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I think so too, Astoness. Strange to think the old tools and equipment I used there may also have been used by some of those chaps years before. But then it’s been 28 years since I left Keeps…time is flying by.

I’ve managed to find the picture I mentioned. This is Barn Street, Keeps Construction was situated behind the terraced houses and across an open yard. The bare brick houses had gone by the time I worked there, but the rendered building on the extreme left remained and served as the office. The...

Lwoods, I drank there very occasionally when I worked in a small jewellery manufacturers on Hylton Street from 85 to around 89. I would have drank there more often but the days were long, the work was tiring (piece work, I got paid for what I made so I worked flat out) and I had a long bus...

That’s the one, Steve.

When I started my first job aged 16 I saved up for a nice air rifle and bought a Webley Tracker from Powells. I soon found out there was nowhere to use it (only shooting paper targets) without people having kittens so it sat unused for a few years until I sold it. Incidentally, I recall another...

I’m guessing it’s all shot at the same place but I could be wrong. It’s not actually stated in the film where the incinerator is but I grew up about 500 yards away from it and recognised it instantly. I’d be interested to know where the sofa was collected from, it looks like a very well-to-do...

From 1965 and the excellent “Look at Life” series, at 6.48 this edition shows an unknown (unless anyone recognises it?) Birmingham street where rubbish is collected and then taken at 7.17 to what I recognise as the Lifford Lane incinerator, Kings Norton. One slip and both these chaps could have...

Up until at least 1995 there was a gasometer, perhaps two, on Booth Street in Smethwick. I worked in a building that stood next door. It was always in the empty position and, thrill seeker that I am, I once walked across it’s faded grey, domed top.

As a kid I was always taken to see Dr Heard/Herd/Hird at the surgery near The Fold at Pool Farm, Kings Norton. I remember him as a thin, balding man and I was told he had been taken prisoner by the Japanese during WWII, a horrendous experience. Anyone have any memories of him?

I‘ve contacted them via email, they say it wasn’t their office. The mystery continues.

Hello Janet, thank you kindly for your research. That name isn’t immediately familiar but it may well be correct. I’ll try and contact them and see if they had some sort of establishment in the Jewellery Quarter back then.

Thank you Lyn, I wish I could be certain it was on Branston Street but it’s so long ago now. I was traipsing all over the place back then, going into so many old buildings, up so many creaky old stairs, past so many old doors…I enjoyed my time working there, though.

Ha!!

As a lad in the 1980s I worked in the Jewellery Quarter for a small manufacturer on Hilton Street. As I was the youngest it usually fell to me to make deliveries and collections around the area, often among the dilapidated Victorian buildings that housed several small businesses within them...

I’d imagine that the ongoing War caused many people to have a “Live for Today” attitude. Can’t say I blame them.

mikeje, thanks for the reply. As I mentioned, in my time there it was a small operation but in its earlier years I have reason to believe it was somewhat larger in terms of staff. If I remember correctly, when I started work there was a manager, estimator and secretary who worked in the ”Office”...

Hello mikejee, I’m very surprised to see this thread and it’s prompted me to register here. I used to work at Keep’s Construction in the late ‘80s to mid ‘90s and occasionally had to do some repair work at Arkinstall’s. Keep‘s was a steel fabricators as you mentioned, never a very big operation...