Hi Chris
I found the film fascinating and although never having been a resident of Kings Heath I recognised most of places, perhaps because of, Although it being unusual most of the locations survive today.
What fascinated me more was your description of Moseley Rd, Your house you were describing. Was it South View Terrace. I remember when they tore them down and built a tyre repair depot and service station in their place. I believe they are both gone now as well.
When you were living there, I must have been living in Vincent Street at that time. Did you ever drink in the Castle or play snooker above Coooks shop?
Phil
Well it's absolutely amazing that you remember South View Terrace; we were very lucky to live there in a house with a long garden, tucked away from the main roads and very private.
We would go down Vincent Street to George Street to go to mass at St John's. We left South View Terrace around 1959.
We had some characters living there: there were the Herberts in number one South View who were an elderly brother and sister; he had some kind of scoliosis of the spine and walked with a stoop and his sister wore irons on her legs. I think we lived there for about ten years and they never spoke a word to us.
In number two was Ada Melia and her husband Horace who was legally blind and deaf; he had one fifth, or something, of site in one of his eyes and wore a hearing aid; she would stay in bed whilst he would get up and light the fire for her and make her breakfast. She called him Lol and would shout down the stairs from her bed to Lol saying 'Lol!!!! I'd like a nice cup of tea and two slices of toast - and don't burn the BLEEDIN' toast.'
We heard this every day, as we lived in number three, and it made us kids laugh but when my dad wasn't there she would call us bleedin' Irish which would frighten my mother!!
Horace was a really nice bloke and would do magic tricks notwithstanding his bad site.
In number four were the Jacksons, who moved out and were replaced by an ambulance driver and his wife Mr and Mrs Alf Bull.
We used to knock about with Roger Cooke from the snooker hall who would tell tales and later became a copper.
I never went passed their shop counter when we went to call for him as they were also a tobaconists, if you can remember, and I used to fetch my dad's fags from there - Woodbines, Star or Park Drive.
We moved out of there when I was about fifteen so didn't go to any of the pubs around there although I would knock about with the Landlord's son of the Castle & Falcon who I had a fight with one day as he bullied one of my brothers. Half way through the fight, which seemed to go on for ages, his dog came for me and grabbed the bottom of my jeans and tugged. But we carried on fighting and the dog was pulling my jeans off as we struggled. So I was trying to smack him with one hand and hold my trousers up with the other; at one point I was showing my arse and got up and freed myself. He saw this, pointed at me and laughed; so I gave him another smack in the face and then the dog grabbed me again.
Jeannie Johnson from the fish and chip shop, next door to the Cook's snooker hall, went and grabbed her own dog and put it on the back of the bigger dog who still had hold of me; she said it would make the dogs mate!!!! Anyay we all ended up friends, I'm sure - even with the dog.
My dad used to drink at the Wagon and Horses and when we moved to Sparkhill and I was old enough I would go to The Mermaid on the corner of Warwick Road and Stratford Road, The Lion and the Lamb (was that in Alfred Street/Stoney Lane?) and sometimes I would take the bus up to Yardley Wood and have a drink up there in a pub on the main road.
I can never remember which school Roger Cook went to - he didn't come to Dennis Road, I'm sure or Clifton Road - maybe he went to Hope Street or Tindal Street - who knows.
