farmerdave
master brummie
Another message to confirm the location of #74 being at the junction of Warwick Road and Stratford Road near the Mermaid. In this photo from the book "Birmingham Buses: route by route 1925-1975" by Malcolm Keeley, we see a number 37 bus about to continue along the Stratford Road (southbound) from the Mermaid island, while a lorry marked "timber" is about to leave the Warwick Road and join the Stratford Road. The photograph was taken in 1963. The shops with the elaborate brickwork, on the right-hand side of the photo, are identical to those on the left-side of #74. One of the shops is marked "H.E. Turner and Son" (above the red lorry), and was primarily a fishmonger but may have also sold fruit. Horace and Peter Turner ran that shop for many, many years. There are some markings on the shop window in #74 (left-hand side) but I cannot quite make them out. The shop seems to have a white-tile lower frontage and perhaps could have been a fishmongers. Looked on Google View and noted that some of the shops with the distinctive markings are still there today but the bay windows seem to have gone. Dave.