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Birmingham in 1950s

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Kandor

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I was talking with my daughters on Sunday telling them what the average house contained in the days of my childhood.
I'm talking of course about the 50's and the 60's yet to my daughters it seems to me they think I lived so long ago the Romans were my neighbours.
Anyway, after they'd picked themselves up off the floor laughing, I gave them a list of the things Roz and I have around us now that we'd never have even dreamed of back then...and here we go...
Microwaves,Computers, Cars Central heating, Holidays abroad,double glazing, Colour TV's, Dvd, CD players, Fitted carpets, Bathroom, Shower room, Garage, Dishwasher, Washing machine, Conservatory...oh, the list is endless, but you get my drift...My daughters cant believe I lived in a house that had none of those, its as much their lives now as the air they breathe..
I never missed those things and my life was fuller..no BETTER for it,
I was priviledged to live in the most exciting age Man has ever known, our lifes has changed almost beyond recognition during my 50 years and I dont care what happens during the next 50, nothing will ever exceed or surpass the things we've seen from the birth of the Nuclear Power right up to 'One small step for man'...........
Its been a blast...
 
:D Les you missed one very very important item of your list (even though you did not make a full list). It is well worth a mention as kids these days would curl up and die with out it.... The Home Phone! The Cell Phone! Can you imagine kids these days going down the road to the 'Phone Box' and standing in a smelly phone box, or in the cold and wet to make a phone call There was no sitting, or laying around for hours chatting on the phone back then :lol:
 
Telephone kiosk.

I pity the kids of today. Never will they experience the smell of those public telephone boxes or the draft that blew through the regular broken pane in them. BUT - Didn't the fish and chips out of the Birmingham Mail taste so much better when it was teeming down with rain and you were snug inside one of those 'dens' - you could not see out due to the condensation and the vinegar sodden fish masked the other smells that abounded there. - Never received any jackpot when I pressed button 'B' as others boasted to have done.
 
Kandor, you're house in the 50s/60s must have been very similar to how mine is now. :?
 
I think the first "Hi Tech" device to have a major effect on me was the hand held electronic calculator. The first one that I bought cost me 28 pounds in 1972 but I just HAD to have one. All it had was the four arithmetic functions and a Constant key. No square root or scientific stuff but I was the envy of everyone in the toolroom. Some years later, I bought my first computer..... a Sinclair ZX 80 !! My God....The POWER!!
Then a Vic20, Commodore 64, 8086, and on and on and on. What would you have said if someone had told you in the sixties (assuming that you can remember back that far, or were even born) that you would be able to communicate with other brummies all over the world on your own personal computer or mobile phone. Yeah Right!!! but now we take whatever new comes along in our stride with a "Oh really"......"That's nice"
I don't know about any of you other nice folks, but I find that I am forgetting how to write....you know.....with a pen. Or it could be a combination of senility and dyslexia. Talking about dyslexia, did you hear about the dyslexic insomniac who laid awake all night wondering if there really was a Dog? sorry.....time to go I think.
 
Just thinking of the things everyone has to have and we don't, the first is a motor car. I was always interested in public transport and, after working for British Rail (where it would have been silly in the 60s to run a car when I could and did travel all over Europe without paying a penny), I took on a political job which I saw as a mission to resist the encroachment of the private car on life in inner London, in particular the 1970s urban motorway proposals of the Greater London Council, which only months later were abandoned. So I never really fought the battle I volunteered for.
We don't have a dishwasher (only two of us and no room in the kitchen anyway). I bought a mobile phone for Barbara two years ago, but I still don't know how to use it. But I must say it is very useful when you are travelling and things go wrong.
I also bought a Sinclair calculator in about 1975, and an Amstrad PCW 8256 word processor when they came out in 1985, and have never looked back. I would miss my computer.
We were slow to get a video-recorder, and hardly use it now. We did get a cumbersome CD player in 1986, which is still in working order. I don't watch much telly, as it sends me to sleep, but we did get a digi-box last year which we are pleased with, as there are some good things you can't see otherwise.
In the kitchen we do have a food processor, microwave and bread-maker (which I use a lot).
In the bathroom we have an auxiliary shower and I was given a footbath for my aching extremities.
Our parents wouldn't know anything about most of these things.
Peter
 
.What did we do before we went DIGITAL. I have a son who can put BA .Hons after his name but is really stuck when it comes to telling the time by a real clock with hands.
 
OUTSIDE TOILET

Yeah we never had a bathroom at 4 Nelson Road, all we had in the house was one tap over the kitchen sink and we did everything there, well not quite everything. Our toilet was in the yard, what a performance especially in the winter, we took a candle with us, thats if you could get across the yard without it blowing out.

Then in the toilet was a piece of wire with ripped up newspaper on it.

When I was 13,14,15 I used to go to Grovenor road washing baths every Sunday morning.
 
We were pretty mcuch the same as you Dave, around the corner in Woodall Road. But I can go a step further back than that. My first piece of great kit in this brave new world was a biro. After the war years using nothing but pencils, I got a biro for Christmas. I wasn't allowed to use it at school, we had progressed by this time to pen and ink using 'dip' pens. I left the biro in the pocket of my school mac for months, and when I tried to use it again it wouldn't write. :cry: I use a fountain pen now, and I love it.
 
