Hockley - Can someone please turn back the clock?

[Mayfield]

What has happened to the Hockley that I fondly remember as a child? My vivid memories consist of hours of joyful fun playing with my best friends in Hockley and attending a school that provided me with the education that I required and a playground full of laughter.

The only thing that I ever had to worry about was a slap off my mom/dad is ever I showed disrespect and the cane off the Headmaster for any playground incident that broke the school rules.

And yet, I here on the news yesterday that Great King Street was closed due to an incident....... not an argument, not a fist fight but a shooting?

Can someone please turn back the clock? Mabz

 

[Stitcher]

Unfortunately Mabz its the same in pracically every densly populated are of the country. Some places are worse than others. I have friends who retired to Bournmouth years ago and they tell me it is not so nice there these days.

 

[rowan]

Oh how I wish we could Mabz................not ever day killings and bad language and............and............all other horrible thigs of today.

Maybe it was the innocence of our time that made the world a more livable place??

Or maybe it is that we are all born to a time and this one isn't ours.

I just wish that life was so violent and filthy (litterwise and languagewise)

Oh well............on with living today life

 

[Astonian]

mayfield
its sole distroying youth of today we have to face the facts that part of the city now late of the night its ghostly and a no go area it as been for the last ten years to my knowledge you want to get through constution hill from the city you get a taxie if you don,t drive and if you do keep your car windows and doors locked
the latest raze they call jamming your car should you stop at lights ,there is quite afew pubs around the jewerly qaurter where organised crime is organised and planned
some of the biggest robbries in b,ham have been organised around there even in the sixties i can assure you the pubs i will not mention
but the outside of the matter ts stems from parents a child up bringing
there are more kid doing drugs now ever than before but saying that equaly there alot of new age pensioners are just as druged up and abusive to people
don,t get me wrong i,m in apensioners age but as i said even thestatics state that theres hardley any body not drugged up in this human race and we are becoming more like america every day i can see the time when we all will buy a gun for protection it enevetitable may i add digbeth is just as bad beleive me at night
its a different world of a night not like the city market in the day time
i have ran certain establishments in the digbeth area for years in the evening
sad and twisted but its true ,

 

[Astoness]

hi keith...such a shame isnt it?? and a crying shame at that..unfortunately the only way we can turn back the clock is by doing what we all do on this forum....recall our happy and sometimes sad memories....write them down for others to read..and of course thank god we have many photographs to look at of days gone by and just be so very grateful that we lived in them..

lyn

 

[robb128]

hi mayfield more good people than bad we must not dispair and keep e certain standard for our decent grankids sakes
robb128

 

[Lloyd]

Yes, things are bad now but not all the time. Remember - good news doesn't sell papers. We only hear of the bad things that happen, most people get on with each other, or at worst tolerate each other most of the time.

 

[Peter Walker]

No wonder the papers are starting to drop like flies!
Apparently there'll be none left in a year or two, as the internet takes over.
Not that they've been much cop in the last few years anyway.
What we shall always have is Ron 'Smudge' Smith's wonderful books and drawings of Hockley. They are a treasure.
Peter

 

[Astoness]

peter i agree with you about smudges drawings...wonderful stuff..i have a couple myself...if i am not mistaken i think he came out of guest st...just off bridge st west...

lyn

 

[BazzM]

Even in an urban area like where I live, we get the same. Just a week before Christmas a young man was stabbed to death in the town. Not far from his home, and in day-light. Im afraid this kind of incident is becoming all too common. And our town is only populated by a few thousand people. Terrible times we are living in, Im afraid. Barry.

 

[Stitcher]

Mayfield, this is the best I can do I am afraid. The only literature with the picture is as follows. Children playing by the original Hockley Brook in Factory Rd 1897.

 

[Stitcher]

Or there is this one. Again information is limited and all I can tell you is that this was the home of Miss Brown. The house was on Hockley Hill and the picture was taken in 1901.