Seeing Heneage Street pop up in the threads I thought I'd post my Father's (James Dell) recollections of it. They were bombed out of their house in Sunningdale Road in 1941 and moved to Heneage Street.
We then moved to 91, Heneage Street, Ashted, Birmingham. The real reason for this I do not know, but I think it was because of Mum’s health, so that we could be near to her foster mother who was Grannie Kay, and her family, who all lived within yards of each other. The house we moved into was more bomb damaged than Sunningdale Road. All the windows were blown out and were covered in tarpaulin. There was no running water and no electricity. Dad had to pay seven pounds ten shillings (7 pounds 50 pence) to have electricity put in, and that was light only, no power plugs. Seven pounds ten shillings was a week and a half’s wages for my Dad. To save everyone running down the yard in the middle of winter for water, Dad put in a sink. He put the wastewater pipe through the wall into the entry and built a gully down the entry for the water to run into the road. Water was fetched in buckets from the brew house and left under the sink to use in washing up and making tea etc. I was about 12 years old at this time. I really hated the area, the school and the house. Dad must have disliked it also because we were only there for about 12 months and then we moved to Oldknow Road, Small Heath.
"Grannie Kay" was apparently quite a character. Originally from Ireland, in her younger years she had been a singer on ocean liners going across the Atlantic. - She would entertain people with her singing in the local pubs.