Search results

Aircrew under training, I think, Viv. Chris

Definitely RAF from around that time. He also has a "VR" insignia. This would normally mean Volunteer Reserve. Worth researching this a bit further. The RAF Volunteer Reserve was an organisation established in the 1930s to train volunteers to become pilots - and, normally, officers. This means...

Have a very happy day, Lyn! Chris x

Forgive me if I have mentioned this previously, but Tom Fillery features significantly in an article I once wrote about one of his friends and neighbours, Geoffrey Cradock, when they were both members of the local Home Guard in WW2. It can be seen here...

Eric - I remember seeing one of those hurtling down a Barr Beacon slope with about four lads aboard. Must have been shortly after the war when the shelters were starting to be demolished. The thing came to grief in a hedge and the passengers were launched off it in all directions. My dad was...

Richard and Alan.....A word of warning. Mods are currently discussing this new member and the very intelligent sounding contribution to the thread. So intelligent, in fact, that there is every possibility that it's artificial! The advent of AI is causing us regular problems. And this thread...

Rather of-topic, I'm afraid, at least with regard to date. But still very much "In Our Garden...." I thought I would record, for the benefit of family, the history of my father's garden which he carved out of a ploughed field in Streetly from the early 1930s onwards. Hardly a Hidcote, but a...

Thanks, John. You are absolutely right. And when the Home Guard was formed in May 1940, those volunteers with previous military service were welcomed with open arms. Many of them were immediately appointed to positions of authority, as NCOs or officers. In that way my own father immediately...

Last seen 21 August 2024..... so fairly recent. Chris

Very best wishes, Janice. Chris

Thanks for that, Lloyd. The change is, in addition to the appearance of "modern life", mainly the sea defences. When my photo was taken, the fisherman could still walk out of their cottages, across the track and straight on to the shingle where their open boats had been hauled up on chains the...

A moment in Beesands, a crab-fishing village in the South Hams of Devon (the area of Kingsbridge, Salcombe, Dartmouth) - then, and probably still, a favourite of Birmingham holiday-makers. It's late July or August 1948. In the foreground is a man named Bert Ward. He is a "furriner" as the...

THE LADYWOOD EVACUEES AND ME. A memory from 1941. I will certainly have posted bits of this before. But I thought I would let you know that I have recently tidied it all up and put it online as a complete article. "...........By the summer of 1941 when Hitler’s attentions were focused firmly...

It looks as though Burnt_peanuts is one of those new members who came and went in the blink of an eye without waiting for responses, even after asking for help. Such a shame as we shall now probably never see that further picture of Tom Fillery. And frustrating for those who tried to assist. Chris

He was the sort of dog who probably had a bit of Westie in him - but an awful lot of other things as well, never to be identified. I think he appeared one day in 1935 or 1936, in the arms of our greengrocer on Kingstanding Circle when delivering in our road and was exchanged for a shiny...

All a question of context and the evident intention of the speaker/writer, I suppose. Many words could potentially be used as terms of insult or abuse and/or have been in the past. The trouble is that increasingly, these days, no shades of grey are permitted, everything has to be, well, you...

Absolutely, Morturn. And anyone who writes about the past has to be SO careful. I can never reveal the correct name of our family pet in the 1930s and 1940s. I have always been aware of that pitfall, here and elsewhere. What I wasn't prepared for, however, was the reaction within a closed Fb...

Nor can I. None of the obvious search definitions seems to bring anything up. It may be worth trawling through this thread: https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/threads/they-were-caught-in-our-old-street-pics.41947/ Chris

This thread has been going on for a long time - it has been useful and almost certainly remains relevant but it is unwieldy, has drifted off topic and is a bit of a mess. It is therefore going to be closed for further comment and will be replaced by a new one entitled "Forum Issues After The...

This thread replaces the previous one with a similar title and is where new problems or comments should be posted from now onwards. This is intended to help Warren to pick up new issues more easily and deal with them. It is thought that there are few problems or comments which have not...