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Grindleford Road Kids WW2 Germans on our Play Field

oldMohawk

oldMohawk

gone but not forgotten
The kids of this road on the Beeches Estate Gt Barr played on a nice field, which even had a babbling brook.
A couple of photos show us kids with our bikes we used to race on a dirt track we made on the field.
One day a number of German POW's were dumped on 'our' field, in a makeshift camp, they were mainly youngish Luftwaffe types.
I never found out if any of them were in the plane which dropped an incendiary bomb on our house.
My Dad chucked it out the front bedroom window with a shovel, before it really got going. Mum was annoyed because it scorched her wardrobe and burnt a chair.
There was surprisingly friendly contact between the kids and their 'enemy visitors', and these kids had already met the GI's from the Pheasey Base.
There is an interesting lengthy account about this field posted on the BBC Website section WW2Peopleswar, by someone called trenbirth49.
He lived as a child at No 49 but I don't think he is in the photos. He posted his memories from Halifax NS Canada.
The only girl in the photos was named Sylvia.
The field is now a patch of concrete under the M6, and the brook runs through a pipe.
I wonder if people now living in Grindleford road know that once there had been Germans living at the end of their gardens !
Grindleford_Bike_Gang.jpg


GrindlefordRdKidsBikes.jpg






 
oldMohawk said:
The only girl in the photos was named Sylvia.
Click to expand...

It reminds us of just how DIFFERENT boys and girls were in those days. Cotton dress, white socks, sandals. And yet still accepted within this group of outlaws, Spitfire pilots and motor-cycle despatch riders.

Chris
 
Grindleford Road Kids

Old Mohawk, two wonderful photos - I know David Trenbirth who you mentioned in your post, and read his article sometime ago. We both went to Aston Commercial School and he was my first "boyfriend". He came over to England for a visit last year and I met up with him for the first time in over 50 years. And NO I am not the Sylvia in your photos.
 
Grindleford Rd Kids

Hello Sylvia,
Thanks for your reply. I have a small mystery about David Trenbirth. I alway knew the lad at No 49 as Tim, unless my memory has failed me, or he was a brother I can't remember. There was another Trenbirth family at No 47. I lived on the other side of the road at 54 so I might be completely mixed up on the house numbers.
I do know who the Sylvia in the picture is, her brother Roy is immediately behind her.
I can't think why she was in the picture with all us 'ruffians'. I'm on the far right in both pictures.

best regards
Phil
 
Grindleford Road Kids

Hi Phil, you are right David T is Tim, one and the same. He contacted me through Friends Reunited about 4 years ago, and he has used his second name of David for many years now. I have his email address if you wish to contact him.
 
Happy memories OLD MOHAWK. I was born in 1945 and we lived in one of the small block of prefabs on the Beeches Road just down from the school from 1946 to 1953. The motorway runs right over what was our back garden. We used to play in the field below our prefab and in the stream which ran along the bottom of the field. I remember in the summer I used to get soaking wet in the stream and then dry off on the hot pylon base before going home for tea. I also recall going on an expedition along the stream heading in the direction of the Scott Arms with some of the other kids from our prefab block. I would only be about 6 or 7 but we were led by some of the older kids. We seemed to go for miles and miles. I clearly remember the dinking of the bells in the evenings on the old Midland Red buses which came down Beeches Road from the Walsall Road and turned right by the Cottage Shop. There used to be another couple of rows of prefabs at the bottom there known as the 'police' prefabs - presumably policemen's families lived in them - unless it was a ruse by our parents to keep us in tow. Thanks for the memories mate!
 
Hi John,
Yes happy memories of the fields round there. We had hours of fun with 'the brook' as we called it. I remember it could be followed past the school to the 'the woods' all boggy and frog spawn, tadpoles etc. I think all the kids in the district got wet jumping that brook or trod in a bog, and played dangerously digging tunnels in sandpits, sledging down Sandy Lane. There is a photo of prefabs near where you lived in this link to Prefabs post #58. You can just about see the pylon wires over them.
https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/prefabs.9266/post-290753

With regard to the girl in the right hand photo in my starting post, I watched her grow up through her teenage years, and quite recently was in a building and saw and recognised her through the windows. I would have liked to have gone up to her and said 'is your name Sylvia ?' but did not get the chance, anyway she was always slightly more 'refined' than the ruffians around her in that photo, and might have told me to go away....
I will have to search for other photos of the Beeches Rd area which I have posted in other threads on the forum. If you wonder about my 'forum name' have a look in the SPRINGHILL ICE RINK thread.
Phil
oldmohawk
 
