Recent content by Enel

I can’t recall my school organising regular visits to workplaces, but in my last year before leaving I visited a couple of factories as part of a small group. The one that sticks in my mind was Linread. Somewhere near Livery St. I think. Linreads made fasteners by cold forging, and the din on...

I was bemused to see the poster advertising GEC vacancies in photo no. 2. Little did I realise back then that I would end up there after school.

Thanks for these photos Lyn. A reminder of my journey to school down Church St. and across to Wellesley St. The number 8 bus stop when going to Small Heath, visiting Nan and Granpa, and many other memories of the area. Fantastic.

Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers perhaps.

This may well pre-date the rebuild, but for some time now, I have found the page buttons unresponsive when using the forum on my iPad (Safari). It’s a bit random really. Sometimes ‘next’ will work but, but not ‘previous’, and sometimes the number buttons will work counting down but not up. I had...

This one is above the entry between 41 and 39 St Silas’ Square. Rather indistinct in this screenshot, but from memory, reads ‘Maldwyn Place’. I lived nearby, and as far as I can remember, this was the only entry lintel with an incised name.

Seeing butchers mentioned in another thread reminded me of Len. He used to call my mom ‘Isobel’. I think that he must have had a pet name for all of his customers! One of his sayings was “God sends the butchers and the Devil sends the cooks”

Still heard occasionally, but not as common as it once was in these parts - “boy”. What really winds me up though is being called ”mate”.

I still have my Webley ‘Jaguar’ air rifle - a birthday present from 1964. This was a junior weapon, and came with a bottle of oil, pellets, and a target holder with paper targets. It’s definitely a budget rifle, not particularly accurate but gave my brother and me hours of fun ‘plinking’ tin...

I listened to a recent BBC programme about the psychology of a fraud, and it brought back unwelcome memories of how I was duped by an ‘authorised push payment’ fraudster a couple of years ago. At the time, this type of fraud was I think, not so widespread as now. I got away lightly, since I lost...

I’ve just realised that Sgt Palmer’s Efficiency Medal bears the Queen’s effigy. That seems to suggest that his Territorial service was post war.

L-R, 1939-1945 Star, Italy Star, The Defence Medal, The War Medal, and the Territorial Efficiency Medal. A similar line up to my dad’s, except that he had the Burma Star, rather than the Italy Star. I think that the one dad was most pleased to have, was his Efficiency Medal. This was awarded...

…sends shivers down me spine…

I think that my earliest TV memory is ‘Billy Bean and his funny machine’. For some reason this terrified me at the time, and I think that I must have hid behind the settee.

I can remember, when asking my Dad what he was doing, the reply would be: “making wigwams for mustard mills” I never really got to the bottom of that one!