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Varna Road

O

orcaz1

proper brummie kid
Newbie lurking this site for the past 3 weeks, totally engrossed in it. However I,m starting to get a phobia over all the references to Varna Rd. Born in '48 and lived at 103 Varna road till 1959. Schooled at Mary St Primary, Balsall Heath. As a kid I thought the area was reasonably middle class compared to how some of my friends lived near the school. The house was on the east side about 1/2 way between Balsall Heath rd and Speedwell Rd. It was semi detached with front vestibule, large bay windowed front room a middle room, a kitchen, pantry and scullery in the rear. It had a full bathroom with hot and cold water at the top of the stairs and four bedrooms. It had a private entry way into the rear courtyard and a large back garden. My Dad worked at "Smarts" in Brum and my Mum kept lodgers, looked after us 5 kids and worked part time at the domestic school for girls on the corner of Alexander rd and Balsall Heath Rd owned by a Mrs Vaughan-Thomas. It was about 2 minutes walk to Calthorpe Park. I remember a wooden box on the wall of the kitchen that didn't work but was obviously for signaling the hired Help in days gone by. There is nothing left of this building (or street) although the large sycamore tree which stood at the bottom of the garden was still there about 25 years ago when I last visited. It would be interesting to know why the road went so bad and in such a relatively short time span.
 
Hi Orcaz welcome to the forum.
There seem to be a lot of streets like this that turned face from what they used to be and I have no doubt there will be lots of theories about why this happened.
I think some of it happened when a lot of the bigger houses were converted to flats, people didn't always seem to have the same pride in them as they did in a big house, and there was sometimes less interaction with the neighbours, folks didn't seem to look out for each other in the same way - my thoughts anyway, will be interesting to see what others think and if anyone has a view on your street.
Sue
 
Unfortunately Varna road in the early sixties was taken over by many undesirable elements, the whole area was considered to be the red light district of Birmingham. I feel for the residents who had to suffer the pestering of potential clients for the ladies who took a lot (but not all) of the area over. I have no wish to offend any member who lived in the area but you can't change history.
 
Hello & welcome Orcaz1 from Vancouver side? (Orca Whale watching Pacific side ?) Lovely.

SisterSue & Nickcc101 are bang on with their "observances" and politely put what unfortunately happens to some areas & usually the nicest
most affluent leafy suburbs such as Calthorpe Park area in general, eh Alexander & Varna Rds,main Balsall Heath Rd full of business class,
lawyers, doctors, plenty of double-barrelled names afloating around thataways,,Therefor the most "likely" area less than a mile from B,ham
City Centre for the ladies of the oldest profession in the World to move into as the ones who saw the changes (clever Mom & Dad) moved out.

Canada has far more liberal views on this sort of thing, Topless bars abound & certain places Yonge/Bloor Toronto, B,ham(Detroit side) &
Sault Ste Marie known as a frisky frontier town, but being a good brummie lad i just stuck to Orange juice,,Cheers John
 
