Kandor

[Kandor]

I still miss you Mum

Mom had been dead about 2 months and it was 3 days before my 17th birthday.
I had been watching the telly, (I cant remember what it was now)
The atmosphere in the house was, to be quite frank...awful.
We were all men see...
and Men dont talk much about grief..at least not us, not then, not there.
I remember all the days of pent up emotion and even yes...rage...why us?
Why our Mom...
Robert came in the living room and immediately turned over the channel.
I jumped up and said I was watching the programme and for him to turn it back..
Robert is 3 years older than me and at 20, a lot heavier..
All of a sudden all the frustration and anger he had inside him exploded in a murderous rage....and I was the target for it.
I remember him punching me in the face and holding my hair as he headbutted me,
I fell crying to the ground as his feet kicked into my body...
After what seemed like ages he stopped and walked slowly out of the room leaving both me and my kid brother sobbing..
I knew I had to get out of the house or it might happen again..
The problem was, I had no where to go.
I remember taking one of Dads coats and half stumbled out the door over to Willow House, a high rise block in Vauxhall Rd.
I also remember dragging Newspapers around me that were left by the Bin Chutes to keep warm..I cried that night, not because of the blood and not because of the pain, but because I missed my Mom....
And I loved my brother....

I can remember in the years just after Mom died how empty and hopeless it all seemed,
I remember if I wanted something to eat, I had to go out and get the food then cook it, if I wanted clean clothes I washed them..I supose on reflection, no bad thing...Its just I missed my Mom...and it was the little things that bought home how much.
I can remember my Dad bringing home a friend to live with us..
(I wont embarrass this lovely man by naming him here as he is still alive and well and living in Nechells.)
My Dad found him wandering the streets at the lowest of all ebbs,
He had a right to be, his Mom and Dad had both died within a week and he was too sad to go home.
A. In the years you lived with us, you more than paid your 'keep' you were the funniest, nicest man I've ever known.
I'm glad you've found happiness and the love you deserve..
By the way, You owe me 5 bob..
Hey!! Bell bottom jeans are in! its 1970 and I looked, if not quite the Bee's knees, at the least, the Bee's armpits...
My friends Allan, Derek and me are going up to the Roller Rink by Dudley rd and you know what?
We're having the time of our lives!
Its very popular and coaches are coming as far away as Nuneaton.
It was inevitable really...There was three of us, and three of them..
Aliens from a dying planet...girls
D met E ...an earlier prototype for the Honey Monster,
A met B...a girl who could teach a limpet a thing or two on how to cling to someone
And I met S...S was young, blonde and not anyway at all, anorexic..
I once remember trying to put my arms around her...big mistake!
Reed Richards from the Fantastic Four would have struggled to touch fingers...this gal was seriously big.
I remember I went out with her for about 6 weeks, always wary she was going to lose control and eat me.
I remember the night I packed her in, it seems like yesterday
(I just wish it had been tomorrow, I'd have worn a Frogmans suit)
I remember holding her and telling her gently we were finished...her tears could have ended the drought in Etheopia...She sobbed and sobbed all over me!
How could I tell her that any minute I expected Captain Ahab to shout 'Thar she blows' and hurl a harpoon at us?
The girl was seriously big...
It took quite a while to forget her...
The reason being I was wearing a brand new, dark green, woollen mini Jumper...
Her tears made the dye run on to my chest,
I had skin like the Hulk for 4 months....

 

[Dorothy Dodson]

I'm crying with laughter :cry: :lol: at your posts, you're a new one to me, haven't been round the new sections for some time, but i've still got the remainder of your history posts to try to read - if i can see for hysterectomies (no! that should be hysterics shouldn't it?) :wink:

Need a few more like you mate, keep going, but must say you're wasted on this site, (sorry webmasters) write a book for gods sake.

Luv Dot

 

[Kandor]

Um..Dorothy..

Its all true I tell you! all true..
Well ok, I embellish it a bit but the basic story is always there.
I honestly think poverty is a far richer breeding ground for stories than a silver spoon and well...we'll see.
As for your comments..
Well, I have two aims in life, the book is nearly complete and its called(stop yawning woman!) 'The story of my days'
Its about 80 ages of A4 so far and I upto age 30 (just before my daughters were born) its about me and those I've loved I know..I know...boring huh?

