OldBrummie
master brummie
Out of curiosity, does anyone know if there are any lists of ARP Wardens who served during WW2, specifically in Sheldon and on the knocker, Lyndon Road?
OldBrummie
OldBrummie
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Sheldon Bombing
- Thread starter Ian Leggett
- Start date
Emmarawlings46
Brummie babby
Hiya! I live on common lane, 86 it’s a bungalow right next to the flats on keeble grove, I was trying to picture where This photo is on common lane. I’m so desperate to know more about my home xx
Emmarawlings46
Brummie babby
Hiya! I was just hoping and wondering you could remember anything at all about my home, 86 common lane. It lays back a bit next to keeble grove. I love my home it has so much character, would love to know if anyone remembers anything about it!
Hello
I might be able to help. I look at this forum often but have only just come across your post. My grandparents moved into 86 around about 1932 just after it was built and rented it at first. Their names were Albert and Mabel Mobley and their daughter Brenda, my mother, was born there in 1933. Many family members lived there over the years including myself from 1956-62. Albert died in 1960 and some time after that Mabel bought the property staying there till her death in 1994 when it was sold on.
It was very different then to what it is now. The kitchen was a narrow add on to the whole left of the property from front to back separated by a door just by the bathroom window leading to a storage "corridor" and ending at a brick built coal house and then a door onto the garden.
Water came from a well just outside the coal house and had to be pumped by hand to a holding tank in the loft, I think the other bungalows next door used the same underground stream. In 1945 their eldest son Norman was demobbed and he with his wife and son moved in until 1947/48. Albert and Mabel moved out for that time with my mother to Norfolk and when they returned the well had been capped off and water was supplied by mains.
During his stay Norman converted the front of the building and the garage on the right hand side to a grocery shop probably selling anything anyone wanted. Mabel is in the first photo in front of the window which is now the front door. It was originally to the side directly behind Mabel. Albert and my father are in the second photo in the area used as the shop and you can see the garage extreme right.
The back garden was huge, much bigger than now stretching down to the ground that now has garages built on it. The building in this photo was the air raid shelter and housed chickens and geese. You can see how big the garden was from the plan. I played with a girl named Diane Hollowood who lived in a bungalow further down the lane on the same side and they had brick built pigstys in the back garden.
What is now the loft space was converted into a bedroom with a dormer window in the roof at the back.
Number 84 was home to Mr and Mrs Turner, and 82 was home to the Griffiths who ran a haulage firm from the property and as you can see from the map their ground was enormous housing their wagons.
I've enjoyed my ramble down memory lane so I hope this helps.
Steven
Attachments
Emmarawlings46
Brummie babby
Omg this is amazing!!!! I adore every last piece of info you have given!!!
One thing I want to ask - was there ever a “josie” around the bungalow?
I absolutely adore this house and it’s always had a wonderful vibration. I’m 34 but i have an old soul, so I like vintage items, and we grow veg and stuff, and I know this sounds odd but I feel like we’re welcomed.
I love in one of the pictures there seems to be a porch infront of the house, I have always said a porch would be amazing on this house.
I adore the photos, I have a wall in the living room full of old vintage photos, and if you don’t mind I’d like to print them off and pop them up on the wall
In the photo of Mabel, why was she dressed like that? Do you know?
This msg has made my day honestly. I love the bones of this house so it means a lot to me knowing it’s history.
If you could reply that would be amazing
Oh and our cats called Norman hahaha.
Our cat is called Minstrel
I don't remember any Josie, certainly in the family.
The porch where my grandfather is sitting cross legged is actually now the front of the house and the window behind was inside that room, so the wall has been demolished and moved forward. The room was used as the "posh" room for evenings only. And where the black and white TV used to be. That room used to be very small and here is another photo I've found when it was used for the reception on my parents wedding 10th. October 1953.
