Interview 20
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A: Well….in the 1950s Ladypool Road was the local shopping area. You could buy everything there, groceries, meat, vegetable and fruit, haberdashery, furniture clothes etc and all from individual shops. 1950s so no supermarkets then. I went with my Mum and Nan to do their shopping and sometimes we would buy ice cream from a shop called ‘Burdens’ in Oldfield Road, which was off the Ladypool Road. The ice cream was made on the premises and was the best I have ever tasted. In the late 50s early 60s my friends parents ran an outdoor on the corner of St Pauls Road and Ladypool Road. Mt paternal parents lived in Ombersley Road, which was off the Ladypool Road, and I have a photo of my Dad taken outside their house in 1939 if you’re interested. There was also he Ladypool Road picture house, we call it a cinema now. They showed children’s shows on Saturday mornings for just a few pence. As teenagers I worked Saturdays in the ‘Home and Colonial Grocery shop on Ladypool Road and my brother delivered groceries on a bike.
Q: Could you tell me a little bit about the road where you used to live? What did it look like visually? Explain about the community and people that lived in your road too.
A: Well from birth until 1963 I lived in Marshall Street South, which unfortunately no longer exists. It connected Turner Street and Larcher Street which both ran off the Ladypool Road. It was only a short street made up mainly of terraced houses with front doors opening directly onto the street. Between some of the houses was a passage-way, which we called an entry, and this led to the gardens at the rear of these houses and another row of houses of the back with front gardens. I have some photos. I lived in one of these back houses and my address was 4/47 Marshall Street South meaning 4 back of 47. None of the houses had indoor toilets or bathrooms. Mom and Dad would carry a tin bath into our kitchen once a week for us to bathe. The houses were heated by coal. The coal man delivered the coal to the front houses by opening the cellar grate in the pavement and tipping the coal direct into the cellar. For the back houses with no cellars, coal was stored in a coal shed in the back yard. Having been delivered by the coal man carrying the large sacks of coal on his back. There was a good community of working class people who looked after each other. As a child I don’t remember anyone in our street having a car and as children we played games in the road such as hop scotch or ball, but we still kept a lookout for the policeman who would tell us off for playing in the road. My maternal grandparents lived at 43 Marshal Street South together with my Nan’s two brothers, one a widower and other a bachelor. I have got some family photos taken in their back garden.
Q: Brilliant. Tell me about your memories from attending the local primary school, Ladypool School? Do you have a memory that stands out? What were the teachers like?
A: I can’t remember a lot about my early school days but I think I was happy at Ladypool Road School, which was and still is on the Stratford Road between St Agatha’s Church and the Angel Gabriel Pub, which is on the corner of Ladypool Road. I loved to read, I was goalie for the school skittle ball team and I used to help in the school garden. We also had swimming lessons at Stratford Road Swimming Baths in Sparkhill. I remember my favourite teacher Mr Stanley taking my class on a school trip to Wilmcote near Stratford-on-Avon where he lived and we had packed lunches in his garden. A lovely visit to the countryside in around 1955/56. He taught us if at first you don’t succeed try, try and try again, sorry. My best friend Pamela Jones was a school caretaker’s daughter and we were aloud to play on the wooden climbing frame in the school playground out of school hours. More photos if you’re interested.
Q: When you were growing up did you have any dreams or aspirations and did that change?
A: Err…I remember I wanted to pass the 11+ exam, go to grammar school, take O-Level exams and work in an office. Having passed the 11+ I went to Waverley Grammar in 1958 and whilst there wanted to be an air hostess because international flights were becoming popular and I thought this was a good way to see the world. I was talked out of it by a teacher who descried this job as a glorified waitress. Instead I achieved my earlier ambition. I passed my GSCES and started work in the offices of Birmingham City Council. Seeing the world had to wait until later.
Q: Have you seen Ladypool Road change and how was it developed, how has it developed?
A: I left the Sparkbrook area in my mid teens so that was early 60s and I didn’t return to Ladypool Road for many years. When it became part of the famous Balti Triangle and I wanted to try out the cuisine. The old shops and cinema of my childhood had been replaced by curry houses and shops selling Asian food and clothes etc. The community had become more ethnically diverse and a lot of the old houses have been replaced. Some of the old road and street names and the church and school remain but there is little of the Sparkbrook that I remember of my childhood.