It will never be for publication, its just my Mom and dad died without me really knowing what made them tick, I want my daughters to know how much I loved them and my wife and what made me laugh and cry.
And my second ambition?
To open a home for unmarried babies...

 

[Rod]

YES

Yes Kandor...... the reasons for your book say it all!!!!! Keep on writing, its so very important. I started writing solely because my grandchildren will not know their roots, they are being raised in a very different culture to the one we were raised in. Isnt it amazing that once you sit down and begin to think of all the valued experiences youve had, that are worth writing down, once you gather those together, there is so much!!

Cheers

 

[Dorothy Dodson]

I rest my case - absolutely brilliant! :lol:

I started doing the same - writing a book for my family - just to illustrate what made me tick when i was a young bombshell :explode: - unfortunately my kids are dyslecsic - well they were when they were at home -never understood the meaning of notes telling them to 'tidy their bedroom"

And i can still remember how their pupils glazed over when i told them about my fight for survival in the winter of 1947, dodging the snowballs from the bigger kids. :roll:

Stay cool 8)

Dot :wink:

 

[Kandor]

I'm that old, I remember when ....

You could buy Spangles
Policemen always looked older than me.
Bus Conductors took your fare.
Tea came loose in little square packets
And some them had little collecting cards in the bottom.
There was only two channels on TV both in black and white.
We had real seasons which included March winds and April showers.
Sundays were quiet and by Lunch all the shops were shut.
5th gear on a car was called 'Overdrive'
Your bathroom hung up on the back of a door.
Made in Japan meant rubbish goods.
There were no speed cameras.
No one you knew personally went aboad.
And those who did, chose Majorca and pronounced it wrong.
The coins in your pocket never seemed to change.
Politicians resigned if caught out.
Trains ran on time.
Car engines had to be de-coked.
Petrol attendants filled your car up.
Pop was 'R whites' lemonade.
People kept chickens.
We were proud to be British.

 

[Pomgolian]

But do you remember when?
O.M.O meant washing powder.
Scented soap only came in little books of fine film.
Shampoo only came in sachets.
A ’plastic’ cup was a ‘beaker’.
Only ‘rich’ people drank Wine.
What cars? (No one in our St had a car).
Shops closed on Wednesday afternoon also.
‘Babbie’s ‘ drank their milk out of an old medicine bottles with a ‘tit’.
‘Babbie’s’ dummies had a place for a small amount of jam mixed with water, or in some cases something stronger.
Old Ladies thought nothing of using an old pushchair to get their shopping in, or going to the shops in their slippers, curlers and rolled down stockings.
You could take a jug to the outdoor for a beer.
You could choose if you put salt on you crisps, or not.
Anything and everything could be bought loose and weighed in pounds and ounces and paid for with Pounds, Shillings and Pence.
Almost all England’s dairy products came from New Zealand, or Australia (not Europe).
On and on it goes…

 

[Frantic]

And 'Nancy ' was a girls name. You're not old Kandor, is it true that your first job as contracts administrator was for a guy called Noah who wanted to build a big boat? :wink: What a memory! Spangles indeed! you missed out frys five boys as well.

 

[Kandor]

Noahs boat?

Why that's a damned slur!! lol...I did however work weekends on Stonehenge and the pyramids.
Happy Easter Frantic.. 8)

 

[Kandor]

H G Wells

Well Brian, he may have wrote a book called 'the Time machine' but I just stepped into yours,
This is exactly the reason I started off this particular topic.
Thank you, thank you very much.

 

[Pomgolian]

John, if you go to ;
https://www.aquarterof.co.uk/

You will find a whole site dedicated to 'Our sweets'. Here you can also buy them on line 8) .
Not Spangles though, sorry

Spangles
Spangles were made by Mars. They were fruit flavoured square boiled sweets - in a tube (like refreshers). They were taken off the market back in the early 1980's but they were re-introduced in the 1990's due to pupular demand. However it seems that the buying public then remembered why they had not bought Spangles in larger quantities first time around and the sweets were withdrawn again

Here in New Zealand we have a sweet identical known as 'Sparkles'. (And that's the real reason I came downunder :lol: )

 

[Alberta]

I had just started a diet,had my hair dyed,hidden my bus pass and you rotten lot do this to me.

