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Gosta Green Through Duddeston

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree here,
For starters Bloomsbury Library tower is too far away to take a photo that shows Ashted Row in such clear detail, and THAT white ended house IS in Ashted Row..(there's a pic already posted on here showing it)
plus the tower is too low, secondly (from the point of view of the photographer)
the ONLY vantage point high enough to take that pic is South Tower.
My brother Robert came round last night (he's 3 years older) and I showed him the said pic, he agreed fully with me and even named the shops on the left hand side..
The odds are, it's impossible to have taken it from anywhere else, too low to be from a plane (plus, I lived there 20 years and it's not on the flight path) and too high to be taken from the library tower.
It fits in all perfectly from my point of view.
Please dont think I'm argueing, I'm just trying to get it right.
Les
 
It will be observed from some photographs that people did try to brighten a court up by applying whitewash to the outside wall, this could be said that it was because they kept pigeons and the interior of the " pen " was done to give more light, I think the same could be said of the courtyards.
From photographs it can be shown that people always had a certain amount of pride even in some of the worst conditions.
 

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Les

If you think you are right, then you have every right in the world to argue and I would expect no less of anybody.

I assume that like yourself , if things do not fall into place it annoys me and I will keep at it until I think it resolved. I will be the first one to admit that I am stubborn (closely followed by my wife)

Having said that I hope you will forgive me when I point out the flaw in your thinking. If we cant agree after this then, as you say best to agree to differ and drop the subject. The white faced building is Lodge Tyre (see photo). Lodge Tyre never had premises on Ashted Row to my knowledge. When they moved from Bloomsbury St/ Saltley Rd they moved to Lord St/ Adams St a location they still occupy today (as far as I am aware)

I think the white faced house you mean was Dr Tighe’s ( I think that’s how its spelt) residence. As opposed to his surgery on the corner of Willis St. (see photo).

If as I think, the photo was taken from Bloomsbury St LibraryTower then it would have been more or less opposite Lodge Tyre.

Phil.

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I did mean the one in Ashted Row, both are clearly visible anyway, when I say 'argue' I don't mean ARGUE! we are all friends here just trying to dig up the truth, nothing bad about that is there? :)
 
Les,

As you suggest, perhaps it is best dropped for the moment, pity we cannot trip back 50 years and get at the bottom of the matter. I bet that photographer never thought that he would have people discussing his work long after he had gone.

Phil
 
What a wonderful terribly sad photo..no one should have had to live like that..unfortunately, most of us over 50...did.
 
GER22VAN.ernie,ta for pic,as a child one of my jobs in the household,was to stirr the white wash ball into a bucket of water,for the kitchen a small place
just big enough for a brown sink and boiler to go in,was scraped and painted in the stuff,we had no wc of our own to paint we shared one with 6 other families,we had to make do with a guzunder.which was emptied into a bucket then emptied first thing in the morning.the ceiling was flaking and some times when we was in bed bits would hit you in the face.
10 years 5 0f us lived in this hovel,until finaly the bedroom ceiling fell down on us,,we was in bed, years of soot from the chimney and horse hair plaster come down on our beds.the man from the estates as we called him said we will have to move you this house will have to be borded up.So goes the saying its falling down around yer ears. pete
 
Adam Street said to be the poorest in Birmingham or was it the whole country?
Bullock Street said to be Birmingham's first traveller's site about 1905.
 

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hi,ernie.adam st,was that were the gas board was,i am sure my mom went there to buy gas fire fretts. in the 50s pete
 
Pete. A lovely story, not so much fun at the time though, I remember in this house all the ceilings whitewashed and it was terrible to wash off.
Distemper now was that ready mixed ? Give me emulsion any day.
Its easy to be wise today about the horrible jobs of years ago, blackleading the grate was another that comes to mind and as soon as you lite a fire it needed doing again.
 
Pete. I can only say that it must have been in the next street to Adam Street running in the same direction which was Windsor Street. They had the gas works there and their office block I guess which was still there the last time i was around that way. The times I have been down there for coke, My uncle used to take a sack of coke on the bus to the Glebe, could they ever get away with it today if they tried ?
 
hi,ernie.great pics,yer we had one of them grates in our new house.wish i had one now,mom did the blackleading with a tube of **BO.,and the kitchen tiles with c******L red posh.it looked too.The bedroom floors were covered in stuff called oilcloth,it sure was slippey in yer socks. pete
 
Pete. You had oilcloth ? We were posher than that we had Lino !! Only joking but then again maybe it was a more refined name for it.
Another thing you remind me of is that people used to red lead the door step.
 
