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Birmingham in 1950s

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Thank you Judy and Sparks for coming up with the picture of the scent cards. If I remember rightly they smelled very nice too. They made good bookmarks.
 
Hi all, does anyone remember the coal yard in Haymills? I think it was in Deakins road, but i can't place where. I remember having to fetch coal in an old pram when we ran out unexpectedly,and that always seemed to happen when the snow was on the ground.
 
How useful were old prams Podgery. I have seen them used as go carts, sledges, shopping trolleys, trasnporting old dogs, planks of wood. They were taller then. When I first visited Dublin, shawled, rosy faced ladies sold fruit from them.They might still do, I don't know.Bag ladies had them. A bed for the cat.
Somone said recently that electronic communication as it is today took off in the 50's, as they were only 30'odd years old I begged to differ.My mind shot to the TV series Call the Midwife and you mentioning prams made me think of the comment.If it did, we never had it!
 
Nico, I think prams have now been replaced by shopping trolleys for the afore mentioned functions. My step brother started coke delivering in an old pram, changed to a handcart, eventually an old lorry, retired a few years ago selling his fleet of lorries, (12 I think), he is now a millionaire living in Stafford, but he worked hard building up a business whilst we were enjoying ourselves so good luck to him. Eric
 
cookie273uk said:
Nico, I think prams have now been replaced by shopping trolleys for the afore mentioned functions. My step brother started coke delivering in an old pram, changed to a handcart, eventually an old lorry, retired a few years ago selling his fleet of lorries, (12 I think), he is now a millionaire living in Stafford, but he worked hard building up a business whilst we were enjoying ourselves so good luck to him. Eric
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A true entrepreneur. We get newspapers delivered from a shopping trolley and circulars from a chap with a wheel barrow.Both backbreaking. The postman who delivers in the town has what I would call a pram to deliver with. We had coke at school. Nan used to moan that the coalman had given her a load of nutty slack. She kept it outside on top of a piece of corrugated iron. I liked it when she put the wet coal on the fire as it would hiss and spit. We have an imitation one now.
 
I just remembered one school field day we had a pram race. With a large child in each pram dressed as a baby. I think those type of events have been replaced by Its a knockout type games on TV and those I'm a prima donna get me out of here ones.You need the same strength and dexterity to run with an egg and spoon or jump in a sack or run like a human wheel barrow.
 
open coal fires may have been inefficient compared to modern heating systems but I still miss them, poking them into life, riddling the ashes, adding a shoveful of coal, toasting bread on our big brass toasting fork. Bliss. Eric
 
Our draw-tin had a hole in so we held newspaper against it.
I loved looking at the patterns in the flames, and there's nothing like that toast!!
(Corned beef legs from sitting too close!)
rosie.
 
Hi

Not so sure I agree on this one having blown myself up several times in the misery of
cold wet winter days. The grate was full of ash often hot. All this lot was cleaned out.
Paper wood or firelighters then bits of coal. It was hope but often the coal woudnt light
easy even drawing put it out. Often I resorted to Paraffin it always created an explosion
but got you started. This was every day it was only in the winter we would stack the fire
through the night. Miserable wretched times. Washing day was a nightmare.

Mike Jenks
 
Yes It was ok for me but mumwas glad of the gas fires. I used to lie in bed the outer covers were freezing, ice on the inside of the windows, woken up by the sound of mum raking the previous nights coles in her dressing gown. Mum and dad had a Flatley electric fire in their room and dad carried it down to the kitchen. They had a red tin kettle in their bedroom which hummed it was the size of half a football,.
Mum used to leave dusters out overnight on the line and they would be frozen rigid.
We had a gas geezer in the bathroom, I was not alowed to light incase it blew up. It was intsant hot water, mum would shout the gas has gone out! Dad would come up with taper,. Happy days!
 
My mother certainly worked in the fifties,she worked on the mobile grocery buses that plied their trade around the Shard End area.These buses were based at the Co -op premises in Bucklands End Lane
 
hi

Agree the ice inside the Windows it was that hard first thing you coudnt scratch it off.
No heat what so ever. No gas fires in houses till the late 60's. Dad bought a Gas Miser
in each room. Fire of the century. I had them fitted in my first house.

mike Jenks
 
mike jenks said:
hi

Agree the ice inside the Windows it was that hard first thing you coudnt scratch it off.
No heat what so ever. No gas fires in houses till the late 60's. Dad bought a Gas Miser
in each room. Fire of the century. I had them fitted in my first house.