 

[Kandor]

Dearest Alberta.

Oh...we only do it out of love!

 

[angeleyes]

spangles

i remember those also the other spangles which came after in a black packet called old english. does any one remember them.my favourite sweets was. nutty log. also whirly gigs. used to get those from the adelaide pub out door on the corner of vauxhall rd. god bless mary

 

[colinwilliams1]

I remember the black spangles brilliant ..

We used to have sweets on friday after dad got paid and he would bring us each a packet home.

I liked Flying saucers, prawns. we aslo had
chocolate limes.
Mushrooms.

But the best value sweets of all ever are
SMARTIES,
You can count them.
You can sort all the colours out.
You can line them up on the floor.
You can draw pictures with them.
You can bite the coating off them eat the chocolate after.
You can suck and suck and suck until the coating comes off.
You can play shops with them and buy stuff.
If you are extremely greedy you can take a whole tube in one go.
The boxes double the fun .


I still love em . In fact I think I will buy some for tonight .

 

[Kandor]

Mea Culpa

It was March 31st 1974...I remember it quite clearly as it was also my 22nd birthday.
The weather was really lousy that night, cold, dark, pouring with rain.
It didn't matter though, I had a great time down the Costermongers where not only had I thrashed my buddy Steve on that old Shuffleboard table, I had also gotton off with a lovely young Nurse called Wendy.
Well Steve and me walked these two girls off to the bustop then walked through the market area at the back of 'Oasis' to catch the 55 bus home..(no car in those days I'm afraid)
I remember bursting out into a John Denver song called 'I am the Eagle'
I think I'd got as far as 'am' when two coppers stepped out of a doorway and said to me..'you're nicked'
Well ok, I DO sound like a duck farting in the fog but to be arrested for singing just two notes? even I didn't think I was THAT bad.
They took me down to Steelhouse Lane where they charged me for disturbance of the peace in a residential area..
I had my belt and shoelaces taken off me so I couldn't hang myself
(like THATS going to happen!) then they threw me into Chokey...(made it Ma, top of the world)
I was bailed to appear before 'da beak' the very next morning..hmm..I only have to think about crime and I start writing like a criminal..
Now the next day in court I noticed while waiting if you pleaded guilty you were bound over to keep the peace for a year and fined a tenner...
yet if you pleaded innoncence you not only lost that days wages but you had to appear another day which meant the loss of TWO days wages plus of course you could still be found guilty.
So the Cloik to da justices....(hmmm) asked how I wished to plead..Mrs Robinsons beautiful child...answered back 'not guilty'
I had to re-appear a few weeks later where I stood up in court glared this idiot of a JP right in the peepers and asked him 'how long had the back of Oasis been a residential area?'
I also told him that if it was a crime to sing two notes on a mans birthday then we lived in a sorry country indeed..
Da Boy got off with it...'Lefty Robinson' departed from the coight..(?)
a free man...Mea Culpa? nah...I was innocent.

 

[Jerry]

criminal records

I know how you feel kandor, the only criminal record I've got is Max Bygraves greatest hits

 

[Kandor]

Singa longa braindeath.

Oh man! I've never had a record that bad! now MY Donny Osmond records are fabulous...!
That reminds me, what's small, brown and round and sings in a tree?
Des O'conker 8)

 

[Jerry]