Here you poor lot, at least you can have some vinegar with your chips. Whilst we are talking about chips, can anybody tell me why when there was a chip shop in Ashted Row. Why did I always have to walk up to the chippie by the Gaiety Cinema to get ours.

Was the nearer chippie by Middleton builders not up to standard. Or were my parents just hoping that I'd get lost on the way back.

Phil

NechellsHolbrooksDeliveryVehicles.jpg
 
ernie.lino, you were posh i bet you went shopping at lathams.
phill,what a great fleet of trucks,were were they based? pete
 
Pete,

I suppose they would be based at Holbrooks on Ashted Row, as to where they were parked for the photo shoot, I suppose it would have been close by.

Phil
 
pmc1947. What a lovely photograph phil, we must have missed lots of things years ago as I can never remember them lorries. We used to write down car numbers and some would guess the makes of car as they went by but I was never very good at that. Now I can only remember the fish shop by the Gaiety Cinema and was always crossing over after I came out of the Gaiety, I remember one in Henry Street by the bookies and their fish was full of bones, also one in Lister Street going towards the Royal Oak and I think there was one in Scoefield Street ( thats a wrong spelling.)
 
fish,yak now a big lump of roe.would go down well.
ernie.good job you did not know were they were,you would have pinched the dip sticks for swords.Just been looking at the a-z again,,i always thought bloomsbury st ended just past the library. pete
 
Pete. Now I come to think of it Oilcloth was better than lino because it had a cloth backing, lino used to crack very easy and was terrible on uneven floors such as broken quarry tiles. At least if oilcloth cracked it held together.
 
Ernie

The one was told not to go to was on Ashted Row by the junction with Henry St. There was a bus stop for the 55 & 56 buses heading out of town. The entrance to the chippie was just by the bus stop. I know it was there from at least 53 onwards.

Phil
 
Phil. I know if I could have walked that street again I would probably have remember it. all I seem to remember is the Chapel in Henry Street and a Tobacco shop near that corner. Two other fish shops I remember was corner of Willis Street and Lupin Street. The other one was in Lister Street opposite Proctor Street but that had closed although all the equipment was still there, I used to play with the kid who lived there ( just over the wall from where I lived in Coleman Street.) I am surprised I did not get my hand caught playing with the hand operated chip maker.

Oh Pete give me a peg rug any day, "Waste Not Want Not" Make Do And Mend" " Don't Be A Squander Bug " The trouble was finding enough of the right colours to make a decent pattern.
 
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ger22van,i do not remember much of that part of nechells,up to the blocks of flats,and the begining of lister st.i did go to a school caled st clements when i was in the infants.op newtons,did you know that place. pete
 
Pete. You have me beat and I am really a duffer at times. I can remember hearing St Clements School but have no idea where it was. Newtons is something else I know nothing of. I really think that I have forgot a lot of my own past. What I do remember years ago was telling myself that I must remember this or that, and never thought to ever write it down. I guess some people had guidance and where able to remember by recording it.
 
ger22van.ernie,i am not to sure now,i think it was in railway terrace.if you turned right by the big pair of specks above the optitions. pete
 
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hi ger22van newtons was in between long acre and nechells park road as i remember it. my aunt worked there i can smell the suds oil now,
it got took over by gkn guest keen and nettlefolds,clements st was there somewhere about i think in my 1988 a-z theres no sign of it now.
we used to knock about off long acre wrights ropes place happy days
regards dereklcg
 
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Ernie & Pete,

I don’t know if you have seen these before, but I thought you might like to see them. I don’t know what is going on the first one, but I thought they may be taking up the tram tracks. The second one is of a court in Woodcock St. The information that I have says that it is court 16, but I have another that looks to be looking at the entrance to the court from the street that says it is court 36.

phil

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nice photos phil.
i used to go swimming in woodcock st
baths amazing what you can find?
catch you later derek.
 
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Pmc1947. I like your photographs, did the police dress in white when on point duty ? I am sure they must have but its stretching my brain cells a bit.
Its amazing what can be seen in those old photographs sometimes. I can only guess that they were taking up the tram lines, I can remember the tram to Pype Hayes going past Gosta Green ( hope I am right )
 
Not lifting the tracks, just renewal. Here's another shot, taken a couple of minutes later by the fire station clock, which shows one of the Leyland half-cab trolleybuses working into city on the Nechells 7 route. That lasted until the war, when running to and from Washwood Heath depot towing a 'skate' in the tram track as electric return caused so much sparking that blackout regulations forbade it. These shots of Lancaster Place are mid to late 30s then.
 
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