We used to live there (above Moores bookshop) as students in 1974. The cellar was full of supplies from a former tenant Southertons the Chemist. There were loads of empty medicine bottles in damp and rotting cardboard boxes which we loved to explore. I still have a small bottle with a glass stopper saying Southertons 417 Moseley Road with the slogan "Friday night is Amami Night"
We had to pick up phone calls from the shop if our parents needed to contact us...down the stairs, through the sliding door into the shop. I remember Mr Moore was a bit like a serious undertaker and the two ladies who worked there were always very friendly and always had reading material on their laps under the table!
For some reason they used to burn the stock from time to time in a brazier in the back yard where the bins were. If we were lucky we could rescue the scorched mags and take them back upstairs to read.
We loved our time in Balsall Heath. many of the streets behind us were being demolished - it was like a battlefield. It cost me £7 a month to live there and all the electric was by 50p pieces in a meter so we had a pile of coins standing by!
Would love to see a picture...does anyone have one? my room was the right-hand arched window on the top floor...