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Great find on the Internet Archive - Even if the description does call Birmingham a "small industrial town".:) Its a very early film role for Anthony Andrews - Quite a few years before his part in Brideshead Revisited.

Here's the parade - New Street and Corporation Street.

For those who need reminding what they looked like.

The date of 4th March 1945 ties in exactly with "Operation Gisela", the last big Luftwaffe operation against the UK that took place over the night of 3rd/4th March 1945. It was exactly as the article says - German night fighters following British bombers back to their bases. It was the only...

Further to my last post - Here's an aerial photo from 1945 - There are some mysterious bright splodges in the right area. - The area to the west seems to have been divided up in some way - maybe into some kind of allotments for the "dig for Victory" campaign?

When I was a nipper, I remember there being a series of depressions in the ground on the hill above Alwold road by Weoley Castle. You can still see the larger depressions today (see Google Streetview link below). Back then (1960s) they were all filled with sand, like golf bunkers. We kids used...

It does look like that - But later on in the newspaper clipping it mentions "Dim out" starting on 17th Sept 1944 - so its got to be 1945.

Its disappeared under housing. This link to Google Streetview will take you to the approximate spot - Notice the pub "The Lion Bar and Restaurant" and compare it with the photo in post #5. https://maps.app.goo.gl/8ZhSZDUf2WfacbUp6

The bikes in the poster look like the 1913 "3+1⁄2 hp" model. https://www.cotswoldmotoringmuseum.co.uk/collections/bsa-3%C2%BD-19013/

Bad news I'm afraid. The owner posted on Facebook on the 21st June that the Post Office Vaults has closed down. https://www.facebook.com/povaults/?locale=en_GB

Found this wartime advert for Butlers Ltd - they merged with Lucas in 1948. Their "Atlantic Works" was in Grange Road, Small Heath. It occupied the block bounded by Grange Road, Hawkes Street and Baker Street. Started in 1911, their main business was lamps for motor vehicles but they had...

The RAF used them in the 1950s and into the early 60s. - Here's one preserved at the Newark aviation Museum... And another at the RAF Museum in London.

Were they perhaps Catholic? or "nonconformist"?- Until the Marriage Act of 1836, Catholic and nonconformist marriages were not considered "legal" in England. For a couple to be considered married they had to undergo a ceremony in an Anglican church, even if they had already had a wedding...

Bit of history of the site at the link below (albeit in irksome, super-positive "developer-speak"). The footpath through the middle of the site is meant to provide a pedestrian-friendly route for people walking from New Street station to the ICC. https://goodsstation.co.uk/find-out-more/

Here is Lord Ashcroft's message to the IWM (see link below) asking them to keep the medals on display. It seems they have agreed. I visited the medal Gallery only a few weeks ago and I must say they are displayed very well, with lots of interactive telling of the stories behind them...

The site has already been cleared, with the old "Axis" building demolished. You know you're getting old when the major buildings you remember being put up as "new" start being torn down! https://lcrproperty.co.uk/portfolio/the-axis-birmingham/ Location on Google maps...

The reservoir was fed by the Bourn Brook - In the space between Quinton Road on the North and Reservoir Road on the South. Most of it has been kept as a green space. The footpath that runs through it follows the Bourn all the way to the Woodgate Valley Country Park. - On google maps...

Any serviceman or woman who died during wartime, from whatever cause, even from sickness or accident unconnected with the war, was entitled to a war grave erected and maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. - I've always found it particularly sad, when visiting the Commonwealth war...

After WW2 the War Graves commission moved a lot of bodies from scattered locations across the UK to be reburied. There were two reasons 1. To make the tending of the graves easier for the Commission. 2. To move the graves closer to where their families lived, to make it easier for their loved...

Seems quite modest, more a small 40 metre pedestrianisation than a "new Square" - It's surrounded by high-rise office blocks and would give office workers somewhere to sit and eat their sandwiches outside on a sunny day (I've always been disturbed by the people who sit on the tombs in St Philips...