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Hunters Road/Farm Street

  • Thread starter Thread starter harborne
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harborne

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Does anyone remember Baines on Hockley Brook and the fruiterers, Stan and Sid, who used to sell poultry, too, and it used to hand up on huge hooks outside the shop? We used to live above Baines and I remember having climbed up onto the attic sash window and sitting there, just watching the people below - especially Sid, who was standing there in his white rubber apron and overall, trying to persuade me to go back in. I supposed someone must at the same time have been running up to my mum, who was busy with my other two sisters at the time, because next thing I knew I was grabbed from behind and lifted down from my lofty perch. Some people just have no sense of fun at all!

ChrisB :2funny: :crazy2:
 
Do you remember C V Bull the butcher on Hockley Brook, Harborne? I worked there part time when I was at school. Before school in the week I delivered meat to Millerr Street bus depot and worked in the shop after school
 
I vaguely remember the butcher's, Mike. I remember the bus depot on my way to my friend's house, Kathleen Gunn, and I remember George Masons, the smells of fresh cheese and ground coffee too, and there was a shop across Farm Street and up a bit (can't remember the road, was it Icknield Street?) past the Benyon on the corner and up, and there was a shop that sold ground coffee and I can still remember that smell. And Izon's, the chemist, that used to smell Jif fruits - not just lemons, but other fruits, too.

ChrisB :)
 
Here are a couple of pictures form 'A Paddle in Hockley Brook' by Ron Smith, bublished by Weldon Press Ltd. In the picture you can just se a bit of George Baines on the right.
 
Brilliant, Mike - wait till I show mum, I think these pics will bring back special memories for her. I don't remember Profits Corn Merchants, though, that must have been there before about 1950 or after 1958. The map is much appreciated too, I can see exactly where we were, now. D'you remember the welfare up Hunters Road and the paper stand over the road on the other corner of Hunters Road. I think I can still hear him shouting selling the Mail and Despatch.

Was Heaton Street where the Flats were? I remember a very long, narrow street (or what seemed to be with my little legs at the time!) with houses on the right and factories that smelt of varnish on the left, then Woolworths being somewhere at the top. Was that the Flats?

ChrisB
 
Chris and Mike. Thank you, thank you, for the memories. I had tears in my eyes. My early childhood was spent in Hunters Road, we lived in a yard at the back of the Bridge Tavern. I used to go to that green grocers for me mom, I was fascinated when they skinned the rabbits by putting the back legs on a hook (shudder) Thank you both very much.

barrie
 
I was puxxled about Profitt and Westwoods. When I left school, I worked for a time at C V Bull's on the corner of Farm Street and Lennox Street. Bert and Wally, the older blokes grew chrysanths; they regularly sent me on the butcher's bike to Profitt and Westwoods to get John Innes and bone meal but it was up Hockley Hill where I went. I had forgotten about the welfare but I remember now, going with my mom, before I started infant school, to get orange juice. I certainly remember 'Spatchy Mail' being shouted all over town. I knew about the Flats but never went there.
 
Spatchy Mail, yes, that was it Mike. Used to wear a cap didn't he. Wasn't the shoe shop across the road called Dorians?

Profit & Greenwood was obviously before our time, us being the young things that we are!

ChrisB ;)
 
I can't remember the shoe shop. I got my shoes from Newtown Row at the time, well that's were I got my first slip-ons from; I think my wedge crepes came from Wheeler Street though.
 
Ha! ha! Were you one of the teddy boys then, that hung around the cafe up towards the Palladium? They used to wear brightly-coloured socks like luminous pinks and greens, etc.
 
