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Butler Street, Small Heath

Hi Berniew
I think this photo #31 is a blow up of a video link to utube on the forum. I believe these are housing
officials. And i think it is a video of the bad housing in Bolton Rd and the guy on the right
says that the trouble with the houses is most are privately owned landlords.
 
Here is a picture of my Gt Grandmothers Shop on Cooksey Road - Gertrude Curley. Notice the bunting? Maybe the picture was taken during some kind of celebration?
 

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I lived at number 9 Butler Street as a child, I attended Dixon Road School and myself and my mother were the last ones to leave there after 2 years of everyone else moving out, we were the only ones left on the street and my mother was actually in the paper with Dennis Howell, the MP at the time about the appalling conditions we were left in. On the newspaper clipping you can see the houses being pulled down around us and a picture of the Butler Street sign.
 
There was two shops each end of Butler Street, sweet shops, one I remember had big blocks of butter and cheese cut and weighed to however much you wanted and not refrigerated or covered, something that would not be allowed today and you no longer see big blocks like that. Also a chip shop was over the road from one of the sweet shops on the corner We shopped at Brileys, Lyptons on the Coventry Road and my mother and gran went to The Coach and Horses pub on the Coventry Road. I was also taken at weekend to a club on Bolton Road, think it was called The Deritend Club. The shop mentioned with illuminated every ready sign in the widow was just over the road from my house.
 
Hi Cinderella.
I was born and lived in Regents Park Road from 1945 until 1963. I used the Coach until it closed i might know your Mom my name is Wal Prottey do you know me.
Wal.
 
Hi there, I'm. Sorry I don't recall you as I was quite young. I was born 1962 and moved to Butler Street as a young baby with my mother. You may well know my grandmother, her name was Minnie Slater and her daughter, my mother was Doris.
 
walt00 said:
Hi Cinderella.
I was born and lived in Regents Park Road from 1945 until 1963. I used the Coach until it closed i might know your Mom my name is Wal Prottey do you know me.
Wal.
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Hi Wal, Prottey is an unusual name, are you any relation to the Protteys that had a shop in Arsenal Street.?
Nick
 
Grocery stores, before the advent of supermarkets and new food hygiene regulations. always had the blocks of butter, lard and round cheese which, as Cinderella pointed out, were apportioned to suit the requirements of customers. I worked in a grocers store, briefly after leaving school, and it was a most rewarding feeling when you became skilled at cutting an almost perfect chunk of the required weight.
A small dab was usually all that was needed to get to the correct wight the customer asked for. It was wrapped in greaseproof paper with the same folds made that present day machinery does. In fact many skills, required in many retail outlets, have more or less gone as so much is now packaged.

Large circular cheeses had to be "skinned" before they were put on display on the cool (usually) marble slab. The "skin" was waxed hessian which, of course, protected the cheese whist in storage and shipment.

I know the question of "broken biscuits" has been mentioned on the Forum before but personally the broken biscuit tin gave you a wide choice of biscuit types: you did not need to buy more than one type as you have to today.

Which also brings me to the point of obesity. How come butter, lard, cakes, biscuits and almost everything that is nice is now bad for you because, it is said, it adds avoirdupois to your body frame - in short, as Mr. Micawber would say - it makes you fat.
 
Maybe because these things are the most enjoyable to eat ( would add fish and chips in dripping, and proper fatty beef with some taste). To me, at least jf all I was allowed to eat were items that were not very enjoyable ( say anything from Macdonalds), then I would get very thin as Ii would just eat what was necessary to stay alive
 
I lived my early life in butler street south leaving in 1964 I too remember playing playing football on the bomb peck I remember Mrs smith lived there I lived at no 12. The highlight of the year was bonfire night when we lit a bonfire on the peck. My uncle lived next door to Mrs smith and I lived three doors away , families lived close together in those days. By the way although I my name on here is lill I am a male
 
lilly said:
I lived my early life in butler street south leaving in 1964 I too remember playing playing football on the bomb peck I remember Mrs smith lived there I lived at no 12. The highlight of the year was bonfire night when we lit a bonfire on the peck. My uncle lived next door to Mrs smith and I lived three doors away , families lived close together in those days. By the way although I my name on here is lill I am a male
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Hello Lilly,

Nice to hear from you. I was born in 1962 and lived in Winston Green but later moved to Butler Street, obviously too young to remember exactly when. I remember we were the last to move from Butler Street. The one neighbour was Mrs Humphrey's and not sure who the other side were but I know they looked after me once when my mother accidently knocked over a paraffin heater in the back room of downstairs and I was asleep up stairs but she was hysterical in the street as she could not get to the stairs to rescue me but thankfully a fireman got through the bedroom window and brought me down the ladders. Obviously my mother was in a state and had to be taken to hospital but she was fine. Families were closer then as my grandmother only lived a few streets away in Parliament Street, I often went up to visit her on my own and with my mother. I also remember the bomb pecks and playing on them and bon fire night on them. Happy days.
 

