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I would not have been so sure that they could not read. Male literacy jumped from 69.3% in 1851 to 97.2% in 1900. Female literacy rates went from 54.8% in 1851 to 96.8% in 1900. Not far off the rate today. Lots of this was driven by the "Sunday School" movement of classes on a Sunday. It was...

Interesting story! - Best of luck on your quest.

The Website for the boatyard says it's "long established" - But it also says the current owners have "only" been there for 20 years. Neither of the currently-named owners is called "Lyons".- There is a contact email address on the website. Might be worthwhile dropping them a line to see if they...

Best of luck finding out more info. If he lived in Kidderminster during the war then it's highly likely he had something to do with No 25 Maintenance Unit "RAF Hartlebury" which was South of Kidderminster. It was an absolutely huge base with lots of outstations handling the storage of all sorts...

Very interesting indeed. However, would it really make sense to bring both coal and limestone from Dudley, where they are found close together, all the way to Selly Oak or Warstock and then use them to produce lime? - There were lots of Lime Kilns in Dudley (there's still a line of them beside...

What you say is very true. Anyone who has walked a lot on the Limestone uplands of Northern Britain will have come across old Limestone kilns. I had a quick look at the geology in the area of Limekiln Lane to see if maybe the digging of the canal had uncovered an outcrop of limestone, but it is...

Aerial photograph from 1945 - Looks like the buildings were gone well before that date... I presume from the field edge markings that would have been around the spot indicated...

A bit different today... https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.4145062,-1.8812431,3a,75y,270.76h,73.83t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sQms9M2y3audiWj2aNoaf5Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu There are narrow-boat moorings and boatyard alongside the canal, with a small chandler's shop - A surprisingly lovely place...

Cheers Richard, You might like this video they made of its "reboot" - at the end they "race" the computer with someone using a mechanical calculator and the man wins! - But of course, the computer could go on working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, whereas a human operator would flag after 30...

I think the people of Birmingham were "sold a pup" when the old science museum was closed down. - It was free to enter and its location was the ideal "link" between the city centre and the Jewellery Quarter. To my mind, its replacement, the "ThinkTank" at Millennium point (which contains only a...

I'm wondering what this financial crisis will mean for Birmingham's museums. - The main Museum and Art Gallery has been closed for a few years now - will it ever reopen? - Also it seems that when the council closed down the old science museum and moved some of the exhibits to "Think Tank" they...

Indeed, - The online website "The Register" had an article about the Birmingham IT fiasco a couple of months ago. Apparently, the original agreement was that the Council would change their work practices to be in line with what ORACLE could do. But when push came to shove many of its departments...

Dandelions...

Indeed, the US military had a strange way of allocating names to anything they purchased "M" for "military" then the year it was adopted for each type - Thus there is an "M1917" machine gun and an "M1917" rifle. Completely different yet given the same name. In fact, if you look at the original...

It's the World War One version of the Browning called the "M1917" - It fired the American .30 calibre round. The Americans gave some to the British in WW2. Because of the different ammunition, it was not issued to regular troops, so they ended up with the Home Guard (who also had quantities of...

If you can find a copy, a brilliant reference is the book "Pillboxes - A study of UK. Defences 1940" by Henry Mills. Published by Leo Cooper Publishing in 1985. ISBN 0-436-57360-1. It details the different types of pillbox designs with lots of photos and diagrams and appendix has maps detailing...

It sounds like you had a corrupt "icon cache" - This is a particular file on the computer that can get easily corrupted. One way of fixing it is to do precisely what you've done and recreate the files and folders concerned. There is another way of fixing it, but it's a bit complicated, involving...

OOOPs ! Sorry,- Yes, thats the fellah! Edited - thanks!

I'm researching an essay on Sir Oliver Edward {Edit - Edwin] Simmonds who served as an MP for Birmingham's Duddeston ward from 1931 through to 1945. A fascinating bloke who "reinvented" himself many times. He served as a fighter pilot in World War One, then trained as an engineer and did...

For Ref: Aerial view of part of the Athol Farm Estate showing the Athol Social Club and the Tower blocks that used to surround it. - I'd guess this is about 1980. What looks like a second floor on the rear of the club is just a raised roof over the main room.