Well this forum is most certainly full of memories, but also now a rather special discovery!
Since coming across BHF fairly recently I have at times dipped in to one part or another just to see what it might bring back to mind, and have often become rather absorbed for a while.
But now ....
There is a very compelling probability that I am the boy in that photograph.
In fact I am only prevented from saying that it is definitely me by the lack of definition in the head/face, plus the annoying presence of that A-board (of which more later) along with a lack of attribution ... Phil: is there any source information available?
Certainly the hair is me and the build is me and from the look of things I'd say the period is appropriate, though on its own a young chap looking in a toyshop window is hardly unusual.
Circumstances, however, shorten the odds.
I can't now remember the precise dates, but from I think around '54/5 up to '63/4 my mother managed the shop and Sid - Sid Thornton - did his barbering in the other section.
The shop was a toyshop but also a sweetshop and as well sold a wide range of cigarettes and tobacco too for the gents coming and going for a their trim.
Mum - Pat - always got on with children and they all called her by her first name, and the kids from nearby St. Peter's ("Juniors" at that time, so from age 5 to 11) and others always filled the shop when school finished. If you were among them I have no doubt at all that you will remember her, and also the clamour for pocket-money sweets and also to see what was on "The Penny Tray", which was an idea of my Mum's and contained a wide selection of 2/3/4-a-penny sweets that always just disappeared!
And if you were one of those children and do remember Pat, you will be pleased to know that she is still with us and still has her sparkle coming up to her 97th birthday in five weeks time!
But back to the photo, and Mum would open-up the shop in the mornings and I would help with a padlocked gate that kept the entrance porch secured. My next job was to put that A-Board out - which I would have no doubt done on the day that that photo was taken either way. Over time I would also put the gum ball machine out and refill one or other wall-mounted chewing gum machine if needed once I was a little older/taller/stronger lol.
I also had a hand in organising the window display, and it was a lot of fun too when visiting the toy-wholesaler every so often to pick things then to be delivered to be sold in the shop ... I got to help spend someone else's money on mountains of toys in my own personal treasure cave
And back at the shop, there was a further room across the rear of both sections that was the store room for all the toys being delivered ... so putting a window display together from everything included the difficult task of deciding which treasures to include and which to leave out!
And there's a whole bunch more rememberings from around age 7 that I could go on endlessly about, including marvellous early-years school holidays based at the shop a few days a week sometimes, though I was then more often out playing with friends (you could safely do that then!) from St Peter's who all lived around there, and dropping back now and then, or for lunch, or when it was getting close to heading home ...
... though if I began putting all of that down as well I would probably then drone on for years and use up the whole of the Forum's storage space allocation solo!
So then ...
Perhaps I was seeing how the window display was looking so far, or perhaps seeing what I still might add from the stock room, or perhaps checking out the selection of magic-trick bags to see if there were any I hadn't got ...
... or perhaps it isn't me after all, though even if I distance myself from all of these other things it still just plain looks like me anyway! ... though frustratingly without seeing the face properly there can't be an absolute, other than if it dates from '53 or earlier or 64 or later and then it pretty much couldn't be me unless I am misremembering the years.
So thanks Phil for dropping that photo there - can't begin to say how much I appreciate seeing it.
And here's a couple of photos coming the other way .. the first is one I took on my first camera, a Brownie 127 which I think was for my 11th birthday and was bought about 10 minutes earlier (!) from a shop about half way along the way down to the Royalty cinema. Not bad for a first shot, just a little wonky. Mum is on the right, on the left is her friend Elsie who worked at the pet shop you can also see in the photo.
The other photo is of Sid especially for anyone who remembers sitting in his chair, along with Mum and me. It was taken by Dad probably 2-3 years earlier so around '56/7, and was on what Mum laughingly referred to as a Works Outing... one or two times a year the two families would just bundle in to Sid's car and have a day out somewhere ...
On a side-note: Sid had a gorgeous Armstrong Siddeley Hurricane Drophead, so a (generous) 4-seat convertible, and delightfully when he wanted to change it for something else Dad bought it off him! It was one of those cars like-what-they-don't-make-anymore ... this model
but in golden sand with burgundy wings and side-strakes, and black hood and proper wheels. Totally gorgeous and I can't begin to count the number of times I have wished that Dad hadn't traded it when he wanted something else later, and instead had just locked it away in a barn and kept the key in a drawer for me to find one day!
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Great photo TQ - exactly how I remember Sid Thornton looking and I remember he had rather a soft gentle tone to his voice? I always thought the lady who sold me 'fireworks' was his wife or perhaps she was your mother - although it would be 1966 when she queried my age re buying the box of bangers!Well this forum is most certainly full of memories, but also now a rather special discovery!
