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Coal Coke and Firewood

  • Thread starter Thread starter O.C.
  • Start date Start date
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O.C.

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Seeing and rescuing this old newspaper photo bought a flood of memories back to me and how we use to earn money as kids, and thinking what on earth would folks today make out of allowing a child to use a chopper (axe) the age we were.
After fetching the neighbours coke from Avenue Road and the coal from "Pow"s at Nechells Green sometimes making three round trips at a time pushing and pulling two hundredweight loads at time with my two brothers and sister, if the person we got the load for had a good old pram it wasn't to bad but when we had to use the coal dealers barrow on which you had to leave a deposit it was murder as the wheels were solid steel on a steel axel with no bearings, they were bunged with grease regular to make them turn and if the nail broke which was used instead of a cotter pin the wheel fell off, and  it was a killer taking them back home loaded and it was something I always dreaded.
I had to do that chore every Tuesday dinnertime for my own Ma.
After the Coke and coal run it was firewood time and after collecting any kind of old wood every night which we use to chuck down the cellar as the cellar grating was in the street. Out come the old chopping block which we pinched of the wagon who delivered the beer next door, it was I think called a chock what they put under the wheels when they parked on a hill.
Mathews the scrapman the other side of the pub give us old car inner tubes which we use to cut up for the rubber bands and when we got started we had quite a production line going till we had a stack of bundled firewood which we loaded on to our old cart made from an old orange box and go down the streets flogging it for a penny or for the well off tuppence a bundle great times great memories but I would not want to relive them but would not have changed a thing
Our front room was the same as in the photo but they was posh and had wallpaper
 
FANTASTIC PIC CROMIE ,
BROUGHT MY MEMORIES FLOODING BACK TO ME AS WELLCROMIE MY MATE,
WE LIVED JUST LIKE THAT , A SMALL ONE AND ONE DOWN
AND WE HAD A FIRE GREAT JUST LIKE THAT ONE ,
AND WE DONE THE COOKING ON THE FIRE
\AFTER FETCHING IT FROM THE AVENUE,  THE GAS WORKS,
OR TRAPPING DOWN THE LICHFIELD  ROAD TO ISLEY,S YARD ON
CHURCH LANE , AND BORROW ONE OF THERE DODGIE BARROWS

THANKS FOR THE MEMORY 
 
What mother or father today would let their child loose with an axe?...... in every yard every week this scene was acted in all the backyards, courtyards and front rooms in Aston and Nechells and I bet only one or two lost a finger.......but if the truth is known..... more fingers were lost to fireworks...
 
Beautiful pictures Cromwell, thanks for sharing. I recall those day's very well , I lugged coke and coal from the gas works at the bottom of Devon st every saturday in the old pram, for neighbours earning myself threepence a time. My family was so poor that the pittance I earned went to buy bread and milk. I still remember how cold it was in the long queue. The frost bitten toes in the wellies with no socks on.(That's if they fitted. in my case the front of the wellies were cut out to make room for my big toe to poke through...no kidding. Even remember the big dirty ring marks around my legs where the wellies went! But I still reckon we were better off than the kids today. Safer anyway.
How things have changed. Joy
 
One of my schoolmates in the junior school was blinded in one eye by a piece af wood flying up when he chopped it. E.
 
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