1950's in Birmingham

Brum, colloquial for Birmingham.

Up until about the age of about 14, I spent a lot of my school holidays with either my grandparents or great aunt Violet (Aunty Vi) in Birmingham. My friend Charlie who lived next door to my Aunty Vi was a year older than myself and we used to spend our time roaming all around Birmingham, mostly walking but also on the buses.

Birmingham in the 1950’s was still recovering from the blitz and undergoing a massive government program of bomb site clearance and the demolition of large slum areas of Victorian era back-to-back housing. My grandparents and Aunty Vi both lived in back-to back housing. These type of houses had one ground floor room with a tiny scullery with a sink, cold water tap and gas cooker.

A basement had a grill at the street pavement through which coal was delivered by tipping it down a chute. On the first floor was a bedroom and on the second floor an attic room. Basically four rooms stacked one on top of the other.

There were three electric lights, in the main room, the scullery and the “coal hole”. The bedroom and attic used candle power. All were joined by a small, narrow and steep spiral staircase.

A communal yard at the rear was shared by four houses and had a joint laundry shed and four outdoor lavatories.

When compared to my parents newly built modern and more spacious house with large gardens in Lancashire, these Birmingham houses were truly awful, yet to a youngster full of excitement.

When I was there it was my job to go down in to the “coal hole” and bring up buckets of coal for the fire “without dawdling, playing or getting covered in coal dust!” My job to twist old newspaper ready for laying the fire, put kindling wood on top and arrange the coal and draw tin to get a good fire roaring.

Charlie was fascinated by anything electrical and in his house he had an old sideboard with drawers full of wires, electric motors of all sizes, batteries, torches, bulbs, fuses, screwdrivers and tons of junk. We used to spend a lot of time going around the Birmingham junk shops, rooting through no end of odds and ends, UK and US ex-army surplus items were high on the list of things Charlie spent his pocket money on, especially coloured light signaling torches.

When we were not junk shopping, we would investigate bombed out buildings, sneaking through or under corrugated iron barriers to get to bomb damaged houses, shops, schools and factories. First we had to look out for any policemen, or nosy adults, and when the coast was clear in we went. To say it was dangerous would be an understatement. Floors had holes in them and were unstable, roofs were missing and staircases half collapsed. Houses were boring, but schools and especially factories were full of adventure.

During the summer holidays we used to go to Hansworth park, one of the few places with any greenery, and when we could afford, hire a rowing boat and row around the lake.

My grandparents’ house in Ford Street was a long way from Aunty Vi’s, so when there I was with a gang of local kids. My grandparents were moved in to a ground floor council house, when their back-to-back was due to be demolished, it was pleasant spacious and airy, but even further away from Aunty Vi’s so Charlie and I grew apart.

The new house was near a railway marshalling yard and I got interested in train spotting, but as there were only shunting engines in the marshalling yard, I used to take the bus to New Street and Snow Hill Railway Stations and spend days there recording the trains.

Saturday mornings involved a long walk from my grandparents house, down Rocky Lane, and were then spent at the Aston Cross Picture House with hundreds of other kids watching the latest episode of Flash Gordon (would he escape certain death and save Dale Arden from the evil clutches of Emperor Ming the Merciless?), Hopalong Cassidy, Goodies and Baddies, Loony Tunes – all good fun with lots of cheering, booing and foot stamping.