mike Jenks
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Parents had a gas miser in their last house, it might still be in it. They 1st had a Brett Colbran and a Flavel Debonair. Why I remember that I don't know. The 1st one was a brassy colour the 2nd was mauvy blue with dark wood on top.
I used to have a Robinson Willey. Made me smile.
No need for a fridge. We got one after we had gas the fires. Nan didn't get one for a long time and it ended up in her dining room.
I think they are building houses smaller as you wouldn't fit a pram like I had in the halls now. Match boxes nan would have called them.
I remember being in my mate's auntie's house in Dublin with a coal fire, you were cold one side and toasted on the other. One good thing was she put all the rubbish on the fire. She used to burn peat as it was cheaper than coal and it smelt lovely. Was bad for the air pollution she said though. We used to buy kindling wood for 3d a bunch,small cut pieces of oblong wood, firelighters as someone posted, newspaper scrucnched up with big lumps of coal and slack all around it. Then the poker to lift the coals and let the air in. A proper skill making a fire. When in France our friends still have a real fire, they use what I would describe as a didgery doo which when blown raises a fire from smoldering embers.
 
I had forgotten ice inside the windows, cold lino, only one tiny rug, no heating but my room was above the kitchen. Stone hot-water bottle, rock-hard second (probably third or fourth)-hand mattress.
Nevertheless happy days mostly, in a loving family.
rosie.
 
It used to be nice, on a cold day, to go into people's houses that had a coal fire.
I think we're forgetting how dangerous they were though. One old dear we used to go to had a lovely, blazing fire but one of our crews went to her house one day to find that she'd had a stroke and fallen on to it.
I'll stick with the central heating, ta !
 
rosie said:
Our draw-tin had a hole in so we held newspaper against it.
I loved looking at the patterns in the flames, and there's nothing like that toast!!
(Corned beef legs from sitting too close!)
rosie.
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As kids we used to love it when Our Dad lit the fire. He'd hold the Mail over the grate to get the fire to draw and hold it there 'til it caught fire.
We used to scream with excitement but Our Mom wasn't too impressed with the soot that used to blow into the room.
 
Yes you needed a broadsheet newspaper to draw the fire. I recall several old people falling on to fires but they usually had fire guards. I had forgotten the soot. Or Chimneys catching fire. Our artificial has soot too and no coal! Waiting for the chestnuts that banged and would shoot across the room. Or if a balloon went on the fire. I am cringing now. My bed with the coiled springs I used to trampoline on and mum would shout you'll come through the ceiling. Doors with keyholes for me to peep through when I was of a height. Curtain rings, I used to play with them when mum sewed them on. Door curtains that opened on a divice or they were supposed to and got jammed in the door. Oil cloth. Stair carpet rods they caused a lot of accidents. Still have my grippers. I used to run and slide on th hall runner when mum had polished the tiles. The dog would run at the paper when it was delivered, slide on the mat and hit the front door. We had ginormoud door chimes like tubular bells. A big black telephone with a silver dial, very elegant on a wooden ledge in the hall. So I couldn't reach it. Mum took messages for someone. It was very cold in the hall as were the tiles. We had a high mantle fire place with mirrors each side, I used to stick my rubber ended arrows on them to leave a mark. A big coloured glass uplighter lampshade hanging from chains. The budgie used to sit on it. I kept nans for years and broke it by accident. It was apricot with white blobs. When we finally got a bathroom it was simplistic with ablack floor with white swirls on it. I never stayed in it very long.
 
rosie said:
I had forgotten ice inside the windows, cold lino, only one tiny rug, no heating but my room was above the kitchen. Stone hot-water bottle, rock-hard second (probably third or fourth)-hand mattress.
Nevertheless happy days mostly, in a loving family.
rosie.
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same here rosie...quite tough but very happy times for me too...what we have to remember is that conditions in the 50s and 60s was far better than it was 60 years before and so it goes on...actually we had a coal fires right up until we left villa st in 1972 then it was underfloor central heating in the new house...hated it because it made the 2 living rooms look so cold and uninviting...coal fires may have been a bit of a pain to clean out and set up every day and all us kids took turns but i would have one back any day...ive got rads in my house but in the living room ive now got a coal fire effect and surround...looks much cosier now and i even bought an old companion set to sit by the side of it lol..
lyn
 
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We were lucky,we moved from my grandparents house in Adderly Road Saltley into a prefab in Lapley Grove Lea Village,this was before the bailey bridge was built over the river Cole.I can remember sleeping with my legs inside the sleeves of an old army greatcoat for extra warmth
 
Many of these remembrances are mine too, and lasted, in my case, into the 60's. I think that emerging from the post WW II 40's into an austere world, where modern gadgets were around, but out of reach through cost, gave us all common memories. Plus the fact that it was a continuing social background. Things like Hire Purchase, cheap Cars, better incomes, Package Holidays abroad, Central Heating, etc., created a new social standard where we didn't use the Mail to draw the fire, or wake up to frosted windows.
No, the 50's aren't forgotten, just looked back on as a simpler but colder time!
 