Since coming across BHF fairly recently I have at times dipped in to one part or another just to see what it might bring back to mind, and have often become rather absorbed for a while.
But now ....
There is a very compelling probability that I am the boy in that photograph.
In fact I am only prevented from saying that it is definitely me by the lack of definition in the head/face, plus the annoying presence of that A-board (of which more later) along with a lack of attribution ... Phil: is there any source information available?
Certainly the hair is me and the build is me and from the look of things I'd say the period is appropriate, though on its own a young chap looking in a toyshop window is hardly unusual.
Circumstances, however, shorten the odds.
I can't now remember the precise dates, but from I think around '54/5 up to '63/4 my mother managed the shop and Sid - Sid Thornton - did his barbering in the other section.
The shop was a toyshop but also a sweetshop and as well sold a wide range of cigarettes and tobacco too for the gents coming and going for a their trim.
Mum - Pat - always got on with children and they all called her by her first name, and the kids from nearby St. Peter's ("Juniors" at that time, so from age 5 to 11) and others always filled the shop when school finished. If you were among them I have no doubt at all that you will remember her, and also the clamour for pocket-money sweets and also to see what was on "The Penny Tray", which was an idea of my Mum's and contained a wide selection of 2/3/4-a-penny sweets that always just disappeared!
And if you were one of those children and do remember Pat, you will be pleased to know that she is still with us and still has her sparkle coming up to her 97th birthday in five weeks time!
But back to the photo, and Mum would open-up the shop in the mornings and I would help with a padlocked gate that kept the entrance porch secured. My next job was to put that A-Board out - which I would have no doubt done on the day that that photo was taken either way. Over time I would also put the gum ball machine out and refill one or other wall-mounted chewing gum machine if needed once I was a little older/taller/stronger lol.
I also had a hand in organising the window display, and it was a lot of fun too when visiting the toy-wholesaler every so often to pick things then to be delivered to be sold in the shop ... I got to help spend someone else's money on mountains of toys in my own personal treasure cave
And back at the shop, there was a further room across the rear of both sections that was the store room for all the toys being delivered ... so putting a window display together from everything included the difficult task of deciding which treasures to include and which to leave out!
And there's a whole bunch more rememberings from around age 7 that I could go on endlessly about, including marvellous early-years school holidays based at the shop a few days a week sometimes, though I was then more often out playing with friends (you could safely do that then!) from St Peter's who all lived around there, and dropping back now and then, or for lunch, or when it was getting close to heading home ...
... though if I began putting all of that down as well I would probably then drone on for years and use up the whole of the Forum's storage space allocation solo!
So then ...
Perhaps I was seeing how the window display was looking so far, or perhaps seeing what I still might add from the stock room, or perhaps checking out the selection of magic-trick bags to see if there were any I hadn't got ...
... or perhaps it isn't me after all, though even if I distance myself from all of these other things it still just plain looks like me anyway! ... though frustratingly without seeing the face properly there can't be an absolute, other than if it dates from '53 or earlier or 64 or later and then it pretty much couldn't be me unless I am misremembering the years.
So thanks Phil for dropping that photo there - can't begin to say how much I appreciate seeing it.
And here's a couple of photos coming the other way .. the first is one I took on my first camera, a Brownie 127 which I think was for my 11th birthday and was bought about 10 minutes earlier (!) from a shop about half way along the way down to the Royalty cinema. Not bad for a first shot, just a little wonky. Mum is on the right, on the left is her friend Elsie who worked at the pet shop you can also see in the photo.
The other photo is of Sid especially for anyone who remembers sitting in his chair, along with Mum and me. It was taken by Dad probably 2-3 years earlier so around '56/7, and was on what Mum laughingly referred to as a Works Outing
On a side-note: Sid had a gorgeous Armstrong Siddeley Hurricane Drophead, so a (generous) 4-seat convertible, and delightfully when he wanted to change it for something else Dad bought it off him! It was one of those cars like-what-they-don't-make-anymore ... this model
but in golden sand with burgundy wings and side-strakes, and black hood and proper wheels. Totally gorgeous and I can't begin to count the number of times I have wished that Dad hadn't traded it when he wanted something else later, and instead had just locked it away in a barn and kept the key in a drawer for me to find one day!
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Roxalma:
Hi, and yes you are quite correct Sid was a soft-spoken gentle and pleasant man with a naturally likeable manner, got on easily with others and they with him.
1966 would have been too late for it to have been my mother who would have served you with those fireworks, she left in '63/4 when we moved to a different part of the City after it was no longer preferable for me to have an easy journey to school (Lordswood Tech.) once I had left.
