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Royal visits to Birmingham

What really great pictures , some of them seem 3D, you can imagine yourself there 33yrs before you were born, #42/1, are those two lady's being accosted by the chap in a cap and a big moustache, "Peaky Blinder"??Paul
 
Hi All.

Having been a police officer and ending my service at the airport I have witnessed a few royal visits some of which I will probably mention from time to time.

There was the occasion when the Princess Royal arrived by helicopter at the police sports ground, Tally Ho. The preparations beforehand included a complete clean up of the building and redecoration and carpeting of the ladies toilet

On arrival the Princess alighted from the helicopter walked across to her waiting car and drove off. She was at Tally Ho all of 2 minutes. Rather a waste of money do you not think. Nevermind it was only the ratepayers money.

Old Boy
 
Found in my diary that on Friday 24th May 1963 I saw the Queen and Prince Philip in Birmingham City Centre at Snow Hill (station?) and outside the Council House. Town was crowded. I guess that the visit was for a specific reason, e.g. opening a public building, but not sure what is was. Do we have access to the Birmingham Post for that day and the day after? Dave.
 
The 24th May 1963 was the official opening of The Queensway and it was opened by HM the Queen & the Duke of Edinburgh. They also toured the market as the Bull Ring Centre was not then completed.
 

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I was one of the first group of students to attend the new building of Birmingham College of Food and Domestic Arts in Summer Row when it opened in 1967.
I remember The Duke of Edinburgh at its Official opening sometime in the Autumn of that year. We had to line the corridors in our Catering whites.
 
I remember the Queen and Duke coming down Icknield St. I was working at Bulpitts at the time and went out to see them go right by the office where I worked, which was opposite Payne's shoe repairs and Morgans fish and chip shop (Just before the Gate pub).
 
maggieuk said:
Hi all hope i am posting this in the right place..does anyone know if there was a royal visit to Birmingham in the late 50s or very early 60s. i remember standing in Lodge rd Hockley with a crowd of people all waving Union Jacks, but being young at the time i cant remember what is was about..and its driving me mad trying to remember.:)
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I Remember a royal visit back in the early 60s My School took us to see the Queen drive through, the Birchfield Road. Underpass.
 
Not sure if this adds anything much to this thread -- I'm a newbie here, so apologies if I've missed anything in a quick read-through (there's so-ooooo much to read, forum-wide, here: amazing.)

If it's of any interest, I remember how we Birmingham Post editorial staff decamped from the quirky, shabby labyrinth on New Street to this utterly astonishing futuristic. . . skyscraper thingie. . .in (I think?) Colmore Circus. We left the old soot-stained New Street brickwork behind for a dazzling edifice of chrome and glass with an inner atrium as modernistic as the 20th Century was ever likely to get. Tradition, however, was not discarded, and thus Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon arrived in either September or October of 1965 to officially open this landmark building. They toured the bright airy interior, met the various department heads, even said hello to me in my role as a suddenly petrified copyboy who nearly dropped AP wire despatches all over the floor.

Sadly, I now learn that this landmark was to have as finite a time-span as the century in which it was born. I find that hard to believe, though not quite as unbelievable as the realisation that the newspaper which I knew is no longer today what it was back then, member of a trio of major, influential, daily titles: The Yorkshire Post, Manchester Guardian . . . and The Birmingham Post. :(
 
Hello PastTrack. The visit was on the 26th October 1965. There is a short YouTube clip that records the visit. You may even spot yourself amongst the staff on that day. May be a few adverts at the beginning. See link below. Dave.

 
Oh. . . My. . . God. Unbelievable . . . Pathe News from the days when YouTube represented merely a choice between London Underground or hailing a black cab. However did you find this??? Thank you so very much, farmerdave: treasure beyond compare. Having just gotten over the shock of seeing the building as I remember it, I've moved frame by frame through the footage in hope of glimpsing myself. Huh. Apparently I wasn't as worthy of immortalising as all those elderly duffers shuffling around Margaret. Still, seeing yourself as you were, rather than as how you like to think you may've been, might well have proved terminally traumatic, so it's all for the best.