The smell I remember over all others from the fifty's and early sixty's is paraffin. My Mom and Dad always used the Birmingham Argus to draw our fire, The feeling I remember most of the fifty's is stepping on to the lino on a cold winter morning, and waking up with a stone cold water bottle still clenched in my arms.
paul
 
We had a valour paraffin heater.remember the advert for the Esso blue dealer.I think the advert referred to the Esso blea dooler
 
Central heating, in every room except a small rarely used bedroom, was installed in my home a few years ago. It is only used as a stop gap i.e. to take the chill off the house or as back up when very cold (not that often in the South West).

We prefer to have two open fires as not only does it seem that the whole house and its fabric get warmed but seems far more healthy for us.

Admittedly cleaning out ash and providing kindling sticks is more labour intensive than turning a valve but we have no regrets on that score. The time may come when we are forced to only use the CH.

Another benefit is this. When sawing wood, logs etc. not only do you get some warmth in your body but also the exercise so necessary according to doctor and such like. lol

So all in all you get warm twice: cutting timber and then burning it at a later time.

In my early teens, when living in Warwickshire, I used to suffer from chilblains. I have never experienced them sine moving south - even during my six years in the RAF. Chilblains were not only a very unpleasant misery they always seemed to require treatment by quite unpleasant methods.
 
And Esso Golden. There is a ceramic stove in the garage with a round top with a hook on it which you can lift with some sort of attachment to access (I imagine) the coals and something to access them at the bottom. Looks like it was once blue.
I had a pudding dish as a child with a similar stove in the picture at on the bottom. With a family of animals huddled round there 'mum' in a rocking chair. It said Who said dinner on it.
Gran had a fire with an iron basket in front of it and 2 side ovens with a tasselled over mantle. She never used it since I could remember but cooked on a baby belling which took hours to heat up. She had a blackened kettle on a hook over the fire place. An outside loo. No hot water. A cold tap over a ceramic sink with a wooden drainer. She had what I thought was old pitted oilcloth but she said it used to be a carpet. When asked what happened to the tuft she said it wore off. On her table top was what looked like a sort of plastic/lino. It couldn't have been plastic though could it? Tacked down. This was from the very late 50's.
 
I have to say as a child I do not remember ever having the flue or a cold, (may have done) but it would have been very rarely I don't remember any of the family either, now with double glazing, central heating, we have about three a year, sore throats etc. Yet in those far off days of coats on beds and frost inside only a fire in one room and a paraffin heater on the landing, nothing. Yhe winters were harder then too.
paul
 
same here paul..even though the winters were far harsher back in the day i cant recall any of us kids (6 of us) or our mom and dad even being ill...central heating is just not healthy..it drys the air up...advise a little dish of water under each rad when in use constantly...

lyn
 
We had a rag and bone woman who used an old pram to collect with, it was always full to over flowing.
Nico said:
How useful were old prams Podgery. I have seen them used as go carts, sledges, shopping trolleys, trasnporting old dogs, planks of wood. They were taller then. When I first visited Dublin, shawled, rosy faced ladies sold fruit from them.They might still do, I don't know.Bag ladies had them. A bed for the cat.
Somone said recently that electronic communication as it is today took off in the 50's, as they were only 30'odd years old I begged to differ.My mind shot to the TV series Call the Midwife and you mentioning prams made me think of the comment.If it did, we never had it!
Click to expand...
 
My ma in law in France has old fashioned radiators like we had at school that you can sit on. On each one there is a long deatchable ladle type container for putting water in. Nan used to have little water containers by her gas fires as did my parents. We have this thing that takes the water out of the air and its always full up but I get very dry and bad sinuses with central heating and the house is still draughty. It has high ceilings. And when I am hot everyone else is cold and vice versa.
 
podgery said:
We had a rag and bone woman who used an old pram to collect with, it was always full to over flowing.
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I went to school with the rag and bone man's son. His dad had a horse and cart. The horse was beatifully turned out. Last time I was in Dublin they still had them. But not well turned out. My mate's Dublin gran had the veg delivered to her door. More expensive but she couldn't walk to the shops.
At least we don;t see prams in the canal anymore, just shoppong trolleys. Maybe they replaced the pram Podgery?
 
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