Scribers Lane, Hall Green-Ford & Printers

[svrman]

Hello everyone, this is my first post on here so I hope this is in the right place.

Does anyone have any information on the small printing business that was just up from the ford in Scribers Lane, near the shop corner--I think it was probably closed in the 70s. The owner (alf?) may have previously worked at The Institute Works which was near by.

Can anyone tell me when the road was closed by turning each end into a cul de sac. I can remember people washing their cars in the ford on Sundays in the 60s.

Great pic here https://80.249.57.37/cs/Satellite?c...240197390&pagename=BCC/Common/Wrapper/Wrapper
(Link appears to be broken)
Sam

 

[BernardR]

It was closed some years back. As for that site saying it was due to cars not making it through - as I recall the story was actually that the council decided it was too costly to keep it repaired properly. My late in laws lived not far from there and it was on my regular bike run as a kid.

 

[svrman]

It was unusual in that it was a long passage through the ford, not as narrow as most fords, so i think several cars discovered the 'Prince of Darkness' esp if they were a bit heavy with the right foot.

A 29a Bus nearly made it one day but was stopped by the railway bridge-marks are still there!

 

[susensmith]

My Grandfather had a printing business down Scribers Lane , his name was Wilf Churchill.

 

[Sten Thomas]

I used to frequent Scribers Lane ford in the early 1950's, where we would all congregate in the evenings. I remember Joe Reynolds, Johnny Lowe, Johnny Eacock, Frances Treeby and Barbara and Dorothy Bates and many others.

It was (and still is) next to Tritiford Mill Park, which was originally a mill pool in the eighteenth century, where my dad often went fishing on a summer's evening. There was a tennis court and you could also hire a rowing boat for sixpence (2.5p), and there was a big wooden refreshment hut. I did go back just a few years ago, but the place was all overgrown and neglected.

Back to 1953 however, and I once I met a girl there named Joan who said she had come from Oddingley near Droitwich to stay with her cousin for a weeek in Yardley Wood, and to go and see her if I wished. She was 14 and I was 16. Sometime later I had my first motorbike - a pre-war Velocette GTP - and one Sunday afternoon on a sudden whim I set off. When I got there she was playing with other girls in the lane, and we walked down to the canal bridge and chatted. It was all so innocent in those days!

I went to see her again and wrote to her, but nothing came of our early friendship. I did go back some years later for old times sake, but apparently she had married young and moved away. I still have her photograph, and often wonder when I look at it how our lives may have taken a different path together if things had blossomed all those years ago, or even if she is still alive, and I'm 88 now.