Blanning family

[Goldicote555]

Oh yes the sugar coated fruit jellies ! Because mum worked in various local shops customers always bought her gifts, often a bottle of something alcoholic, chocolate liqueurs , fruit jellies, marzipan fruits, that sort of thing. They became a good follow up to the regular box of Roses or Quality Street, I clearly remember mum coming home with bags of gifts she’d been given. Don’t see it so much today.

I expect we got used to having ham as she worked for Bywaters for a while. Must have kept it going when she left. Remember the smell of it boiling in spices and mustard. Then in the oven to finish it off. I also remember mum telling me her mum used to cure hams in her cellar, one being kept for Christmas. So that could be why she cooked ham for us at Christmas - keeping up her family tradition, but modified as we never had a cellar.

I also notice no chocolate logs on the 1970s list. Again we had them quite often as mum ran a bread shop. We always took it for granted we’d have this as mum had her network of shop contacts and grateful customers. Viv.

Viv.

Hi Viv. I'm trying to track down anyone who knew the Blanning family from Bywaters. My father knew Michael very well and is in his late eighties and we were trying to connect with anyone left in the family

 

[Vivienne14]

Welcome Goldicote. Afraid my mum is no longer with us so can’t ask her about the Blanning family. Were they the owners ? Mum worked at the Kingstanding branch - there were other branches. Its possible she knew them but I can’t confirm that. Viv.

 

[Dennis Williams]

Wow...extract from myFamily memoirs...

In my early school years, Mom worked full time at a pork butchers’ factory in Small Heath – Messrs Bywaters & Co. They had a chain of shops in Birmingham and were well known for their pork pies and sausages. She was secretary to the Managing Director, the cadaverous looking Reg Blanning. I once worked part-time on Saturdays for the Bull Ring Branch when I was about fifteen, and having seen the stuff that constitutes the fillings, I hate pork pies with a vengeance to this day. Bywaters was on the site of another supermarket, Morrison’s in Small Heath, right by the Blues ground, and has long since disappeared.

Sdaly she is no longer with us...and that is all I know or remember...

 

[MWS]

I think these are the right people...

Reginald Edwin Blanning was born in Devon in 1909. He was married twice and had a just one son from his first marriage, the aforementioned Michael Victor Blanning b1934 and died 1953 at Silverstone while testing his car.

This incident is mentioned in the Bham Daily Gazette. It appears Reginald set up a charity in his sons name which may be still going today.

Michael's mother married again but doesn't appear to have had any more children. Reginald's father died when he was young and he had only one brother, Edgar Victor L Blanning, who doesn't appear to have any children.

 

[pjmburns]

Is this the charity? Suggests Michael died in 1968.

MBTHA

www.mbtha.com

 

[MWS]

It does seem to be the charity but there's only one death for a Michael Blanning between 1950 and 1980, and that's the one in 1953 which matches the accident report.

 

[pjmburns]

Well I was just going by their website.
Also just realised one of the blocks of flats near us (corner Wake Green Road and Yardley Wood Road) is Michael Blanning House.

 

[MWS]

Well I was just going by their website.
Also just realised one of the blocks of flats near us (corner Wake Green Road and Yardley Wood Road) is Michael Blanning House.

Sorry, I wasn't suggesting that you were wrong, just that it appeared that they had it wrong.

 

[pjmburns]

Yes I realised that but you would think they would know .
I wondered if the charity was set up in 1968 but it says it was started in 1973.
That does tie in with a 20th anniversary.