Search results

Not quite the same place as when I used to visit on business. However, as posted previously, Chance Glass Ltd are still going strong in Malvern, and I supplied them with high temperature-resistant materials for handling hot glass. There is still a market for precision Pyrex tubes and...

Very interesting maps, Mike. The 'metal works' at the northern junction of Wellhead Lane and Aldridge Road became the Land Rover Axle Works in I believe the early 1950's. My dad, who worked for Efco Ltd at the time, installed heat-treatment furnaces there, and liked working there as he could...

Willey, behind the library was Roy's Bakery at the top of Aston Lane, and many was the time I was looking through the books I could detect the very pleasant aroma of baking. I recall one of the ladies remarking to someone that occasionally they'd get rats in the library, presumably from the...

Hi Willey, I saw Graham Gomm not long ago at The Duke, Duke Street in Suttton. He looked much the same as I remember him looking, years ago. Very nice person - I also insured my cars with him when I was self-employed. I assume he's retired now. Willey and Di, Do you remember almost opposite...

Hi David, Mr Clarke, that was him! We called him plenty of names, not just Nobby! I remember Harold and Fred Durrant very well. Fred's daughter Liz married my friend Keith Jennings who lived on Aston Lane. I remember the name Gahagan, but can't put any faces to it. There was also Miss Minshull...

I've got you now, David. You used to come over to our house from time to time. You're right, my Dad was in Sweden for a lot of the time between about 1947 and 1952. Do you remember the horrible little old man in the choir at All Souls who kept prodding the kids while we were singing and hissing...

Hi David, I think I remember you from All Souls. I too sang in the choir when Rev Walmsley was vicar and Mr Liney was organist. Mr Gilbert also tuned our piano and I remember John Gilbert. The chiropodist in Woodall Road was Nurse Harper, and her daughter Pat was in my class at Canterbury Road...

I watched 'Oklahoma!' too - voices and acting very good, and I enjoyed, but I found it rather 'flat', possibly because there was no scenery and the stage-action and the orchestra were transposed. They've done this before at The Proms, with 'Yeomen Of The Guard', which I felt wasn't a success...

Vivienne, according to my 1954 Bartholomew, Perry Hill is or was a very short road off the Hagley Road opposite Edenhall Road in Quinton. There is/was also a Perry Hill Road and a Perry Hill Crescent. I'd never heard of any of them (!), but not an area I'm all that familiar with. That's a...

Hello Big Gee! I have just registered on this site and, whilst searching for pictures for my family tree, I came across your post on here re The Antelope pub, Sparkhill. The "Aunt Eve" you referred to was my grandmother's sister - my great aunt! My grandmother - May White - lived in the house...

A small point...."Orse" is Brummie; "Oss" is Black Country. Small point, but a huge difference in terms of dialect. G

I was born in Heathfield Road Maternity Home (not hospital) in 1946. I don't actually remember the event myself.... The place was demolished sometime in the 1970's, I believe. The last time I drove along Heathfield Road the place where the Home used to be was some kind of recreation area, and on...

Another weird old Brummie expression used in our house was "Never in the reign of pig's puddin'!", meaning 'no chance'. When I was a nipper I always had a giggle when my dad came out with this. I thought he'd made it up, but then I heard someone in a shop use it. Has anyone else ever come across...

BXL Tyseley was another of my employer's (many) local customers. They made mostly sheet material for machining, and we supplied them with various insulating materials for their manufacturing processes. I'm not sure when they closed their doors, but I think it may have been shortly before I...

Nice model of a Lanc, but it's far from being the largest radio-control model ever built. The biggest I ever saw was a B52 with eight turbo-jet engines - unfortunately it was destroyed in a crash at RAF Barkston Heath (which is I think where the Lanc on the YouTube clip is flying). If I remember...

As an aside, the Birmingham Battery & Metal Co was an off-shoot of the Hafod Copper Company in Swansea, which produced copper plate for covering the hulls of wooden ships (hence the expression 'copper bottomed' to imply something as very safe). I don't think B'ham Battery ever made copper for...

Wow, great pix! My Great Aunt Lil could be on either or both of those photos, but they're a bit too blurred to see clearly. She was also short-sighted, never went anywhere without her little round glasses, and I can't see any of those ladies wearing specs. Maybe those very short ladies were on...

Hi OM, have downloaded the Microsoft article via the link in your last post, and will give it a go over the weekend. Many thanks. G

Lady P, yes, Brampton Hall. I'd forgotten. I'm very sorry to hear that it's gone, as apart from our rehearsing there it was used for various activities, club lunches, and so forth. Is nothing sacred any more? G

Purely out of academic interest I went on the net earlier and found an incredibly detailed and highly scientific site all about old artillery pieces. From what I could gather, the maximum range of smooth-bore cannon in the mid-17th century was around 3000 yards, which of course is way less than...