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Handsworth

Yes - you're right, it was Littlewoods, not M&S at all. It's an age thing!
I'm picturing the shoe shop - and I think it was on the corner of Linwood Road & Soho Road wasn't it?
Don't remember many of the pubs although I drank in the Coopers (?) for a while. Also remember meeting Ronnie Drew (Dubliners) in the Red Lion by the bus stop near the top of Murdock Road
 
Fountain, I don't think I remember the old Pimms shop, but I do remember it being in Grove Lane - I can only remember the small annexe that was for haberdashery in Woolworths. I was not sure where Freeman Hardy Willis was exactly, but now you mention it, I can see. I don't know if the other shoe shop was Timpsons, I do know they were really good quality and I am not sure if Timpsons was known for that, they were also expensive, or at least more expensive than Playfair or FHW, and the quality was very good. I liked Robinsons Pineapple tarts best and then their cream doughnuts - I have always preferred artifical cream to the real thing. I now can remember Nelson House, I knew there were more shops in the row, but you can't always remember each one. I remember Barretts and Baird very well, and also remember the plaster pig, but don't remember where, or if it was in the same row. I don't remember British Relay being in that row either or Wimbush, but it was a long time ago!

Austen - Henry Playfair was the second one down from Linwood, going towards Woolworths, the shop on the corner was a wine shop (Douro comes to mine), there was another shoe shop, Shoefayre, on the opposite side of Linwood, that is probably the one you remember. Near to this was Stoddard's butchers, I am now wondering if this is where Fountain remembered the plaster pig from? There was also a greengrocers and a shop selling porcelain goods of various quality and other household things like mirrors. I think either next to the Red Lion was a cafe and next to that was a lingerie shop. I have never liked shopping centres (or shopping for that matter) and whilst typing this, I am wondering if the loss of individual shops is what made me dislike shopping so much. Don't get me wrong, I like having new things, but to have to use a chain store takes the pleasure completely out of it for me. Thank goodness for the internet!
 
Re Wilkinsons you are right the manager (and possible the last manager there) in the mid-sixties was a Mr Ludford ? (or similar) i think
 
Post #135. One of the great photo's on here Vivienne14. Have seen many others of the same shot pretty much, of different years but none as interesting as that one. Yeah, the library in later years anyway (not sure what it started out as) but passed it every day 52/55. Busses in those years of course. The caption says the first electric tram but they were not the first powered tram cars to run there on those tracks. The first being the cable cars that were pulled by an underground cable that was driven by fixed steam engine from Hockley. Kind of in the centre of the run between Snow Hill and New inn's (I think). Anyway, these cars are running on the same tracks and you can see what looks like a third rail between the tracks. (if you zoom in) This was the opening to the underground cable trough...unused at that point but still not removed. The driver of the cable car would have to pull a lever and clamp on to the cable to get going...a bit of a jerky start. Amazing how far the cable ran. This is not new to older members but what with photo's being deleted and the many newer members, the info may be. If you look at the far right tram; it is a covered top one with open upper ends and it seems to me that some of these were still around in the early fifties when they were all demolished.(Maybe should stop using the word 'demolished'...too depressing...perhaps 'improved' might be happier sounding.)
 
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Interesting additional info Rupert, thanks. Was the library originally the Council House perhaps? Viv.
 
Wow - there's some encyclopaedic memories out there! But I still can't work out where bloody Wilkinson's were! Are we saying they were on the Linwood / Murdock block? Or the Linwood-going-towards-Birmingham block?
Here's another one that someone can fill me in on if you wish:
Soho Road was the main shopping street and when I was a small boy that's what I thought of as 'Handsworth'.
However, Villa Road between Hampstead Road and Villa Cross was another shopping centre (inc. Wilkinson's, of course) and when I lived near there it was always referred to as "the Village". Why was that?
It is nice being edificated!
 
Austen there is another thread 'Soho Road Handsworth' on the forum and post no 136 seems to mention that Wilkinsons was by Linwood Road.
 
Hi i do not know the answers but you are right Soho Rd was known as Handsworth (as was the police station in Thornhill Rd off Soho Rd ) and Villa Rd shops known as the Village (Villa to Villa-ge ?)
 
Oh, that is amazing!!
I used them in the 50s and early 60s and I remember them pretty well as they look in your photo - do you know when it was taken?
I don't remember the iron-work on the up-stairs (girls' changing) balcony but that could just be I never took notice. I took plenty of notice of what was inside the cubicles though!
I think we are looking 'up' the swimming pool from the shallow end? The entrance from the lobby was on the far left as you view - and to the right was a shower and foot-wash. Pretty well central to the pool was quite a high diving platform - and to the right of that (as you are looking now) a lower diving platform just a few feet high.
Memories? I can smell the chlorine - and hear the piercing whistle of the life-guard echoing around the place!
Thank you so much for posting that.
 
Graham, I remember a Mr Ludford but he wasn't a store manager, he was my dentist in Grove Lane, a couple of doors up from Douglas Road.
 