But if you had bought your fireworks from there up to then, then yes it would have been.
Mum actually left a little before then, however Sid was having a problem finding someone to replace her so she went back just briefly for odd days through the week to help. Sid's wife Mary was also there at times for the same reason, and may well have taken it on completely for a while when it was no longer reasonable for Mum to carry on filling-in.
I believe I remember that Sid and Mary - who with their daughter Theresa lived in Great Barr - also/previously had another shop and had been looking for a new one but with a desire that it must be in a nice area not just part of a 9 to 6, 6-days-a-week grind somewhere busy, just to make cash at any cost ... hence eventually choosing Harborne, and hence a little longer commute being agreeable in exchange.
So other than it being someone new, I'd expect it to have most likely been Mary who was checking that it was okay to sell you a box of bangers ... stiff fines or worse for Sid if caught and reported, knowingly or not!
TQ
Oh my word - looking for something completely different, I happened upon this page!View attachment 56165This is where i lived,2nd house along after the little shop,
Beaumont Removals my brother worked there,such a long journey
My mother (Beryl)'s father owned Beaumont's removals. Her sister Joan worked in the office, and her brothers James (Jim) and Charles (Bill) used to work on the vans. They sold out to Jay's in the end. Another of Mum's sisters married Tom Leonard who worked for Furber's (I think it became Furber-Leonard?) and lived in Queen's Park Road. Mum's family moved from Milford Road to Lordswood Road in one of those big old scary Victorian houses two (I think) doors down from the old swimming baths - all long gone now.
My Dad's parents ran the sweet shop in the High Street and they lived above it, although I think it was a carpet shop at one point. They still used the phrase "Sharp's the Toffee" to hurry us up, and (somewhere) I still have a toffee hammer from when they used to serve the toffee loose.
This thread, and in particular, this post, has brought back some very happy memories
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Welcome Smint100. Very pleased you’ve enjoyed the thread. And thank you for adding so much more detail to it. Viv.
I remember being terrified in the house in Lordswood Road - it was a three storey building with an additional cellar/apple store and you had to walk past the (very dark) entrance to the stairs to the top floor to use the toilet. I much preferred the garden which had a very steeply sloped lawn near the house which my brother and I used to roll down - I seem to remember the garden was huge - there were definitely glass houses part way down. I hope I still have some photos, although am not sure if there are any of the house or just the family - I'll have to see what's in the loft and whether I can scan them.
Be great to see them if you can. Photos reveal at lot about our history and often spark so many memories for others too. Viv.
I've managed to find one album - most of the photos are just family snaps in gardens or wedding groups outside St Peter's Church, but I came across these. The seated girls are when Mum won a medal for running - it's not dated but I think it's about 1940?
The others are labelled Vicarage Field Garden Fete (I think 1949)
The others are labelled Vicarage Field Garden Fete (I think 1949)
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These two were taken by the Sunday Mercury who did a feature on the Young Farmers Club in May 1947. One is labelled "Collecting pig food from Bishops" - not sure whether that was one of the big houses locally. Not sure where the second photo was taken, but some might recognise the view!
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DavidGrain
master brummie
Many thanks for posting these photos. I am just wondering if any of our members who have access to newspaper archives can find the articles.
I'm now wondering whether Bishops refers to Bishops Croft?
Bishops Croft, Birmingham, Birmingham (britishlistedbuildings.co.uk)
Mum said that they used to regularly collect waste food for the pigs from the big houses in the local area
There are other photos in that series that feature Mr Cooksley and Mr Rutter (who I think may have been the organisers), Jill Corbett, Allen Turner and Madge W, Joan L, T Todd, Frank I, Ray J and George R if anyone recognises those names/initials
Bishops Croft, Birmingham, Birmingham (britishlistedbuildings.co.uk)
Mum said that they used to regularly collect waste food for the pigs from the big houses in the local area
There are other photos in that series that feature Mr Cooksley and Mr Rutter (who I think may have been the organisers), Jill Corbett, Allen Turner and Madge W, Joan L, T Todd, Frank I, Ray J and George R if anyone recognises those names/initials
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DavidGrain
master brummie
I can remember 'pig bins' in the road until just before the mid 1950s. All pig food now has to be treated so just collecting waste food is not allowed.
Great photos Smint. Thanks for posting.
The Harborne Young Farmer’s Club was “The seed of a great experiment ” (source: British Newspaper Archive). Viv.
The Harborne Young Farmer’s Club was “The seed of a great experiment ” (source: British Newspaper Archive). Viv.
