Hi Dennis, glad to hear you're on the mend we are getting a bit lonely out here in cyberspace
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I don't know if you remember, but I lived my whole youth just a few yards from Stoney Lane, at the bottom end of what was once Leamington Road. That's gone now all but for a few yards at the Ladypool Road end. Where we used to live now stands the Nelson Mandela school, I've tried getting in touch with them, the headmaster, by email but of no avail. There must be some VERY rude Brummies at that school, no one even had the courtesy to reply!
Do you remember the cycle shop in Stoney Lane with Mr Rodgers? He was such a good bloke to me, bought my first new bicycle at his shop, a Hercules Harlequin. I was about 14 years old then, had to buy it on the never never. Then there was the barbers shop on Ladypool, right opposite Leamington. The barber there always went on and on about how beautiful my hair was (jet black slightly curly) he said "women would give anything to have your hair, they pay fortunes trying to get it that way". As a very young lad found this rather embarrassing. Almost next door to the barbers shop was an electronics shop where I bought my first "cats whisker" to build a crystal radio so that I could hear the pop music on Radio Luxembourg. My step-dad wouldn't let me listen to the house radio, that by the way was powered by accumulator. Radio Luxembourg was good but kept fading away because of the long distance, I thought, but after having spent the last 30 years in the Grand Duchy I now know that reception there is just as bad! On medium wave that is, on 97 FM they have a wonderful "oldies" sender, remnants of all the English DJ's on Radio Luxembourg. To the right of the electronics shop was a garden shop, there we bought some of the ingredients for a bomb. Good job we tested our bomb in a safe place, testing it in the street it would have blown all the windows out. We never attempted to make another one
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There's me going on again, could go on all day but wont. Only hope this jogs your memory a bit about that magical area. I say magical area because it does seem to have produced some remarkable people. I'll have to start a new topic on that theme.
You can just see the last bit of Leamington Rd on this map, running off Ladypool Rd in between Colville and Brunswick Rd.
See ya, Graham.