Q: So tell me about your family? Brother’s, sisters and what it s was like growing up around the Ladypool area?
A: I lived with my Mum Doris, my Dad Frank and my younger brother Alan. My Dad was a window cleaner, he also played dominoes for the local pub team. This was the Junction Pub on the corner of Highgate Road and Turner Street. Sadly my Dad died in 1956 when I was 9 and he was only 39. My Mom had to go to work…. Sorry…..She was a wages clerk at Locomotives on the Moseley Road. Fortunately my Nan was there to help look after myself and Alan.
Q: Who was the main influence in your life?
A: I think my Nan, my Mum’s Mum, was a big influence in my childhood life. I enjoyed spending time with her, playing with her button and buckle tin. Helping her polish the furniture in her house from the attic at the top, the bedrooms, living room and the front room which I don’t really remember ever being used. I also recall the cellar, the turkey hanging down their at Christmas and the tin of Nuttal’s Mintoes on the shelf at the top of the cellar. Even now…. If I think of those mints I can still smell the coal in the cellar. Oh dear….I’m all….
Q: It’s ok.
A: We also used to go on the bus to the park, Trittiford or Swanshurst. Sometimes with nets and jam jars to catch tadpoles. My Nan, not me this time, used to follow the horses and carts to collect the horse manure for her plants and vegetables.
Q: So explain an average day growing up as a teenager?
A: As a teenager erm…I would get up for school have breakfast and walk to the Stratford Road via Ladypool Road to catch my bus or sometimes walk to Camphill where I spent the first three years of my Waverley Grammar School days. The school was split into campuses and the other campus was at Waverley Road, Small Heath where I spent the remainder of my school years. Again I would catch the bus there and sometimes walk home. After school I had lots of homework and enjoyed listening to music, this was after all the sixties. Saturday’s I went ballroom dancing lessons at Hooper’s on Stratford Road, Sparkhill. I’ve got a photo of that too. I would also go dancing at The Star Ballroom, above Burton’s shop again on Stratford Road, Sparkhill. On Sundays I went to Christchurch in Farm Road, Sparkbrook, off Stratford Road. I was a member of the choir but couldn’t sing. I just wanted to sit with my friends.
Q: You’ve already talked about some of your memories and some of those … you’re obviously….. you know quite moving for you. Is there a memory that stands out from when you were a teenager.
A: It was 1961 and I met a boy who was to become my husband….I’m starting again…..John was a milk boy, the milkman’s assistant and he delivered milk to my Mum and my Nan. We have been married 48 years this month, in fact yesterday.
Q: Oh congratulations. How do you feel your experience of growing up round Ladypool would be different to growing up there today?
A: Well growing up today is very different from growing up in the 40s, 50s or even 60s. That doesn’t matter where you live. There’s a big change in houses, transport and of-course technology where ever we look, but I suppose the main difference up around Ladypool Road now would be that it is now largely an ethnic community, with many different traditions and religions.
Q: Moving on to a chapter about people in the area, how do you find peoples attitudes towards you generally in Ladypool Road when you were growing up?
A: When I was growing up around Ladypool Road I felt loved and safe. I remember people looking out for their neighbours, there was always an aunty around, my Mums friends and neighbours, who were like family to us.
Q: And explain the role of women when you were growing up? How do you feel that has changed today?
A: Well in the early 1950s women, were in the main, housewives who stayed home to look after their families. They shopped, there was no supermarket or cars. They cooked, there was no fast food or microwaves. They washed, no washing machines, and they ironed with flat irons not electric ones etc etc. I remember some women in our street still using a dolly and tub to do their washing in and this was in a communal backyard and they used a ringer or sometimes called a mangle to get water out of their washing. There would always be a meal on the table for their husbands coming home from work that was just the way it was, men went out to work and women worked at home. I also remember women delivering or helping to deliver babies, lots of babies were delivered at home then. They also looked after neighbours that were sick and even dying sometimes.
Q: Did you stay in contact with friends you grew up with? In your opinion did people of your generation stay in the Ladypool Road area or move away?
A: Well no unfortunately I haven’t stayed in contact with friends I grew up with. I think this because I went to a different school to my primary school friends and we gradually lost touch as we made new friends at our new schools and began to move out of the area. I think people of my generation did move out of the area. I know my Mum wanted a house with a bathroom and expect most people moved to improve their housing situation.