HI NICO ;
I CAN ASSURE YOU IT WAS WELL BEFORE THE SIXTYS THAT VARNA RD AND ALEXANDER AND PRINCESS RD BECAME THE RED LIGHT AREA ;
YES THEY WAS BIG HOUSES AND PARLOUR TYPE THE LADYS OF THE NIGHT USED TO SIT IN THE WINDOWS SOME TIMES IN PAIRS
BECONNING GENTS WHOM WAS IN SEARCH FOR THERE NEEDS BELEIVE ME
BELEIVE ME IF YOU WAS A DECENT FAMILY MEMBER OF OUR SOCIETY YOU COULDNOT IF YOU LIVED UP THESE STREETS PARK YOUR CARS
AND IF YOU STOOD AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STRET BOTH ENDS AND WATCHED THE GUYS STROLLING UP AND DOWN YOU WOULD SMILE
CARS WAS BUMPING AND JUMPING FOR POSTIONS TO PULL OUT OF THE KERB ; WHEN EVER THE POLICE APPEARED AND THE POLICE WAS ON FOOT
IT WAS LIKE A SCENE OF THE END OF A FOOT BALL MATCH ;THEY COULD NOT GET AWAY QUICKER ENOUGH
AND THE LADIES WOULD DRAW THERE DRAPES [ CURTAINS ] AND THE STREET WOULD BE CLEARED IN ALL THESE THREE STREETS
THE DECENT PEOPLE MOVED OUT AND SOLD THERE HOUSES TO THE UNDESIREABLES ; I WILL SAY AND THEY RENTED THERE FRONT ROOMS TO THESE LADIES
I USED TO HAVE A RELATIVE OF MINE WHOM WAS BUSSINESS PEOPLELIVED IN BASALL HEATH RD WAY BACK IN THE THIRTYS IN FACT EVEN BEFORE THAT IN THE TWENTYS SO I KNEW IT WAS ABIT LIKE THAT THE ODD ONE OR TWO THEMN AND IN THE FIFTYS I USED TO DO THE COUNCI REPAIRS LL AROUND THAT ARE AND THOSE TRD ALONGWITH BELGRAVE RD FROM CAMP HILL THROUGH TO BALSALL HEATH DOING THE ROOFS
SO YOU SE THATS HOW I KNOW ABOUT THESE RD ; AND LATER THE PUB THE EARL GREY WAS TAKEN OVER THEY TOOK IT OVER ; IN THE EARLY SIXTIES IT USED TO HAVE SOME TOUGH GAFFERS THERE BUT AS TIME WENT ON IT WAS GANG LAND TIME I USED TO GO INTO ESTATE AGENTS OFFICES
AND WHEN THEY STARTED TO TELL PEOPLE WHOM WAS NOT FROM BRUM ABOUT THE BACK GROUND OF THE AREA I USED TO LISTEN WHAT THEY TOLD THEM WHAT A NICE ARE VARNA AND PRINCESS RD WAS LIKE AFTER THE YOUNG COUPLE HAD GONE I USED TO SAY TO THE AGENT WHATA LOAD OF RUBBISH IF THEY REALLY KNEW THEY WOPULD NOT BUY IT ; THIS IS THE EIGHTYS AND A COUPLE OF THE OL LADIES OF THE NIGHT WAS STILL OPERATING ; I WILL CALL HER JOAN; ;SHE MUST HAVE BEEN THE ONLY SURVIVINGGIRL SHE WAS A LONDONEER GIRL ;
ARE WELL I WAFFLED ON ABIT BUT THATSTHECLUTCH OF THE MATTER IS IT WAS BEFORE THE SIXTYS THAT WAS GOING AND NOT THE SIXTYS
BEST WISHES Astonian;;
 
Wow! A vivid and accurate description of how it was, thanks very much astonian for posting this. You are quite right it was going downhill in the mid 50's. As a boy of 7-8 years old I didn't take much notice of my surroundings you just accepted it the way it was and got on with it. I do remember the police walked down the road in two and threes and sometimes with a police dog. If I ran an errand for my Mum it was for free, if one of the lodgers asked me to go get them a packet of players weights I got threepence some of the ladies in the parlour windows would ask me to get some fags I would get anywhere from a bob to half a crown, so unbeknown I was helping boost the local economy. I think sistersue61 has a point as to how it got that way. It was not unheard of to hear stories of 10 20 families being packed into one house, and John Young has a point about being only a mile from the city center. As a side note I believe the modern day business has moved to the Hagley road area. I have a picture which claims to be Varna road, When I figure out how to post it I will.
 
hi orcaz1
yes it moved to portland road and gillot rd later in years regarding hagley rd it was not half as bad in those days ; if you speak to any
taxi driver of the hackney clan of taxie drivers in the sixty if you are out late and want a service they always knewwhere you could go and they would
take you there to the club if you like ;

astonian;;
 
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Astonian said:
hi orcaz1
yes it moved to portland road and gillot rd later in years regarding hagley rd it was not half as bad in those days ; if you speak to any
taxi driver of the hackney clan of taxie drivers in the sixty if you are out late and want a service they always knewwhere you could go and they would
take you there to the club if you like ;

astonian;;
Click to expand...
Have to say that during my short career in the mid sixties as a private hire driver I found the girls to be quite generous, but not always prepared to pay cash. We used to post our advertising cards through the doors around that area in the hope of gaining business and beating our competitors.
 
