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Then & Now

Gentlemen
Thank you, it was a throwaway remark, I was aware that in the back in the day picture there were no yellow lines and there is a parking lot in view and it was a mid 20th Century picture against a 21st Century picture of an expressway of sorts with all the current restrictions etc, etc, but I just found it amusing that in two recent pictures, now had less cars visible than then. I know for a fact that heading up that road in the evening rush hour going to the Holiday Inn Great Barr, no matter from which direction there are plenty of cars on the road.

bob
 
On the night of 19th November 1940 there was a very heavy air raid across Birmingham and some houses in Queen Street, Sparkbrook, took a direct hit. The blast overturned bus BOP 814 as seen in this well-known pic. Pic 1.
Pic1OverturnedBus.JPG

A back view of the bus. Pic 2.
Pic2BusBack.jpg

A map shows the approx position of the bus with the blast point indicated and the end house marked in blue. Pic 3.
Pic3mapQueenSt.jpg

This 1946 aerial view shows Queen Street in the lower centre of the pic and the bus would have been where the dark vehicle is and the bomb site marked. The damaged house seen in Pic 1 had been demolished. The Highgate Road Bus Garage in the centre of the view. Pic 4.
Pic41946Untitled.jpg

Now all is quiet with residents probably unaware of what happened on that terrible night 79 years ago. Pic 5.
Pic5QueenStNow.jpg
More information about the air raid is here

They Were Caught In Our Old Street Pics...

I suppose the only person who definitely had to be in this pic on the corner of Highgate Rd/Queen St was the armed guard. The others had never seen anything like it and were probably feeling lucky to be alive having survived a very intense air raid the night before on 19th November 1940...
birminghamhistory.co.uk birminghamhistory.co.uk
 
Hell of a gale blowing in that sixties picture judging by the lamp post :)

If there's room to park on the road anywhere now the council will put a parking meter on it to gather more funds to squander.
 
oldMohawk said:
On the night of 19th November 1940 there was a very heavy air raid across Birmingham and some houses in Queen Street, Sparkbrook, took a direct hit. The blast overturned bus BOP 814 as seen in this well-known pic. Pic 1.
View attachment 137929

A back view of the bus. Pic 2.
View attachment 137930

A map shows the approx position of the bus with the blast point indicated and the end house marked in blue. Pic 3.
View attachment 137931

This 1946 aerial view shows Queen Street in the lower centre of the pic and the bus would have been where the dark vehicle is and the bomb site marked. The damaged house seen in Pic 1 had been demolished. The Highgate Road Bus Garage in the centre of the view. Pic 4.
View attachment 137932

Now all is quiet with residents probably unaware of what happened on that terrible night 79 years ago. Pic 5.
View attachment 137933
More information about the air raid is here

They Were Caught In Our Old Street Pics...

I suppose the only person who definitely had to be in this pic on the corner of Highgate Rd/Queen St was the armed guard. The others had never seen anything like it and were probably feeling lucky to be alive having survived a very intense air raid the night before on 19th November 1940...
birminghamhistory.co.uk birminghamhistory.co.uk
Click to expand...
Would the Armed Guard have been Home Guard? And of course was he actually armed, i.e. with bullets?
Bob
 
When we returned from Egypt in January 1955 our C/O who had spent the last six years out there put an armed guard (with bullets) on our kit on the Liverpool station platform, he was quickly ordered by the civilian police to take them off. :)
 
Smudger said:
On guard duty in N/ireland ,that`s the only time i was issued with live ammo. In Germany, two of us were detailed to guard an ammo train to Belgium, we were armed with pick axe handles!!
Click to expand...
In the IRA alerts of the 1950's at RAF Stations, men were detailed to go to a certain place (varied to set up and type of Station if I remember correctly) and collect a pick axe handle.
It seems it was a question of 'don't shoot, or I'll knock your block off'! :laughing:
 