Seated around the table are Albert and Mabel on the right and opposite is my fathers' mother in the light coat with her step mother next to her in the dark coat. She was born in 1876.
As for the way Mabel was dressed...........she was a very eccentric lady. She had a market stall in the old rag market in Birmingham and went every Tuesday and Saturday and continued to do this well into her old age. In fact the bungalow was packed pretty much in every corner nook and cranny with old clothes, shoes and second hand stuff, and more stuff, and more stuff. She started this "business" from moving into the place selling second hang goods up and down the lane and was close to Mrs. Knight at number 121.
The road was so quiet with very little traffic and much narrower than it is now and no buses. On the opposite side of the road was tall hedging in front of the houses with a footpath in between, and as I remember it was all the way from Church Road at the bottom to Barrows Lane at the top.
Albert and Mabel had one more son Stanley who you can see in the photo standing second from right with fair hair and his wife Lydia first from right in the dark coat. She was Italian and they met in Trieste when he was serving his national service and married in the Salesian Church Trieste 1st. December 1951. He journeyed back from Italy by motor cycle with Lydia on the back. The line in the photo just to his left shoulder is the gas main going up from the meter directly beneath on the floor in a covered box.
The window you see has the porch area behind.
I don't remember any Josie, certainly in the family.
The porch where my grandfather is sitting cross legged is actually now the front of the house and the window behind was inside that room, so the wall has been demolished and moved forward. The room was used as the "posh" room for evenings only. And where the black and white TV used to be. That room used to be very small and here is another photo I've found when it was used for the reception on my parents wedding 10th. October 1953.
Seated around the table are Albert and Mabel on the right and opposite is my fathers' mother in the light coat with her step mother next to her in the dark coat. She was born in 1876.
As for the way Mabel was dressed...........she was a very eccentric lady. She had a market stall in the old rag market in Birmingham and went every Tuesday and Saturday and continued to do this well into her old age. In fact the bungalow was packed pretty much in every corner nook and cranny with old clothes, shoes and second hand stuff, and more stuff, and more stuff. She started this "business" from moving into the place selling second hang goods up and down the lane and was close to Mrs. Knight at number 121.
The road was so quiet with very little traffic and much narrower than it is now and no buses. On the opposite side of the road was tall hedging in front of the houses with a footpath in between, and as I remember it was all the way from Church Road at the bottom to Barrows Lane at the top.
Albert and Mabel had one more son Stanley who you can see in the photo standing second from right with fair hair and his wife Lydia first from right in the dark coat. She was Italian and they met in Trieste when he was serving his national service and married in the Salesian Church Trieste 1st. December 1951. He journeyed back from Italy by motor cycle with Lydia on the back. The line in the photo just to his left shoulder is the gas main going up from the meter directly beneath on the floor in a covered box.
The window you see has the porch area behind.
Richard Dye
master brummie
Steven, thank you for your ramble down memory lane! It was most insightful and brought back many memories for me & I am sure others!
Richard
I have collected so much information from his forum over the years, it is a pleasure to be able to give something back. And it was nice remembering and once started it just seemed to flow. Thank you for nice nice words.
Emmarawlings46
Brummie babby
Just wow!!!! I absolutely love all of this! It makes my heart so warm!!!
Mabel is a woman after my own heart, I am just like her. I am always in the bham rag market, adore vintage and antiques, our house is full of quirky things! I can’t believe it actually... I just know she’s still about I’m sure of it! Lol
Oh wow, so that room where the reception was in now our bedroom. Did they just have the 1 bedroom at the back? It’s quite a big size.
And do you remember the fireplace? It’s a huge brick fireplace. I adore it, unfortunately there isn’t a working stove fire there it’s just a faux log fire one now.
I adore the photos, they are amazing. Thank you so much for sharing all this with me.
When I said it was very different years gone by, I mean it was nothing like it is now. I have seen the photos on Rightmove when it was last up for sale which how I can talk to you about it.
