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Small heath
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JohnJames
master brummie
I lived just down from there from 1967 to 1972 in a flat above a shoe shop next door to the Gondola Milk bar. My Mom worked in the Gondola for a while and I had free access to the juke box, which made me very popular with my mates as music was our main interest. It was a spacious flat and it was great to watch life on the Coventry Road going by from our front windows. We were close to Small Heath Park where I spent a lot of time being chased by the Parky who didn't like us playing football on the grass. I bet there is no Park Keeper employed in Small Heath Park today!
Elmdon Boy
master brummie
No John, no parkies in the parks these days to keep an eye on things.
No flowers, no tea rooms, no boats on the boating lake, just the trees and grass survive which may be cut very occasionally. There's plenty of litter about because it never gets cleaned up. What benches and buildings that do survive are probably covered in graffiti, and boarded up. Rather pleasant places really.
Ah well thats progress.
How come all these amenities were better in the old days when as a percentage of your income your rates were cheaper than today.
My neighbour where I lived in the early 60s was a parkie at Small Heath park.
His name was Lou, cant remember his surname.
No flowers, no tea rooms, no boats on the boating lake, just the trees and grass survive which may be cut very occasionally. There's plenty of litter about because it never gets cleaned up. What benches and buildings that do survive are probably covered in graffiti, and boarded up. Rather pleasant places really.
Ah well thats progress.
How come all these amenities were better in the old days when as a percentage of your income your rates were cheaper than today.
My neighbour where I lived in the early 60s was a parkie at Small Heath park.
His name was Lou, cant remember his surname.
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Pat Sattar-Jennings
master brummie
I remember the vine really well as I walked by it every day to get to Somerville Road School, From Palace Road, on my own at 5 yrs old in the 50's. Mom would use the old style telephone box there a lot and the first 3 letters were always VIC (victoria I think) I can't remember the numbers.
Do you remember teachers Miss Hobday,Miss Hughes and Miss Robinson at Somerville Road school Pat? The head was Mr Cooper during my time.
Christine Clarke took me home on my first day in juniors. I believe that her friend Margaret Bromley lived in Palace Road though I may be mistaken.
Peter
Christine Clarke took me home on my first day in juniors. I believe that her friend Margaret Bromley lived in Palace Road though I may be mistaken.
Peter
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JohnJames
master brummie
Thanks for this Phil. I have seen this picture on the site and saved it somewhere but haven't been able to find it. We lived above the John Britton shoe shop. There was a record shop just beside the vehicle entry a couple of shops down from the Gondola. I bought my very first LP there in June 1967- The Beatles Sgt Pepper. I still have it in pretty good nick. My wife has said that she will play
'When I'm Sixty Four' on my birthday tomorrow when I reach the grand old age of 64...
JohnJames
master brummie
Spot on re the current condition of Small Heath Park. I took my grandson for a nostalgia trip back to Small Heath a few years ago. I hadn't been there for around thirty years. We walked through the park and it was a wasteland. I was saddened to see that the bowling greens had also disappeared. The very helpful green keeper there had taught my mate and me to play bowls around 1968. After that we would often have a game there, sometimes just the two of us and also sometimes with some of the old boys who went to the Sons of Rest cabin opposite.
The phone box outside The Vine.... remember it well ! ButtonA and ButtonB system ...4d to make a call ... Also remember the 'outdoor' when it was privately owned... not Victoria Wines (corner of Victoria Street and Green Lane), Breezes sweet shop next door and Barnsley's/Ward's newsagents. After the three shops there was a bombed site... where we used to play.
Don’t know where exactly this wine and spirits shop was in Small Heath. But what a nice display in the window, with the owner (?) proudly posing in the shop doorway. No date for this image, maybe 1950s ? Viv.
Aftermath of the 1931 tornado on Green Lane. Viv.
Pat Sattar-Jennings
master brummie
Hello, sorry I've only just seen your post. I don't remember the teacher's names. I only remember another student, Olive Horn as her mom looked after me after school and used to cook lovely dinners & puddings, if I remember right I would go there for lunch too. It was the junior school then, during the 50's. I will ask my sister if she knew a Margaret Bromley, as I was the youngest of 4 children, who had to look after me too as both mom & dad worked, and if I was hanging about with them and their friends, had to stay at home on my own.
My mother (Dorothy Goldsby born 1905) said she worked at that drapery shop on the corner of Charles Road. It was a similar shop well into the 1950's. She then went to work in the Yardage Department of Lewis's, left there in the mid 30's but returned for a few years just after the war.
Do you know any of the house numbers Lilly? I had relatives live at no. 24 and 26 in the 1890s.
Volunteers working on a former 2 acre bomb site in Oakley Road to make a miniature park. Work was expected to take 2 months. Viv.
Pat Sattar-Jennings
master brummie
Does anyone remember Jackie Jennings & his brother & Dennis Beech?
jim1uk2001
master brummie
There was a Liz Gourlay Married to Jack who moved to Palace Road around 1971ish. They were Scottish and had 7 sons and 1 daughter.
Hello Pat
A few more names to conjure with - Geoff Yates, Theresa Atkinson, Barbara Cogsill, Pauline Weller, Reggie Bleakman, John Bennett, Barry Green, Derek Osborne, Barry Ansell, Kevin Froggatt, Keith Musgrave. Do any of them evoke any memories?
Pat Sattar-Jennings
master brummie
Hello - I recognise the name Kevin Froggatt, as I sat be a lad the same name in school for a short while, it was either Marlborough Road or Somerville School - only other Kevin Froggatt is the famous singer
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Pat Sattar-Jennings
master brummie
What about the scrappy corner of Arthur St, opposite the bus depot - do you know who worked there ?
Hi I am a new member. Only just opened your post and found the photo of Coventry Rd and surprised to see my father with me in the pushchair in the photo. Thanks you that
how amazing...it makes our day when members spot themselves or family in the photos we post...you are most welcome to save that photo...
lyn
thanks.
jim1uk2001
master brummie
If you look to the end of the road you can see a house. This house looks like the house (still standing) at what was once called six ways Golden Hillock Road. If you look at the rows of houses on the right hand side, they appear identical to those on Golden Hillock on the 30's. The road on right looks like Byron Road, before the post office so the wall must be the wall over the railway line just before you get to Armoury Road (BSA)
Attachments
bombed out brummie
master brummie
Was this the Betty Whitehouse born in 1932, and her mother was Alice Marson. If so, Alice, was my mother's cousin.
jim1uk2001
master brummie
On which road did Betty Whitehouse live?