WHY DID THEY MAKE IT AWKWARD

We had to use ink pens that you dipped into an inkwell set into the desk. The nib was all scratchy and would'nt hold enough ink to write two letters,then of course if you got too much ink on the nib it dripped all over the place.

We was'nt allowed to use a biro, but for heavens sake, why not, these days things are done in the easiest way to get things done. I think when I was a kid we were made to do things the hard way for no good reason than this being England.

I think the people in charge here suddenly woke up and thought, hey the japanese and americans do things the easy way, we had better do the same otherwise weve had it.

Dont I ramble on, I'm getting as bad a you lot, all my love, Dave
 
Who remembers the weekend walks in the 50's that were published in the Birmingham Mail ? and did anyone go on them following the maps ?
 
Can't say as I remember them in the 50s. Then again I was a slow learner and probably couldn't read at that stage. I have seen similar ones in some newspaper recently. I can't think which one as I seldom read the new Birmingham Mail because I think it's turned into a bit of a tabloid rag.
 
BANK HOLIDAY WALKS

Belatedly reading Cromwell's piece about weekend walks reminds of walks the St Michael's Handsworth Church youth club used to do on Bank Holiday Mondays in the 1950s. The earlier ones may well have been taken from the 'Mail' (I casn remember an Easter walk in 1951 from Wootton Wawen station along the canal, and around Hampton in Arden, including the ford on the New Year bank holiday in 1952. After about 1954 I arranged them, which I loved doing, and used to do a reconnaissance trial first. I don't remember the articles in the paper, but it was never hard to think up something new. My favourite was from West Hagley station past Clent and over the top to Rubery.
Peter
 
Whit Monday Walk Rubery

The Sick and Dividend society of the New Rose and Crown and The Cock Inn Rubery organised an annual whit monday walk and always led by a brass band. The party from the cock walked to the new inns and then bishops farm and finally onto the plough for those who wanted a top up. The party from the rose and crown walked along leach green lane and eachway. Both parties would meet up at st chads church Rubery for a service afterwhich both parties would return to their own public houses for dinner. After that sporting activities would take place in the field behind the Cock Inn and lasted most of teh afternoon. One prize was a barrel of beer for the best decorated stick. Im not sure of the years this happened but believe it to be early 1900's. Sounds like the original pub crawl!
 
Had a quick look, well written, but I thought from the title "Down the Lane" it would be about Summer Lane. so a little disappointed.
 
hi guys
i don,t know whether this is the right slot
for memory,s and the subject
healthy body - healthy eating ,and healthy minds
but my local shop keeper commented on my tanning , and
mybody shapeing up
he said i see you are in the gym ,
i said yes i am going abroad
and i said oh yes .
well do you remember the charles atlas advertising
his advert in the paper every day on how to get into shape
i said to him years ago , he said no
i then said the picture of his add;
was a man flexing his body on the beach
and the caption was - don,t let themkick sand in your face.
when i walked out of the shop
i thought how many people recall charles atlas
the body builder ;
so does any of you guys recall charles atlas ?,
have a nice day guys and sorry if this is the wrong slot
best wishes astonian ,;;;
 
Remember it well on the back of "Marvel" comics. Plus Joke shop toys
X-Ray vision Glasses, Seebackrascope,ventriloquism kits.
 
hi jenny ann
many thanks for that magic moments
i enjoyed going back through them
best wishes astonian
 
hi jen & other half
i was looking for that strip where upon he showed the picture on the beach
in his trunks and one guy looking on ,across the sand thinking he,s gonna chat up his girl friend , and the drawing shows you he thinking
he ain.t gonna kick the sand in my face i had to smile when i read that advert i am sure it was in a comic ,
as he advertised the add he wants you to send so many dollars
for his secret,what a con
i did not send no money , but i later on in my time of life after reading it
there was no dope or chemicals he took
it was all done by dynmatic tension of the arms and chest dynmatic tension
along with press up and the use of useibng one ordinarry sit down chair where upon use used to lift the chair in one and and lift it up level with your shoulders
then change left to right
basicicly physicacal traing he must have made a fortune out of it eh .
best wishes astonian ;;;;
 
Astonian said:
hi jen & other half
i was looking for that strip where upon he showed the picture on the beach
in his trunks and one guy looking on ,across the sand thinking he,s gonna chat up his girl friend , and the drawing shows you he thinking
he ain.t gonna kick the sand in my face i had to smile when i read that advert i am sure it was in a comic ,
as he advertised the add he wants you to send so many dollars
for his secret,what a con
i did not send no money , but i later on in my time of life after reading it
there was no dope or chemicals he took
it was all done by dynmatic tension of the arms and chest dynmatic tension
along with press up and the use of useibng one ordinarry sit down chair where upon use used to lift the chair in one and and lift it up level with your shoulders
then change left to right
basicicly physicacal traing he must have made a fortune out of it eh .
best wishes astonian ;;;;
Click to expand...

I have a copy of the advert somewhere from one of my movie magazines of the early 1960's. Was it Charles Atlas-"you too can have a body like mine" ?
 
Astonian
icon7.gif
this is the one again from charles atlas site
 
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