Author Topic: sparkhill sparkbrook highgat  (Read 349239 times)

roy one

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sparkhill sparkbrook highgat
« on: August 21, 2009, 07:48:14 PM »
 did you live in sparkhill or sparkbrook or highgat in the 40 50 and 60s if so can you remember how it was the coal yards the shops your next door the things you did where you went any thing to do with that part of brum

 share it with us we would like to know
each day is a blessing and I bless each day when it comes

Phil

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Re: sparkhill sparkbrook highgat
« Reply #1 on: August 21, 2009, 08:45:40 PM »
Roy

As you probably know I lived in Larches St Sparkbrook with my grandmother for a good few years. The Talbot on the corner of Larches St and Highgate Rd was my local for a good many years until they closed it down. I would also use Fred's café on the corner of Kyrwicks lane occasionally just to upset him.

Other pubs I used were The Hereford, The Stratford, The Cottage and the Warwick. I did most of my clothes shopping down Ladypool Rd at Tony's and M & J's occasionally at Zissmans on Stratford Rd. Anything special I went up town for, but at that time I could usually get what I wanted locally.

It was a good area to live in back then, but now they have tore the heart out of it and all the places I used to use are gone. I very rarely return to the area because there is hardly anything I recognise left.

I am posting an old photo of Camp Hill Railway Station on Highgate Rd because it was mentioned on another thread the other day and I said I would post it.


Phil
Phil died in 2020. RIP.

tramp

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Re: sparkhill sparkbrook highgat
« Reply #2 on: August 21, 2009, 08:56:17 PM »
Our nearest shopping street was Ladypool Rd, and the first ones facing were Peacocks and Woolworths - those two places were important to me as I realised how easy it was to steal, and decided I wouldn't.  When I was 'out for the day and overnight' I did steal - food - from bottles of milk to fruit and veg like carrots from shops, and scrumping of course, but scrumping wasn't 'theft' in my book.   I thank my lucky stars I was never caught. I never took anything from Ladypool Rd.  

Other important shops were the Home & Colonial, George Mason, C0-0p,Wimbushes (every Good Friday for hot + buns before they shut at 11 am), Maturis - every type of hardware imaginable from a tin bath to a pot mender, and my favourite, Jack Morris butcher.  As he was up early at the market, he always had good meat.  If I was passing and he saw me, he beckoned me in and cut a long triangular strip off one of those massive tins of Argentine corned beef.  He owned Coldbath Farm on the way to Swanshurst Park....a remarkable man, I could go on about him all day.  The really authentis shop on the corner of Alfred St was Westwoods greengrocers, alway s very busy.  Does anyone remember a poor deaf and dumb chap who worked there - he always had a smile, was quick and would pick you out ''the good 'uns'' - everyone called him "The Dummy'', this was affection, not a put down (he couldn't hear it anyway0 - in the mid 1950s he'd have been about 40.   Over to the rest of you...if I don't stop now, I never shall!

tramp

roy one

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Re: sparkhill sparkbrook highgat
« Reply #3 on: August 21, 2009, 08:59:27 PM »
hi phil for a time i lived in grantham road and the piccadilly and the Waldorf and embassy was my playground on the roof of the embassy to see the wrestling i think it was the lamb and lion the mermaid that i used in later life moss zissman and ladypool road was my place for shopping and some times when i was a kid i would get an ice cream from the corner shop in ladypool road i was down that way a few weeks back  its all gone phil not much left like you say the hearts gone out of it
each day is a blessing and I bless each day when it comes

Phil

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Re: sparkhill sparkbrook highgat
« Reply #4 on: August 21, 2009, 10:02:30 PM »
tramp

I reckon within the area of Balsall Heath & Sparkbrook in the 50's there were three of the best shopping areas in Birmingham. Ladypool Rd, Gooch St and Stratford rd. There that should start a good argument.

tramp do you recognise the place on this photo.

Phil
Phil died in 2020. RIP.

tramp

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Re: sparkhill sparkbrook highgat
« Reply #5 on: August 21, 2009, 10:13:20 PM »
Phil,

I certainly do - it was almost next to Coldbath Farm..there were some prefabs closeby too.  Although it was named "OIL ROAD R..s", everybody called it ''the steam roller depot''in the early 50s.  Thanks for another fine photo and memory O0

tramp

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Re: sparkhill sparkbrook highgat
« Reply #6 on: August 21, 2009, 10:17:37 PM »
Phil,

I didn't know Gooch St as well as Ladypool or Stratford Rd up to the top of Sparkhill, but you could get any and everything, even good fresh fish - all that was missing was a Rag Market O0

Phil

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Re: sparkhill sparkbrook highgat
« Reply #7 on: August 21, 2009, 10:37:03 PM »
tramp

Though most road rollers changed from steam to diesel oil in the 40's. People still call them steam rollers today.

Phil
Phil died in 2020. RIP.

tramp

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Re: sparkhill sparkbrook highgat
« Reply #8 on: August 21, 2009, 11:00:24 PM »
Phil,

I'm not surprised to hear you say that, and they will as long as the sight of a real steam roller captures the interest and imagination of young and old.

- did hear that when Paddy won Lotto he bought a JCB GTX (with go faster stripes)

Phil

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Re: sparkhill sparkbrook highgat
« Reply #9 on: August 22, 2009, 02:09:02 PM »
This Sparkbrook pub is the latest addition to my collection. Its the Gate in Studley St taken c1914. Take a look you local lads you never know you might see your grandparents. Or you might even see your parents among the youngsters down the front.

Steve if you look in, it was outside this pub that barrow boy Ernie Guest played his trade selling fruit & veg. Ernie was a great bloke who I knew later in life. You might think what is this to me? Nothing really other than the fact that Ernie suffered the same affliction as your uncle and had the biggest strawberry nose that I have ever seen. He too had the operation in his later life, but he never got used to not having his large nose. People that knew him didn't recognise him until he spoke.


Phil
Phil died in 2020. RIP.

tramp

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Re: sparkhill sparkbrook highgat
« Reply #10 on: August 22, 2009, 02:29:54 PM »
Phil,

Thanks for another fine photo O0.  As one side of my family had been in Studley St for years by 1914, and it's a very short street, I'd be surprised if no relatives are in it ;D

tramp


 

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