The trouble with music

Donny who?
Seriously though ( well not that seriously) this exchange has brought back memories of my youth and why I hate Cliff Richard.
It was 1960, I was 15 years old and living in Grange Road, Small Heath and I was in love with a girl named Pauline Keogh ( not sure of the spelling) who lived in Hawkes Street.
But Pauline didn't love me ( ahh! ) she'd only got eyes for my best pal Jimmy Worrall.
But true love will sharpen the dullest wit! I hatched a cunning plan.
You see Pauline was absolutely bananas about Cliff Richard, who was the biggest thing in Britpop at the time so I took myself off to the local newsagents where there was on sale a book/magazine devoted to the aforesaid Richard boy.
My plan was to purchase said magazine and present it to said object of my desire, thus showing her what a kind and thoughtful person I was and persuading her that I was the only person worthy of her affections (pretty nifty plan hey?).
Now this magazine cost 10shillings and sixpence - for any youngsters in the audience thats 52 1/2 pence in kilos.
That may not seem like a lot but since I was only earning about three quid a week and I only had about a pound to my name at the time, it represented a huge capital investment to me.
So throwing caution to the winds I purchased what I thought would be the key to her heart, took it to her house and presented it to her.
Well what can I tell you? She oohd, she ahhd, she gushed, she swooned, she clutched it to her bosom ( the book, idiot, not me, - try to keep up! )
She said "that's the nicest thing anyone ever bought me and I'll never forget it"
I said " will you come out with me next weekend?" and she said "no" so I said "why not?" and she said "because I love Jimmy worrall and I'd never go out with anyone except him"
So I went home, alone and broken and broke.
That's why I hate Cliff Richard and newsagents and Jimmy Worrall and let's see, who else is there?...Oh yeah! The French.

 

[postie]

Jerry
You can't hate Jimmy Worrall, he was a good mate of mine, lived in the flats in Green Lane. :wink:

 

[Jerry]

Musical memories

Hi postie,
I know JW was a pal of yours as well - we've talked about it before on the old virtual brum forums - I did say I wasn't that serious. :wink:

 

[postie]

HI Jerry
I know, mate nobody could hate Jimmy.
did he have a sister named Winnie ?. :?

 

[Jerry]

Hi postie
Jimmy Worrall did have a sister but i can't remember what her name was.
That's brought back another memory you might enjoy.
we were fourteen and Jimmy's mum had let him skive off school, which she often did, I was playing truant, which I often did.
We were in Jimmy's flat when there was a knock on the door, next thing Jimmy's mum rushed in to say it was the school board man, come to see why jim wasn't at school - again!
Panic stations, Jim had to whip his clothes off and get into bed and I hid under the bed!
Jim's mum brought the school board man in and showed him Jim in his sick bed and he went away happy.
Now it occurs to me, if the local authorities could send school board inspectors around to check on kids then, why can't they do it now?. It might solve some of the problems that we all know about.

 

[Kandor]

In the beginning

Mom was born and raised in Tyne Dock, South Shields.
She lived in Ocean Rd a few hundred yards away from where Catherine Cookson was born..the year was 1920.
My family by all accounts had a pretty tough time of it back then, the North East has always been a traditionally poor area and the great depression on top of that only made matters worse.
One of my great Uncles even took part in the famous 'Jarrow March'
Jarrow is just a few short miles from Shields and the March itself drew people from all around those areas.
Mom was 19 years old when the War broke out and she had a choice of war work or joining the services...
Mom chose war work and found herself in 1941 living in Digs near Nechells.
It was that year she met Dad, I think they got on pretty well together, so well in fact Mom found herself pregnant 8) with my eldest sister Norma..
Birmingham was being bombed quite heavily back then and my silly Dad told my Mom to go back home to Shields with Norma as it would be safer up there.
South Shields and Tyne Dock made Warships...it was bombed almost every night..
Irony and my Dad were strangers throughout his whole life..
Dad who was from a small farm called Forge Mills (which was compulsory purchased to build Hams Hall power station) had lived in Nechells nearly 20 years by then.
Dad knew there was no real future up the North East..so Birmingham became our home and I was bought up in its brightest jewel...my Nechells.