Q: If you could sum up Ladypool Road in a sentence what would you say? While you were growing up.
A: I would say, Ladypool Road was a busy high street with lots of different shops.
Q: Ok and do you feel that women in today’s society have an important input into the development of Ladypool Road and the shops situated there?
A: All I can say is Sparkbrook women were strong when I was a child, just after the war and I hope they are the same now!
Q: Thank you! And just to end thanks for your time and telling us your story. Just to reiterate that you are happy to make this recording available for public use?
A: Yes I am.
Q: Brilliant, thank you!
A: Well from birth until 1963 I lived in Marshall Street South, which unfortunately no longer exists. It connected Turner Street and Larcher Street which both ran off the Ladypool Road. It was only a short street made up mainly of terraced houses with front doors opening directly onto the street. Between some of the houses was a passage-way, which we called an entry, and this led to the gardens at the rear of these houses and another row of houses of the back with front gardens. I have some photos. I lived in one of these back houses and my address was 4/47 Marshall Street South meaning 4 back of 47. None of the houses had indoor toilets or bathrooms. Mom and Dad would carry a tin bath into our kitchen once a week for us to bathe. The houses were heated by coal. The coal man delivered the coal to the front houses by opening the cellar grate in the pavement and tipping the coal direct into the cellar. For the back houses with no cellars, coal was stored in a coal shed in the back yard. Having been delivered by the coal man carrying the large sacks of coal on his back. There was a good community of working class people who looked after each other. As a child I don’t remember anyone in our street having a car and as children we played games in the road such as hop scotch or ball, but we still kept a lookout for the policeman who would tell us off for playing in the road. My maternal grandparents lived at 43 Marshal Street South together with my Nan’s two brothers, one a widower and other a bachelor. I have got some family photos taken in their back garden.
Q: Brilliant. Tell me about your memories from attending the local primary school, Ladypool School? Do you have a memory that stands out? What were the teachers like?
A: I can’t remember a lot about my early school days but I think I was happy at Ladypool Road School, which was and still is on the Stratford Road between St Agatha’s Church and the Angel Gabriel Pub, which is on the corner of Ladypool Road. I loved to read, I was goalie for the school skittle ball team and I used to help in the school garden. We also had swimming lessons at Stratford Road Swimming Baths in Sparkhill. I remember my favourite teacher Mr Stanley taking my class on a school trip to Wilmcote near Stratford-on-Avon where he lived and we had packed lunches in his garden. A lovely visit to the countryside in around 1955/56. He taught us if at first you don’t succeed try, try and try again, sorry. My best friend Pamela Jones was a school caretaker’s daughter and we were aloud to play on the wooden climbing frame in the school playground out of school hours. More photos if you’re interested.
Q: When you were growing up did you have any dreams or aspirations and did that change?
A: Err…I remember I wanted to pass the 11+ exam, go to grammar school, take O-Level exams and work in an office. Having passed the 11+ I went to Waverley Grammar in 1958 and whilst there wanted to be an air hostess because international flights were becoming popular and I thought this was a good way to see the world. I was talked out of it by a teacher who descried this job as a glorified waitress. Instead I achieved my earlier ambition. I passed my GSCES and started work in the offices of Birmingham City Council. Seeing the world had to wait until later.
Q: Have you seen Ladypool Road change and how was it developed, how has it developed?
A: I left the Sparkbrook area in my mid teens so that was early 60s and I didn’t return to Ladypool Road for many years. When it became part of the famous Balti Triangle and I wanted to try out the cuisine. The old shops and cinema of my childhood had been replaced by curry houses and shops selling Asian food and clothes etc. The community had become more ethnically diverse and a lot of the old houses have been replaced. Some of the old road and street names and the church and school remain but there is little of the Sparkbrook that I remember of my childhood.
Q: So tell me about your family? Brother’s, sisters and what it s was like growing up around the Ladypool area?
A: I lived with my Mum Doris, my Dad Frank and my younger brother Alan. My Dad was a window cleaner, he also played dominoes for the local pub team. This was the Junction Pub on the corner of Highgate Road and Turner Street. Sadly my Dad died in 1956 when I was 9 and he was only 39. My Mom had to go to work…. Sorry…..She was a wages clerk at Locomotives on the Moseley Road. Fortunately my Nan was there to help look after myself and Alan.
Q: Who was the main influence in your life?
