird to me. The bloke in sunglasses seems to be holding an 'A3' sign and the people near the bus seem to be emerging from the bus engine.Parts of their bodies seem lost! Has the #160 bus travelling up Corporation St been superimposed? Has the 'A3'' man in sunglasses escaped from a Monty Python sketch. Is it me or ............ I sense this photo has been 'fiddled with'. Viv.
 
This photo looks a bit weird to me. The bloke in sunglasses seems to be holding an 'A3' sign and the people near the bus seem to be emerging from the bus engine.Parts of their bodies seem lost! Has the #160 bus travelling up Corporation St been superimposed? Has the 'A3'' man in sunglasses escaped from a Monty Python sketch. Is it me or ............ I sense this photo has been 'fiddled with'. Viv.

Try this one...the dandy-dressed guy in the sunglasses has just exited his flash E-type Jaguar. On a rush for a court appearance for serial offences to do with parking/obstruction? He looks like Frank Gorshin stepped out of an appearance as The Riddler in the Batman TV series to me....
 
HI OLD MOWHAWK
Cracking picture of nostalga for me and i can recall how people used to gather and sit and congrgate around the old fountain in the square
by the multitued in those days but more so in the picture at the back of the scene where the big gates are showing
it brings to my mind that wen i came out of the forces i wentthrough those gates to an interview for a security job at the council house
along with my friend whom had just previuosly came out of the forces and just back from hong long he told me of the job
and he told me of the postion so i phoned and went along and i went throgh those gates and into the council house
it was fantastic inside the council house best wishes Astonian;
 
This photo looks a bit weird to me. The bloke in sunglasses seems to be holding an 'A3' sign and the people near the bus seem to be emerging from the bus engine.Parts of their bodies seem lost! Has the #160 bus travelling up Corporation St been superimposed? Has the 'A3'' man in sunglasses escaped from a Monty Python sketch. Is it me or ............ I sense this photo has been 'fiddled with'. Viv.
Hi Viv - 'Fiddled Old Photos' - I must admit I wondered why no one on the zebra crossing was looking at him. I can see a shadow under him so he might be real. I will have to enlarge the photo and have a close look - I might also check all other forum photos to see if I can spot anyone using a mobile phone in the 40's and 50's !


Try this one...the dandy-dressed guy in the sunglasses has just exited his flash E-type Jaguar. On a rush for a court appearance for serial offences to do with parking/obstruction? He looks like Frank Gorshin stepped out of an appearance as The Riddler in the Batman TV series to me....
A brilliant caption Richie - did you ever write scripts for TV shows ?
 
And the Belisha beacon next to the bus has no top, the shadow cast by the bus is very short and the drainpipe doesn't appear below the A3 sign. So has the bus replaced a car I wonder? Perhaps this was one of those 'Spot the Difference' photos ! But seriously, it shows how interesting it can be to really look closely at a photo. You can spot so many clues around the main subject which are often hidden on first glances. Viv.
 
In this Ladywood Courtyard the children in the background happily playing 'ring-a-ring of roses' but the little girl isn't, wonder why she is looking so serious ?
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And the Belisha beacon next to the bus has no top, the shadow cast by the bus is very short and the drainpipe doesn't appear below the A3 sign. So has the bus replaced a car I wonder? Perhaps this was one of those 'Spot the Difference' photos ! But seriously, it shows how interesting it can be to really look closely at a photo. You can spot so many clues around the main subject which are often hidden on first glances. Viv.
I've had a close look, if it has been doctored it is clever, all shadows seem correct. Maybe someone will know what the route was for that number 160 Midland Red bus.
 
In this Ladywood Courtyard the children in the background happily playing 'ring-a-ring of roses' but the little girl isn't, wonder why she is looking so serious ?
Courtyard_Ladywood.jpg

Above pic linked to post https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=21690&p=422536#post422536

I think the little girl has been left out of the Ring-o-Roses game. Her sister however is oblivious (in the same skirt) happily joining in. Her expression seems to be appealing to her mom to do something about it. Think she has a stick in her hand, so maybe she was doing something else when the game started and missed out on joining in at the start. What a great example of how older children entertained the younger ones. When I see a line of washing like the ones here I'm surprised at how little there was. It's obviously one or more family's weekly washing but probably equates to one day in modern times. They had so few clothes. Viv.
 
High Street in 1946, the war is over but quite a few glum faces, but two laughing girls look out of a window, surely they can't be touching the top of the bus. A lady crosses the road arm-in-arm with a man in a foreign looking uniform, maybe a wartime romance, if she's lucky they are off to buy an engagement ring.
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Going back to this Corporation Street image. Thanks to Viv's tip-offs it looks like we have two-or even three-photos in one here. The bus and pedestrians on the crossings. Somehow cut-outs pasted over. Drainpipe looks too new for the building-no attempt at architectural harmony. The A34 sign: if this is a one-way street why is the nameplate facing the wrong way? (The A3 ran from London to Southampton anyway)

Can any of our bus experts validate the route number 160/180? All we need to know now is find out which dodgy competition of 'Mark the Ball' this came from in the 1960s. I'm sure the Birmingham Evening Mail has hundreds of unclaimed prizes from those years! LOL
 
High Street in 1946, the war is over but quite a few glum faces, but two laughing girls look out of a window, surely they can't be touching the top of the bus. A lady crosses the road arm-in-arm with a man in a foreign looking uniform, maybe a wartime romance, if she's lucky they are off to buy an engagement ring.
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Above pic linked to post https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=8484&p=427195#post427195

Wonder how the two ladies leaning out of the window were able to lean across and touch the roof of the bus? Was the pavement very narrow at that point I wonder. Viv.
 
In fact on closer inspection, is this another fiddled about with bus photo?! Again, people seem to be either getting onto the bus alongside the driver or they're being absorbed into the side of the bus .... See what you think ... Could be wrong .... Viv.

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Well it loks like the theasy estate bus i i recall the 29 bus that came down through hockley brook
and looking at the guy by the door i would say the bus as broken down which was quite regular in those days and they are getting off the bus and being transfered to aother one in front to carry on with there journey best wishes Astonian;;
 
That looks like a E Type Jag series 1 in photo 41.
Certainly is, my old boss had one in 1962 then I had one in 1968 difference was that his was new and mine was 6 years old in fact the one in the photo looks like it could have been mine just a shame you can't see the reg No (mine was 27 DYM).
 
HI NICK
In the early fiftys that 29 bus was a terminus outside henys stores along with aload of other buses which was going to most parts of the birmingham city along with the 39 bus to witton coming down theaston rd north from the city and going up park rd crossing victoria and down to aston parish church where the terminus was to turn around yet again before the fiftys and during the fiftys and Henrys was at dale end and the jacy picture house across the rd
and a little island with down below stret toiles and a police officier on traffic duty in white coat and gloves
best wishes Astonian;
 
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