What's so luvvly about the footage is the lingering shot of one of the copytakers banging away at a typewriter as a reporter in some distant GPO phone box dictates a story penned in Halesowen, and then there's the sight of the Press Hall where the Evening Mail was running at 30,000 copies an hour -- good God: 30,000? -- and the typesetters and packing and despatch. There's also something delicious about the sight of Margaret being told that actually, ma'am, a newspaper dark room can develop and prints photographs a lot faster than Boots the Chemist.

Many, many thanks, farmerdave. An unexpected joy!!
 
Hello PastTrack. Glad you like it and it certainly makes very interesting footage. Sorry that you were not on the recording. I have to admit that I didn't do anything spectacular to find it. I just googled "Princess Margaret visits Birmingham 1965" and there it was. Things have certainly changed in the newspaper industry now that we are in a digital age. Dave.
 
They certainly have changed, Dave. I'm trying hard not to say, "and not for the better", because that's the utterance of an old grouch. But really . . . Birmingham in the days when the presses thundered and the building vibrated and all news was (fairly) genuine and only the birds. . . tweeted . . . Mmmm. My wife's looking at the video now and has just pronounced thus on my nostalgia: "Ah, that Antony Armstrong-Jones though. What a dish he was!" Never even bothered to see if my even more illustrious self was anywhere in camera shot. I dunno. Women. :(
 
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle visited Birmingham today in order to support International Women's Day (more and equal rights for women). They met onlookers at Millenium Point, a venue which is described as a knowledge centre. I don't think I've ever been there, even in recent years. Dave.
 
Unfortunately - as is so often with photos - the lettering is a little blurred. However, the sign in the upstairs windows looks rather like the words CALEDONIAN CENTRE. Someone, hopefully, will 'magic' it all and give more detail. :D
 
The Queen visited BBC Pebble Mill in 1981 according to the Birmingham Mail so it must be somewhere near there. My friend Google did help ... :rolleyes:
 
Could be Broad Street, where The Brasshouse is now? If so, everything to the left was demolished and later Brindleyplace was built there.

Broad St Brasshouse.jpg
 
The building in Ellbrown's post does look very similar although more renovated than the original. Anyway, wherever it is it was pretty windy that day for sure.
 
Compare the windows in both the old photo and the Google screenshot! All that's changed is the window panes, and the buildings to the left are different.
 
Looks spot on to me. Thanks all. I remember the visit very well. Watched her travel around Suffolk Street Queensway (don't know it's new nane) as we all looked down from the 24th floor of Alpha Tower. We could see down into her car as it had a glass roof. Viv.
 
ellbrown said:
Compare the windows in both the old photo and the Google screenshot! All that's changed is the window panes, and the buildings to the left are different.
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I think you have definitely found the location. The windows have been modernised but the surrounding stone work is exactly the same. She did visit Pebble Mill at some time on that day as seen below ...
The-Queen-in-Birmingham-4.jpg
 
Were those buildings demolished sometime in the 1980s then?

Think HM's last visit was in 2015 to open the new New Street Station and Dental Hospital. Before that 2012 to Victoria Square during the Diamond Jubilee.

Viv: Suffolk Street Queensway is still called that! The end near the Alpha Tower will be unrecognisable once all the building work is finished!
 
oldMohawk said:
I think you have definitely found the location. The windows have been modernised but the surrounding stone work is exactly the same. She did visit Pebble Mill at some time on that day as seen below ...
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It appears to have a good 'wash and brush up' as well which shows it to good effect and emphasises how elegant the building is.
 
ellbrown said:
Were those buildings demolished sometime in the 1980s then?

Think HM's last visit was in 2015 to open the new New Street Station and Dental Hospital. Before that 2012 to Victoria Square during the Diamond Jubilee.

Viv: Suffolk Street Queensway is still called that! The end near the Alpha Tower will be unrecognisable once all the building work is finished!
Click to expand...

cant say when they were demolished ell but they are not there now:Dshame really as the buildings down the passage looked interesting

lyn
 
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