 

[Peter Walker]

In the beginning

My mum almost told me that my beginning was on the Uplands at Handsworth. My dad was a 22-year old student at Saltley Teachers' Training College at the time, living at 62 Grasmere Road. My mum was a 21-year old typist at the Council House, living at 57 Grasmere Road, directly opposite.
I thank Heaven for the twinkle in his eye.
Peter

 

[Kandor]

Mom never knew her real Father..by all accounts he was a foreign Sailor visiting the port of South Shields..
He met up with my Nan and the rest they say..'is history'
Mom was born on December 12th 1920..
Nan met and married 'Wattie' a Shipworker who by all accounts often referred to Mom as that 'little redhaired B......d'
Mom left home at 14 because her life was so bad..
She went to work on a Farm in Cheshire...the work was hard but the Farmer and his wife was very kind to her...something Mom hadn't got too much experience of...
She lived there for 6 years then when faced with either War work or the Services Mom moved to Birmingham..
My brother told me a story this morning..one I'd never heard.
The farmer had an old Horse which had really come to the end of it's useful working life..
He summoned the 'Kn...kerman' to take the Horse away..I think you had to pay for this service..
My Mom told my Brother that the Farmer told the Kn..kerman that he had to bring back this Horses distinctive Forelock..
The Farmer loved his old Horse and knew of many cases where the Horse after supposedly being sold on for slaughter would often find itself worked pitilessly for as long as it's health would allow it...hence..him asking for the leg..
Mom, I also found out this morning, at first fell for my Uncle Les which never worked out so she then turned to my Father Jack..
I found out today my Mom loved two Les Robinsons..but only one loved her.....how I miss her...

 

[John Young]

Touched

I touch my Forelock to Your Mother & You,,,Sir

You are your Mothers child,,Please Never grow up,,,
Best Regards,,, m8 John

 

[Pomgolian]

Les you have enough love for your Mom to make up for a trillion 'Les Robin SON s' and many more too.

Chris

 

[Kandor]

On one of my more recent postings Cromwell made a point on how they tore down our area of Birmingham.
I think I'm one of just a handful on here who was raised in Gods own glorious suburb of Nechells.
Trouble is, Nechells is gone...or at least 90% of it.
Today people on here request photographs of where they grew up as children..and those distant memories go back sometimes over 60 years.
Then sure enough, one of the really helpful people on here go off and take a few pictures of where that person lived and then post them on the net.
People like me and Graham can't do that..
All we have is faded memories of a place that was destroyed.
And sure enough, lots of it should have been.
But to take apart those beautiful Victorian houses in Ashted Row was a crime to say the least.
Lots of us have seen those 'Back to backs'...well let me tell you, parts of Ashted Row deserved that honour at least.
I can't remember living in Cromwell St as I was only 2 when I left, but I remember Ashted Row clearly, I also remember the long walk to Cromwell St School.
Nechells started off quite small, there was certainly no mention of it in the Doomsday Book and even up to 1730 the whole place consisted of only 4 farms and one cottage. (obtained from 'Virtual Brum')
Then the 1800's arrived and Nechells expanded beyond belief as only 120 years later 30,000+ people lived in Nechells and Duddeston alone..
But that was 'way back then' and in truth, my posting is really just about 'then' and by that I mean the late 50's/early 60's
Cromwell and me, we can't go visit our old haunts, well apart from the Nechells Library, Cromwell St School, the Public Baths and St Mathews Church we cant.
It's silly really, I drive down differently named roads that trace precisely where Willis St or where Ashted Row used to be and all I get is that strange emptiness in me, that aching sense of loss that among all these shiny new buildings that dont seem to last 5 minutes, my dreams and childhood are woven beneath the new concrete and glass..
I sometimes pull up outside where my old house used to be and my eyes are burned by a 14 storey block of flats crushing down on my childhood,
The main road where my brother Peter aged 5 was knocked over by a passing car is now a Cul-de-sac called Finstall Close and yet it was once a main artery out of the City..as Children we watched and waited for the 'new' one man operated bus's, they carried the numbers 55 and 56 as they thundered down the road..
Our pleasures were very simple back then..
I remember walking down Willis St to get to my School, crossing the incredibly busy Gt Lister St....another major road out of the city..
My brother went to Lupin St School, long gone now...
The Ashted Picture house?...that was torn down, along with its Rats and its Fleas..
Down the junction by Bloomsbury St and Newdegate St stood the Co-op..one of Birminghams oldest..demolished by the march of time.
Please show me a better building with more character.
No, my suburb is a place of ghosts and memories, in my mind they live on but my mind is fading and so are the pictures..
This is why it's so important to write down who we are on here, to post our memories so that people years from now understand and know..
The stories of our days.

 

[Alf]

Having read your most interesting posting Les