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A snippet of the old fashioned community spirit. That was a nice gesture of thoughtfulness when during periods of medium to heavy snowfalls virtually all the residents of the neighbourhood would go out and clear the snow from the pavement in front of their houses. I remember how many of the kids...

" Have we still got any gloves Mom ? " Come this time of the year the young kids would begin to pose this question. Meeting up and playing out with their friends it was becoming more noticeable that their little hands were getting cold too quickly and spoiling their fun a bit. The tactic of...

" IT'S OKAY, THERE'S ONE COMING NOW ". ( Worth a smile on reflection). This was before cars were widely owned. The Bus services all around Brum were satisfyingly numerous, as were the numbers of bus stops provided. Couldn't have been better. There were the odd occassions however when a bit of...

" HELLS BELLS, do I really sound like that ". Recalling a family Christmas party get together around the mid 1950's. My youngest brother introduced his latest pride and joy into the parties fun and games. It was an impressive box cased ' reel to reel tape recorder '. I guess he must have been...

" HAVE WE GOT ENOUGH SPONDULICS ". There were the occassions when, as a group, we kids would need a few pennies to exploit some adventure or aquire some item for the use of the whole bunch of us. I recall at one time, for some reason or another, our little street group started to try out ' pole...

THE OLD " PEA SOUPER ". Before the Air pollution clean up act had come about and when household coal fires, factory chimney emissions and backyard bonfires were allowed there came the occassions of winter ' smogs'. Sometimes referred to as a " Pea souper " The city and its suburbs became...

LINING UP FOR THE SCHOOLS XMAS FESTIVITIES. I would hazard a quess that about this time of the year infant and junior teachers at schools all around Brum will be making plans for their class and school Xmas break-up festivities. They are probably in the process of deciding what sort of ' play '...

Chris, you mentioning the possibility of an ' unmanned ' entrance to Sutton Park opposite the Parson & Clerk pub definatey rings a bell. I seem to recall that for a period of time we kids started to use that gate to enter and exit the park and I'm wondering as to why we would have switched our '...

SEVEN FOR THE PRICE OF FOUR. Period : Around 1938 to 1940. Frequently during off school periods we would make our way to Sutton Park to explore and seek some new adventures. This would usually mean that between five to seven of us would meet up on the Kings Road, Kingstanding and having decided...

A Mothball and Lavender day. There would be the Sunday's when Dad and Mom decided that we would all go meet one of our Uncles and Aunties. That could mean a visit from Kingstanding to either Aston, Erdington, Perry Barr or Nechells. So out of the wardrobe would come the best set of clothes. Dad...

OVER THE GARDEN FENCE. There were quite a few occassions whereby Mums would look forward to a break and a little chat with some of the other lady neighbours. One of the most opportune spots for this was either the front door step or over the garden fence. The terms for some of these chats went...

FLASH BACK. Here was a little ' snippet ' of the post war period. For some considerable time after the end of WW2 ' Air raid Sirens ' would be periodically activated ( tested) around the City. If I recall correctly there was no prior warning given that these pretty unwelcome sounds were going to...

INGENUITY and IMAGINATION. How the children could create something out of nothing. There seemed to be not the slightest problem for the children of years gone by in thinking out and performing activities, experiments and adventures to enjoy out in the fresh air. Every little group seemed to be...

THE STREET. Going back apiece it was amazing how the street gutters seemed to attract many of the kids. Parents, in general, would continuously warn their children to " keep away from the gutters " But the street gutter had it's purpose from the kids point of view. It was a place to sit and to...

oldMohawk. With reference to my iPad photo postings problems. Thank you for your kind advice, it would seem that it has already helped ' farmerdave '. Ive got a feeling though that the problem stems from something that's not lining up from MY end. It seemed it all began when I carried out an "...

farmerdave. Hi there Dave. With reference to your difficulty in opening those ' images '. I'm sorry that I can't help you on this but I'm wondering if maybe a recent " Apple " update that I carried out on my IPad might be the cause. I can only assure that I follow the ' forum ' image procedure...

BORROWING DADS OLD SPADE. ( Period : 1943 ish ). Our local schools invited we school children to join in with the " Dig for Victory " government campaign, to help out with the war on the home front. Sounded good to us kids. In our district the schools managed to acquire a large plot of land just...

Eddie. Nicely described. Can see that you've been there.

A BACK STREET SATURDAY MORNING. Moms on the boundary, a cobble assisted ' Googly ' on its way, a clang from the dustbin lid, cheers all round. " Your'e in next Fred ". What could be any better ? Photo :

WELL DONE. I think that a " well done " to the pupils of HAZEL OAK school in Shirley is in order and their efforts are worth a few words. Mondays ' Birmingham Mail ' 12th Oct 2015, reported that the pupils with Autism and Learng Difficulties at the school have stitched hundreds of ' Toiletry...