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Backstreets Glories of old Brum...

hi brenda and carolina i enjoyed reading your posts and had to laff at the antics of your brother brenda...it was the same with us kids..we were always up to something..i remember when we moved into villa st in 1958 the ceiling above the cellar steps was whitewashed and painted in black was the the german swastika sign and our dad found a gun down there...he also unearthed one from the back garden...ive always wondered about this...i will look in my files and find some more back street pics to post...

hi paul..i totally agree with all you say i also loved the thick foggy nights when us kids used to go out playing tracking...we didnt have much thats for sure but we made the most of what we did have...im rambling on again..will go and hunt some pics out...

lyn
 
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rear of william st lozells...dated 1967..i love this one...that little lad is determined to get into the pic..wonder who is is...looks like moms sitting down in the background.
 
cook st..dated 1968...residents signing a petition for better homes....i think cook st is in nechells...
 
I don't see anything glorious about much of this...it's mostly sub-standard housing and thinking about it, good togetherness and family experiences apart, what I see is mean conditions and wasted Marshall Aid. That is a prevailing memory of my actual experience too. Smog was a phenomina that caused chest ailments like emphasyma one believes; not something to relish as being fun to experience. I take my hat off to those who rose from this to better things and believe that personal achievements at school and later university and college would have been the route for some if not most. Anyway good family togetherness happens in decent accomodation and there is no reason to see this aspect as a positive feature or result, even, of poor such. A triumph yes. A petition in 1968...hmmm.
 
Rupert, have to agree with you, I lived in a back to back (as different from a back house) in Vicarage Road Aston when I came out of the RAF from 1956 to 1962 and it was not a very pleasant experience, shared outside toilets, freezing cold in the winter, forever damp you would decorate and within days the mould would reappear, most disheartening, a landlord who didn't give a damm, rotting woodwork, draughts every where, a leaking attic (where our young daughter slept, no hot water etc etc..... the only good thing was low rents enabling us to save for a deposit on a house that much quicker, a 3 bedroomemed house in Erdington, complete with bathroom (utter bliss) and garage and spacious garden, it was like living in another world. Eric
 
even though i agree with what Rupert and Reg say.i grew up in a back to back and i think the glory lies in the fact that we were all in it together none of us were any better off than anyone else and the neighbours in those days were REAL neighbours ..plus the majority of men worked and the women took a real pride in their homes..
 
maggieuk said:
even though i agree with what Rupert and Reg say.i grew up in a back to back and i think the glory lies in the fact that we were all in it together none of us were any better off than anyone else and the neighbours in those days were REAL neighbours ..plus the majority of men worked and the women took a real pride in their homes..
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as another back to backer i agree will everything you say maggie....cant see what living in decent accomodation has to do with having good family togetherness though rupert... even those in buck house have had their moments lol........well i had plenty of family togetherness and we all stuck together as freinds and neighbours and helped each other out...maybe we were just lucky but i for one would not swap my childhood for anything....and that is a testiment to my parents....

lyn
 
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Lyn, I think that my words indicate that we are in agreement and I wrote that maintaining family togetherness and moving on to better things in life was a triumph when starting from such poor housing accommodation. Better housing would not have lessened the family experience though and may have improved it for some. I think that saying ‘ah yes but we had great this and that’ is used as a qualifier for the living conditions which existed for so long; to the point of petitions being circulated. The cherished family experience, when such occurred, was and still is a credit to the parents involved, in spite of surroundings and that is where all of the glory resides.

Oh, Cookie. They seem to have gone overboard with batherooms here..2 1/2 seems to be the mark now. I have one but plan for an addition of a 1/2 downstairs. Can be handy at times. Hmmm, keeping 2 1/2 clean could be a chore.
 
