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Thanks Richard, I was lucky to avoid asthma as a child. So I count my blessings. Derek

I was thinking of installing a wood burning stove, but developed senile asthma as it is delightfully called! So this project is shelved, indeed the neighbours woodburners make me cough and I use an inhaler regularly now. I shall try the poker trick using a camping stove in the garden. Open fires...

Apparently the Regal was renamed the ABC at the end of the 1950s, but I guess everyone would still refer to it as the Regal. Quite a few cinemas were renamed over the years. Not my part of town, Jayell, but I can't place an Odeon in Handsworth.

Absolutely Paul, they were a strong generation and needed to keep the cold out in those damp and draughty houses.

Mom would buy Barley Wine or Old Ale to go into the Christmas Puddings. As I got to be a teenager, I'd sample the bottles. She had an old neighbour from Ladywood who now lived in Winson Green. At Christmas we would buy four bottles of Mackeson to take. The old dear would take the top off, drink...

I wish everyone on BHF a Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year. Thanks to the Mods for keeping order and all contributors who enrich our knowledge of the past.

Henry Green has an informative Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Green He wrote an early autobiography 'Pack My Bag' in 1940. Jeremy Treglown wrote a biography of Green, Romancing: The Life and Work of Henry Green, Faber, 2000.

Jonathan Green's Dictionary of Slang gives Monkey's Parade from 1879: Monkey’s Parade (n.) used of various urban walks popular with local young people in such London suburbs as Wanstead, Wimbledon, etc. and cities such as Manchester and Dundee but primarily a popular promenade in the East End of...

And in daytime. A section of T. S. Eliot's 'Burnt Norton' is inscribed on the rim of the upper pool: And the pool was filled with water of sunlight, And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly, The surface glittered out of heart of light, And they were behind us, reflected in the pool. Then a cloud...

Victoria Square October 2024 by night.

The Ringway Centre was completed in 1962. Andy Foster in  Birmingham: Pevsner Architectural Guide: 'The best piece of mid-C20 urban design in the city, and the only stretch of the Inner Ring Road built as a boulevard, rather than an urban motorway.'

Hope you had a wonderful birthday, Lyn! Derek

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00244xf 'Gardeners' Question Time' from Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Some snippets about the history and present development there. A place full of happy memories for me. The plant collector Ernest Henry Wilson trained as an apprentice there age 16, before...

Thanks for posting Rog's list. Can I point out that the late Octavia Butler is very much in print these days! Indeed I co-supervised a PhD on her more than 20 years ago. I'm pleased to see much more SF and fantasy in the general bookshops at the moment. I think the last SF event in Birmingham I...

The account of the Pageant explains that Gwen Lally used mime to music rather than have a narrator, or provide the actors with words. The first week was subject to rain and the pageant committee wildly underestimated the costs. 'The Pageant made a spectacular loss of £11835, despite a massive...

Pageant of Birmingham in the Historical Pageants database. https://historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/994/ Source: Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Pageant of Birmingham’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/994/

Pictures of 419 Wake Green Road on the virtual 'Prefab Museum' Website. (Taken July 2024) https://www.prefabmuseum.uk/content/new-contributions/restoration-of-the-wake-green-road-prefabs-july-2024 There's a wealth of information on Britain's prefabs on the site.https://www.prefabmuseum.uk I...

Fabulous photos Mark! My dad used to work for Coronet, but earlier than the stereoscope camera you posted above. These date from 1953 and use 127 film. I didn't realise they ever made stereoscopic cameras. Apart from two special open days, we can only visit Dolman Street store between set times...

Sadly no reply was ever received. I suspect that photographs are the only remains of the Copplestone bull forms, but they are still said to be 'missing' rather than destroyed.

Happy Birthday, Janice!