Author Topic: A little bit of Birmingham  (Read 33468 times)

tramp

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Re: A little bit of Birmingham
« Reply #44 on: January 29, 2008, 11:37:43 PM »

No Phil, if my memory serves me rightly, I was very young when I was born.

Phil

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Re: A little bit of Birmingham
« Reply #45 on: January 31, 2008, 12:42:35 PM »
Tramp

I took a little detour this morning on the way back from the Jewellery Quarter. Took a couple of snaps, wonder if you recognise them.

Phil
Phil died in 2020. RIP.

Phil

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Re: A little bit of Birmingham
« Reply #46 on: February 01, 2008, 07:59:43 AM »
tramp

I see you haven't had a look yet.

Phil
Phil died in 2020. RIP.

mazbeth

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Re: A little bit of Birmingham
« Reply #47 on: February 01, 2008, 12:09:58 PM »
Roy's just mentioned the Lacarno ballroom in another thread. T'was another of our haunts back then.
I used to go in the Locarno in Hurst St in about '74-'75 and maybe '76 too.
The Bali Hai room/disco in the back was quieter for chatting and getting to know people.
Let those that love us, love us. And those that don't, may God turn their hearts. And, if He cannot turn their hearts, May He turn their ankles so we may know them by their limping!- Irish blessing

tramp

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Re: A little bit of Birmingham
« Reply #48 on: February 01, 2008, 12:22:25 PM »
Phil,

When I first looked, I thought it is the corner of Oldfield and Ombersley Roads, but shouldn't there be front gardens on the left? And what are all those 'bay' type things in the road, people will only park in them, and we'd at least have used them as goals.

Phil

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Re: A little bit of Birmingham
« Reply #49 on: February 01, 2008, 02:33:24 PM »
tramp

It is Ombersley Road looking both ways from the junction of Kingsley Rd. They put all those parking bays in most of the roads in that area years ago. I think the reason is there are more cars parked outside the houses during the day than at night now. You just work it out they have no drives or forecourts and few have garages. Every house has probably got two cars, so you can imagine how conjested it gets.

The front gardens are there but with the bigger walls and no hedges they just look that little smaller.

Heres another local view, the small park at the end of Ladypool Rd. Look at all that grass, you wouldn't think that even a park could change so much.

Phil
Phil died in 2020. RIP.

tramp

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Re: A little bit of Birmingham
« Reply #50 on: February 02, 2008, 02:39:59 AM »
Sorry Phil, I put Oldfield instead of Kingsley - the mind is definitely going, Oldfield was parrallel to Ombersley on the way to school.  Thank you for them and the explanation.  As for the ''Little Park'', all that grass as you said, - what happened to the helter skelter, swings and roundabout etc?  Thanks again for the photographs, I do appreciate them - that's where I was born!

Phil

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Re: A little bit of Birmingham
« Reply #51 on: February 02, 2008, 12:21:50 PM »
tramp

They still have swings etc at the Ladypool Rd entrance. not of the type there used to be. I suppose the Dept of Health & Safety saw those off. Did you notice the big round Sons of Rest hut in the middle of the park had gone. I wonder if that organisation is still in existence.

That great grass field I remember dinner times at school, half the school playing the other half football on what was a bare earth pitch that was either a mud patch or a baked dry version of the Gobi Desert that kicked up so much dust you couldn't see each other. Then filed into school either covered in mud or dust, dependant on the weather.

Phil
Phil died in 2020. RIP.

tramp

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Re: A little bit of Birmingham
« Reply #52 on: February 02, 2008, 01:43:42 PM »
Phil,

After that about playing footie every day on that scrag end, and having mentioned the abundance of pitches at Tettenhall College where I went after 2 years at KE, I realise how lucky I was - even with the snobby s*ds!

Yes H & S would definitely have killed off our little ''free fair'', but it was the speed and hanging over the edge trying to pick up a stone or twig as you 'flew'round that made it all fun - just as headfirst down the h/skelter was a 'dare' for the little ones. 

I don't know how kids these days learn to: stretch themselves, find and overcome challenges and obstacles ( which we never thought of as such), or how they make social relationships. Chatting by pc can never replace face to face, (and a wee scuffle) as the real human contact that forms mutual respect among children.

Phil

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Re: A little bit of Birmingham
« Reply #53 on: February 02, 2008, 02:00:55 PM »
tramp

As I think I have said before, I was never much of a one for sports, being one of the smallest at the school I was always amongst the last ones chosen for any team (thankfully I shot up about about 9 inches when I left school) to my massive height of 5 ft, 5 inches that I am today. The only sports that I excelled at was swimming, but not many schools had school swimming teams in those days.

Do you know they wouldn't even have me in the army because of my size. I suppose that was the army's good fortune. So the only (wee scuffles) I had were the occasional ones in the playground with those few who didn't know that my uncle was the [censored] of the school.

All part of life's rich tapestry I suppose.

Phil
Phil died in 2020. RIP.

tramp

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Re: A little bit of Birmingham
« Reply #54 on: February 02, 2008, 02:37:43 PM »

Phil,

Did you also learn to swim at the Moseley Rd baths? I loved the place, and if it's still open, that's one thing I'd do for sure, on a visit to the area, and pop in the library

Your growth spurt was amazing, coming so comparatively late.  The army accepted me becuse if you were 5'6'' and could walk without flat feet, you were in.  I found the army to be the greatest liberator, letting me try and do so many new things in the first years especially, and of course I travelled because of it.  There were the other sides to things, as Roy knows better than me - I never got hit - other than a really miniscule fragment that left a minute hole in my upper lip (and soon became home to a top class blackhead!) which is why I've had a moustache for so long.

For our generation, what we ended up doing was so often a matter of chance rather than the ''career planning' of today.  But, I accept responsibility for every decision I took, for good or ill, and so I regret nothing other than those I hurt, which I regret deeply.

I don't know about 'rich tapestry' (or limbo of the past) so much as, without setting ourselves up as anything special we ended up ''writing our own books rather than just being chapters or footnotes in others''.


 

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