Most people who lived in back to back eventually moved on to better housing, My experience was just the opposite, I lived in decent housing in my younger days in Aston and Sheldon, followed by a new house in Shirley, it was when I was aged 26 when I lived in a back to back so probably noticed the drawbacks more than most having experienced better living conditions. Like most back to back dwellers we had our characters, one lady in the 12 house terrace a Mrs Wragg with 4 children kept half a dozen ducks for their eggs and every time we had bad weather she fetched them in the house (the ducks not the kids) into the single downstairs room, another lady, Mrs Priest an elderly widow always made her bachelor son in his forties take his shoes of before he could enter the house, made him go to church twice on Sundays and he had to do the shopping, no wonder he never got married, probably thought all women were the same ! Eric
 
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I am a chlid of the sixties the nearest I ever came to living in those type of houses was a terrace type house which I lived in during the mid seventies with an outside toilet... the terrace was run down... people in it were extremely close... although the police would not venture down alone.. lol the milkman left crates at the top of the yard... and the only man who ever ventured down the terrace was the postman god bless him sounds rough it was... a terrace full of charachters and rogues great atmosphere but would I like to live in those housing conditions again certainly NOT...
 
l lived in copely street all my life untill l got married and mom and dad lived at no. 9 from 1933 to 1969 copely street was a cul-de-sac, and all of us knew each other.....when l made a visit in 1969 my first trip home in over 9 years, mom and dad met us both very upset as they had to move the following week to Castlevale, l don'nt know if they were upset about Ron and l and the boys having to come to all this or having to leave no.9. they called home for nearly 40yrs but with the help of my brother on leave from the navy we got them all packed and ready in 48hrs, there really was'nt much really to move as mom had new furniture when she moved so she left what she did'nt want, dad who was very emotional said he wanted to die in Copely st......but after living in Castlevale a short time he was elated having a indoor loo and a bathroom mom and dad were so grateful of living in such luxery and also a few of copely street neighbours were living close by.....it was nice to know their last years were living in comfort a whole lot better than what they'd been used to......Brenda
 
How I remember the open little coal fires in the black grate. The grate had little side ovens and hobs to sit cooking pots on them to keep food warm but often our old cat used to love curling up on the hob even when the fire was lit. i still get a chuckle when I remember my Mom saying ' Will one of you move the cat he's starting to singe again'. ......those were the good old days !
 
Yeah...sitting huddled around the coal fire in the winter, in the one room in the house that was heated. Somehow it never seemed like the cosy little scene that one saw on christmas cards and the word chillblains comes to mind. Pretty soon it would be bedtime and off to a cold bedroom and the hot water bottle would keep your feet warm for part of the night. Bedsocks helped a bit.
 
Hi Rupert,
A couple of heated fire bricks wrapped in cloth was our nightime comfort .... or if you were the lucky one you got the nice big plate out of the fireside oven. Either way, they made one heck of a bump in the night when they fell out of the bed.
 
I havn't heard about fire bricks for years. and years Dave, my dear old Nana used to use them , red hot at first even wraped in a towel, then in the early morning stone cold and we used to kick em out of bed, haaa great memories.
 
Astoness said:
rear of william st lozells...dated 1967..i love this one...that little lad is determined to get into the pic..wonder who is is...looks like moms sitting down in the background.
Click to expand...

That photograph is very interesting to me, a senior school friend of mine back in the mid 60's lived back of William Street!
I went to the house a few times. When they redeveloped the area, probably shortly after the photograph was taken, her parents were moved into a block of flats that had just been built nearby.
 
I remember for the queens coronation we had a party and a huge bonfire and fireworks in the middle of Morcombe Road, Greet - I burnt my fingers with a firework - I would have been about nine years old.
 
..right, back to business...this is almost unbelievable...in TINDALL STREET, Highgate, there once was a pub...and it STILL does....in glorious isolation now, in this once very elegant street...


Old Moseley Arms Tindall St Balsall Heath.jpg OLd Moseley Arms now.jpg
 
hi dennis,i used to live 1/33 buck st.by the globe pub,great entertaiment some saturday nights when the globe turned out.saw some good brawls,often they were that drunk,they would swing and fall over,just across was marsh and baxters,they used to bring the pigs infor slaughter to make the bacon,pork pies and the black pudding,brawn,and the old trotters were also sold in the shop.good old days.john
 
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