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Growing Up In Brum - Roy Blakey Inspired.

Our gang were serial scrumpers, we never ate much of our ill-gotten gains we just loved the excitement I suppose. We could no more ignore a tree laden with fruit than we could walk past a tree full of conkers without wangin' a stick at them!
 
My 1st wife's uncle used to refer to The Vale of Evesham as his orchards ☺

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We had houses at "Ilmington Road County Sec/mod School, in1959 they were Stephenson, Watt, Brunel, Telford. I was in Brunel.
Beeches road houses were Barr, Beacon, Tower and Queslet. Different colour cloth bands worn for sports, Tower were yellow which often indicated you were rubbish at sports, like me.

Sash that was the word I was looking for :-) thanks Jayell
 
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We had a couple of houses at Soho College in Handsworth. Cavell and Joan of Arc. I was in Cavell house which had a blue sash to be worn around our brown gymslip waist! Joan of Arc had a red sash.
 
Cannot remember having Houses at Handsworth Kindergarten, Judy, but we certainly had them at Erdington Grammar, Phoenix, Unicorn, Dolphin and Salamander which I was in. The colours were Red, Yellow, Blue and Green and were in the form of a badge which was stitched onto our School Tunics, oh! Those were the days. Perhaps we should start a new thread for these houses. After I left Erdington two more houses were formed as I imagine the school must have grown in numbers.
 
Hi Katie - I wasn't talking about Handsworth Kindergarten, but Soho College having houses. Although I did also go to Handsworth Kindergarten and if I remember the uniform was green and yellow. Am I right?

Judy
 
Katie - What years were you at Treggies (Handsworth Kindergarten)? I think I was there from about 1945 for a couple of years. My sister also went there from about 1947 and she remembers more about it than I do. I don't remember any houses there either.

Judy
 
Alberta,I was there 1950 to 1955, were you on the school photo, it was taken in 1953? Judy, I would have been at Handsworth Kindergarten the same time as your sister, as I left to go to Erdington in 1950. I would think I started round about 1946, having first been to St. Michaels.
 
A PRETTY SPECIAL TIME. ( 1945 - 46 ). Written note.
I apologise for presenting this post as a written note but after four attempts to type this story from the IPad onto the Forum and not succeeding I'm going for it in this manner.
I thought this a typical story part of a young person growing up in this time period and worth a ' Post '.image.jpg
 
No problems Roy - long pieces are best copied and pasted to the forum but this way has a nice personal touch.

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Roy, a lovely note as Bernard says , adds a personal touch

Katie, I did have the photo for many years and then it got mislaid in a house move.

Told my husband about this thread, he grew up in Alum Rock 50/60s
his list of childhood memories of growing up in Brum.

Bluebells in Chelmsley
Fishing at Coleshill
Drawing cricket stumps on the neighbours front wall and breaking their windows which his Dad had to replace.
Taking an old pram to get coke from Saltley Gas works
Ward End park, rowing boats in the Summer,skating or sledging in the winter
Opal fruits and the mints made by opal fruits, lovely and chewy.
 
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Thinking about ' Growing Up ' in general terms.
When would you reckon Growing Up has been accomplished and put behind us ?
We know it has a beginning ( reasonably identifiable ) but does it really have an ' achieved finishing line ' during a life time?
I guess some thoughts would run along the lines that the Growing Up period lasts through to the point were we have developed and reached maturity and become an adult.
Picked out a couple of quotes :
(1) I am convinced that most people do not grow up ...We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up.
( Maya Angelou )
(2) When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
( Patrick Rothfuss ).
For my money, I reckon that I am still growing up BUT AT A MUCH SLOWER RATE NOW.
 
Defining periods during Growing Up. ( sketches ).
Top sketch : ( 1946 ). Finished Elementary School at 14 years old, began work as a factory trainee, worked diligently and took his opportunities as they came along, he attended ' Night School ' for Six years and ended his working career as a
' Project Engineer ' in one of Brums leading engineering companies.
Bottom sketch : ( 2014 ). Four Students celebrating their University Degree passes ( Ages 21 to 22 years old ), shortly to decide whether they will take a Sabbatical year before they look for work.
 

