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The overtaking car still looks a bit like a Morris 10 or 12 to me. I used to be able to recognise them, from childhood, and can still sort of visualise them. It's the face - the relationship of headlights to radiator and bumper- which rings bells for me. The clincher would be the radiator grill...

Lyn, that link provided by Janice looks very useful and virtually confirms that this was called a "Tracer Card" and supplemented a man's personal Record. The link tells us about Royal Artillery records: the example there looks so similar to yours and even mentions "Bty" (="Battery") here and...

Essential user's allowance, John. A tiny ration given to those who needed to run a car because of the demands of work or other "approved" activities. My father had one because of his responsibility in the running of a large metal producing factory and also his spare-time occupation of local...

Many thanks for the interest. Here's a very slightly different view of the overtaking car. Chris

"Is this your motor?".....A bit unlikely a question, this, as the image isn't good enough to show the numberplate! And it's probably as far back as winter 1941 or 1942 as well. Foley Road, Streetly. A fairly bog-standard car but I can't remember its make. Any suggestions please? There's...

Thanks for that very interesting article, Viv. What I find staggering is the mention of a possible weekly wage of £25, even for skilled men such as these. That's about five times an average factory worker's income at the time. The price of the end-product - a hand-made officer's uniform - must...

Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Eric. Chris

Great image! Suspect that it is 1939 or 1940 (unless the balloon is misleading us). They weren't there at Christmas 1941...... Chris

Happy Christmas, everyone! The earliest ones I really remember were all in wartime when mums and dads did their best to make them magical for us children. The food probably wasn't as plentiful and the presents may have been second-hand or home-made and in some households it wasn't the entire...

Thank you, Lyn and Mike. An eagle eye and just what was needed! Got mixed up with my "St.s"! Now corrected and an acknowledgement to BHF. Chris

It has to be quite a few of them, Viv, even though in an area Like Birmingham many would have ended up doing essential war work in arms factories and would therefore have been on the reserved occupation list - whether they wanted to be or not. What a shame, isn't it, that despite our huge...

I have been writing up some information I have received from the family of a Hockley lad, Stanley Easthope, who in WW2 joined the Home Guard at a very early age and whilst on duty in 1942 or 1943 witnessed the death at a blitz-damaged building of a woman who had ignored warnings not to cross a...

FINALLY a now-versus-then Google Streetview image for anyone who knows that stretch of the Chester Road. Can hardly believe how much everything can change in (a mere!) 75 years when yesterday's image is so much clearer in the mind than today's. Chris

The memory in words........ WINTER 1947 Here are I and a couple of friends on the Chester Road in Streetly, on the hill leading up from the Parson & Clerk towards the Manor Road crossroads. (I'm on the right, in BVGS black-and-white scarf and short trousers). Great fun and an improvement over...

January/February 1947, Chester Road/A452 in Streetly, the hill beyond the Parson & Clerk, as you go up towards Brownhills. Yours truly, nearly 11, in BVGS black and white scarf (and short trousers, natch!), with two friends. A great day - remember it well! Chris

That's a great picture. Gives you an idea of what it was like, to be standing there and looking down the length of the huge shop. Chris

Like me, Janice, you probably owe your existence to a wound which got your Grandad out of the trenches and out of the dangers he might not otherwise have survived. My own sons could say the same thing about both of their grandfathers. Injuries which were serious enough at the time but which...

Here's one of mine, for starters. A little oval, black-painted tin with a bit of gold decoration. And inside it, a crumbling flower slowly turning to dust. And also inside, a slip of paper, in my mother's handwriting from a century ago. My parents were married in the Parish Church...

The periodic rummage through a box of junk out of the loft sometimes reveals something which one hadn't forgotten about but hadn't looked at in years. A family memento, old but possibly with a clear connection to the present - and definitely with a Birmingham connection. Has anyone got...

Very much ditto, ditto, ditto.......... All the best. Chris