Recent content by JoeF712

Dawn - What a fascinating recollection. Thank you for taking the time and trouble. Your stay at Cropwood seems to have been rather harsh and a lot of it echoes the memories of other girls of the time. I was at HH between '66 and '68 and can't recall it being particularly harsh. Some teachers...

Great photos. Much appreciated. I used to go to the Barton Arms often on my visits to Birmingham. I particularly enjoyed the Thai restaurant but it seemed to me that after its previous closure, and subsequent reopening, that something had changed. The restaurant and the pub were not as good as...

I used to think that if you had been to the Botanics you had seen them. How wrong I was. I discovered a few years ago that if you go every two or three months they have changed significantly between visits - due of course to the changing seasons and the blooming and dying-off of different...

In response to mw0njm's post. The September 30 1982 date saw (I think) the closure of the Inland Telegram Service. The International Telegram service continued for a while longer although it ultimately went the same way as Inland Telegrams. Telemessages replaced conventional inland telegrams for...

DavidGrain and Lloyd, Thank you. That's very interesting and has answered a niggling question I have asked myself many times.

Does any one know what, if any, are the plans for the former Midland Red garage in Station St. It's a huge space which, I think, has been unused for many years. I used to hate having to get my bus there. It was dark, smelly and unpleasant from diesel fumes and had a real claustrophobic feel to...

Thanks to everyone for that information - I never would have remembered. Yes, it makes sense. I lived in Newtown at that time and I would go to and from the clinic with my mother on the number 8 bus. I just checked the NXWM website and the same bus still runs. Having looked at Mowbray St on...

This thread continues to be interesting to me. I don't ever remember social events with the girls from Cropwood but, looking back, it would have been a good idea. I think we shared a coach with some of them on Sundays to go to the Catholic church service in Bromsgrove but I don't remember any...

Does anyone remember the Midland Red parcel service? I used it quite a lot in the early/mid 70s. I worked for a shop with branches throughout the West Mids and we would use it to send parcels from one shop to another. It seems unlikely now but I would take a parcel to the Midland Red bus station...

I used to go to the Holloway Head Gino's in the mid-70s when I was 18/19 and had just started venturing out into the adult world. Pizzas were a novelty back then and I considered myself rather sophisticated for having discovered them. How little I knew! As a result of Gino's I discovered lots of...

My Saturday job was working for Corona pop from their depot in Kings Road, Tyseley. That would have been about 1970/71 when I was 15/16. You started off canvassing door to door and got paid for every household you signed up - I don't remember how much. If you stuck with this (and plenty...

I was at Hunters Hill between 1966 and 68. I don't think it did me a lot of good other than allowing me to develop a certain amount of independence when young. I remember a nurse who I think used to share a house with Miss Buckley. I always found Miss B a bit scary in her tweed suits and...