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Did'nt appreciate the experience at the time. ( 1948 ish ).
Had been treated to a day out to Blackpool to watch a professional dance competition at the Tower Ballroom. Part of the treat was a dinner at one of Blackpools posh hotels. During the dinner there was an obvious ' V.I.P. Entrance' into the restaurant area and in came a group of Labour Party Cabinet ministers, having just finished a session at the Labour Party Conference up there I gathered, and about to have their evening meal.
I remember spotting the ' gaffer ' Clement Atlee ( Prime Minister ) and Herbert Morrison ( with his little hair quiff on top of his head ), there was also, I believe, the rest of the Cabinet in attendance , those being Aneuran Bevan, Ernest Bevan, Hugh Dalton, Emanuel Shinwell and Sir Stafford Cripps.
The point of the story ?
At this time there was very little ' media ' coverage of leading personalities , there was no Television and the only coverage
of leading personalities was through Newspapers and Cinema News Reels.
I had very little interest in politics at the time so I paid little attention to this rather unique scene and just continued to enjoy my own meal .
It's only as time has passed that I have appreciated the memory of that experience.
 
Roy's delightful memoir reminds me of my own political education a year or two earlier.

One morning at school, early in the summer term of 1945, I was asked a rather testing question.

VE Day had occurred a short time previously and had been celebrated with quiet joy and relief by my parents and in a far noisier and less restrained manner by my friends and me. I was not aware at that moment that, just as the German political situation had completely changed, so our own was about to change as well: our Prime Minister, true to his democratic principles, would shortly decide to dissolve the wartime coalition and call an early General Election

Very soon afterwards I arrived one morning at my Junior School in Sutton, garbed as usual in the school uniform: black blazer, matching peaked cap pulled down over the forehead, short grey trousers and long woollen socks, at that early stage in the day pulled up tidily to just below the knee; and with my brown leather satchel firmly strapped to my back. As I approached the tall, early-Victorian building in which my classroom was located, I was immediately surrounded by a group of my contemporaries comprising both friends, and, more worryingly, others. By some earlier freak of circumstance, I had entered this school when I was at an age, and therefore of a size, which was at least a year less than the class average. The group which surrounded me was, in both respects and at the very least, definitely “average”. They were all demanding to know whether I was “Conservative” or “Labour.”

It was clear that not only was an answer required but also there was only one which would be acceptable. From time to time in life one faces a question which tends rather to put one on the back foot since there is a supposition of background knowledge which in fact does not exist: this was my first experience of such an event and I was finding it far from comfortable. In fact, I didn't have the foggiest notion what they were talking about. In the absence of any knowledge whatsoever to draw upon, I indulged in some rapid thought processes which with hindsight I view as not unimpressive for a just-about nine-year-old in some considerable social difficulty. My reasoning was that my father worked in a Birmingham metal-bashing factory. I knew that he had responsibility for a number of people who actually made things. Such people were generally described, in newspapers and elsewhere, as labour. And so I reasoned that the truthful answer, on the balance of probability, was therefore that one supported “Labour”.

Unfortunately this was not the correct answer. My response, the result of so much rapid and ingenious calculation, was greeted with howls of derision. To my surprise and considerable relief, however, this was the limit of my interrogators’ reaction to my error and no attempt was made to further my political education by physical means. Instead they rushed off excitedly to seek another political innocent with whom to pursue their enquiries. I made sure on my return home that afternoon that I would seek urgent guidance. My mother’s gentle answer to my enquiry was: “Well, dear, we support Mr. Churchill and therefore we vote Conservative”.

I returned to school the following morning, confident in being ready with the right answer to any repetition of yesterday’s enquiry. But I do not recall ever being asked that question again at school, either that morning or at any time in the future, since obviously some other enthusiasm had rapidly superseded the keen, but very temporary interest in politics in the mind of my peers: perhaps the making of paper aeroplanes or the playing of soldiers or the delights of the imminent cricket season. And so I never had the satisfaction of giving the politically correct reply. But my mother’s guidance stayed with me and comfortably outlived my time at the Junior School....and perhaps even beyond, by which time I really ought to have been making my own decisions.

Chris
 
I can remember similar groups going round asking similar questions, though this would have been 1951
 
At the time. THE MAN FOR THE JOB.
As a youngster, during the War, I remember this Churchill image seemed to ' buck up ' the grown ups and somehow provided another trigger to help them to ' dig in ' and get on with it.image.jpg
 
At the time. " CHAD ". A bit of graffiti that could be seen here and there which put a bit of humour into some worrying aspects such as war-time and post war shortages.image.jpg
 
I remember seeing "Chad" in my childhood, (not as carefully drawn as that one though !).
The one I recall was "Wot, no cigs ?"
 