Last edited:
use the img tags like this

Code: 
[img]https://images.birminghamhistory.co.uk/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=random&cat=10006&pos=-7[/img]
displayimage.php
 
warren said:
use the img tags like this

Code: 
[IMG]https://images.birminghamhistory.co.uk/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=random&cat=10006&pos=-7[/IMG]
displayimage.php
Click to expand...
Thanks Warren but your post looks like in the quote - no info in it zilch - I can see your info in the email alert - I'll have a good look later - I did sit down at my 'puter to write an email to my Solicitor and here I am doing other things - lol
 
yeah it messed up I was hoping it would show the code but instead tried to post an a none existent image u have to use [ img ] url of piccy here [ /img] without the spaces, very hard to show on here though
 
I edited the last one, not sure what you did wrong really I copied the image url and put it into the web browser to check it was valid, then i copied the link from the image and used the [img ] tags and it worked fine.

Youl get there second nature soon
 
mikejee said:
It doesn't seem to work for me
Click to expand...

Hi Mike - I think if you put
at the end it should work.
I've just tried it on one of your links, the text of the link disappears, and a photo shows - my post was being written as Warren's appeared !
normal_red_23_Nos_67-71_jamaica_row.jpg
 
That's it perfect! the hardest part is uploading the image and once you figure out the img tags it's easy.

[img.] https/yourimage [./img]

do that but without the .
 
Hi mohawk about george ingram grindleford road he would have been in his 40 in forty five but he did have a son that i never met he would have been the right age for your gang their was also another man at seventeen mick cannot remember his surname last time i seen him in the eighties he owned the the bread shop next to chris the barber another man lived opposite me worked at tufnel perry barr cannot remember his name.sorry not much help mitchell.
 
oldMohawk said:
The kids of this road on the Beeches Estate Gt Barr played on a nice field, which even had a babbling brook.
A couple of photos show us kids with our bikes we used to race on a dirt track we made on the field.
One day a number of German POW's were dumped on 'our' field, in a makeshift camp, they were mainly youngish Luftwaffe types.
I never found out if any of them were in the plane which dropped an incendiary bomb on our house.
My Dad chucked it out the front bedroom window with a shovel, before it really got going. Mum was annoyed because it scorched her wardrobe and burnt a chair.
There was surprisingly friendly contact between the kids and their 'enemy visitors', and these kids had already met the GI's from the Pheasey Base.
There is an interesting lengthy account about this field posted on the BBC Website section WW2Peopleswar, by someone called trenbirth49.
He lived as a child at No 49 but I don't think he is in the photos. He posted his memories from Halifax NS Canada.
The only girl in the photos was named Sylvia.
The field is now a patch of concrete under the M6, and the brook runs through a pipe.
I wonder if people now living in Grindleford road know that once there had been Germans living at the end of their gardens !
Grindleford_Bike_Gang.jpg


GrindlefordRdKidsBikes.jpg
Click to expand...
This is a great story, i live at this address now since 2005
 
Ow wow looks amazing the trees are so small compared to now a nightmare they are, no drives also looks so lovely. I know the people opposite to and to the left who live there now. I must say how lovely the road looks back then, thanks for the lovely photo
 
Last edited:
A photo of the houses when they were rented and the price when sold to tenants in 1960.
oldMohawk said:
My sister sitting on a motorbike in front of 56 Grindleford Rd. It was slightly just before 1940 in spite of my thread title !
The houses were built and rented by the 1st National Housing Trust who sold them for £1100 to the tenants in the 60's. Most new owners soon replaced the small-pane windows with large sheets of glass. I don't know what make the bike was but the silencer looks pretty !
index.php
Click to expand...
 
elizabeth mahay said:
This is a great story, i live at this address now since 2005
Click to expand...
Hi Elizabeth, I am David (Tim) Trenbirth and lived as a youngster with my parents Sid and Gilly Trenbirth at 49 Grindleford Rd. They left in about 1978; I left in the '60s to go to Canada, then the U.S. and now retired back in Nova Scotia, Canada. I understand you now live at number 49. It seems to be a well-built house from back in the mid-1930s. Best regards, David
 
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