COMPRESSORMAN
master brummie
sorry if I ranted.
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OLD BIRMINGHAM PHOTOS FROM STEVEBHx
- Thread starter SteveBhx
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brondrange
HOCKLEY BORN
Holloway Head, corner of Marshall St. The Greyhound is now a bar/pub (or was).
trevor bow
master brummie
Hi Steve,
A very late reply, more of an enquiry actually, but were all the photos rescued from the planning department, or was it too late. It's unbelievable that the whole lot would have all been thrown away but for your and others efforts to save them. Well done !
SteveBhx
master brummie
Hi Trevor, these photos were all stored in a room in the Basement at Baskerville House (Broad Street), there was a large cabinet with slide trays, all the colour pictures are from them, not all slides were saved, it was a case of a quick hold up to the light and save it, the pictures were all on sheets and put in albums, the same process, quick look and remove. Not a foolproof method, I believe I have a large amount of slide due to Mr Norton, who had a copy of Geoffs slides so we arranged for him to scan mine and upload both sets to disk. Regarding the pictures, you have seen all mine, I assume Geoff has some, and I am aware someone else has a selection but I am no longer in touch with them. As you say, luckily they were saved by us but if anything was held elsewhere they would have been scrapped either then or even before that. Hope that helps Steve
trevor bow
master brummie
Hi Steve,
Thanks for your informative reply and as you say,if they had been stored somewhere else then it's likely the lot would have been binned. But actually, couldn't someone, perhaps yourself, have asked the planning department if you could take the lot ? Or was there the usual beaurocratic red tape that prevented this ?
On a tangent, a mate ofmine in the 70's gave me some photos he'dgotfrom the planning office and a list of others. I'll find them and post them soon.
SteveBhx
master brummie
Good point Trevor, and with hindsight a good idea - but at the time, I and perhaps others did not connect the importance or the interest these sort of images would generate. ( I totally agree with your comment - its not seen as a "dig" )
There was also a change in working practises - the majority of the black and white images were in support of advert applications - a shop applying to have an advert on their building would submit an application to the council and someone would go out and take a picture of the building and the position of the advert was then drawn on the picture with a chinagraph pencil and this was used in the planning process , Two changes stopped this firstly the advert section was combined into the general day to day planning applications and secondly as a cost saving excersise the photos were stopped hence the picture disappeared and with a rolling cut off date applications could be disposed of.
There was also a space issue each planning / advert application has a number of paper pages,this all took space I cannot recall why the advert picture were kept seperate but these were all to be thrown - no one was interested.
One final point - these were not seen as historic, while major changes were happening who would want a black and white picture of an old shop
There was also a change in working practises - the majority of the black and white images were in support of advert applications - a shop applying to have an advert on their building would submit an application to the council and someone would go out and take a picture of the building and the position of the advert was then drawn on the picture with a chinagraph pencil and this was used in the planning process , Two changes stopped this firstly the advert section was combined into the general day to day planning applications and secondly as a cost saving excersise the photos were stopped hence the picture disappeared and with a rolling cut off date applications could be disposed of.
There was also a space issue each planning / advert application has a number of paper pages,this all took space I cannot recall why the advert picture were kept seperate but these were all to be thrown - no one was interested.
One final point - these were not seen as historic, while major changes were happening who would want a black and white picture of an old shop
Richard Dye
master brummie
Steve, I think you make a number of really good and interesting points, the lack of any foresight of the potential historic nature and of course the black’ & white.Good point Trevor, and with hindsight a good idea - but at the time, I and perhaps others did not connect the importance or the interest these sort of images would generate. ( I totally agree with your comment - its not seen as a "dig" )
There was also a change in working practises - the majority of the black and white images were in support of advert applications - a shop applying to have an advert on their building would submit an application to the council and someone would go out and take a picture of the building and the position of the advert was then drawn on the picture with a chinagraph pencil and this was used in the planning process , Two changes stopped this firstly the advert section was combined into the general day to day planning applications and secondly as a cost saving excersise the photos were stopped hence the picture disappeared and with a rolling cut off date applications could be disposed of.
There was also a space issue each planning / advert application has a number of paper pages,this all took space I cannot recall why the advert picture were kept seperate but these were all to be thrown - no one was interested.
One final point - these were not seen as historic, while major changes were happening who would want a black and white picture of an old shop
trevor bow
master brummie
Good point Trevor, and with hindsight a good idea - but at the time, I and perhaps others did not connect the importance or the interest these sort of images would generate. ( I totally agree with your comment - its not seen as a "dig" )
There was also a change in working practises - the majority of the black and white images were in support of advert applications - a shop applying to have an advert on their building would submit an application to the council and someone would go out and take a picture of the building and the position of the advert was then drawn on the picture with a chinagraph pencil and this was used in the planning process , Two changes stopped this firstly the advert section was combined into the general day to day planning applications and secondly as a cost saving excersise the photos were stopped hence the picture disappeared and with a rolling cut off date applications could be disposed of.
There was also a space issue each planning / advert application has a number of paper pages,this all took space I cannot recall why the advert picture were kept seperate but these were all to be thrown - no one was interested.
One final point - these were not seen as historic, while major changes were happening who would want a black and white picture of an old shop
Hi Steve,
You've made some very good points. Who would be bothered to save any photos when they were seen as of no interest and only took up space ? Thankfully, yourself and one two others managed to save a lot of them.
Apparently, something similar happened when Mason College, next to the old Reference Library, were both demolished by the Council vandals in the 1960's and early 70's. Clearing out the College, someone noticed some old photos of Birmingham and managed to save a few, but an awful lot were just thrown away. I suppose no one thinks at the time how interesting photos will be in the future.
hi trevor it would be great if when time permits you could share your photos with us...many thanks
lyn
Pete Elliott
master brummie
Yes Lyn, we will all enjoy looking at these fantastic slices of our history, I for one would definitely want to time travel back to see my long gone family, I’ve researched back to 14th century and would like get a hand me down suit of armour, but in the mean time these photos are invaluable, and thanks Steve
Pete, how did you get back so far, Im stuck in the 1700s
Pete Elliott
master brummie
Hi Carolina, I’ve been using the myheritage site and it’s been fairly straightforward back tracking, the main problem I’ve found is if a name and date has at some point been entered incorrectly, such as a person born before their mother so it throws other known details out. Can I ask in what way you are getting stuck
Pete
Im on Ancestry and some members just copy info from other trees without checking and paperwork to confirm, which I dont do as it can lead you down a wrong path, so its getting this type of info without paperwork is why Im stuck. I did find the treechecker (when it was free) very helpful as it did pick up my mistakes and double entries
Pete Elliott
master brummie
Hi Lyn thanks for your message , I’ve spoken to Carolina via direct message so as to not go off topic regarding her enquiry, thanks again
Surely if there are errors so extreme as that , then that whole batch of information (tree) should be regarded as very dubious and likely to be wrong
COMPRESSORMAN
master brummie
HERITAGE was sold recently for $4.7billions to AMERICAN Blackstone so u can expect more ANOMALIES as u have described as people add to ur family tree without real knowledge, how does data protection come into all this when the Govt sell our information, ANCESTRY PRIVACY LAWS ARE A JOKE. I have my grandfather married to his daughter in law for one cockup, so anyone in say 50 yrs time reading it will feel what went on here then. Only because most of recent is in my era or parents I know whats right and wrong. People are paying for nonsense and WILL only get worse.
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