Regarding post 993 and the bombing of Highgate Road bus depot. I have two dates for this event. One is the 19th. (as quoted in the post); the other is the night of 20/21 November 1940. It would appear that the 19th. was a very heavy raid which involved many parts of the city and surrounding areas. BHF has some conflicting information about these raids.
Post 102, Bombing Brum thread, quotes the 19th. November as the 43rd. raid, whereas Post 1, of Birmingham Air Raids thread states it was the 50th.
Asfar as the bus, BOP 814 (814) is concerned ( I may have recorded some of this before on BHF) it was a Daimler COG5 of 1936. It was one of 53 buses badly damaged that night; the rest getting their windows blown out.
Bus 814 was stored but got one of the spare bodies intended for Manchester buses. In fact it was the first BCT bus to do so. It was painted grey at the time of re-entry into service which was January 1942. It was the last of the batch to remain in BCT service which was 1960.
Within 24 hours of the raid many of the less damaged buses were back on the road, albeit with new glass windows or plywood replacements. It has to be remembered that workers relied on the BCT to get them to work.
814's original body was eventually made good and fitted to bus 836 (of the same batch) in 1948. This bus survived until 1952.
Much is made, quite rightly, of our fighting forces during WW2, however the people, in towns and cities all over the UK, who made valiant efforts to keep everything moving - and working - played a great role at the time.
 
My experience of guards in the RAF was quite short as I was exempt from such duties as soon as I joined the Station Band. But until then I did a few and it was mostly a case of keeping a lookout for the Orderly Officer doing his rounds, which only seemed to be once a night. As they were in early winter, the biggest problem was trying to keep warm when you were basically doing nothing. The only time I saw bullets was on the firing range during square bashing. But post #993 was a lovely bit of a documentary, Phil.

Maurice :cool:
 
It wasn't guard duty Maurice. A siren would go then the appointed airmen - corporal and below I believe - would have to assemble near the main gate armed with the axe handle. Other NCO's went, I believe to the Station Armoury. I only encountered this once when attached to a training establishment.
 
So looking at the then photographs I can not believe how many signs and adds were on the buildings, they were even on the ends of homes that were on a corner.
I presume this was the only real way to advertise as there was no radio or tv.
I love looking at the adds but boy o boy they were every were.
Makes me wonder if like today people tuned then out and sadly how many could not read them
They were a blight on the landscape but for us now a wealth of information.

So growing up I use to see some bloke named. Bill Posters was going to be prosecuted did he ever get caught .
 
Alan,

Well at least you had a chance to knock their blocks off (if they didn't get you first). which was probably better than a rifle with no bullets!

Maurice :)
 
Yep in the mid sixties used to ride one of these on a Friday night on the main Pershore Rd in rush hour traffic, and many times on Saturdays up and down Cartland Rd Hill (push it up the hill, race the cars down). You don’t see many photos of obese teenagers from those times! Knackered bikes yes, overweight Saturday boys no!
 
Robert Ensor (bob) said:
So looking at the then photographs I can not believe how many signs and adds were on the buildings, they were even on the ends of homes that were on a corner.
I presume this was the only real way to advertise as there was no radio or tv.
I love looking at the adds but boy o boy they were every were.
Makes me wonder if like today people tuned then out and sadly how many could not read them
They were a blight on the landscape but for us now a wealth of information.

So growing up I use to see some bloke named. Bill Posters was going to be prosecuted did he ever get caught .
Click to expand...
Bob, I was amazed too at all of the advertising, regarding the bill posters, some friends of mine (not me of course :-)) would follow them around and peel the poster off while the paste was still wet!
 
Radiorails said:
Regarding post 993 and the bombing of Highgate Road bus depot. I have two dates for this event. One is the 19th. (as quoted in the post); the other is the night of 20/21 November 1940. It would appear that the 19th. was a very heavy raid which involved many parts of the city and surrounding areas. BHF has some conflicting information about these raids.
Post 102, Bombing Brum thread, quotes the 19th. November as the 43rd. raid, whereas Post 1, of Birmingham Air Raids thread states it was the 50th.
Asfar as the bus, BOP 814 (814) is concerned ( I may have recorded some of this before on BHF) it was a Daimler COG5 of 1936. It was one of 53 buses badly damaged that night; the rest getting their windows blown out.
Bus 814 was stored but got one of the spare bodies intended for Manchester buses. In fact it was the first BCT bus to do so. It was painted grey at the time of re-entry into service which was January 1942. It was the last of the batch to remain in BCT service which was 1960.
Within 24 hours of the raid many of the less damaged buses were back on the road, albeit with new glass windows or plywood replacements. It has to be remembered that workers relied on the BCT to get them to work.
814's original body was eventually made good and fitted to bus 836 (of the same batch) in 1948. This bus survived until 1952.
Much is made, quite rightly, of our fighting forces during WW2, however the people, in towns and cities all over the UK, who made valiant efforts to keep everything moving - and working - played a great role at the time.
Click to expand...
Hi there, at the Birmingham Local History Fair at the the MAC on Saturday BARRA (Bham Air Raids Remembrance Association) were a mine of information and very helpful to me, pinpointing on their online records my relative's bombing 19/11/40 where she was seriously injured in Belgrave Rd. I am sure you are aware of them though. Also I googled "Wikipedia Birmingham Blitz" for timelines, but I am unsure how accurate Wikipedia dates are. Best regards.
 