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Hello Lilly,I was born at 22bolton road,opposite butler street South.i can remember the two shops each side of the street.one was a green grocers,use to take bets,,the other was a sweet shop.i was born in 1943,moved to castle Bromwich in 1956.there was eight kids plus mom and dad.those were the best days.
 
Hello Cinderella Yes you lived there during its last days, I remember our little garden was the only one with a tree in it, as someone else said it had two corner shops by the early sixties one was converted to a bookies and the other one was a general store called I think Fishers, across the road was a off licence where I used to collect my Nans pint of ale to which she would merrily sing little brown jug!. At the bottom of Butler street south was a railway embackment where we used to play, riding metal adertising sheets down the slop into the brook, there was a tunnel to which the river ran which I believe was built by Italian prisioners of war.
To the left of the street was a row of back to backs but they had been demolished by the early sixties. at the top of cookesy road was dixon road junior school to which I attended I remember it had bombshelters at the bottom of the playground and I used to image a load of skeletons lying within! I enclose a picture of my grandad and aunt off to a wedding you can see our trefranksweddingphyl.JPGe in the background. In those days everyone in the street had relatives living near by or even in the street I had a aunt living next door and a uncle two doors away. We were nearly all poor in finance but rich in community.
 
Hello Cinderella Yes you lived there during its last days, I remember our little garden was the only one with a tree in it as someone else said it had two corner shops by the early sixties one was converted to a bookies and the other one was a general store called I think Fishers, across the road was a off licence where I used to collect my Nans pint of ale to which she would merrily sing little brown jug!. at the bottom of Butler street south was a railway embackment where we used to play, riding metal adertising sheets down the slop into the brook at the bottom there was a tunnel to which the river ran which I believe was built by Italian prisioners of war. to the left of the street was a row of back to backs but they had been demolished by the early sixties. at the top of cookesy road was dixon road junior school to which I attended I remember it had bombshelters at the bottom of the playground and I used to image a load of skeletons lying within! I enclose a picture of my grandad and aunt off to a wedding you can see our treView attachment 100233e in the background. In those days everyone in the street had relatives living near by or even in the street I had a Aunt living next door and a uncle two doors away. We were nearly all poor in finance but rich in community.
 
Do we have two roads mixed up here Butler street which went from Arthur street to regents park rd, and Butler street south which was off Bolten road, Just Asking.
 
Indeed the two are mixed up most of the later are about Butlet street South which is where the car dealership is now
 
Does anyone remember a little shop near Dixon road school. A school mate parents ran it but cant remember her name. If you had goods on the ' tick' which my parents did haha she put your name in the window if you didnt pay back in time.
 
georgejan said:
hello walt00.i lived right opposite BUTLER STREET SOUTH, i think people get the two streets mixed up, butler street. .butler street south. i was born 1943 went to Dixon road,, 1948, then Oakley road sec mod,, from 1953 to 1958.very happy memories of life in the area,, school days, playing in the road, never any problems. walking to farm park, small heath park, Kingston hill park.. going to the grange,, coronet,, Kinston picture houses,, bon fire nights. Friday nights bath,, if i was dirty. outside loo. really good old days.. wished i could return,, maybe we get a second run..
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Hi georgejan
Great post re Butler Street etc. I was born in 1947, and lived at 9/71 Arthur Street from 1950 and also went to Dixon Road school until 1958 when I took the 11+ and then moved to secondary school. Like you, I have so many happy memories during my time as a youngster living in a very old "back to back" 2 up 2 down tiny property with outside loos at the top of the yard where we played football "Slam" against the rear wall of one of the the 4 remaining wash-houses. Loved going to the Kingston cinema with my dad to watch cowboy films with stars like Audie Murphy and John Wayne!
Happy Days and great memories!
Cheers
Bob aka" Arthur Street"
 
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