BalsallHeathRd.jpg
Now I figured out how to upload pics, here's another one. This was just around the corner between Varna Rd and the Earl Grey pub on Balsall Heath Rd. On the adjacent corner there was a grocery shop where i would run errands to pick up 1/2 pound of plain streaky bacon. Next to it was a sweet shop where you could buy a penny bag of "Kayli" ( not sure of the spelling ) and you would get a small straw to suck it out. Across on the opposite corner from the earl grey pub were a couple more shops with a telephone box outside. I believe the buildings are still there. One of the shops was run by Jews and was closed on Saturdays but open on a Sunday. This was handy because all the shops in those days were only open 9 - 5 closed sundays and 1/2 day Wednesday.
 
Mrs Vaughan-Thomas was also a teacher at upper highgate girls school (cookery / domestic science ) and later at harborne hill secondary school .
 
My Mum used to do some work at her residence also, I have no idea where it was but it was a big posh house. I do remember a pond with a fountain in the rear garden which had frogs in it. One of her daughter's name was Penelope. Even though I was young, I liked this girl very much so much so that I named my firstborn after her.
 
HI ORCAZ
The shop you are refefering to was GEE,s provisions more or less oppersite the earl grey pub;
i know this paricular family very well indeed the lady in question now lives in portway ; and got remarried and her daughter
used to run a tea wagon out side the new cannal street dog home on the car park of the ware houses now operating out side the billesley pub ;
when you said the lady had a posh house it would have been around the corner as you say on balsall heath rd or wellington rd
where most of the jewish familys lived and still do i beleive but most of the well known familys of the jewish familys have moved on
but alot of the jewish family s of high class bussiness in brum still live around the area i could give you there names but for legal reasons i cannot do it ;
they are names you would have heard off
the rd around the corner by the phone box later became belgraveia place ;where they demolshished and rebuilt the houses there today ;
the other person you mentioned was a butchers shop on balsall heath rd they lived in selly park rd ; a miseable man ; indeed ;
but his wife was a lovely woman; whom i also knew very well; to be honest i knew most of the jewish commutity around the area
these two people was in a constration camp ;they had there arms tatooned with there number what the germans done to them and marked them
we often spoke about the war years ; eventualy he died and she lived alone before moving back to london with her daughter ;
welinton rd still holds alot of the grand houses big huge houses alot with fountains andhuge gardens and they all have cleaning ladies
there is alot of well known names with high flying proffession ; and bussiness even tv personalitys whom have lived up there
along with high court judges its certainly hold history fotr birmingham ; beleive me ;
best wishes astonian;;
 
i used to go to mrs vaughan thomas,s house to learn what was then called "house wifery"....i attended upperhighgate girls school .a lot of .the houses in that area were used for prostitution .i knew one prossy called brenda through a friend of mine ,i asked brenda why she did what she did and her reply was "i cant read or write noone will employ me so this is how i earn my living .maybe that was the reason others did it too .......
 
sandracoley said:
i used to go to mrs vaughan thomas,s house to learn what was then called "house wifery"....i attended upperhighgate girls school .a lot of .the houses in that area were used for prostitution .i knew one prossy called brenda through a friend of mine ,i asked brenda why she did what she did and her reply was "i cant read or write noone will employ me so this is how i earn my living .maybe that was the reason others did it too .......
Click to expand...
. Hi sandra, good point. Illiteracy was commonplace back then. I have been thinking about this one and decided Brenda was pulling your leg. There was a huge shortage of Labour after the war and jobs were pretty easy to find even if they didn't pay much. Brenda's occupation on the other hand would pay very well!
 
