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They Were Caught In Our Old Street Pics...

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Similarly I worked at WB who supplied parts for the Capri. I didn't get to go down to Dagenham but Ford bought one up to Tyseley pre launch for the WB employees who worked on the components to get to see the car. Remember liking the design and thinking it had the potential for a much more sporty version
 
You probably would not see dancing like this in a public park these days. It's 1946 and folks are happy the war is over so they had a dance in Muntz Park, Umberslade Rd, Selly Park. Seems to be more ladies than men.
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Maybe quite a few men were still waiting for Demob. On the other hand maybe they were a bit shy. Most of the men in the picture seem to be the kind who were more outgoing and are competent dancers. Maybe they were up the Pub getting a bit of Dutch Courage!
 
(restored reference server power failure Feb 2016)
On a sunny day in 1938 some people stand on the pavement where Erdington High St joins Sutton Rd. Maybe they were looking at a man up a tree and another man holding a rope. Something must have been planned because a length of wall, between the Congregational Church and the Almshouses, has been demolished and replaced with a temporary fence.
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Looking at the place today, whatever might have been planned in 1938 did not happen. The Almshouses had been demolished in 1974 but the church (not Congregational) is still there, the grassed space in front looks untidy but strangely three flags near the wall. The church is accessed from Station Road. Much of the previous wall in front of the church has been replaced with a rather plain wall, but some of the wall originally around the almshouses is still in place.
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This Phyllis Nicklin photo of the BSA works on Armoury Road shows a lorry pulled over near the BSA entrance. But what is the man on top of the lorry in the green sweater doing? Is he placing something on top of that canopy? Viv.
 

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Vivienne14 said:
This Phyllis Nicklin photo of the BSA works on Armoury Road shows a lorry pulled over near the BSA entrance. But what is the man on top of the lorry in the green sweater doing? Is he placing something on top of that canopy? Viv.
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It looks like he is trying to get hold of a largish bird which has decided to fly off !
I can't really decide what is in it even when I had a look at the large size pic on ePapers.
He has a small audience and being 1968, 'health & safety' not yet in force.
 
Looking at three elegantly dressed women walking round a corner into Paradise Street passing Bellamy & Wakefield Pharmacy I started to read the adverts for Household Remedies and wondered what 'Cannicide' was and got my old friend Google to have a look and was a bit surprised by the answer, but did not notice that Google had removed an 'n' from the word. Tussicura seemed popular in New Zealand.
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oldMohawk said:
Looking at three elegantly dressed women walking round a corner into Paradise Street passing Bellamy & Wakefield Pharmacy I started to read the adverts for Household Remedies and wondered what 'Cannicide' was and got my old friend Google to have a look and was a bit surprised by the answer, but did not notice that Google had removed an 'n' from the word. Tussicura seemed popular in New Zealand.
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Yes, the meaning of 'canicide' (with one 'n') is logical, if alarming! Surely that is not what's referred to in the household remedy...?
 
image.jpeg 1960s Christmas Bull Ring shoppers. A lot of interest in the vendor on the left, but what was he selling? A wind-up toy, a kitchen gadget ......? The vendor's very ready with an open hand to take the money! Were you there? Viv.
 
oldMohawk said:
You probably would not see dancing like this in a public park these days. It's 1946 and folks are happy the war is over so they had a dance in Muntz Park, Umberslade Rd, Selly Park. Seems to be more ladies than men.
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From an existing forum post click/here
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Another Picture from the early 50s
 

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Is this any help at identifying what is on the table? To me it looks a bit like metal figures (horeses?), possibly some on a black (plastic ) base
 

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A nice photo of three ladies walking down the middle of Penns Lane just past it's junction with Beech Hill Rd and Orphanage Rd in the days when you could stroll in the middle of roads. The man on the cart looks like a tradesman so they wouldn't want to talk to him. Looking at the shadows it is mid day maybe they were going to lunch at Penns Hall.
Google Earth shows that the house on the left with the chimney rising out of the roof behind the two dormer windows is still there as is the older looking house with four chimneys.
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No one caught in this pic but couldn't think where else to put it.
The pic is tagged as 'Interior Nock's Restaurant Union Passage' on the Shoothill site and the ceiling looks rather unusual. I can see two sprigs of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling so maybe the ceiling been elaborately decorated for Christmas or it is something else?

