Recent content by Maria Magenta

I don't really remember the men's clothes. There was a range for women called Yessica (the name sticks in my mind), but I don't know what was special about it!

I didn't hear all the programme, but what I heard was interesting. You got to hear about what it was like to work there for many years. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002n7tx I wasn't sure whether this would be better in the Shops thread.

It is - thank you! It's my grandfather's family, his parents and siblings.

Thank you, that's very kind. The name is Riley, though has been spelled in various ways, but it's Riley on the census return.

Thanks brummy-lad, it could well be that.

I've just found several relatives I'd never heard of living at Court House, 6 Palmer Street, Aston in 1901, which look like the same place. They had come over here from Ireland the year before, as far as I know.

We have something similar. It's very bossy!

Oh yes, hand signals and running in. Our first car was an Austin A40, followed by a Singer Chamois. Cars used to have better names, like the Humber Super Snipe.

I didn't know her real name. Perhaps she has friends from the midlands?

I've just read her Should We Stay or Should We Go? which has a character, a doctor living in London but originally from Birmingham, who addresses his wife as bab. As Lionel Shriver (I don't know why she has a male name) is an American who lives in Brooklyn and London, I wonder how she got to...

It's good that they've kept some features like that.

Yes, he was in the army during the war. That does make sense.

A great-aunt used to say this, but she wasn't originally from Birmingham. I also came across it in Julie Walters' memoir, where she says, I think, it was used by her grandmother.

The other day I was in a very noisy tea room and remembered my dad referring to such a noise (clattering cutlery, excited children, shouting adults, etc.) as a chow-row. Is it a real word, or did he invent it?

Thank you Janice and Pedrocut. It's an interesting point about words used now being unavailable at that time. Diagnoses are quite nuanced now (I think).