Astonian said:
HI ORCAZ
The shop you are refefering to was GEE,s provisions more or less oppersite the earl grey pub;
i know this paricular family very well indeed the lady in question now lives in portway ; and got remarried and her daughter
used to run a tea wagon out side the new cannal street dog home on the car park of the ware houses now operating out side the billesley pub ;
when you said the lady had a posh house it would have been around the corner as you say on balsall heath rd or wellington rd
where most of the jewish familys lived and still do i beleive but most of the well known familys of the jewish familys have moved on
but alot of the jewish family s of high class bussiness in brum still live around the area i could give you there names but for legal reasons i cannot do it ;
they are names you would have heard off
the rd around the corner by the phone box later became belgraveia place ;where they demolshished and rebuilt the houses there today ;
the other person you mentioned was a butchers shop on balsall heath rd they lived in selly park rd ; a miseable man ; indeed ;
but his wife was a lovely woman; whom i also knew very well; to be honest i knew most of the jewish commutity around the area
these two people was in a constration camp ;they had there arms tatooned with there number what the germans done to them and marked them
we often spoke about the war years ; eventualy he died and she lived alone before moving back to london with her daughter ;
welinton rd still holds alot of the grand houses big huge houses alot with fountains andhuge gardens and they all have cleaning ladies
there is alot of well known names with high flying proffession ; and bussiness even tv personalitys whom have lived up there
along with high court judges its certainly hold history fotr birmingham ; beleive me ;
best wishes astonian;;
Click to expand...
Hello Astonian, Ever heard of a Mrs Crooks that lived in a villa in Ladywood?
 
Hi i worked in Varna road doing property repairs for the council in the early 60s. The thing i most remember of the place were the rats, every house we went into there was signs of them. I was really scared of going to work.
 
ndI wouldn't doubt it, I think a lot of places in Brum were like that though specially around the canals. I remember seeing a dead dog floating in the "cut" in Winson Green when I was a small boy. Nearly made me puke! Are you sure it was the council working in Varna rd? Most of those houses were owned. The house we lived in was built in 1868 and had a 99 year lease. I dont know who held the lease, must have been the council or it may have been the Calthorpe estate, maybe a solicitor or estate agent on the forum could answer that. On a side note and to get back to the start of the thread, there was a murder in Varna rd sometime in the early or mid fifties down near St. Lukes rd. In those days murders were pretty rare, about 10 a year in the whole country, ( compare that to nowadays!!) so the murder in Varna rd would have caused quite sensation and would have made it into the national newspapers giving the road bad notoriety. Can anyone of you experts come up with some info from old newspaper clips?
 
hi orcaz1
when podgery said about the murder and the council houses he was correct but the house with the murder was not in varna rd
but it was a rd close to it i think it was princess rd to be honest the council had not long built afew little houses then it was close to the belgrave rd end
close to the old junction the island was not there then; as the number 8 buses passes pershore rd heading towards mosely rd
there was a small batch of houses on there own where the council put a compulsive purchase order on them ;
it was only estate agents whom was dealing with the sales of the houses within that quarter and they would send in the contractors to clear them out
after the owners have moved out before letting people go in and veiwing the houses alteritively it would have been later in years
i think it was the seventys when the goverment came up with a plann for comutity services when any body got them selves into trouble by law
they would have to do some kind of work in which i know they did do was to send a gang of people whom had to do this work all around that area of what was once known as balsall heath area of brum they had to remove garden sheds and clear gardens that had never ever seen a spade or rake in the garden for decades
and thats when the rats was coming out in there hundreds some guys refused to go back on there refered comutity services and wanted to do some think else
the house where the murder was commite was i beleive to have been balgravia rd and it was close to the belgrave rd as i said
if on the 8 bus passing you would have seen the back end of the house i question ;
in the fifyts when these houses was being sold off by the english familys the asian people would buy them ;because of the size of those old houses
and it was those whom rented out the rooms and it was those asians whom cleared up the area of prostitution and moved them out of the area ;
and shunted them to rotten park rd and portland rd and gillot rd in those sixtys the police done there job and they went back to balsall heath ; again but the last move with the asian commutity resolved there problem and finaly got shut of them and then it was cockney joan whom survived an old experience lady of
the night and a couple of her neibours that did not move and operated at the earl grey for mant a years i can only presme as died as it fifty years ago now
and she was old then