Shortie, I think you are right about Douro Wine.
Going down the Mainy towards Woolies I think the shops were Playfair, a greengrocers - I remember they sold huge, juicy peaches in summer - Wimbush, Wilkinsons, the shop with the pig, British Relay (my mum worked there) ,a couple I can't remember offhand and then Barretts the butchers. The Pump Tavern came next and then Nelson House with, I think, the chemist you mentioned next door to it.
I can't recall what the rest of the shops in that row were just now but maybe it will come - except I am fairly sure the shoe shop was Timpsons. Mom used to take us there for our "proper" school shoes.

The other side of Linwood were Shoe Fayre on the corner, the 'fancy goods' shop, the greengrocers (was that Tibbetts?) Bakers the butchers, the leather bag shop, Patti French the ladies clothing and lingerie shop - and something else.


Does anyone remember the milk machine (Handsworth Dairies possibly) on the pavement in front of the butchers ? You put your threepence in and a carton of milk dropped down into a drawer below. You pulled open the drawer and took out your milk - and straw. Mostly it was just ordinary milk but sometimes you could get strawberry flavour. I think it may have held cartons of orange juice too.


Oh and on Saturdays in the summer there was always a Verricchia (spelling??) ice cream van on one corner of Linwood Road ... and a rival on the other.
 
Fountain - I think the butchers was Stoddards - I have contact with a member of the family, the shop was known as 'The Top Shop' - however, it may have been in a different place, Soho Road is a long stretch! Patti French - Oh yes, now I remember. I got my Lovable bras from there just after leaving school, I am sure I went in there more often than that, but that is the purchase I remember mostly. Perhaps Mikejee can confirm the name of the butcher's shop??? (please Mike!!). I have only vague recollections of the ice cream seller but would not have known the name, or that there were two. How one forgets!!!

I also used to go to Mr Ludford the dentist - he was a brilliant man, I wonder if he is still alive? I remember his name was Bill. I stopped going there in 1972 when I moved to Tamworth, as I did not drive until 1975 and the buses were not exactly frequent, so it made a long journey and with two little girls, fairly impossible on my own.
 
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Hi your Mr Ludford is another person,although i lived in the flats in Douglas Rd with my parents in the mid-sixties for a couple of years, small world eh ?
 
Shortie, the butchers may have been Stoddards at one time but by about 1968 or so it was definitely Bakers - my friends brother worked there Saturdays sweeping up and so on. He was fifteen - two years older than us.

I too got some bras from Pattie French. Lovely they were and very grown up.
I think the bag shop next door also sold jewellery because I seem to remember buying some earrings there.
It just popped into my head that the fancy goods shop was called The Glass Shop - but that could just have been what my Mom called it and not its real name. I remember saving up my pocket money and buying Mom a pair of china Siamese cats from there for her birthday one year.

I agree, Mr Ludford was lovely. Very patient and gentle (as a dentist can be). To my young eyes he seemed like an old man but he may have only been in his forties or even thirties - how young that seems now - in which case it is possible that he might still be alive.
 
Yes Fountain, Stoddards closed by about then, so perhaps we are both right - the thing that made me wonder is that the name Bakers rang a bell. I had forgotten about the bag shop, yes, they did sell jewellery. I remember buying (I don't know where from) a 'Corocraft' bracelet, it may have been from that shop, it was narrow, a trellis design with tiny flowerson, about five of them, with tiny 'pearls' in the middle of the flowers. I had it for years and years, it got lost when I moved house. I still think of it, from time to time, I have worn a bracelet almost always since then. I think Bill Ludford was in his thirties - he used to talk to me about playing tennis (I am not the least bit sporty) - my friend went to his practice in Harborne for some years after moving to Tamworth in 1969, she may know more about him. I would like to think he is still around.

Now this has made me think of a young girl I was quite friendly with, who lived in Chantry Road. Anyone know of a very pretty young lady who was called Jenny? She was going out with, and I believe married, a blonde chap called Roy. I often wonder what happened to her.
 
Handsworth Old Town Hall Slack Lane 1933.jpgA couple more old pics I came across if they've been on before delete them the caption on this one says Old Handsworth Town Hall Slack Lane 1933
 
I do indeed remember the milk machine - and the delightfully sickly strawberry milk that could be obtained therefrom. Pretty sure it was Handsworth Dairies (on Island Road?).
We had our milk delivered from HD by an old horse-drawn milk-float. I remember my Dad shovelling up a souvenir once and walking right through the house to the back yard with it! Funny how you can smell memories.
 
Austen
Looks the right angle for St Michael's

map_c_1890_showing_soho_rd_station.jpg
 
I think Mr Asbury was a pretty enterprising businessman. All that hardware alongside tea and chocolate. You know the scenario: pop in just for a quarter of tea and come out loaded with every possible kitchen utensil you never knew you needed! Nothing changes. Very intrigued by the contraption above the door. What on earth is it? Any ideas? Viv.
 
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