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Milk Street is still there Dianne as you may know. And there's a Back-to-Backs museum in Hurst Street https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/birmingham-west-midlands/birmingham-back-to-backs. Well worth a visit if you haven't been.

Welcome to BHF, Dianne. How lovely to visit your UK family so often. There must have been a few GI brides. I was surprised to discover years later that I'd grown up near USAAF Station 522 in Beakes Road Smethwick which supplied and repaired radio and radar equipment. All kept hush-hush so no-one...

I was in the scouts with lad whose family were Jowett enthusiasts in the late 60s early 70s. A fabulous looking car and I remember those 'suicide' front doors.

Ansells went for a Burton in 1981. I'm surprised that's 44 years ago! The cask conditioned mild stopped being produced in 2012.

Sylvia posted about this #216 in https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/threads/old-saying.188/page-8 Was your dad ever in the forces, Maria? It seems to describe the row in a canteen. Chow came to English from Chinese for food. Doubling the sound or word is a common way of making new words. I've...

There was a Firkins on Bearwood Rd Smethwick. Custard slice, Eccles cake and those pineapple tarts with icing on the top. Don't know about Firkins in Birmingham?

Pub is still there, but it's called the Patrick Kavanagh now. He was a well-known Irish poet. He didn't live in Birmingham as far as I'm aware, but he was certainly fond of drink! I am sorry to read of the experience of your birth mother. Times have changed for the better.

As noted in this thread the Traf had a bad reputation for a while. It reopened as Patrick Kavanagh (the name of a fine Irish poet now deceased). I guess they wanted a fresh start. His poem 'On Raglan Road' became a well-known song sung by Luke Kelly of the Dubliners.

The outside of the Troc is much as it was. And it seems to be thriving still.

Great post, Freddy. Though the baths are long gone amazingly the building can be seen at the Black Country Living Museum! Geograph Creative Commons.

Ancestry now have digital records covering All Saints Hospital 1845-1931. https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/threads/mental-hospital-records-on-ancestry.59077/

How did you do this Oldbrit? Photoshop?

Ancestry has some digitised records Birmingham, England, All Saints Hospital Records, 1845-1931 I found my great grandfather who was admitted in 1885 for some years. He had handwritten records running back over the years and remarks that he had been an in-patient at Northampton Asylum 40 years...

Well Mike, we are back to photomontage then. I hope a historic one and for artistic rather than documentary purposes. I see no reason to think this is the result of photoshop or any digital process, just competent darkroom work. I think the photomontage could well have been done in the early...

Excellent Geoff! You have greatly added to our knowledge of the image. I suspect that it could be created by a skilled photographer using a view camera, that is a large plate camera with movements enabling the lens to focus on the bus and horses with a big enough image circle to include the pub...

Lyn, if there are originals then this would be the glass plate or negative. But the image might be enlarged, made darker or lighter or even reversed. Portrait photographers often used to flip the image so that we see our faces as we see ourselves in the mirror and not as we are seen by others...

Hand-coloured or digitally colourised? I'm not using the F word.

I would like to encourage people to post images for discussion without imputing blame. We don't know who created the picture posted on FB or why. I think with a view camera with movements you might be able to make a similar image in a darkroom. An image of the bus and horses might appear empty...

I think it is desirable that people put the source of posted photographs wherever possible. It is certainly useful to discuss the status of images in the spirit of friendly inquiry. Manipulated images are as old as photography itself, but AI introduces new or at least more intense issues. Once...

HS2 6 monthly report July 2025. Ministerial statement. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/hs2-6-monthly-report-to-parliament-july-2025