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One favourite fact about Birmingham

The rag market always had some useful things have never seen another market quite the same. My dad always got the turkey from the indoor meat market.
 
Yes, Goffy, I remember the old lady at the bottom of the market steps in the Bull Ring selling her paper carrier bags and calling out "andy carrier!". My dad had treated me to a bag of 'penny winks' from the fish market and he used to enjoy a dish of jellied eels.

Not to stray from the thread though; my favourite place is the Birmingham Art Gallery which I used to visit as a child, the statue of Epstein's Angel in the foyer used to scare:shocked: me, and then, years later, I would visit in my lunch hour when working in town. I later learnt from my Aunt that my Great Grandfather who was a bricklayer, helped to build the Art Gallery.:cool:
 
Thank you Anthea, It was "andy carrier" that she used to shout out. dont know where my "carrier bags" came from.
 
Rupert, It is the front of the Market i could`nt forget the 2 columns at the entrance you went up steps to go in, the clock was above, the clock was put there after 1834.
 
Rupert, The clock that stood above the Market officies, until it was bombed on th night of 25/26 August 1940 was known as "Percy`s Clock". the clock was built in 1883 by W. Potts of Leeds and was placed in the Imperial Arcade, Dale End. the dial was 5ft in diameter, and had an area of 18sq ft, the 4 figures represented the Earl of Warwick, his Wife, a retainer and a Saracen. the 2 inner larger figures were 7.5 ft tall. in 1936 Percy Shurmer insisted that the clock which had been broken for 20yrs be repaired and installed in the Market Hall this was done and delighted adults and children until it was destroyed in the Blitz in 1940. Percy said "That after the war a similar clock in Munich should replace it, they knocked ours to bits, lets have theirs to square it up!!", was his solution, Percy was a well respected Councillor and did a lot for the poor and children of Birmingham.
 
lencops, I am not absolutely sure but I think that the back was much the same as the front. Anyway the picture that you posted is either back to front or of the rear of the building because the slope is the wrong way.
 
I think the problem with the photo is that it's interposed. i.e. printed mirror image. in my memory the hall was on the right hand side of the road going down the hill so the picture is, as they would say, 'ass backards' E.
 
Like Di, I think Aston Hall and park have to be my favourite. I spent so many hours in the park from childhood, through to courting, married at Aston Parish Church opposite, and then pushed my son in his pram around the park, and then pushed him on the swings. How many other industrial cities have a Stately Home in their midst?
 
Talking about the Market, does anyone remember the unexploded bomb at the bottom of the steps? it was made into a large 'money box' to collect money for I think the forces benevolent fund.
 
I think that the best thing going for we Brummies is that we are not Cockneys....thank God.

Big Gee

PS: Nick, I do remember the bomb. I wonder what happened to it?
 
Hi Eric, Thanks, The Market Hall now looks correct after your work on the photo, although it was at the top of hill the steps & floor were horizontal, the other clue is there were not many barrow boys & traders, if any, at the rear of the hall which was in Worcester St, this may be of interest, my Father used to have his shirts & starched collars made at a shop named Beaumonts in Worcester St.
 
