Hi Lyn,
your pic of the bottom of Snow Hill is just as I remember it - to judge by the cars I'd say it was early 1960's when it was taken. I think black-and-white photos do tend to emphasise the shabbiness of street scenes, but that part of Brum was never really upper-crust at the best of times. The Sally I knew well (ashamed to say...) and also H B Sale Ltd on the other side of Summer Lane from the Sally. My pal worked there, and I'd often meet him when he finished work on Saturday lunch-time. Just ten yards and we'd be in the bar of the Sally. Then there were the various night-clubs in the building on the apex of the corner of Constitution Hill and the street I can never flippin'-well remember the name of.
The music shop to the left of the pic was Yardley's, and I can recall going in to see my mate Mart who worked there, and who'd let me play any guitar I liked, including Stratocasters which would've cost me about a year's pay in those days. And the YMCA next door - I was a member of the am-dram society there, and it was a very up-market and snobbish society too. I can remember the shops to the right of pic being demolished - that would be the early 1970's and I think that water-seepage from the nearby cut got to their foundations, as it did the Sally's. Many times we'd come out of the Sally at about 5.00 am on a Saturday morning and walk up Snow Hill for breakfast at a cafe that used to be somewhere behind St Chad's Cathedral.
Big Gee
