Shops in Birmingham City Centre

[Akatarawa]

I used to go to The Midland Educational to get drawing instruments, french curves,  and that long forgotten relic.....a slide rule

It was a really great shop, as was the Philip Harris scientific supplies where you could buy test tubes and glassware for home chemistry experiments (which usually centred around making explosives )

[Spud]

The Midland Ed. Remember it well it even had a sort of schooly smell about it. I won a competition at school once and the prize  a book which I could select from The Midland Ed . I chose 'Two Years Before The Mast' Funny how small things come back my win must have been 60 years ago

[trapio]

I used to go to The Midland Educational to get drawing instruments, french curves,  and that long forgotten relic.....a slide rule

It was a really great shop, as was the Philip Harris scientific supplies where you could buy test tubes and glassware for home chemistry experiments (which usually centred around making explosives )

I use a slide rule almost daily - an old Faber-C'l - it sits above l/tops and is very quick... use it for exchange cross-rates etc.

[martinwells]

I started work at Norman H Field electronic shop as a "Saturday boy"when I was about 14 (probably around 1968) - had a fantastic time - there were four levels to the old shop.  Basement - shop floor - then - upper floor and the attic.  All floors were full of ex army, ex equipment electronics stuff some really old ex mainframe computers.

[Spud]

I remember Norman H Field well the first shop they had was at the bottom of Snow Hill not far from the Salutation Pub. I loved the one in Hurst Street spent hours in there looking at the HI FI equipment I still have and old AR turntable stored away. After some problems with the original tone arm Fields replaced it with an Audio Technica Arm which performed really well.
Some years ago when home cinema first arrived on the scene Fields were one of the first if not the first to stock the equipment. One of the Directors of the company I worked for knowing my interest in Music and Hi Fi asked me if I could locate a system for him Fields manage to get hold of a set for me. The Director was over the moon.

[townie]

This a scene you wont see today C&A Birmingham

Crowds of people rushing through the doors of the new C&A store on the day it opened in 1971.

[townie]

Are you in the photo or recognise anyone?

[townie]

I have two questions about this photo.

[Akatarawa]

I remember Norman H Field well the first shop they had was at the bottom of Snow Hill not far from the Salutation Pub. I loved the one in Hurst Street spent hours in there looking at the HI FI equipment I still have and old AR turntable stored away. After some problems with the original tone arm Fields replaced it with an Audio Technica Arm which performed really well.
Some years ago when home cinema first arrived on the scene Fields were one of the first if not the first to stock the equipment. One of the Directors of the company I worked for knowing my interest in Music and Hi Fi asked me if I could locate a system for him Fields manage to get hold of a set for me. The Director was over the moon.

Actually, the Field's shop down in Snowhill was owned and run by Tom Field, Norman's brother.  They had very little to do with each other.  According to Norman's son, also named Norman, a fine clarinet player, the dispute between the brothers was lost in the mists of time.

I worked at the Snowhill shop for a while making audio amplifiers.  Then Tom Field opened another shop almost directly opposite to Norman's in Hurst Street, and I was there for a short while before getting the sack after getting in late...................so I went back to Kershaws Korner

(This would probably have been late 1955 /early 1956, sometime before Kershaw's death in a car accident in the August.)

(it seems like deja vu, have I said all this before sometime ?)

[Phil]

There were also two shops on Snow Hill, the one next door to the Salutation pub was at number 85 and was owned by T.J.Field. The other near to the top end of Snow Hill at Number 20 was owned by N.H.Field. I think the shop at number 20 was the second one to appear on Snow Hill.

[Ian Dalziel]

It's a small world. In the mid 60's, Norman Field junior and I lived in a bed-sit in Gravelly Hill with several other students while at Gosta Gteen College of Advanced Technology.


We were founder members of the jazz band, the 'Zenith Hot Stompers' but, unlike me, Norman progressed to be acknowledged as one of the the best classic jazz clarinetists in the Country. He was also pretty hot on building and repairing amplifiers.