I have told you the front door was although at the front, obviously, it was just inside the porch and a long narrow hallway ran to the back of the bungalow which was very dark as you got to the back. The two rooms at the front were the living room to the left and the lounge come evening room to the right. There was no carpet anywhere, the floors were covered with linoleum and a rug in the middle. We took this outside once in while to hang over the washing line and beat the daylight out of the to get rid of the dirt.
On the back wall of each of these rooms was a chimney breast of the period and an open coal fire, I even remember that the coal man was named Osborne and their depot was in Charles Edward Road by the Swan Island at South Yardley.
We even had the bread delivered, and the pop delivered together with the beer and the laundry and someone else came round to sharpen the knives and other tools. Mabel was not much of a one for housework.
The room on the left had a doorway in the middle of the side wall to access the kitchen and the back boiler was here behind the fireplace . From what you say these two rooms have become your bedrooms and in the room where the reception was held there is a small box on the floor. Is this your gas meter, it used to be, and that is where the front wall and window stood.
The bathroom is I believe in the same place. There was no heating in this room and it was so cold in the winter I was lucky
and bathed in a tin tub in front of the fire in the front room to the left. Every one else was too big and had to suffer the cold.
The two rooms at the back were the two bedrooms. The one on the right was heated with a tiny gas fire on the back wall vented straight out through the wall into the garden. I believe this is now the kitchen.
The other room had a chimney breast and small gas fire but nothing like the alcove you have now, and this is the room my parents and I slept in. I had a small bed just by the chimney breast on the side away from the door.
I have remembered these details as if it was yesterday, but cannot remember what we were doing last week.
It pleases me greatly that you are getting something out of this.
I have told you the front door was although at the front, obviously, it was just inside the porch and a long narrow hallway ran to the back of the bungalow which was very dark as you got to the back. The two rooms at the front were the living room to the left and the lounge come evening room to the right. There was no carpet anywhere, the floors were covered with linoleum and a rug in the middle. We took this outside once in while to hang over the washing line and beat the daylight out of the to get rid of the dirt.
On the back wall of each of these rooms was a chimney breast of the period and an open coal fire, I even remember that the coal man was named Osborne and their depot was in Charles Edward Road by the Swan Island at South Yardley.
We even had the bread delivered, and the pop delivered together with the beer and the laundry and someone else came round to sharpen the knives and other tools. Mabel was not much of a one for housework.
The room on the left had a doorway in the middle of the side wall to access the kitchen and the back boiler was here behind the fireplace . From what you say these two rooms have become your bedrooms and in the room where the reception was held there is a small box on the floor. Is this your gas meter, it used to be, and that is where the front wall and window stood.
The bathroom is I believe in the same place. There was no heating in this room and it was so cold in the winter I was lucky
and bathed in a tin tub in front of the fire in the front room to the left. Every one else was too big and had to suffer the cold.
The two rooms at the back were the two bedrooms. The one on the right was heated with a tiny gas fire on the back wall vented straight out through the wall into the garden. I believe this is now the kitchen.
The other room had a chimney breast and small gas fire but nothing like the alcove you have now, and this is the room my parents and I slept in. I had a small bed just by the chimney breast on the side away from the door.
I have remembered these details as if it was yesterday, but cannot remember what we were doing last week.
It pleases me greatly that you are getting something out of this.
Hi Wendy led,
Marshall’s are still on common lane, I live next door to one, lovely bloke, I also know the owner of 97 too bills lad. I came here trying to find old photos of the road.
Mark Nicholls
Brummie babby
I have read through the whole thread and having been born in Greenfield House, Greenvale Avenue a few years after WW2, I didn't realize that there were bombs that landed on actual houses and buildings. All I knew was that my mother told me that the Germans dropped a couple of bombs in an attempt to hit the railway line near Marston Green. One of the bombs created a big hole called, very originally, "The Bomb Crater" next to the "Conker Dell" that was created as a result of the bomb. We spent a lot of our time in the Bomb Crater, sliding down the various slopes and wearing out our shorts and shoes. Does anyone recall the Bomb Crater?
