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Like a lot of other people here, it seems, my first sight of the sea was at Rhyl. It was around 1956-57, I'd guess, when I was six or seven. We travelled from Brum by "charabanc" -- the posh name mother preferred instead of coach in those days. I remember walking from the coach then over the...

The coal man was a sight to behold for me as a boy in 1950s Sparkbrook. He carried the sacks of coal off his lorry, onto his back and down our entry way, then he'd tip the contents into the cellar of our back-to-back house. I well remember his blackened face from the coal dust. I wouldn't...

Hello, badpenny, checking online I see Evening Star was shedded at various places throughout her working life. Wikipedia informs she was at Cardiff Canton shed in 1960 and in 1962 was to be photographed at Gloucester Barnwood Shed yard. There is also a photograph online of the loco at Cardiff...

Hello, OldMohawk, and thanks for the links and photo. I very much enjoyed the memories of the Pines Express shared by others. I think I visited Tamworth field the once, taken there by some older friends, and I remember spotting a resplendent red "Princess" class loco as something new to my...

Hello, David, no need to apologise for being "picky". You're surely right that the Cambrian Express was Great Western, so I must have confused it in with my other memories. I was sure I remembered seeing that name on the coach boards as they went over Montpellier Street, but most likely I must...

Hello, everybody, Glad to be a new member here. This seems a good place to share my memories childhood trainspotting in Birmingham. Perhaps other "steam fanatics" will add their own recollections of certain places or locos. I grew up in a back-to-back house in Long Street, Sparkbrook, and...

Hi, Phil. I played in Farm Park as a lad in the late 1950s, but don't remember the buildings all that well. I do remember the water dispenser/fountain there near the see-saw and against a brick wall. I also remember it had a heavy metal (brass?) cup hanging on it by an iron chain and every...

Hi, Roy. I went to Christ Church School in the latter half of the 1950s and have very good cause to remember Mr Craggs. On my first day there, I waited outside his office with my mother, I suppose so he could introduce himself and take me to the class, though I don't recall exactly. What I...

I well remember the big boulder in Farm Park in the 1950s. We kids used to clamber over it and I, for no good reason, was certain it was a meteorite. Of course, it was just a rock. I visited the park just a few years ago and was sad to find the thing had gone. Like tali, I wondered what had...

My father had a heart valve operation in Selly Oak Hospital in 1961. A very tricky op in those days and he died within a few years. I remember my older my sister and me amused ourselves in a wooden gazebo affair in the grounds while Mother visited him. The days were hot and there was the...

Hi, Tim. What fascinating memories of those woodworking classes. I've always remembered the woodwork teacher when I was at Golden Hillock in the early 60s as old Mr Marsden. Could that have been your Mr Marslake? Or was my Mr Marsden really Marslake? Anybody else remember either name...

Hi, Roy. So far as I recall, the two teachers with the most violent tendencies were Travers and Matthews. I seem to recall that Travers gave names to the canes he used on us and, unless my memory deceives me, the thinnest of them was called "Whistling Willie". Does that ring a bell with you...

I lived in Long St, Sparkbrook, during the 1950s and remember a Violet Nutt who may have belonged to the family you ask about. I seem to recall knowing her from Christ Church infants' school as a fellow pupil, though I'm not sure she wasn't older than that. Ray T.

Lovely to read about the old school after so many years. I was at Golden Hillock (all boys then) from about 1961-65 and remember some of the teachers mentioned here. Mr Minton teaching science I remember well. Mr Matthews the music teacher caned my hands for idly picking at a chair while...