A: I think my Nan, my Mum’s Mum, was a big influence in my childhood life. I enjoyed spending time with her, playing with her button and buckle tin. Helping her polish the furniture in her house from the attic at the top, the bedrooms, living room and the front room which I don’t really remember ever being used. I also recall the cellar, the turkey hanging down their at Christmas and the tin of Nuttal’s Mintoes on the shelf at the top of the cellar. Even now…. If I think of those mints I can still smell the coal in the cellar. Oh dear….I’m all….
Q: It’s ok.
A: We also used to go on the bus to the park, Trittiford or Swanshurst. Sometimes with nets and jam jars to catch tadpoles. My Nan, not me this time, used to follow the horses and carts to collect the horse manure for her plants and vegetables.
Q: So explain an average day growing up as a teenager?
A: As a teenager erm…I would get up for school have breakfast and walk to the Stratford Road via Ladypool Road to catch my bus or sometimes walk to Camphill where I spent the first three years of my Waverley Grammar School days. The school was split into campuses and the other campus was at Waverley Road, Small Heath where I spent the remainder of my school years. Again I would catch the bus there and sometimes walk home. After school I had lots of homework and enjoyed listening to music, this was after all the sixties. Saturday’s I went ballroom dancing lessons at Hooper’s on Stratford Road, Sparkhill. I’ve got a photo of that too. I would also go dancing at The Star Ballroom, above Burton’s shop again on Stratford Road, Sparkhill. On Sundays I went to Christchurch in Farm Road, Sparkbrook, off Stratford Road. I was a member of the choir but couldn’t sing. I just wanted to sit with my friends.
Q: You’ve already talked about some of your memories and some of those … you’re obviously….. you know quite moving for you. Is there a memory that stands out from when you were a teenager.
A: It was 1961 and I met a boy who was to become my husband….I’m starting again…..John was a milk boy, the milkman’s assistant and he delivered milk to my Mum and my Nan. We have been married 48 years this month, in fact yesterday.
Q: Oh congratulations. How do you feel your experience of growing up round Ladypool would be different to growing up there today?
A: Well growing up today is very different from growing up in the 40s, 50s or even 60s. That doesn’t matter where you live. There’s a big change in houses, transport and of-course technology where ever we look, but I suppose the main difference up around Ladypool Road now would be that it is now largely an ethnic community, with many different traditions and religions.
Q: Moving on to a chapter about people in the area, how do you find peoples attitudes towards you generally in Ladypool Road when you were growing up?
A: When I was growing up around Ladypool Road I felt loved and safe. I remember people looking out for their neighbours, there was always an aunty around, my Mums friends and neighbours, who were like family to us.
Q: And explain the role of women when you were growing up? How do you feel that has changed today?
A: Well in the early 1950s women, were in the main, housewives who stayed home to look after their families. They shopped, there was no supermarket or cars. They cooked, there was no fast food or microwaves. They washed, no washing machines, and they ironed with flat irons not electric ones etc etc. I remember some women in our street still using a dolly and tub to do their washing in and this was in a communal backyard and they used a ringer or sometimes called a mangle to get water out of their washing. There would always be a meal on the table for their husbands coming home from work that was just the way it was, men went out to work and women worked at home. I also remember women delivering or helping to deliver babies, lots of babies were delivered at home then. They also looked after neighbours that were sick and even dying sometimes.
Q: Did you stay in contact with friends you grew up with? In your opinion did people of your generation stay in the Ladypool Road area or move away?
A: Well no unfortunately I haven’t stayed in contact with friends I grew up with. I think this because I went to a different school to my primary school friends and we gradually lost touch as we made new friends at our new schools and began to move out of the area. I think people of my generation did move out of the area. I know my Mum wanted a house with a bathroom and expect most people moved to improve their housing situation.
Q: If you could sum up Ladypool Road in a sentence what would you say? While you were growing up.
A: I would say, Ladypool Road was a busy high street with lots of different shops.
Q: Ok and do you feel that women in today’s society have an important input into the development of Ladypool Road and the shops situated there?
A: All I can say is Sparkbrook women were strong when I was a child, just after the war and I hope they are the same now!
Q: Thank you! And just to end thanks for your time and telling us your story. Just to reiterate that you are happy to make this recording available for public use?
A: Yes I am.
Q: Brilliant, thank you!
Sonia Sabri Company, 202 Moseley Street, Birmingham B12 0RT UK