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  1. Dinger

    Gas attacks and gas masks in WW2

    Page from a 1939 article on the work of the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) service. Showing the vehicles to be used to wash streets and buildings clean of mustard Gas or other blister agents after a gas attack (The British had no idea the Germans had invented Nerve Gas at that time). Local...
  2. Dinger

    Gas attacks and gas masks in WW2

    The Germans did use poison gas on the Eastern Front on at least one occasion. At the end of the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula, in May 1942, many Soviet soldiers and civilians sought refuge in the caves and catacombs of Adzhimushkay. The Germans used poison gas to kill them. This may have been...
  3. Dinger

    57 St Paul’s Square building history

    Looking back through the old threads about St Paul Square- There is an intriguing entry on May 7th 2011 by "Astonian" about being shown a tunnel that ran from the Church to the "Old Chapel"??? - Sounds unlikely given the information posted... Birmingham History / Memories & Nostalgia /...
  4. Dinger

    Old aeroplane photo's.

    A video about Fred Taylor has just been posted on YouTube - quite a character indeed! - "The Flying Bricklayer"
  5. Dinger

    Christmas preparations past and present

    "Preparations for Christmas" In the 60s for me would be doing the Corgi Club Christmas quiz that arrived in comics in the week before Christmas. Here's the ones for 65 and 66...
  6. Dinger

    Respect

    On a trip to America I was travelling with a West Country bloke who insisted on calling people we met "boy". We tried to warn him not to use it but he didn't take any notice until a black taxi driver asked him to get out of his cab...
  7. Dinger

    Christmas preparations past and present

    The Woolworths advert is obviously from an American newspaper. Unlikely that a Woolworths in the UK would open on a Sunday back then.- 8 track tapes never really took off here in the UK - The mention of "Bank Americard" and "Kennedy Mall" also pin it down to the USA. The Kennedy Mall is a big...
  8. Dinger

    Aston Hall as "Bracebridge Hall" in the work of Washington Irving

    Washington Irving in Brum - on BBC Sounds. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b01s7yyr
  9. Dinger

    Aston Hall as "Bracebridge Hall" in the work of Washington Irving

    All very true. Washington Irving should be remembered as the person who "saved" Christmas. It was largely dwindling in observance in industrializing cities and had almost disappeared completely in the USA. - It was Irving writing about his experiences at Aston Hall (dressed up as Bracebridge...
  10. Dinger

    fish and chip shops

    Anyone remember a fish and chip shop on or near Bottetourt Road in Weoley Castle/California near the footbridge over the old abandoned canal? - I say fish and chip shop - It was just a bungalow (maybe a prefab), Every Friday and Saturday afternoon there would be a blackboard leaning against the...
  11. Dinger

    Wooden kitchen countertops

    This YouTube video might help...
  12. Dinger

    Round the Wrekin

    I understood that the phrase came about because the old A5 to Shrewsbury was heavily turnpiked, meaning it was quite a fast road for its day (being based on a straight Roman road and kept in good condition by the toll raised by the turnpikes). - However, anyone wanting to avoid paying the...
  13. Dinger

    Gerrard Street

    The Leroux website has a "http" address rather than a "https" address - The "s" on the end of the https stands for "secure". - If a website has an "https" address (the majority these days) it means that whoever runs the website has paid to have a security certificate - This acts to encrypt any...
  14. Dinger

    Identifying this Lines's drawing

    Like you said Vivienne, that would place it by the Rotunda. - In fact, pretty close to where the Bull Statue is, but 6 to 8 feet lower because of the way the ground level has been raised there. Nice to think of Sam Johnson standing on that spot, taking the night air after an evening in the Swan...
  15. Dinger

    Identifying this Lines's drawing

    I think you've nailed the location as being the High Street Vivienne. But maybe not quite on the corner with New Street. - At that point was a coaching Inn called The Swan - one-time haunt of Samuel Johnston. - It originally had a courtyard entrance for the horses, but was remodelled with the...
  16. Dinger

    Identifying this Lines's drawing

    The frontage of the building on the right certainly looks very similar. - Would that building be on the corner where High Street met New Street?
  17. Dinger

    Identifying this Lines's drawing

    Morturn's second picture is dated 1830, which probably means the first picture is a similar date. If it's that early, I wonder if it could be a view from the top of New Street. The buildings on the right, along with the bollard, have a certain similarity with early photos of New Street from 50...
  18. Dinger

    Identifying this Lines's drawing

    Interesting picture, any idea of the date this was drawn?
  19. Dinger

    Jay Blades : The Midlands Through Time

    Indeed, When he was first featured in the programme "Money for Nothing" he was working out of a workshop in Wolverhampton.
  20. Dinger

    Cardigan St

    Brilliant Map pjm! Court 14 is close to where Cardigan Street meets Belmont Row. Modern times its at what3words location crest.logic.power To see what it looks like today... https://w3w.co/crest.logic.power
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