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Ashted Row

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kandor
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Kandor

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I was never allowed across the 'main road' The one in question was Ashted Row and with the 56 and 55 Bus as well as the traffic going back and forth into Town, even in the 50's it was still a very busy road, even for those times.
My kid brother Peter was knocked over just outside our house (right opposite Dr O'Keefes)
He had his leg broken rather badly and spent months in Hospital,
That's when Mom really cracked down on us never being able to cross Ashted Row unless we were with either her or Dad.
I only did it a few times and Mom larrupped hell out of me so I soon learned.
Crazy really as I got belted to death for going 10 yards in one direction yet could walk as far as I wanted to the other way (and that include crossing Gt Lister St ).
Although I liked to think I could wander far and wide in those days, in real life it wasn't like that at all.
Yeah, Cromwell St School was a fair old hop but it was just one long straight rd really, and I guess I only ranged a few hundred yards each side of that strip.
As soon as I got to aged 11 things changed, moving down to Hindlow close it opened up a whole new world, that of the River Rea, Vauxhall Dairy, Saltley Gas works
I'm an early riser, I always have been, always will be, I'd get up as the Milkmen took their milkfloats and started their deliveries, many's the time on fetching the paper for Dad, I'd end up in some conversation with one of them, I was always trying to get a job as a Milkmans runner, never did though.
Although I've moved on with my life and cant really compare what I have now with what I had then, I miss Nechells...I miss my Mom and Dad, I miss my scabby old cat 'Mouser', and I miss my old friends....


Guess he'd rather be,
Back home in Nechells,
He'd rather play with Mouser,
In the morning, when the moon,
Is scarcely gone....

In the dawn,
You'll see him coming,
In the dawn,
You'll hear him humming,
Some old song he wrote
Of love and Saltley gasworks.

Guess he'd rather be,
Back home in Nechells
He'd rather spend his time,
Out where the 'Rea' looks like a river,
After it rains,

One again you'll see him walking
Once again you'll hear him talking
To the friends he makes,
While asking them for busfare.

Guess he'd rather be,
Back home in Nechells,
Guess he'd rather live,
Back where the only thing you earn,
Is what you spend.....

In the end up in his bedroom
In the end, a quiet cough,
Is all he has to show,
He used to live in Streetly.....
 
It used to be called Ashted Row and our house was directly opposite Dr O'Keefes,
They knocked them all down in the early 60's as part of the inner city 'Slum' clearance
Slums...how dare they give them that label.
Ashted Row held some of the finest examples of Georgian/Victorian houses in the City.
And one of those so called slums was also my home.
Ashted Row formed me and gave me my education.
I learned to read and write while living there, I also learned about love, laughter, life and sadness.
Nechells gave me my values and my respect for other people,
It also gave me Community spirit back there too.
I remember our doors were left open, that kids could play out late, I knew the Seasons were defined and we all lived there in the knowledge that there was a better tomorrow.
But what I really loved was that our neighbours took the time to chat over the fence while the sun was going down.
That part is gone now, at least for me...
They built a monstrosity called Humber Tower in exactly the same spot as 143 Ashted Row.
By knocking down one home that held 10 people, they put up a square soulless block that held 85 families...
85 families without a garden to play or sit in...85 familes whose children had no trees to climb, who never dug a hole or made a bonfire.
Those same families who never made a a snowman or sat in front of a roaring coalfire toasting Pikelets...and we call it progress...
I could weep.
I'm sure those 85 families living there had values equal to mine,
I'm sure they have their hopes and aspirations...
I'm certain too they have their dreams...
I just wish they hadn't all chosen to live on mine....
 
can any one help

such an informative site. I have been researching my family history and all seem to come form the Aston area. Particularly Ashted Row, wheremy g.g.grandparents seemd to own a Marine store.



do you know where I may obtain pictures of Ashted row?? it seems such an impressive street, yet there is little to be found on the interenet about the road. I have found only one picture in Carls books.



David
 
John, I've got about half a dozen pictures of Ashted Row. Do you want me to put them on here or send them to you, or what? O0
 
Hi John, I to have a old family member on my family tree, who had the Occupation of MARINE STORE DEALER. Would this be Canal work items they dealt in?
ASTON
 
OK No 1  1895 the piece from Kelly's will give an idea where abouts Pinders was
 
:angel: Thanx Postie O0 I would walk that street twice a day in the early 1960's delivering papers to Dr O'Keefes house and 'The Robinson's' Kandor's from Harbon's on Great Lister St.

Pom :angel:
 
Postie, any ideas of the respective dates of the pictures..?

My great grandparent had marine store at number 48a and 49 between 1880s and 1914..
 
Hi felizao,in 1862, No49 Ashted Row ,Marine Store Dealers were a Mr SAMUEL CALDICUT.
As we have said in our PMs, I had a marine store dealer in my family Mr WILLIAM JENNEY,12 Cox Street Just off St Pauls SQ .This INFO taken from the Birmingham Business Directory dated 1862.
ASTON
 
Hi Kandor,

Have you heard of the Munn or Payne famlies to whom I am related?

John Payne
Bordesley Green
Erdington
 
Kandor. Doctor O'Keef was somewhere across the road from the Ashted Row Picture House and I think he later moved down towards Bloomsbury Street.
 
GER22VAN said:
Kandor. Doctor O'Keef was somewhere across the road from the Ashted Row Picture House and I think he later moved down towards Bloomsbury Street.
Click to expand...

Ernie

He moved into the New Health Centre, down the back of Great Lister St there, almost opposite Willis St. I think it might be Denby Close or something like that.

Phil
 
Anyone recall ARTHUR and WINIFRED YOUNG who lived at 145 Ashted Row in the mid to late 1930s. Arthur was running a couple of businesses at the time, one was a "fine sawdust" business (called "Wood Dust" and possibly operating from 73 Ashted Row ?) and another was Red Warrior Coaches, later of Hurst Street.
 
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