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That's very interesting! It must have served her well as Mum went to be a Land Girl with Fred Archer who wrote a number of books about Ashton-under-Hill. I don't whether she's specifically mentioned, but she worked alongside Joyce who became his wife, and used to tell of falling from the hay barn onto the back of a bull which carted her round the farm yard. After that, she worked for Mr Rutter (as above) at Birmingham University growing the plants for the experiments, before her father shipped her off to Malvern to run a shop with her brother, Baron.
Samlilly
New Member
Hi enthea i myself went station in the 60s mrs dunitt was misterss in the inf and mr jenkins headmaster in the jun.sam lilly i lived in noth rd the cottages and played on the steam trains
Williamstreeter
master brummie
I'm so grateful for the video of St Mary's , I met my first serious girlfriend at The St Mary's Youth Club in the 60's . Alas me being an ass It ended . I'm sorry
Hello Samlilly, I myself went to Station road school in the 60s, those names ring a bell mrs Dunnit and Mr Jenkins, have you got a picture of the cottages in North road at all it would be lovely to see them, I grew up in Gordon road not far from the fruit and veg shop on the corner
Pedrocut
Master Barmmie
For Grove House Harbourne.
“This rare example of Ruskinian ideals applied to furniture is a cabinet designed by the Birmingham architect J. H. Chamberlain in 1877 for a house called The Grove, in Harborne, Warwickshire.
The carcass is stained oak, with walnut and purpleheart scrolling foliage inlaid on sycamore. The two pairs of green-brown vases were designed by Christopher Dresser for the Linthorpe Pottery
(1879-89) Middlesbrough; the small blue vases were made in 1906 at the Pilkington Pottery, near Manchester.“
Victorian and Edwardian decor : from the gothic revival to art nouveau by Cooper, Jeremy. Publication date 1987.
“This rare example of Ruskinian ideals applied to furniture is a cabinet designed by the Birmingham architect J. H. Chamberlain in 1877 for a house called The Grove, in Harborne, Warwickshire.
The carcass is stained oak, with walnut and purpleheart scrolling foliage inlaid on sycamore. The two pairs of green-brown vases were designed by Christopher Dresser for the Linthorpe Pottery
(1879-89) Middlesbrough; the small blue vases were made in 1906 at the Pilkington Pottery, near Manchester.“
Victorian and Edwardian decor : from the gothic revival to art nouveau by Cooper, Jeremy. Publication date 1987.
DavidGrain
master brummie
Very Interesting. Do you know where it is now. One room from the Grove has been reconstructed in the V & A in London. Grove House was in what is now Grove Park, Harborne.
Just being pedantic but in 1877 Harborne was in Staffordshire not Warwickshire.
DavidGrain
master brummie
Number of photos of the Harborne Room in the V & A
Panelled room from The Grove in Harborne | Barfield, Samuel | Chamberlain, John Henry | V&A Explore The Collections
Panelled room from The Grove, Harborne, sycamore and oak, with inlay of walnut and other woods, designed by John Henry Chamberlain and made by Samuel Barfield, 1877-1878, England
collections.vam.ac.uk
Pedrocut
Master Barmmie
A bit more info…
“The hall of The Grove, Harborne, near Birmingham a Ruskinian Gothic house designed by J. H. Chamberlain in 1877.
This photograph was taken in 1911: the house was demolished in 1963.“
Victorian and Edwardian decor : from the gothic revival to art nouveau by Cooper, Jeremy. Publication date 1987.
“The hall of The Grove, Harborne, near Birmingham a Ruskinian Gothic house designed by J. H. Chamberlain in 1877.
This photograph was taken in 1911: the house was demolished in 1963.“
Victorian and Edwardian decor : from the gothic revival to art nouveau by Cooper, Jeremy. Publication date 1987.
paul stacey
master brummie
I went to the Catholic School, for a short while, near the church in the fifty's, badly bullied, so Mom sent me to Our lady of St Rose Weoley Castle, about 1957ish!
Morgan’s was the name of that sweet shop used it many times as a kid and later as I was growing up I used to buy loose cigarettes from there Mr Morgan was a very short man sometimes you could not see him behind the counter .View attachment 50792I thought i had put this on its in my album,can't remember the name even though i went in there most days
I also noticed Mrs Kirby’s dress shop over the road my mum would buy her dresses for special occasions from there she used to live around the corner from us we were in Wentworth road and she in Ravenhurst road I new Harborne very well as I was a paper boy In the 60s fond memories my sister still lives there in Parkhill rd .
paul stacey
master brummie
I remember that corner so well, like an old friend returning after so long!!
my family always referred to Harborne as "the village".
