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Backstreets Glories of old Brum...
- Thread starter Dennis Williams
- Start date
Love the little cherub hiding in the alleyway away from the camera. Ooooo and how I remember those net curtains! Great photo of the time. Viv.
W
Wendy
Guest
Keep us posted Lyn if you find anything great photo's by the way!
lynne webb
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Thanks so so much for the pic of Staniforth St., my grandad was born there in 1885. Thats made my day.
Lynne.
Lynne.
Dennis Williams
Gone but not forgotten
Another great pic of Smallbrook Street in 1949...check out the advertising slogan for Sword and Robb. Very clever...
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sylviasayers
master brummie
Dennis, my grandparents lived at 2 court 4 house Staniforth Street, they are there with their family including my dad in 1911 and my grandad liced there until he died about 1948. I only remember seeing him once when my dad took me when I was quite young. as there was some sort of family fall out, which I would love to find out more about. My grandma whom I told was a lovely lady died before I was born. For the record Staniforth Street ran from 275 Corporation Street to Bagot Street.B4.
My dad told me that when he was about 5 or 6 years old that part of Corporation Street was relaid, and he and other kids in the area used to collect
what I believe were old wooden "bricks" for want of a better word, to keep the fires going in their homes.
My dad told me that when he was about 5 or 6 years old that part of Corporation Street was relaid, and he and other kids in the area used to collect
what I believe were old wooden "bricks" for want of a better word, to keep the fires going in their homes.
W
Wendy
Guest
Flippin heck I hope it was a long road or we must all be related......lol
Charlie
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Hello cousin!
paul stacey
master brummie
lovely photos everyone so nice to see old brum
Ah the memories of Backstreets .... One of my favorite backstreet memories from back in the 50's was Bonfire Night. Born and raised on Wilton St. and like all other neighbourhood kids, we would collect 'stuff that burned' from shops and carefully confiscated any loose wood or pailings around the local streets. On Bonfire night all our carefully guarded 'stuff' would be dragged out into the middle of the street, topped with the Guy we had used to collect firework money and the whole lot set alight. One year when the pickings had been especially good our fire was enormous and generated terrific heat ... hot enough to crack a shop window that happened to be opposite the fire. Following those nights the fire and ashes would smoulder and stink for at least 3 or 4 days. Once removed the debris was replaced by a circle of damaged tarmac. No longer living in the UK I was wondering if the authorities allow such backstreet fires now .... I would doubt it !
sylviasayers
master brummie
DaveG I used to live in Copeley Street, Aston, which was a cul-de-sac and I can remember we had big bonfires for VE Day and VJ Day, but I don't know whether it was the following bonfire night or the one after but a policeman came round and ordered us to put it out. My eldest sister who was by then married and living in the same street made a great fuss but we still had to put it out and that was the last one we ever had in the street.
paul stacey
master brummie
snazzy italian suit carolina, love the tin bath and budgy in the cage in the window, must date to the early 60's.
paul
paul
The tin tub, the clothes line prop, the old sashed paned window, the door to the back kitchen....this picture could have been repeated many many times with different people in the scene. One cold water tap on the end of a lead pipe and the sink drain below the kitchen window outside just before you got to the coal house next to the loo. Our tin tub hung on the fence that divided this scene from next door which would have been exactly the same but opposite hand. Some still had the old oven/coal fireplace and some were "modernised"...gas stove and a coin meter and a couple of electrical outlets. One room heated by a coal fire and all of this to the end of the sixties at least for many.
That picture, opposite hand, could have been one of me. I hope things are better now for all of us.
That picture, opposite hand, could have been one of me. I hope things are better now for all of us.
Our little house had a coal cellar below the first floor living room. As soon as we knew the coal was about to be delivered my brothers and I would dash downstairs to watch the coal being dropped down a chute into the cellar. We often came up coughing and spluttering with coal dust in our hair ..... but it was fun. As our supply of coal ran low, my father would gather up the slack and use some kind bonding goo to make briquettes to burn. I also remember that down in the cellar the gas meter was hung on the far wall just beside the chute so the trip to put another penny in the meter was quite a hazardous.
hi dave..how very similar your memories are to mine..we had a cellar under the back and front rooms...the coal was dropped down the back and the gas meter was in the front cellar..i can smell it now and all the snails...spiders and silver fish were horrible ...we had no electric lighting of course so it was down the narrow steps with a candle for us...and yes we kids also had to make up slack bricks when the coal ran out...even though my old house has long gone and new houses built on the ground those old cellars must still be there i would think.. hard but.happy days though...
lyn
lyn
Maybe a modern state of the art piece in the scene would be the clothes prop. Like most people nowadays we have all or most of the modern equipment but we still hang our clothes out to dry when weather permits but the line is a bit more latter day with wheel at each end. It's a bit of ecology that everyone can practice...and yet we have here places even in the country where clothes lines are banned. Unsightly I suppose. Yeah silver fish...prehistoric speedy little guys.
brenda barr
master brummie
Dav and Lyn, you discribed your cellar identical to ours in Copley street, l always had to count the coal bags, when the coal was delivered, so the count would be idential to the invoice....we always had a lot of slack and my dad would mix it with some kind of cement l think, and set it up in tin cans..nothing was ever wasted...but like you Lyn l hated to have to go down there to feed the meters, usually sunday dinnertime, even though we had a light down there (a very dim light at that) it was still very dark and smelled so musty a bit like the anderson shelters, but l was more scared of what i could'nt see not what l could....never have been comfortable in the dark,...my dad had a work bench down and my brother was always up to something ...he made some gunpower and sprinkled it on the cellar steps and down the entry so with our studded shoes it would make a flash when we walked on it, but one day he went to far and had a big flash and a boom in the cellar...how we were'nt blown up l don't know , dad soon put a stop to that...Brenda
Our street had a lot of different things in it. We had a pawnshop, 2 outdoors, 2 grocers, garage, factories (one being Rabone Chesterman) a cafe, a football team. When we have our reunions we all agree that coming from a poorish background we all seemed to have gone on to better things - company owners, directors, headmasters. I am sure there are many many other streets the same - is it because we were family based - nothing political, just an observation
paul stacey
master brummie
Lyn how I remember those frosty nights in the 50's with the coal fire light flickering on the walls and frosty windows, we did't have that much but the old houses were the best.
paul
paul