SENTRIES IN THE SKY. ( 2 ). Painting visual to Post # 103 on this thread.
" Cor Bob ! Look at that lot. Jerry ain't got much chance of flying through that. Meks em fly higher you know and he can't drop his bombs as good. Looks like one of them Flash Gordon films done it " .image.jpg
 
Mixed Blessings there Roy, it certainly made them fly higher making the target more difficult to hit, resulting in more civilian casualties !! I speak from experience. Eric
 
Thunder and Lighting. " Nothing to worry about kids".
Watching and listening to the Thunder Storms that are passing over Brum at the moment brings to mind the stories that parents used to tell their ' little uns ' to calm their fears whilst the flashes and bangs were going on up there in the sky during Thunder Storms.
The favourite appeared to be that the cracking and banging sounds coming from the sky was " the Clouds are only bumping into one another up there " and there's nothing to worry about.
My own Dad managed to convince me , as a little un, that " There's nothing to worry about Son, you only need to worry if it isn't raining at the same time ". I believed this for a fair number of years afterwards until with me mates we worked it out that it always rains during a thunder storm anyway.
It did the trick at the time though.
 
image.jpgThe Chimney Sweep, the Chimney fire and the loose Balloon.
Little moments that stopped our street game and sent us off to explore.
(1) The sight of the Chimney Sweep parking his hand truck down the street and going into one of the houses to carry out his work would lure some of us to stand outside the house and wait for the moment when the ' brush ' would first appear out of the top of the house chimney.
(2) Another one to catch our attention was when a house chimney caught fire. Off we would go to watch the flames and black smoke billow out of the top of the chimney. Eventually the flames would disappear, the black smoke would die out and be replaced by white smoke and this would tell us that the chimney fire was abating, at this point back we would trek and carry on with our street games.
Neither moments were very educating or competitive but we fond them fascinating.
(3) There was another occasion that stopped our street games and sent us rushing off to explore. On this occasion we spotted a Barrage Balloon that appeared to be out of control ( appeared to have ruptured and was looking ' floppy ' and was losing height ). We eventually located it in Witton . It had lost height and had finished up, totally deflated, draped across a house roof.
SKETCH : " Little things please little minds".
 
THE RAFT PROJECT. ( The kids ). 1940 ish.
At one time our group of juveniles decided to try and build a raft with the intention of floating around on it on the LONGMOOR pool, Sutton Park. Over a period of a few days we collected pieces of wood from the small copse by the side of the pool,gradually tying all the bits together with pieces of string that we brought from home. We had to do the ' build ' in the cover of the woods because we needed to avoid the attention of any of the patrolling park keepers who would have surely chased us off if they had spotted us..
Eventually after some considerable effort and team work we proudly gazed upon this creation that was going to take us around the lake.
Checked the approach area's. No ' parkies ' in sight Dragged the raft to the edge of the pool and slid it gently into the water.
We should have guessed straight away that there was something lacking in our ' design ' because when we got it into the water the raft surface hardly showed above the water line.
Not to worry. First lad steps onto the raft. Raft starts to sink,the kid is standing on it now with water up to his Knees.
Pulled the raft out of the water, dragged it back into the woods.
Project abandoned. We promptly went off to find some decent trees to climb.
When at first you don't succeed, sometimes it's OK to give it up
 
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Ah yes Sutton Park, the hot summer of 76, I'd just left school then, and was dodging gainful employment. Talking about rafts, when Kingsbury Road was being made into a dual carriageway circa 1971 the new road bridges that were being built required girders to be pile driven into the canal towpath which were then gas welded. The contractors had built a substantial raft out of railway sleepers to accommodate the welder chappie and his gas bottles etc. Of an evening we would liberate the raft from it's mooring (it would comfortably accommodate half a dozen lads) and punt blissfully down the cut, to make matters worse for the poor bloke when he arrived next morning, we had nicked a windlass off a barge so we could navigate the single lock that allowed us to reach Minworth, it must have been a right pain towing it back the next day, so sir, if you are still with us, SORRY.
 
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