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  1. Johnfromstaffs

    They Were Caught In Our Old Street Pics...

    “Shakespeare Mk1.” You might be right! The difficulty presented here is an almost total lack of information. We can’t see the detail of the radiator, usually the most recognisable feature of any make. It is a quite small car, built in the 1910 to 1920 period, right in the fashion for cycle...
  2. Johnfromstaffs

    They Were Caught In Our Old Street Pics...

    I’ve just spotted thread #93, Page 5, Snow Hill Passenger entrance. The car is a late forties/early fifties Lea Francis Fourteen (or slightly cheaper Twelve), quite a rarity as Lea Francis Cars struggled at that time and didn’t exactly break any sales records. Their factory was in Coventry and...
  3. Johnfromstaffs

    They Were Caught In Our Old Street Pics...

    https://www.magnoliabox.com/products/1936-ford-v8-woody-model-68-utility-car-1194079 You can see why it’s a Woody!
  4. Johnfromstaffs

    They Were Caught In Our Old Street Pics...

    Like a lot of our language, it seems to have been superseded by the American term, in this case “Woody”. My particular dislike is “train station”. I know “railway station” is slightly odd, but that’s what they were called in this country years ago, and that’s what they shall stay for me.
  5. Johnfromstaffs

    Clothes & shoes of yesteryear

    Quote failed to work Viv. Loakes they do last well.
  6. Johnfromstaffs

    Clothes & shoes of yesteryear

    My late Uncle, bit of a lad in his time, suits from a tailor that was new to me, Hector Powe. Anyone recall them?
  7. Johnfromstaffs

    Clothes & shoes of yesteryear

    Elastic sided boots, Farah strides, roll neck shirt at the weekends; three piece suits from Hepworth’s with crossover weskit, tab collar shirts, knitted tie in the week. Boiler suit under the car. I still wear elastic sided boots, but Loakes not Hush Puppies!
  8. Johnfromstaffs

    Clothes & shoes of yesteryear

    Rosefromstaffs and my Capri in 1971. Sorry about the colour, it’s a slide.
  9. Johnfromstaffs

    Remains of Springfield brewery

    I grew up in a Butlers offy until the age of 10ish. Sunday lunchtimes I got half a pint of mild shandy, it put hairs on my chest, none on my head though, all gone. It seems to me that being introduced to alcoholic drinks in that way gives you both a respect for it, but at the same time removes...
  10. Johnfromstaffs

    They Were Caught In Our Old Street Pics...

    Certainly don’t see any reason to disagree with the others. The car with the spare wheel on the back (EKB) is a 1937/40 Ford 8 model 7Y in basic trim. I think that they built some during the war as basic transport for essential users but they mostly got driven into the ground.* The deluxe model...
  11. Johnfromstaffs

    They Were Caught In Our Old Street Pics...

    Thread 414 I wasn’t being snotty, I couldn’t find it!
  12. Johnfromstaffs

    11 Plus Exams

    Being me, I took the thing a year early, and being born in late May wound up at the grammar school at the ripe old age of ten years and three months. Nothing much happened after that.....
  13. Johnfromstaffs

    Dennison’s Birmingham's first light switch

    There is a noticeable change in the use of the word “shopping” since 1877!
  14. Johnfromstaffs

    Dennison’s Birmingham's first light switch

    My speculation concerning the maker of the engine driving Dennison’s dynamo comes to nothing. The date is too early for Tangye, and Bellis and Morcom seem to have made steam engines and compressors at that time. I was hoping that the Birmingham manufacturer of watch cases would have an entirely...
  15. Johnfromstaffs

    Dennison’s Birmingham's first light switch

    1880 - Dennison’s instals a dynamo powered by a gas engine, maybe a Tangye or a Belliss and Morcom? (But that’s just a speculation on my part.) This morning I hear a bloke on the radio saying that all of the current batch of nuclear power stations that generate the electricity for our supergrid...
  16. Johnfromstaffs

    Dennison’s Birmingham's first light switch

    https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?attachments/c07bbf0d-f042-4f53-b426-b54afb27a37f-jpeg.147990/&hash=aff715cc73d3c95f88f4bf780259327c The Dennison watch case. The watch is just a bog-standard Waltham, but keeps good time.
  17. Johnfromstaffs

    Dennison’s Birmingham's first light switch

    The newest car in Carolina’s picture is the Mk1 Cortina just under the word “Birmingham”. The picture can’t be older than late 1962.
  18. Johnfromstaffs

    Dennison’s Birmingham's first light switch

    I have a watch in one of their cases. I hope it’s not going to catch fire or give me a shock! Seriously, 50 volts not so bad, 230 - lethal. I wonder if they had trouble with arcs? No doubt it was d.c. as the word dynamo implies, perhaps they stopped the machine before they used the switches.
  19. Johnfromstaffs

    Steam Locos

    As I have said before, it seems to me that we just post war kids got the lot. Enough money (just) to be fed and looked after, education and enough steam power about even to be slightly blasé about it. At that time our neighbour’s son was a top-link fireman who worked on the West Coast Main...
  20. Johnfromstaffs

    Steam Locos

    It's not the railway so much as the "We're Brunswick Green we can do no wrong" brigade that get under my shirt. In terms of IKB, I think that the most impressive structure he was involved with has to be Maidenhead Bridge. Those superb flat arches, I bet there were some knees knocking when the...
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