• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

They Were Caught In Our Old Street Pics...

Status
Not open for further replies.
They were laying some tram lines in 1938. No hi-vis jackets in those days just flat caps and waistcoats for labourers and trilby hats and jackets for foremen. Most of the work done with picks and shovels. Looks like the man nearest the camera has found something and the foreman coming across to see. Quarter past three in the afternoon, perhaps another three hours before they could go home. Wonder what they would think about the present track laying for the Midland Metro ?

img030~0.jpg
 
Last edited:
I think the workman is looking at the cast and thinking "wonder if its going to last 30 years before they rip it up again to bulid the Aston Expressway".
 
It's strange how an old pic sets you thinking. I noticed in the pic in #1411 that the building opposite left is Halford Cycle Co Ltd and thought I always knew it simply as Halfords. I remember sometime in the 1950s being told 'Halfords is on fire' when I wondered about a big cloud of smoke on the city skyline and thanks to a BHF thread click/here a date of 12th March 1955 is given although there appeared to be some discussion about the date. Delving a bit, I found that the company was named after Halford Street in Leicester and now remember that the company was acquired by the Boots Group in 1991 (strange acquisition) but had forgotten that the company was taken over by CVC Capital Partners in 2002. We all used to call it Halfords so they maybe they decided to change the name.

The pic below (no date) which is on the forum server shows the Halford Cycle Co Ltd and a very nice view of a tram.
four_trams_halfordsaa.jpg
 
Looking at the post (1411) which suggests 'laying' of tracks I find that doubtful. Maybe renewal of tracks but, purely in my view of course, is the prospect of construction of the islands that formed this area. The tram tracks were laid some while before the 1930's.
 
Browsing I spotted an unusual little car in two separate forum pics. Only room for a driver who needs to be tall to see over the steering wheel and the car appears to have no doors. I've had a search but still cannot determine the make of the car.

Maybe he is a car salesman for Shakespeare Bros.
The car has a fancy horn but the lights look like lanterns.

index.php


Some bloke bought one and is driving it across Five Ways.
One of those school girls looks amused.

[/URL]
 
Last edited:
Some lads went absent from Handsworth Tech. to just look at the fire while it was going on. Seemed to last for ages.
The Halfords fire that is!
 
Last edited:
Some lads went absent from Handsworth Tech. to just look at the fire while it was going on. Seemed to last for ages.Halfords fire that is! Must have been before April 1955 when I left school.
 
paul stacey said:
#1417, the radiator looks very much like an early "Alvis". Paul
Click to expand...
Hi Paul - I've had a good look through the Alvis archive and can't see a car like the one in the pics. Most of their cars seem to have better looking mudguards compared to the car in the pic. The nearest Alvis model I can find is in link below but isn't the car.
https://alvisarchive.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/2-14-4.jpg?w=700&h=
It's surprising how many small motor car manufacturers set up in the Coventry and Birmingham areas pre 1920s.
oldmohawk
 
I'm only guessing but I think it would be a cycle car but don't know the brand. Very low cost no electrics hence air bulb horn and acetylene lamps. Usually French or Belguim cica1913
 
How very true "OldMohawk", there were numerous small vehicle makers around at this time, and various amateur's experimenting with design and engine builds in backyards. Paul
 
John M Weoley Castle said:
Some lads went absent from Handsworth Tech. to just look at the fire while it was going on. Seemed to last for ages.Halfords fire that is! Must have been before April 1955 when I left school.
Click to expand...

Hi John,

Are you sure that you have got the right fire. The big Halfords fire was on a Saturday morning.

Old Boy
 
oldMohawk said:
Browsing I spotted an unusual little car in two separate forum pics. Only room for a driver who needs to be tall to see over the steering wheel and the car appears to have no doors. I've had a search but still cannot determine the make of the car.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="width: 50%"] Maybe he is a car salesman for Shakespeare Bros.
The car has a fancy horn but the lights look like lanterns.
[/TD]
[TD="width: 50%"] Some bloke bought one and is driving it across Five Ways.
One of those school girls looks amused.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 50%"] The above pic was originally posted here[/TD]
[TD="width: 50%"] The above pic was originally posted here[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Click to expand...

Five Ways didn't change a great deal until the 1950's, now it looks very different! Is that the clock that's still there today?
 
Google and me have searched through hundreds of old car images and I'm coming to the the conclusion that the two images on the BHF are the only ones on the worldwide internet which show that little car !
 
Harbornite76 said:
Five Ways didn't change a great deal until the 1950's, now it looks very different! Is that the clock that's still there today?
Click to expand...

