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Cranbury Street
- Thread starter brummy-lad
- Start date
Keith Belcher
Brummie babby
Remembering my Nan and Granddad in Cranbury Street, Nechells, Birmingham. 1950’s.
My Nan Maud was a typical Birmingham lass. Born in 1900 of local stock she worked from the age of 12 in a laundry [pictured, centre at the back], got married to Joe in 1923 and bore my father the next year. She worked until nearly 60 but retired due to ill health in the 1950’s. They lived in a front, back to back house in the slums of Nechells, Birmingham. When I see pictures of this time, they are nearly all black and white, which is just as I remember it. Very little colour, everything dark, dank, dirty and covered in a kind of black soot. Those lines of back to back houses looked so sad, but they housed Brummies with big hearts, who were the salt of the earth in a city that had powered through the industrial revolution. You could say that Brummies made modern Britain.
I remember:
Them having a piano in that tiny front room. Must have cost them a fortune in years gone by. I think some bought them as a status symbol and for their young to learn the upper crust pastime of piano playing. Nan showing me how to carefully light a gas lamp without touching the mantle. Fitting a new mantle without touching it [they lasted longer]. Being excited when the coal man arrived with his horse & cart and watching him chuck three hundredweight sacks down through the grating under the front window directly into the cellar, running inside to watch the last sack fall onto the floor in that cellar. Walking down the road with Nan carrying the accumulator for the radio to get it exchanged for a charged one from the shop in Bloomsbury Street. My surprise when we went out the door and her just pulling the door shut, not locking it. Me saying “Aren’t you going lock the door nan?” Her replying “No son, we haven’t got anything anyone would want to pinch!” Nan always wearing her wrap over pinny. Going down the entry clutching the toilet key on a piece of string with a cotton reel. Going to that loo in the freezing cold and finding newspaper on a string for loo roll. While granddad went down the pub, nan sitting with me on the sofa, in the back of my “car”, me pretending driving the sofa with a big metal plate for a steering wheel. Sitting on that sofa with a long fork toasting bread on the roaring fire, nan spreading dripping with a sprinkle of salt…..Heavenly tasting. Going to the shops with Nan, her buying an ox’s tail, her cutting it up and watching her making delicious oxtail soup on that Aga type range. I’ve never tasted anything so good again. The clink of the milkman’s bottles early in the morning and the clip clop and occasional neigh from his horse. The smell of Nan frying bacon, eggs & tomato on the range when descending those steep stairs in the morning. The funny sound of car tyres travelling over the cobbled street. The movement of window netting in other houses when you went out and slammed the doors. Our Nan saying “Her is a nosey bu**er at number ?X?
Nan on her hands and knees scrubbing the front step. The wall paper peeling off because of the damp. Granddad staggering home from the pub singing “I’ll take you home again Kathleen”. Him grabbing Nan in a bear hug slurring “Give us a kiss Maud”. Saturday evening him saying “Our Keith, nip down the shop and fetch me a Sports Argus will ya?” How cold and frightening it was going to bed in my dad’s old bed in the attic. Listening to my dad’s headphones “cats whisker” radio, still sat on the bedside table, still there from the 1930’s.
A holiday for that generation was a day out in a charabanc [motor coach] or the train to the seaside or a picturesque UK town. They used to love going on the train with me in tow, to Evesham [a long way in the 50’s] where Nan had family. She would pack a lunch, sarnies and a flask of tea. In a 3rd class carriage with no corridor, you made sure you went to the loo before going! She used to say to me “Our Keith can you hear the train? It’s talking to you! Listen. Tiddley pom, tiddley pom.” We would spend the day visiting relatives and going to the park and sit by the river. We would be all dressed in our Sunday best and coats even in blazing sunshine. Them still wearing hats, they didn’t have any summer clothes.
I recall Nan crying with joy the day they had electric installed and my dad buying them a new electric radio. When we moved into a new council house in Nearmoor Road, Shard End, her visiting us and saying with a tear in her eye “Oooh our Ken you have done well ‘ere. Electricity, yer own indoor loo and a bathtub, yer own back garden, a proper kitchen with a gas cooker for our Olive. I never thought I would see the day”.
Sadly she never lived in a modern property, she passed in 1963. The first time I ever saw my dad cry, we all cried that day. My Granddad Joe realised he had lost his rock. He had drunk all his life and sometimes had mistreated Nan. He swore the day of the funeral that he would never touch alcohol again. He never did.
That radio dad bought them sits on my shelf today, it still works! It reminds me of Nan & Granddad.
