• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

VJ Richards? electrical shop Ladypool rd

tali

master brummie
VJ Richards? the big electrical shop on Ladypool rd near Ombersley Rd was a Sony retailer full of v expensive goods in the mid 80s -anyone have more info it?
 
tali,
VJ Richards also had a shop at the top of Ladypool Road opposite Newport Road, see second shop down on the right in the photo, Mrs Richards used to run that one and her son ran the one that you refer to, many times did I take our accumulator to her shop to be charged.
 
VJ Richards? the big electrical shop on Ladypool rd near Ombersley Rd was a Sony retailer full of v expensive goods in the mid 80s -anyone have more info it?

My mother had her first and last Tv from them, the first a 8 inch Vidor which we later attached a box to get ITV.
 
Tali,

I'm sorry but no info about the shop but I do remember the place very well as it used to be our local cinema, 'The New Olympia' (flea-pit to us:D) before Richards took over. I do have a recent photo of how it looks now.

Graham.

Graham,
Correct me if I am wrong but Richards shop was on the corner of Colville and Ladypool Roads not the old Olympia, unless that is the place that tali is referring to.
 
Graham,
Correct me if I am wrong but Richards shop was on the corner of Colville and Ladypool Roads not the old Olympia, unless that is the place that tali is referring to.

Yes you are right Colville and Ladypool Road (i did think it was perhaps Studley st /Ladypool Road?)
But def not further up at Newport rd in the time i'm reffering to
 
Graham,
Correct me if I am wrong but Richards shop was on the corner of Colville and Ladypool Roads not the old Olympia, unless that is the place that tali is referring to.

Darby,

The shop on the corner of Ladypool Road and Colville Road had always been a greengrocer shop, Westwood's I think, and was right opposite Burden's ice cream shop. I used to go there and beg cabbage and cauliflower left over for my pet rabbits and there was always a crippled old man on that corner selling parsley. Of course Richards may have had a shop elsewhere on the Ladypool Road prior to the cinema being closed down but I'm sure the Olympia cinema became a large Richards’s electrical shop sometime in the 60's and would be the one Tali means in the 80's, Ombersley Road is just over the Ladypool Road from where I made these photos.

Graham.
 
Last edited:
I thinksome of your correspondents have got a few facts re. V.J.Richards Radio Shop a bit muddled up!, it was on the corner of Colville Road and Ladypool Road, (opposite St. Pauls Road), with the green grocers on the opposite Colville Road corner being Jones's, I lived from 1931 -1945 in 4/52,St. Pauls Road, and two of the Jones boys were in Tubby Harris's class at Dennis Road School at the same
time as me in 1944. Incidentally the green grocers Westwood's was on the corner of Alfred Street.

Barney Martin
 
The disabled man who was always on the corner outside Jones's the greengrocers, at Colville Road/Ladypool Road, his rather plaintive cry of "Sage, Tyme or Parsley" will live in my memory for ever.
Barney Martin.
 
The disabled man who was always on the corner outside Jones's the greengrocers, at Colville Road/Ladypool Road, his rather plaintive cry of "Sage, Tyme or Parsley" will live in my memory for ever.
Barney Martin.

Hi Barney, and welcome to the forum.:)

That man's cry will live with me forever too even though it took me years to understand just what he was shouting!

Thanks for putting me right on the name of the greengrocers shop, Jones's, I always did keep mixing them up with Westwood's. Yes Jones's was on that corner and I imagine you're right about Richard's being on the opposite corner too some time in the 50's, but Tali's first posting was about the shop in the 80's and I'm sure it was by then located in the old Olympia cinema.

I was at Dennis Road long after you, 1955 to 1958. My best friend at Dennis Road School lived in St Paul's Road, his name was Trevor Stretch, he died quite young and it seems that he was the first living person to donate his heart.

Graham.
 
Last edited:
This isnt quite about an electrical shop, but somebody who lived on the Ladypool Road. I am desperately trying to seek information about a lady named Madge. I used to visit her when I was little and up to the age of about 14. She lived in a house off Ladypool Road, She had red hair which always looked as if she had had a "shocking" experience. She would have it permed at the local hairdressers then come home and give it a "good brushing" with a bristle brush.

She also looked after (fostered I suppose) a girl who had been born with severe disabilities. I only ever remember her lying on a sofa/bed in the front room. Madges surname was (I believe) Weeks, and if anybody could throw any light on what happened to her, I would be so very grateful.

I think Madge was born around 1896.
 
Back
Top