Clock is still there but I think it has moved twice. Incidentally the clock which used to be at the Kings Head Bearwood which was moved to High Street, Birmingham will be returning to Bearwood but will be on the Sandwell side of the junction.
 
I often think about the photographers who took the old pics and whoever took this pic at Five Ways seemed very interested in the bus. A rather dejected looking bus driver appears to have run out of petrol and maybe found his spare cans empty. The bus passengers are long gone while the bus conductor might have been sent to inform the garage. Nobody looking at the camera and something seems to have caused two women to stand still in the road. Maybe there was a caption with the pic which explains it all.
Five_ways_bus.jpg
 
Last edited:
These type of photo's fascinate me, gets you really back to an instance in time, 3.20pm 0n a sunny day, say 1910?, blow up to 300 and you can make out most of the people caught in shot, I wonder who they were and what their errands were that day, as you say the driver looks just a little put out, I wonder where they stored the full cans on board, no H&S then.Paul
 
paul stacey said:
These type of photo's fascinate me, gets you really back to an instance in time, 3.20pm 0n a sunny day, say 1910?, blow up to 300 and you can make out most of the people caught in shot, I wonder who they were and what their errands were that day, as you say the driver looks just a little put out, I wonder where they stored the full cans on board, no H&S then.Paul
Click to expand...
Hi Paul, I had looked at the bus and saw what appears to be four places (in front of the rear wheel) which could store the cans. This lead me to wonder if these old buses had rather small fuel tanks and needed to be topped up from the spare cans. Drivers starting out from the depot probably had to check whether the cans were full and he had not. Maybe someone knowlegeable about old buses knows the answers.
There appears to be a tram driver or inspector standing on the island between the Five Ways clock and a Bundy clock. Looking through the old pics I often notice the impressive public clocks in and around Birmingham and they were needed when not everyone could afford a pocket watch. There is an interesting public clock on a pub in a post here which ensured no one who lived round there didn't know the time, it could be seen from all directions !
oldmohawk
 
Yes , I remember as a lad noting all the clocks around the City, as you say personal time pieces were expensive items in those days, even as a lad I remember the first watch I purchased, a Smiths I believe and it was about 6 weeks paper round money. In these days of opulence we tend to forget the times when even people in work struggled. Paul
 
He looked so dejected I've put him in the thread's 'Hall of Fame' .....

if you want instructions, they are in post#482
 
Last edited:
The clock at five ways as been moved twice and the clock itself as changed 3 times it was changed years before being moved the first time
Then move forward from the original postion and after major build of five ways moved further to its right towards the swallow hotel
Long before the american president arrived there on his visit to england
When it was brought forward the first time it had been changed and painted nice and bright then the city started to alter of broad street and the island and subways
Was dug in for pedestrans
 
oldMohawk said:
I often think about the photographers who took the old pics and whoever took this pic at Five Ways seemed very interested in the bus. A rather dejected looking bus driver appears to have run out of petrol and maybe found his spare cans empty. The bus passengers are long gone while the bus conductor might have been sent to inform the garage. Nobody looking at the camera and something seems to have caused two women to stand still in the road. Maybe there was a caption with the pic which explains it all.

The above pic was originally posted here
Click to expand...

Why is the bus parked on the wrong side of the road, in the first place?

Eddie
 
Looks like there's road works going on ahead. Maybe that's why the bus is on the wrong side? Well there's a man kneeling doing something or is he attending to someone. Viv.
 
In the days of this photo of the bus at Five Ways petrol was sold in cans (often by chemists) as petrol pumps did not come in till c1930. This looks like a Midland Red bus and their garage in those days was just round the corner in Tennant Street. When I have seen this photo before I have wondered why the bus was on that side of the road
 
I'd put money on a steamroller coming down the road. If there is a man working on the road and with all the people watching (in the road, obviously the traffic had been stopped) I'd say it's something quite striking in view. What's more striking than an old steamroller, pumping out steam with it's noisy clattering as it goes along? I think the bus awaiting it's petrol is coincidental my dear Watson! Viv.
 
DavidGrain said:
In the days of this photo of the bus at Five Ways petrol was sold in cans (often by chemists) as petrol pumps did not come in till c1930. This looks like a Midland Red bus and their garage in those days was just round the corner in Tennant Street. When I have seen this photo before I have wondered why the bus was on that side of the road
Click to expand...
Thanks David for that information I had never really thought about where all the old pre 1920 vehicles obtained their fuel and now I'm starting think about the tons of hay having to be brought in every day to keep all the horse drawn carts and buses going which we see in the old pics.
 
Or could this be due to the move of the Joseph Sturge statue in 1925 to the Tube Investments/Marriott Hotel 100 yards away ? Viv
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top