My Nan Maud was a typical Birmingham lass. Born in 1900 of local stock she worked from the age of 12 in a laundry [pictured, centre at the back], got married to Joe in 1923 and bore my father the next year. She worked until nearly 60 but retired due to ill health in the 1950’s. They lived in a front, back to back house in the slums of Nechells, Birmingham. When I see pictures of this time, they are nearly all black and white, which is just as I remember it. Very little colour, everything dark, dank, dirty and covered in a kind of black soot. Those lines of back to back houses looked so sad, but they housed Brummies with big hearts, who were the salt of the earth in a city that had powered through the industrial revolution. You could say that Brummies made modern Britain.
I remember:
Them having a piano in that tiny front room. Must have cost them a fortune in years gone by. I think some bought them as a status symbol and for their young to learn the upper crust pastime of piano playing. Nan showing me how to carefully light a gas lamp without touching the mantle. Fitting a new mantle without touching it [they lasted longer]. Being excited when the coal man arrived with his horse & cart and watching him chuck three hundredweight sacks down through the grating under the front window directly into the cellar, running inside to watch the last sack fall onto the floor in that cellar. Walking down the road with Nan carrying the accumulator for the radio to get it exchanged for a charged one from the shop in Bloomsbury Street. My surprise when we went out the door and her just pulling the door shut, not locking it. Me saying “Aren’t you going lock the door nan?” Her replying “No son, we haven’t got anything anyone would want to pinch!” Nan always wearing her wrap over pinny. Going down the entry clutching the toilet key on a piece of string with a cotton reel. Going to that loo in the freezing cold and finding newspaper on a string for loo roll. While granddad went down the pub, nan sitting with me on the sofa, in the back of my “car”, me pretending driving the sofa with a big metal plate for a steering wheel. Sitting on that sofa with a long fork toasting bread on the roaring fire, nan spreading dripping with a sprinkle of salt…..Heavenly tasting. Going to the shops with Nan, her buying an ox’s tail, her cutting it up and watching her making delicious oxtail soup on that Aga type range. I’ve never tasted anything so good again. The clink of the milkman’s bottles early in the morning and the clip clop and occasional neigh from his horse. The smell of Nan frying bacon, eggs & tomato on the range when descending those steep stairs in the morning. The funny sound of car tyres travelling over the cobbled street. The movement of window netting in other houses when you went out and slammed the doors. Our Nan saying “Her is a nosey bu**er at number ?X?
Nan on her hands and knees scrubbing the front step. The wall paper peeling off because of the damp. Granddad staggering home from the pub singing “I’ll take you home again Kathleen”. Him grabbing Nan in a bear hug slurring “Give us a kiss Maud”. Saturday evening him saying “Our Keith, nip down the shop and fetch me a Sports Argus will ya?” How cold and frightening it was going to bed in my dad’s old bed in the attic. Listening to my dad’s headphones “cats whisker” radio, still sat on the bedside table, still there from the 1930’s.
A holiday for that generation was a day out in a charabanc [motor coach] or the train to the seaside or a picturesque UK town. They used to love going on the train with me in tow, to Evesham [a long way in the 50’s] where Nan had family. She would pack a lunch, sarnies and a flask of tea. In a 3rd class carriage with no corridor, you made sure you went to the loo before going! She used to say to me “Our Keith can you hear the train? It’s talking to you! Listen. Tiddley pom, tiddley pom.” We would spend the day visiting relatives and going to the park and sit by the river. We would be all dressed in our Sunday best and coats even in blazing sunshine. Them still wearing hats, they didn’t have any summer clothes.
I recall Nan crying with joy the day they had electric installed and my dad buying them a new electric radio. When we moved into a new council house in Nearmoor Road, Shard End, her visiting us and saying with a tear in her eye “Oooh our Ken you have done well ‘ere. Electricity, yer own indoor loo and a bathtub, yer own back garden, a proper kitchen with a gas cooker for our Olive. I never thought I would see the day”.
Sadly she never lived in a modern property, she passed in 1963. The first time I ever saw my dad cry, we all cried that day. My Granddad Joe realised he had lost his rock. He had drunk all his life and sometimes had mistreated Nan. He swore the day of the funeral that he would never touch alcohol again. He never did.
That radio dad bought them sits on my shelf today, it still works! It reminds me of Nan & Granddad.
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lovely memories and photos keith...its a shame that the photo i posted just missed showing no 31 but at least it did show the brewery tavern...i wonder if the pub photos you posted were taken in that pub...your grandad certainly did not have far to walk to it
lyn
lyn
Keith Belcher
Brummie babby
I am pretty sure Joe's local was the Turks Head, just round the corner at the junction of Bloomsburry Street and Saltley Road. I have several pics outside which match the exterior and another inside. The other pub he used was about a 20 minute walk away where his brothers drank, The Old Union Mill in Holt Street, Gosta Green.