I remember and love all those things and places that have been mentioned so far but one of favourite memories is personal to me. I am sure, however, that you all have such places. It is the first place I remember playing in as a child; our back yard.
Once outside our house my world was the back yard; a garden really, we had flower beds. At the far end from the house was a great high wall which was, in fact the end wall of the Trotter's house.
It was here against this wall that family photographs were taken. In the 1940’s me with Laddy, our dog, Johnny Wells in a sack; in the late 1950’s, Dad and Mom with her four brothers, Doris and Joe, Rene and Roy, Olive and Dennis’s neurotic dog.
To the left at the end was the big gate. The big gate was about six foot high and about twelve foot wide; two gates that opened inwards. Later, in the 1950’s it was replaced by a wall and a single gate. From the gate to our house there was a six foot wall. Beyond the wall and the big gate was the Barracks.
Opposite the big gate on the right of the garden was a small gate which led into the Rudhall’s garden next door. From that gate to the house was another wall about six foot high. I played in a walled garden.
As I said, we had flower beds. Against the big wall at the end, along the wall dividing our garden from Rudhall’s as far as the drain opposite the back door, a narrow strip from the drain to the house and another small strip opposite this under the living room window. I can’t remember what grew in the garden at that time (at that age I didn’t know the name of flowers) except that there was plenty of chickweed which I fed to the chickens and in the narrow strip opposite the living room, there were ferns. There may have been marigolds and lupins. I remember rhubarb.
Nothing was grown under the big wall until later. It was there that I would play with my lead soldiers, turning the patch into an ever changing landscape in which I regularly found fragments of clay pipes and mother of pearl shells from forgotten button makers.
The chickens were kept in an area that was fenced off with wire netting along the wall on the left. I know we collected their eggs but if we ate the chickens, I was never told.
Tiny chicks could be bought from a shop in Wheeler Street. They were kept in the living room at first in the hearth of the black leaded grate.
Some years later we dug up the shared Anderson shelter from Rudhall's garden and erected it as a shed were the chickens had been.
 
My most favourite fact is this lady, Jessie Copsey was my Mother, L/Hand photo taken when she was 18yrs young, she crotcheted the collar she wearing herself she was very proud of it, R/Hand photo, she opened a shop in the front room of our terraced house the year i was born (1929) and it was open until 1966, she sold all sorts food & non food products some of which can be seen in the photo, she was a loving, caring, hard working Mother to her family of 3 Daughters & 4 Sons, she lived to be 88yrs young and had Beer at Home with Davenports!, i miss her, RIP Mom.
 
My grand parents on Williams Street had an air raid shelter. As a child my nan had the largest blackberries I have ever seen, growing over it. Behind that was the only lavatory she had which was at the top of the garden, but she had her own and didn't have to share it. It was surrounded by bushes and under them was Lily of the Valley the blooms were magnificent. The soil must have been very good, as everything seemed to grow much larger than today. Maybe it was the soot she put on the garden. :) Mo

Lovely photos of your mom nothing can replace those memories.
 
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Hi Sakura, Our Anderson shelter was planted with tomato, marrow and cucumbers plants by my Dad, we kids collected horse droppings which we put in a open topped 5 gl can, covered with water left to stand until my Dad thought it was ready and he would put the liquid on the plants and we had some very nice, fresh veggies to help out our rations. Thanks for your comments about my Mom`s photo`s. i do treasure them.
 
I've been watching a programme for a few weeks now called Wartime Winter and this week it was about where they grew extra Veggies to help the rations and they were using a Anderson Shelter.:)
 
Our memories from our childhood are so different to those of when we are grown up. We used the go catching tiddlers in a pond behind the Oxhill Road cemetery. After the corn was cut in the fields we would build dens in the hay. Great fun on a warm summers day. :)Mo
 
Yes we did that in the same pond and kept them in the garden until we had frogs at which time they would jump out of the dish they were in. :)Mo
 
At the top of the road i live in, there was manor house with a big ornamental pool with a Japanese type bridge when the site was being cleared circa 1937 to build house`s, we kids would go and catch small fish and newts, about 10yrs ago a friend had a colony of Red Crested Newt`s? in his garden and when he wanted to sell his house prospective buyers had to be told about the newts and they would have to protect them from harm, there quite severe penaltys if you don`t.
 
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We have a small pond in our garden with lots of lots of newts and frogs. When I was a lad I remember newting at Perry Hall Park but it's great to have them in my own garden now
 
One of my favourite memories of Birmingham is looking down from the top of our street (when we had got home after being away on holiday) and seeing the GPO tower with two red lights on top flashing at us. We then knew we were truly home.
 
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