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Thirty shed plates given to the scrap man, Alan? Well, there goes your retirement in the Bahamas!

Alan, you might want to get that train register valued, just in case. Odd bits of railwayana fetch surprising prices at auction nowadays. Regards, Ray

As a boy in 1950s Sparkbrook, I was often told by my mother never to suck pennies and other coins. "You'll get the cankers (or was it kankers?) she used to warn. I never did find out exactly what "the cankers" was, but it sounded awful enough to put me off sucking coinage! Regards, Ray T.

Yes, Dave. I think it cost about £120 (just the loco and tender). Then I paid about £30 to have a digital chip installed so I could run it independently of other models. Regards, Ray

I've got an Evening Star model too, Dave. The Hornby commemorative edition and it looks and runs beautifully, pulling the "Pines Express" with the name board on the front and all the maroon Midland coaches marked with the proper decals. Regards, Ray

Yes, Alan, the Pines Express was a regular through the abandoned Camp Hill Station and I looked forward to seeing whichever loco was pulling it each time, but it was never Evening Star. As you say, that loco did head it occasionally, but when I saw it steaming slowly over Montpellier St bridge...

Nice memory, John. The pinnacle of my train-spotting days was in the early 60s when Evening Star passed over my favourite haunt of the Montpellier St bridge by the old Camp Hill Station. It fair blew my socks off to see it! It could be it was lodged at Aston sheds at that time. Regards, Ray

That fits with my memories too, Bhatti. The Alhambra was thereabouts and was a Saturday morning venue.

I tell a lie! The memory playing tricks again. It wasn't a Wimbush bakery down Kyrwicks Lane, it was Hawleys bakery that provided us kids with the stale treats. Ah, happy days. Regards, Ray

This brought back memories as Wimbush used to have a main bakery down Kyrwicks Lane, Sparkbrook. Or at least it was reached by going down that way. In the late 1950s, local kids, including me and my older sister, would check out their yard for stale buns and cakes that had been left outside...

Glad you enjoyed the story, Nicholas. I forgot one detail, which was, after my sister had gone to bed and fallen asleep, she was woken up not long after by someone getting into bed beside her. Of course, she assumed it was her husband and in view of the row they'd had she ignored him and went...

Hello, all. Back in the 1970s my family lived in Tavistock Road, Acocks Green. There was me, my mother, two sisters, my brother-in-law and Butch the dog all crammed into a three-bed non-detached council house. After our previous abode of a Sparkbrook back-to-back, I thought it was very...

I played in Calthorpe Park sometimes as a boy in the late 1950s. I don't recall the cannons or the steam train. All I remember is a small play area with the usual swings and a roundabout. I think that particular roundabout was a "witches' hat" type, made of tubular metal that formed a...

So, according to my memory, if Master Brummie's photo number 7 does show elephants in Main Street with King Street behind them, they were being loaded into a vehicle on the site of what was Main Street infant school, which my younger sister attended. But perhaps that wasn't opened until the...

Yes, Phil, I agree the circus must have been no later than 1950 because those waste areas had been built on by the mid-50s according to my memory (which isn't infallible). And I'm sure I'd have remembered a circus so close to my Long Street home if it was there in the mid-50s when I was about...

Hi, Tim. I grew up in Long Street through all of the 1950s and you're right, there were a couple of bombed building sites in it, but they were too small to host a circus, and I would have remembered one if it had come to our immediate area. I don't know about bombed buildings in the Larches...

Interesting thread this. Do the moderators know of one on haunted houses members have lived in in Birmingham? If not, I could start one. No address given, of course, just a street. (Gives me chills just to remember it, what with Halloween coming up and all :) )

Of course, Astoness. For my part, I gave only a common first name and deliberately left out the name of the school.

I recall a similarly unfortunate girl at my primary school too. The girl you refer to wasn't called Diedre, by any chance?