More memories, thanks, my Nan used to live on Queens Road and Brookvale Park was treated as an outing by this very Victorian Lady, she was a stalwart of the Tory party in the Ward and very strict.....children should be seen and not heard, but I was allowed a fishing net and a glass jar on odd occasions and sometimes even caught something which I would take back to her house, only to be sent back to put it in the lake again. During the war she was an ARP warden at R.M Douglas's building and I remember vividly playing with a cable drum and piece of lead pipe for hours on end, when I was 'parked' with her and she was on duty. It seems strange that in those days from the age of 8 I was allowed to travel around the area on my own, on the buses and trams,, meet other children playing football in the street, talk to strangers at bus and tram stops and on the transport and no one gave it a thought! Nowadays my 18 year old step - granddaughter has to be 'driven' everywhere because the buses are so dangerous. We even have to stay seated until the bus stops now. I saw the post about the lad who pulled the plug out of Brookvale Lake, but I have a memory that during the war it did dry up or lost some of its water as my grandfather who died in 1945 told me that I had probably pulled the plug out, but I was very young then and it is hazy. I collect old postcards, not of Birmingham but where I live now, but I was horrified at the ebay prices for very ordinary pictures of Erdington and district so goodness knows how much some of those shown in these posts must have cost. Thanks for keeping the memories going
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nd the lake, this was between '63 to '87. I remember a period when power boats were allowed but were stopped due to noise and eroding the banks. Happy days. Eric
