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I agree with Di Poppitt that there were never any tram tracks along Bevington Road, or any other of the roads linking Witton Road and Trinity Road. I spent a lot of my time as a nipper at my grandmother's house, 22 Bevington Road, in the late 1940's and early 1950's, and had there been any trams...

Good series, and very funny in parts. Susan Sarandon is a dead ringer for Davis, but I don't think Jessica Lange looks anything like Crawford. One day in a studio Bette Davis spotted a starlet walking towards her, and said, "Here comes the good time that's been had by all!" Other of her quotes...

Dockers MoT was in the long white windowless building to the right of the buildings in the photo in Post 17. When I worked at Foseco International on Long Acre anyone there who had a dodgy car that needed an MoT would take it to Docker's, and if they failed it then you knew it was fit only for...

Prior to her marriage in 1939 my mother Ethel Diaper worked in the offices at John Wright Ltd, but not sure if it was Thimble Mill Lane or Holborn Hill site. A long shot, but does anyone remember her? Back around the 1970's I slightly knew a David Wiseman who worked at Radiation. G

Mamod is still going strong after over 75 years, now based in Smethwick and rightly boasting that their products are 100% British. I had their smallest steam-engine back in the 1950's and it was fun. Their current range is much more extensive, much better quality, and much more expensive! If the...

Purely out of interest, my 1954 edition of Bartholomew's Street Guide to Birmingham was once the property of S/L R.249 Wood, 'D' Division, Canterbury Road Police Station, according to the hand-written note on the fly-leaf. Is it a name anyone recalls? G

Regarding the B-36, the original concept for this aircraft dates from mid-1941 when the US Government was seriously concerned that Great Britain would be defeated by Germany. They therefore issued a specification for a bomber capable of taking off from the eastern seaboard of the USA, bombing...

Yes BobJ, it was a sad state of affairs. I also had to visit Cowley, as my firm supplied them, too, but oddly enough it had a far better atmosphere than Longbridge, most of the people I dealt with were helpful and polite. I was involved in supplying the motor industry for more than half my...

Correct, Bob. I caught the No 7 in Witton Road every school-day for nearly 6 years to go to George Dixon GS on Portland Road, Edgbaston. The No 7 went nowhere near to Portland St in Aston. As far as I can remember it came along The Ridgeway onto Brookvale Road, then Witton Road to Six Ways, then...

3M is now based in Atherstone, just off the A5. They were a customer of my old company - we sold very hard wool felt sheets and blocks to them, but to this day I haven't a clue what it was used for! Their main products are top-quality adhesive tapes, both single- and double-sided; abrasive paper...

There were works by poets other than Byron entitled Mazeppa, and there were similarly-named musical pieces by several composers, including one by Liszt. My dad used to mention the Mazeppa pub in Aston, so I assume he used it, possibly before the war. As has been said, a strange name for a pub! G

I just had a look at the Closed Pubs website....depressing, to say the least. Especially boozers I knew and loved around Aston, Newtown and Birchfield. Killed off no doubt by the unwillingness of people to drink and drive (and quite right, too) and the cheap drink available in supermarkets and...

I forgot to mention that back in I think the late 1960's The Boar's Head was managed by Jimmy Dugdale, former Villa player and member of the 1957 FA Cup Final winning team. My dad knew him vaguely, as at one time he lived in The Broadway, where we did. I can't recall ever going into The Boar's...

I remember those gnomes very well, Paula! The Mail did an article on them years ago. Not there now, sad to say. Real eccentrics are few and far between these days, unfortunately. Close by was a chap who printed and enlarged technical drawings in his front room (another bungalow) and I went...

Nice pic, OM. I live very nearby and know the old 'tin tabernacle' very well. The land at the extreme left of the photo is now flattened out and is farm land (oil-seed rape, great for my hay-fever, I don't think). To the right of the photo, and not visible, would have been the old BIP factory...

I had a bog-standard Capri 1600 and it was one of the best cars I ever drove. I never really understood why they stopped making them when they did. Last week I followed a pristine black 2 litre Capri on the A453, and thought how great it looked. A classic. G

I used Harper Bros a couple of times when I was a teenager to go to a friend's house in Brownhills, and I remember my elder brother advising me to be careful, as Harper's buses were clapped-out semi-wrecks bought from other bus companies. The one on the photo #69 looks very much as my brother...

On another thread I recently posted that we got our first TV from Lewis's. Now I'm not so sure...it may have come from Jolly's on Witton Circle. Anyway, it was a Pye 12", and I think the V7 model which, according to the Pye TV website, cost £61.11.0 in 1953. If my dad was on £20 a week in those...

About once every couple of weeks my mother would do some shopping on Birchfield Road, which made a change to Witton Road, where she usually shopped. I'd go with her usually, and I can remember going to the British Restaurant several times. Mom knew one of the ladies who worked there. I can't...

Just off-shot to the right of the bus was the sports shop where I worked, and where I met the girl who I've beem married to for 46 years. She worked at Dudley's Furnishings on the far corner of Grove Lane and Soho Road. Doesn't time fly? I never did find out what the building was with the big...