best wishes astonian
 
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I worked for a chap who got a contract from the council to do certain repairs to houses in Varna road. It was 1964 and these repairs had to be done so there was quite a few buiders ect with these contracts. We went into one house where the floors had to be relayed (they where concrete floors) and we decided to start in the kitchen. So we dug the old floor up and relayed it. When we were finished for the night we locked the doors and went home. When we arrived the next morning we went in the kitchen only to find rat prints in the drying concrete. There was hundreds of them, and my mate had to trowel them out. Later we decided to start on the lounge floor, my mate got hold of the pick and brought it down on the floor, the floor collapsed and rats of all sizes come running out.There was a table close by so i jumped on it and stayed there till they had all gone. We contacted the health but i don't know if they did anything. When we had finished the work on this house we had to go down the cellar only to find 2 dead cats down there. Sorry if iv'e gone on a bit, and i haven't gone to far off thread happy new year podgery
 
Thanks for that Astonian, Many folk don't want to remember the rough stuff but its all part of the history of south Birmingham. Another thing I remember from the fifties era, walking to Mary st school. At one time the whole of Alexander rd being barricaded off between Balsall Heath rd and Speedwell rd. later on I was told it was quarantined because of a smallpox outbreak. I don't know if there's anything in the papers about it, can anyone confirm this?
 
Hi

I wonder if this is the death you were referring to? It's from the Western Daily Press dated 18th April 1949.

"Injured man found dying in Road
In the early hours of yesterday morning a man named George MacConnol (40) of Varna Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, was found lying in Varna Road suffering from head injuries. He died in hospital.
Birmingham police stated that a man had been detained in connection with MacConnol's death and would appear in court today."

Suzanne
 
And from the Western Daily Press on 16 July 1949

"Ernest Thorpe (46) of Varna Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, was sentenced to death at Birmingham Assize yesterday for murdering George Rand MacConnoll (34) of the same address. He had pleaded not guilty."

Suzanne
 
And, finally, from the Western Daily Press 1st August 1949

"The Home Secretary has recommended a reprieve for Ernest Thorpe (46), of Varna Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, who was sentenced to death on July 15th for the murder in April of George Rand MacConnol (34), a fellow lodger at the same address. The execution was to have taken place at Birmingham prison tomorrow."

Suzanne
 
Seems George lived at 103 Varna Road as per his probate record dated 31 March 1950 (Note the difference in the spelling of the Surname.

"George Rand McConnell of 105 Varna Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, died 17th April 1949 at The Accident Hospital Birmingham. Administration Carlisle to Eleanor McConnell widow. Effects £1004 19s 4d"

Suzanne
 
Thanks very much for looking that up (shocked at how close to home that was, wow! ). There was an elderly lady who lived at 105 Varna rd. Mrs Worsley or Worsall I can't remember which. A widow who's husband was killed in WW1 maybe. She must have kept lodgers to survive one of whom came to an unfortunate demise. Whats really interesting here is how swift the justice system was back then.
 
Would any-one be able to find out anymore information on Ernest Thorpe for me please place of birth would be a great help as I have Thorpe in my family.

Regards...............
 
Whoever Ernest Thorpe was he was not born in this area there were no births in 1902/03/04 with that name.
 
Thank you Alberta for your reply.
I will trawl the web to see if I can find any thing on this Ernest Thorpe.
 
Hi

Found a little more on Ernest Thorpe in The Times dated 26th July 1961

"Prisoner found hanged
Ernest Thorpe aged 59, was found hanged in the storeroom at Wakefield prison yesterday. He was serving a three year sentence passed in December 1958, for wounding. Thorpe was a convicted murderer who had been reprieved, released on licence after nearly 10 years in prison and, in the year of his release, sent back to prison for attacking a woman with a hammer."

Suzanne
 
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