It must be 20 years of constant searching the net that I finally found my holy grail. I often google the name of a place and add "old photographs" to the search and I often get some good results. For instance Common Lane Sheldon Birmingham. And it paid off with this photograph. Not just did I get Common Lane, but this is 86 and 100 Common lane from a postcard dated 1928. Keble Grove with its prefabs was constructed in 1945 runs between the two properties.
To recap from previous posts my grand parents moved there in 1930, my mother was born there a little after and my grandmother Mabel lived there until her death in 1994. I lived there from birth until 1962 but it had been Mabel's home for 62 years. But why would anyone produce a post card with such a scene? So I bought it on Ebay thinking it must have been written by someone in Common Lane. It was in fact written by Doreen from West Didsbury Manchester to Bee Warburton in Failsworth Manchester post marked 18 9 28, did not expect that!
But it is as I remember with the trees to the right and the road and paving un-surfaced, although by the time I was born the flat roofed houses had been built in the mid 30's.
The Electoral Roll for 1930 lists Albert and Mabel Mobley with the property having the name Madelon rather than a number. In 1928 the only properties in Common Lane were the bungalows built along the one side of the Lane so perhaps they all had names instead of numbers. As more and more properties were built they all had numbers by the time the 1939 Register was compiled.
To recap from previous posts my grand parents moved there in 1930, my mother was born there a little after and my grandmother Mabel lived there until her death in 1994. I lived there from birth until 1962 but it had been Mabel's home for 62 years. But why would anyone produce a post card with such a scene? So I bought it on Ebay thinking it must have been written by someone in Common Lane. It was in fact written by Doreen from West Didsbury Manchester to Bee Warburton in Failsworth Manchester post marked 18 9 28, did not expect that!
But it is as I remember with the trees to the right and the road and paving un-surfaced, although by the time I was born the flat roofed houses had been built in the mid 30's.
The Electoral Roll for 1930 lists Albert and Mabel Mobley with the property having the name Madelon rather than a number. In 1928 the only properties in Common Lane were the bungalows built along the one side of the Lane so perhaps they all had names instead of numbers. As more and more properties were built they all had numbers by the time the 1939 Register was compiled.
WildYorkie
New Member
Does anyone have any photos of Cranes Park Road from when the houses were built, names of the first residents and WW2 bombings.Not sure if this is the right place for this as it covers more than one topic re Silvermere R0ad school.
My Mom lived in Cranes Park Road ( Peggy Harris). She was at Silvermere around 1940, before Mapledene was built (1950). Never went to to Sivermere but remember going to an open day with my Mom in the early 1960s and her telling me of an unexploded bomb that got lodged in the stair railings between first and second floors. I remember viewing a staircase from the outside, which was facing Parkdale Road, which I assume had not been been fully built up at the time of the bombing? The attached street map shows where I think I remember my Mom explaining where the bomb had lodged.
My Moms younger brother later attended Silvermere (Michael Harris) though he was 13 years younger than my Mom - this would have been in the 50's - probable class mate around this time was Diane Burton from Whitecroft Road, Michael Mann Normanton Avenue, Peter Green Cranes Park Road
Odd coincidence, my dad took movie film in Elmdon Park in winter 1963 and my Mom recognised a lady on skis as being her old gymn teacher from Silvermere - still to copy film and upload
Richard Dye
master brummie
I would have thought!
Noreen Hession
Brummie babby
I'm new to the forum and must say I have found all the comments on Sheldon of much interest as I have lived on the New Coventry Road for many years.
Previously, I grew up in Spring Road in Tyseley, just wondered if anyone had any memories to share.
Noreen
Previously, I grew up in Spring Road in Tyseley, just wondered if anyone had any memories to share.
Noreen