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Maybe, - I had them down as football pitches - The big AA gun site in the area was just the other side of the Maypole at "Kings Wood" - Moundsley Farm , in the triangle of land between Crabmill Lane and Druids Lane. The same photo mosaic shows that site clearly. It had 4 of the big 3.7 AA guns...

Factory in this area (highlighted) on an aerial photograph taken in 1945. - As you say, now occupied by new housing on a cul-de-sac called Mortimers Close.

This just popped up on the BBC website - A database of Munitions Workers - Seems to imply it covers workers in both WW1 and WW2. Might be of help if you draw a blank elsewhere.... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-68061202

Hi - You say he served in the 15/Royal Warwickshire - By that do you mean the 15th Battalion of the Royal Warwickshires? - If so, there must be some mix-up because the 15th Bn wasn't raised until September of 1914 at the start of WW1. Is it possible that he re-enlisted at the start of WW1. ?

Would it make more sense if the poem was set in Oxford where he went to University? - If you walk west out of the city there, you come to a railway arch and then almost straight away to the River Thames, (all within hearing distance of the city church bells) - Along the Botley Road which goes to...

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...

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...

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 /...

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

"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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

This YouTube video might help...

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...

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...

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...

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...