• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Birmingham Post & Mail

The Baron

The Baron

master brummie
My Mom "Doris JENNEY" used to work for the Birmingham Post & Mail in the early days of SPOT THE BALL checking the grids to see who had won, ANY ONE REMEMBER HER from those days?
 
Hi aston. My Mother, Doris Morley, used to work in the canteen there for a few years. Maybe they knew one another ? Regards, Barry.
 
Hi bazzm, They may have well done just that. My cousin Hilda Quatermaine also worked in TELE ADDS for many years in till her early death with that big "C".
I only visited the MAIL once, we used to run a senior staff club when I worked at GEC WITTON & Factory/Industial SITE VISITS were part of it activites.
It was at the time all news type was set by hand & Photo prints etched on to alloy plate, it seemed more like a factory than a printers. I still have my name moulded in lead & a plate etched photo from that visit.
 
The fastest printing press (1939) of its time at the B'ham Post and B'ham Mail. This would have been pre-1960s Post & Mail building.
Details attached below.

Viv.

image.jpeg
 

Attachments

  • image.jpeg
    image.jpeg
    41.1 KB · Views: 8
mikejee said:
I seem to remember that the machine room there became the Parisienne .
Click to expand...

I do have a vague memory of the B'ham Post and B'ham Mail being in a basement on an alleyway near Corporation Street. We used to look down at the printing machines. My brother was doing so one day when one of the printers invited him to 'come on down' for a look around.

If I remember correctly, the compositors (?) typed out the page on this enormous typewriter that had molten lead to make the letters. A sheet of plastic type material (?) was then pressed onto the type under a press. The plastic type negative was then used as a mould so that a curved positive could be cast in lead and fitted to the rollers of the print press.

Obviously, the plastic negative was something quite heat resistant, but I have no idea what the material was. The printer gave one to my brother to keep, it was at my mom’s house for years, front page of the Evening Mail I recall.
 
I worked at the Birmingham Post & Mail 1964-66 , I was serving my apprentice for one of the electrical contractors as they were building the as then new P+M . 16 floors in the tower block , five lower floors under the ground floor , the lowest basement commonly known as B5 was where the great rolls of paper were put onto the rollers which would be fed up through B4 then B3 to the printers . All of the news was first typed out then a trial page would be raised then proof read , when all was ok off it went to print the newspaper. Great days working there especially when they moved from Cannon St , all of us contractors had never seen so many females
 
mikejee said:
I seem to remember that the machine room there became the Parisienne .
Click to expand...
It seems quite a strange appellation for a printing press room. Of course there may be a logical explanation or was is because it simply smelled like a French tarts boudoir! :eek:

Addendum: Mike post below gives the true explanation of it becoming a French style bistro/bar with a male name rather than the female one.
 
Last edited:
I thought I remembered it from the local papers, and after searching through lots of references to fashion etc have found it, in Birm Post. 23.7.1970. apparently got the spelling wrong though

birm post. 23.7.1970.jpg
 
Last edited:
Williamstreeter said:
I worked at the Birmingham Post & Mail 1964-66 , I was serving my apprentice for one of the electrical contractors as they were building the as then new P+M . 16 floors in the tower block , five lower floors under the ground floor , the lowest basement commonly known as B5 was where the great rolls of paper were put onto the rollers which would be fed up through B4 then B3 to the printers . All of the news was first typed out then a trial page would be raised then proof read , when all was ok off it went to print the newspaper. Great days working there especially when they moved from Cannon St , all of us contractors had never seen so many females
Click to expand...

thanks for the first hand memories williamstreeter and thanks for the info mike about the parisian once being part of the evening mail we really do live and learn

lyn
 
Earlier (pre-1964 Madin Building) Post and Mail buildings. Was the top building in Corporation Street ? Anyone know where the bottom building was ? The images are from a 1938 souvenir dinner brochure. Viv.

8A79352F-24E1-4747-BCA2-20130D9CDB53.jpeg
 
Pedrocut said:
Picture from 1971 in “Birmingham Buildings; the architectural story of a Midland City by Little, Bryan D. G.”

View attachment 169999
Click to expand...
I used to work in this building from 1982 till 1986 for the law firm Pinsents. We occupied floors 2,9,11,12,13.Old papers were filed on 16th floor. I met my husband who also worked for Pinsents. The firm moved to Weslyn & General building after I left and are now on Colmore Row. Happy days.
 
Pedrocut said:
Picture from 1971 in “Birmingham Buildings; the architectural story of a Midland City by Little, Bryan D. G.”

View attachment 169999
Click to expand...
A handsome building from John Madin. Sorry to lose this one. Only ever went into the separate printing block as my scoutmaster was a printers' engineer. The Linotype process was fascinating and the lines of metal type.

Building lasted from 1964-2005.
 
Last edited:
I thought the digital clock on the building was very modern in the 1960s ... :)
oldMohawk said:
Another look at the clock in this pic on the old Post & Mail building, it was quite a novelty at the time but probably would not receive a second glance these days with all the digital things we have to play with.
index.php

Taken by Phyllis Nicklin in 1968.
Click to expand...
 
I am writing a book which includes the Colmore Row Kardomah where I worked in 1964. I caught the bus from Erdington which I think took me to Steelhouse Lane. After I got off the bus I was able to see the time somewhere, digitally I think, which usually meant I would be late unless I ran like hell. Can anyone tell me what building I could see? Could it have been the Birmingham Post & Mail building?
Many thanks in anticipation of your kind assistance.
 
The Rotunda had one as well, but the P&M office one was very close to your route to work so that gets my vote too.

Post & Mail clock.jpg
 
Last edited:
The Post and Mail clock cropped upearlier this week

Birmingham 24 hour clock

Hi Does anyone remember or have photos of the building in Birmingham having a 24 hour clock lit up on the building.I only ask as I used to go to St georges c of e junior school and when we looked out of the xlass room window towards snow hill there was a building with the 24 hour clock on it I'm...
birminghamhistory.co.uk birminghamhistory.co.uk
 
It's only just properly clicked with me where the pre-Madin P&M building was. This shows it on New Street. And its all still there. (I'd previously got it into my head that it was on Corporation Street, although the B&W photo below could very easily pass for Corporation Street)

Screenshot_20240104_164659_Chrome.jpg
Source : British Newspaper Archive
Screenshot_20240130_171137_Maps.jpg
 
This photo of my Uncle Bill, William Lees, who delivered the Mail to outlying places through the war and beyond at his retirement.
He took myself and my brother on one of his overnight trips in his Morris 10 van to Shrewsbury stopping off at Wellington on the way. :)
 

Attachments

  • uncle bill.jpg
    uncle bill.jpg
    95.6 KB · Views: 4
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top