Hi Bill yes I am Roger I worked for Wilmots for thirty years. I know your name , but I cant place you or what department you worked in.
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Birmingham in 1970s
- Thread starter PaulE
- Start date
Around the time of the 3 day week I was working for the Inspector of Taxes. I can't remember exactly which office I was in at the time although that early I would just have been a clerk (filing, getting customer details and passing them on). I'm not sure if my father was still working for the TGWU at the time (most likely not) but he'd been a negotiator in some of the Leyland disputes. There was actually a union of sorts in government offices. I assume there would have been something similar in nationalized industry. There would never have been a strike because this was an entirely internal structure and any form of "action" was beyond them.
Bill Myring
New Member
Hi Roger, I was the idiot from work study that put in the multi-machine minding scheme, I remember you and Ron ??? He was forman / chargehand.
Hi Bill yes I remember you now, if I remember right you spent a lot of time at the kings road site. I think if my memory serves me right you played football in the inter department games for us. Did we have a few lunch time drinks at the pub by Fordhouse lane works? The foreman at the time was Ron Mason. Anyway getting back to the thread I cant for the life of me remember how long the three day week went on for but it turned out to be a good time for me. The anglers at the factory even arranged fishing contests at the sports ground on there days off. Happy Days!
Hi, I'm a recently joined member - 65 years a Brummie now re-located to North Yorkshire. I'm a published crime writer and my current project that I'm presently researching is a novel set in Birmingham in the year 1970. I've had great help from some retired police officers active in this period but I'm now looking at locations for events. Despite it being fiction, I want my novels to be based in real places. My book set during the Miner's Strike was deeply reliant on the layout of Hurley Door mill, Good hope and Pebble mill studios as well as a number of pubs around the Tamworth area at that time. Does anyone have recollections of the location of two pubs close to the central abboitoir - the Cross Keys is the one I' most interested in but also the Drover's. I'm struggling to find any ideas of layout inside these. I think its likely that the Keys was similar to the Barton Arms that I'm familiar with having taught for may years in New Town. Any help, gratefully received and I can give the site a decent credit in the foreword.
jmadone
master brummie
Hello Barry, if you use the search facility on this wonderful site You may well find some info that will be of use to you. Hurley Door mill? Do you mean Daw Mill colliery nr Tamworth? During the miners strike we lived in a small village near to Polesworth which contained many miners who worked in nearby colliery at Baddesley Ensor and on my journey to work in Birmingham daily passed the picket lines.
Reminds me of Gangsters. The first series was great and made a change from London-based drama.
That must have upset the London bosses because the second series was rubbish, turning the story into one long joke at Birmingham's expense. (Birmingham is the only city that London BBC people have heard of, so is the butt of all their jokes about other places!).
That must have upset the London bosses because the second series was rubbish, turning the story into one long joke at Birmingham's expense. (Birmingham is the only city that London BBC people have heard of, so is the butt of all their jokes about other places!).
Yes, it was my poor checking - the colliery office and some working was in Hurley. like you, I lived close to the strikes in wilnecote and remember the boxes in local stores collecting for the miners. my novel Borderline fictionalises a murder of a picket that leads to a complex plot and uses the locations of the area such as the police that were billeted at the lichfield barracks and also at a local hotel.
I remember watching this in the seventies - it became quite surreal and strange in its plotting and narrative but is a cult classic of its kind impossible to find anywhere these days. My book is much more realistic, and is based on research with officers who served at that time as well as some I've spoken with from 'the other side' - such as those who were dealers and engaged in lower level crime. I'm currently writing a scene with a meeting at a pub close to the abboitoir - hence the interest in the Cross Keys or Drovers. I've just written a chapter covering a drugs raid in Inkerman Tower in Newtown that relied on deep research into the shopping centre and surrounding area. I'm also interested in the Starathallan Hotel of that era opposite the Swan pub - the Mucky Duck as it was known.
mw0njm.
A Brummie Dude
welcome to the forum BarryRa. good luck with the book,i lived in Belgrave then.and was a window cleaner in hurley dordon etc. (deeply Reliant)
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FNQBRUMMIE
master brummie
Hi I was very interested to read this post and comments. I always thought Birmingham suffered from a lack of a good 'soap'. Crossroads was never a reflection of us and the London and Manchester soaps, love em or hate em seemed to deal with real life and big characters and some gritty situations. I thought maybe I could write something better. Eventually my story developed into something like BarryRa is considering. Get ready for the long haul my friend, I started my book in 2010 and it was published in 2018. I was also intent on setting it in my home town and my motivation was twofold, the Pub Bombings of 1974, based purely on the fact that it shocked us Brummies so and that my wife was in the Tavern in the Town that night and was only saved by being behind a concrete pillar when the bomb went off. It was in some respects a labour of love with detailed descriptions of places and characters from my youth, even involving an uncle of mine who had a hook for his missing hand. The story follows the lives of an ordinary Birmingham family whose live are shattered by the bomb, a brother's search for answers as he gets involved with some very colourful and unsavoury characters. Religion, local football rivalries, gambling, golf, sex and drugs all are part of the tale and they are all realities of a big city. Love and life and laughter, Brummies embrace all three.
The book is - Balancing the Scales,
The book is - Balancing the Scales,