Hi abiline (Lorrie),
I lived most of my youth in Sparkbrook 1944-1966, firstly at N°58 Leamington Road then on to N°3 Grafton Grove and N°2 Grafton Grove, Grafton Grove was a small cul-de-sac leading off Leamington Road with 12 two up-two down houses. I can remember the people from N°1 Grafton quite well, the woman we called her Mrs Addly and she had a daughter named Lita, I never knew the mans name. Lita would have been a few years older than me. They seemd a very excentric family and the woman told me once that they had lived in America and had been chashed off by Red Indians! She said that they had to abandon their car and run for their lives!
Now these people were so strange (to me) that I never believed a word she said. I left Sparkbrook in 1966 and left England in 1967. I did return to Grafton Grove on visits as I had an Uncle that lived there. On one of my visits I had learned that some people from America had turned up trying to find the people from N°1, but they had died and no one knew anything about the girl, Lita.
Leamington Road and Grafton Grove are long gone, they were pulled down and on that site now stands a school, The Nelson Mandela School. Leamington Road ran between Stoney Lane to the East and Ladypool Road to the West. It was inbetween Colville Road to the North and Brunswick Road to the South. On the Ladypool Road end there is still a few meters of Leamington Road left standing with one or two houses.
If you look at all my postings on this forum you will find some photo's, one of them is the cast iron door number from N°2 Grafton Grove! You can also find me in "Famous Brummies" on the Virtual Brum web-site. I can't say that I remember the name "Underhill" but then not everyone was known by their real names, and there was an American conection that's for sure. I have some photo's (somewhere) of Grafton Grove just before they pulled it down. If I can find one of them I will post it on ths forum.
Graham.