Mom had one of those hooks on the wall next to the back door and used to skin all her own Rabbits :)
 
Eugh! Fortunately I don't recall ever seeing a rabbit skinned. Perhaps I've done a mind block on it! So Barrie you're another one from around there. It wasn't exactlly one of the best areas to live in but it certainly has its memories doesn't it. It's nice to think back a bit. Whereabout was the Bridge Tavern I can't remember that? Mum and dad used to take us when it was nice to the Bull's Head, where we'd run around outside between eating our Smiths Crisps and drinking Vimto. Bliss. I can still recall the taste of the orange juice from the Welfare as well. Do you all remember the big blue Police Box on Hockley Brook and the policeman who was often standing there with what I think was a cape around his shoulders?

ChrisB :crazy2:
 
Does anyone know where Cambridge Place was on Farm Street? My family lived there at on of the censuses.

Janny
 
The Duke of Camebridge pub was in Farm St. near the junction with Wheeler St. The Lucas factory was built around it.
 
thats ,s right mike. when you went down wheelers st., to the bottom just to the bottom , of wheelers st a little to your right and across the way was the pub and it was a white building , forked between camebride st and farm st , i had a friend whom lived down farm st in 1958 his name was alan deakin , he met a girl and went to live in south wales .
 
Do you remember the 'bomb pecks' down Farm Street? I do. I remember playing down there and treading on a nail... :'(

ChrisB
 
Right in the middle of the first picture is a Bradfords Bread van, I worked for them Saturdays and holidays from when I was 13 until I left school at 15, the smell of fresh baked bread always takes me back to those days. E.
 
Thanks... I figured Cambridge Place might've been the name of a larger court or something similar

Janny
 
Eric, I helped on a Bradford's round too before I worked at C V Bulls. Saturdays and holidays; the round was Handsworth and Handsworth Wood. I was paid 5/-. A a large tin loaf was seven pence hapenny
 
Michael, next to Charlie Bulls was Sid Lawleys fruit shop, next to there was my parents fish & chip shop Bramwells where I was born 75 years ago. I used to go to St Marys School in Brougham St off Nursery rd .the shop you mentioned was proffit & Westwoods.
 
used to hide my motor bike down the entry at my girlfriends at 2 /202 farm street opposite the birmingham arms so my dad didnt know i had one,he found out eventually,if you are reading this magaret you had a lucky escape when you dumped me ;D
 
Hi Bramwell I used to go to school in Brougham Street too but I thought it was called St Francis', can't remember now. Had the name changed by 1954 or is my memory letting me down again?! :crazy2:
 
Bramwell, I remember Sid lawley very well and his son who worked in the shop with him but I can't remember his name. Sid's brother, Thomas wasa my dad's best man
 
Michael are you on about the fruiters I mentioned earlier on with the poultry hanging outside, at the bottom of Hunters Road? Sid (never knew surname) used to work there with Stan Blackwell; I just remember the two of them. Maybe it's a different shop...?
 
Hi Barry,
My father was the gaffer at the Bridge Tavern from around 1950 until 1955 when he moved to the Queens Arms in Sparkbrook. I was just a rug rat at the time but I well remember Smarts pork butchers and the rabbits hanging outside and masons opposite the pub who were a drysalters, I can still smell the smokey bacon. There was a small brewery at the bottom of the lane running alonside the bridge who had their own hoopers, they made a tiny barrel for me to roll around when the draymen came to deliver the beer to the pub. My elder sister and myself used to go to the palladium evey saturday for the minors and watch superman and Jungle Jim.
I wonder if you remeber our dogs, a golden lab (Tide) and an alsation (Tara).
 
hi harbourne
i can relate to your thread i most certainly recall all those shops and people and i used to go to ickneild street school on the brook
and alot of my old school chums uded to live down and and around farm street and my aunti winn and uncle harry phelps lived in ford street
facing the old garage my two cousins and i went to ickneild street barry and bryan phelps if any body remembers them i lived upat spring hill
and i can recall the old bobby in the mifddle of the broook in his white coat and gloves doing his point duty and the big pub
and all what you have mentioned and the destruction of the old brook and the remod of the brook even thou we are going back abit
to me its clear as yesterday have a nice day best wishes astonion
 
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