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The enlarged view of part of the top of the main pic shows the 'decorations' in detail and in other parts of the main photo small figures can be seen hanging from the ceiling.
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I have not yet found any other information about Nock's Restaurant.
 
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Think the ceiling decorations are made from tissue paper, probably in a range of colours. As you say, very unusual. Think the room might have been set up for a function. The pub serves Bass - mirrors have the name on. There was also a Nock's Hotel. Viv.
 
Hi Viv, they do seem to be elaborate if they are decorations and not easy to put up. I would have thought that a restaurant would have used manufactured trimming type decorations. Perhaps it was the restaurant of Nock's Hotel and the photo has been wrongly tagged. The 'decorations' seem to be randomly placed in the enlarged image but maybe some fell off.
 
Extraordinary, and slightly creepy - the decorations resemble bats hanging from the ceiling of a cave. Interesting how our tastes and aesthetic sense have changed through time.
 
Nock's Resaurant was in Union passage for most of the 1880s. There are a lot of adverts for staff around then. They seem to have moved to corner of Barwick St & Church St sometime towards the end of the 1880s as in March 1891 these premises are being sold after the death of John Nock. Nocks hotel was in Temple row.
Just had a peculiar experience. Was searching in British Newspaper archives, and suddenly, while trying to linit number of mentions of Nocks Hotel, they all disappeared (except for early ones in Shrewbury & Tipparary). ?turns out the Birmingham Post has (hopefully temporarly disappeared from the archives while i was viewing them (hopefully soon to return)
 
Viewfinder said:
Extraordinary, and slightly creepy - the decorations resemble bats hanging from the ceiling of a cave. Interesting how our tastes and aesthetic sense have changed through time.
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When I first looked at it I had thoughts that some guests had looked at the decorations and playfully (after many glasses of Bass beer) fixed a lumps of sticky-toffee-pudding on serviettes and thrown them at the ceiling thus explaining the random spacing in places. Memories from school days (long ago) when we threw lumps of paper mache at school ceilings to make them stick there for months ...:rolleyes:
 
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Only the two ladies on the top deck seem interested in the length of that ladder! Surely it would bend in the middle? Viv.

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Great pic Viv, I wonder how they brought that ladder along the streets. It could be tricky going round corners...:)
 
Over 60 years ago as a boy I remember going to my grandparents house on the Outer Circle bus and we used to pass a builders merchants yard on the Soho Road which for years had a ladder that long standing up in the yard.

I am presuming that is the old GPO in Victoria Square.
 
Yes the GPO David. You couldn't even contemplate this today, would have to put up scaffolding for the job. Viv.
 
The Lych gate at Handsworth Church. Nice dry day for a stroll. But someone seems to have abandoned the pram on the left. Hope there's not a baby in it as its at the junction of the two roads. Viv.
 

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In this thread of imagined stories about our old street pics, so here is another !
One winter's night in 1940, the Luftwaffe came over maybe intending to bomb the Castle Bromwich Spitfire Factory but missed and bombed Bromford Lane instead. When the 'official' bomb damage photographer arrived there were two people walking purposefully away and two standing still. Maybe the photographer did not notice but there was a Union Flag hanging from a damaged bedroom. The extensive damage on both sides of the road suggests a parachute mine might have been dropped.

Pic 1.The lady standing on the right is probably wondering what's going on in Pic 2.
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Pic 2. Workmen digging for something near the shelter ...
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Pic 3. On the other side of the road a butcher's and barber's shop were damaged in the blast.
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Pic 4. But the shop owners had a sense of humour ...
Captain Mannering would have been proud of them !
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As best as I can read them ….
The barber's shop board says ' A Blasted CLOSE SHAVE Gone absent to Erdington'.
The board in the butcher's says 'Open As Usual ALL DAY'

Pic 5. Google and it's camera arrived in 2015 taking pics and I think the bedroom, which had the union flag in 1940, is just to the right of the bus shelter.
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The lady in Pic 3. has been on the forum before click/here
 
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The GPO in Victoria Square. What on earth do they have loaded up on that cart? Looks like some sort of bread. And the omnibus has a "Makepeace" advert - recently discussed on the "Ghost signs" thread. Viv.
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