When the IRA started throwing their weight about back in the early fifties all of the UK based military were put on alert, for most we were national servicemen.

I was stationed at the time at a REME trade training unit in Taunton, we too were armed with pick axe handles for guard duty.

Later on guard duty in Egypt we were properly armed and with ammo, as a lance corporal I did guard commander duty armed with a Sten gun every third night.

My most serious case was an Egyptian policeman rattling the gates telling us in Arabic that he'd shot someone stealing power cables.

We had to get the C/O out of bed because he was the only one fluent in Arabic, it turned out the man was saying that if he saw someone stealing the cables he would shoot them.

The C/O told us to give the man a meal and send him on his way, that led to the man and his colleagues rattling the gates every night looking fo a free meal. :)
 
Phil said:
Collier Corner on the junction of Coventry Road and Yardley Road at what is now known as the Swan Island even though the swan itself has long gone.

View attachment 137964
Click to expand...
Phil, Thanks for the Collier Corner picture. Saw a KLG clock just like that only a few days ago on TV in a programme from a museum. At the time it reminded me of a similar one that was on the Warwick Rd. Tyseley in 1940's, somewhere opposite the "Brit", Was it at The Grange garage? Trolley bus in the background.
 
devonjim said:
Phil, Thanks for the Collier Corner picture. Saw a KLG clock just like that only a few days ago on TV in a programme from a museum. At the time it reminded me of a similar one that was on the Warwick Rd. Tyseley in 1940's, somewhere opposite the "Brit", Was it at The Grange garage? Trolley bus in the background.
Click to expand...
In the b&w photo of Phil's post 1006 there is a trolley bus in the background. Trolleybuses never ran along the Warwick Road, their haunts were along the Coventry Road. (Excepting the 7 Nechells route which ceased in 1940)
 
Radiorails said:
In the b&w photo of Phil's post 1006 there is a trolley bus in the background. Trolleybuses never ran along the Warwick Road, their haunts were along the Coventry Road. (Excepting the 7 Nechells route which ceased in 1940)
Click to expand...

I remember riding the trolley buses along the Coventry Rd.
A little off thread but is there a simple, good reason why trolley buses wouldn't be an easier means of replacing diesel buses than the metro that needs such time consuming infrastructure.
 
The junction of Bearwood Road and Hagley Road, quite a few changes have taken place since the original photo including the movement of the clock from outside the Kings Head to Dale end in the city and now its back to a stones throw within its original site.

Bearwood Hagley Road - Bearwood Road junction..jpg
 
Around the late 1960s/1970s Keith Berry took some photos around the City Centre. Here is one he took from Stephenson Place. I remember the baked potato seller's stand on the corner.
14New_St1.jpg

The view today looking very modern and neat.
StephensonPlaceIMG_1194.jpg

Keith Berry's City Centre photos ... number 8 in the collection below

Keith Berry's Photo Legacy

Keith Berry's 'Old Birmingham & Surroundings' Photo Gallery Recovery of 600 approx photos is complete, 15 albums click on any to see. Keith Berry's titles and comments are in the albums ... 1 1950s /1960s Aston, Birchfield, Lozells, Handsworth. (48) 2 1950s/1960s Handsworth, Handsworth Park...
birminghamhistory.co.uk birminghamhistory.co.uk
 
A follow up to my previous post, a record of the movements of the Chamberlain Clock mentioned. First photo taken at its original site outside The Kings Head, then it was moved to the junction of Union Street and High Street and now it has been returned to within a short distance of its original site and is on the edge of Lightwoods Park diagonally opposite the Kings Head.

Chamberlain Clock Bearwood.jpg
 
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