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Survival is but one aspect, but it is not the only one. This response may take me off topic here in which case no doubt the moderators will rectify the situation. We may have created a safer world, but whether we have created a better on is open to question. So many dangers in our environment...

Just getting back to matters Brummie for a moment! My first car was an Austin A30. New, out of the factory not more than a mile from where I was living. That used to do something approaching 40 miles to the gallon on petrol that was much more crudely refined than today and presumably as it...

Eric Gibson wrote quite wonderfully about how he was able to save money buying old cars and fettling them back to use. Sadly I am totally mechanically incompetent and seem to successfully find every rogue in the motor trade. Every repair or adjustment has ended up cosying me the proverbial arm...

Further research has led me to the postal museum who indicate that postage of a one ounce missive from London to Edinburgh would have cost four shillings and four pence in 1812. This would be the equivalent today of £20.86p!!!

Richard, prior to the introduction of the 'penny' post in 1840 the cost of sending a letter depended upon size, weight and distance travelled. Letters sent via the Post Office were generally paid for by the recipient not the sender and were proportionately much more expensive than today...

I left well over 50 years ago as I have written elsewhere. Yet despite the rigours of a King Edwards education and the obligatory remedial pronunciation classes and having worked in an area that required me to speak in standard recieved English I can still be identified as the Brummie I truly...

I left Birmingham back in the early 1960's and for all sorts of reasons have not returned at all until very recently. What on earth can I say? Talk about a stranger in a strange land. Nothing was recognisable. The city and suburbs I knew as a youngster have not only vanished but have...

John Everett Millais

I too remember 'the Blind Girl' for a very special reason. I must have been no more than six or seven years old when my Mum took me to the gallery. I got bored and ran off and was found seated on the floor in front of that painting sobbing my eyes out because she couldn't see the rainbow...

Please note the correct name of the school is St Laurence.

Hi, I hope I have worked out how to do this, but no doubt a moderator will sort it out if I have got it wrong. I am looking to see if there is anyone who attended St Laurence's infant or Junior Schools before 1957. I stumbled across their website which seems to indicate that in my dotage I...

Just an aside about the "Big Boy". There used to be a 7.5inch scale railway with a very faithful model of a Big Boy much needed due to extreme gradients of track. It was at Dobwall near Liskeard but I think it went bust in the early noughties and the loco's were sold

Regarding "Arse up the Warwicks" (see Lulubelle above) I believe refers to the battles and sieges at Meteran in Flanders where the Royal Warwickshire regiment defended so stoutly from 1914 to 1918. Incidentally where Bernard Montgomery as a lieutenant in the Royal Warwicks was injured. THe men...

I will add to the comments about hearing aids, particularly in relation to TV watching. The problem is often not with the hearing aid but with the way broadcasters actually "broad cast the audio component Of their programmes. They will mix speech and sound effects into effectively a single...

Not exactly about Kalamazoo but the recollections here stir memories of that strip of waste ground that ran alongside the River Rea and the railway track from the rear of the Kalamazoo site to the bridge on Tessall Lane (Just about where Longbridge station now is). The River was certainly never...

Fascinated by the "the Biggest Dig". I don't know why I tuned in but in seconds was hooked by the background to these bodies being examined in a huge Birmingham Victorian Cemetery. Probably because this seeming ancient Victorian snapshot bought to life memories long forgotten. Bombed out my...

How wonderful that a few recollections seemed to have sparked so much debate and shown how we survived it all. Yes, the world and future education needs were complex. Yes, politicians couldn't avoid interfering. Yes, mistakes were made. Yes, there were not enough teachers or schools of a...

I am sorry Pedrocut, I realise reading back my post it seems very dismissive which was the exact opposite of my intentions. I really meant it was such a shame that so many were denied opportunities merely because they "failed" a test which we now know was biased toward the comfortable middle...

Hi Farmer Dave, no I was not an only child> I had a brother some fifteen months younger but we were just about as different as it is possible to be. Educationally he saw the other extreme of education in those days being condemned (I am sure that is the correct verb to use) to life in the...

Thanks Chris, memory fades a little after so long but I went to KE Five Ways in 1956 and took my O levels in two batches , one in 1960 and a second batch in 1961. I am not at all sure but suspect this was some ruse to get around a ruling that one should not be exam fodder. I took my A levels...