Kingstanding memories
Here are memories of Kingstanding and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Kingstanding or a Kingstanding photo.
Childhood
Funny how seeing Memories of Kingstanding title, it brought back so many thoughts of living there in childhood to my 20s. The Geman plane that dropped its bomb on a house in Hurlingham Road, hiding under stairs at school as the planes went over it, causing the building to shake with flying over it so low. The German POW's repairing the Kingstanding Road by the Settlement and my mother making me walk past them very quickly so I would be unable to speak to them. The Barrage Balloon landing on a house in Dulwich Road and all us kids running there to see it. My dad did firewatching at his works all through the war so our mom had to make sure we were in the shelter on her own, it must have been a hell for her as she had 4 of us to cope with. My youngest brother at that time was born in 1941 so he had a Mickie Mouse gas mask, I hated my... Read more
ODEON PICTURE HOUSE
I remember the Odeon on Kingstanding Circle. We used to wait for my dad to come home with his wages and then mum would take my sister and myself to the Odeon. We used to queue for ages to get in the shillings! and always had to stand for the National Anthem at the end of the film. We could choose on the night whether to have an ice cream at the cinema or buy threepence worth of chips when we came out at the chip shop which was opposite the Odeon.
Later on we used to do all our courting in the back row, and I had the first kiss off my husband in the Odeon 48 years ago!
Memories of West Midlands
The Village Shops
Lovely to see the old pictures of the village, they almost made me cry. Does anyone remember some of the old shops and their owners? Ted Shelley in the newsagents where I went with my pocket money to buy my weekly comic, also a very spooky antique shop run by the equally antique couple who used to scare me silly as a young girl. It was an old curiosity shop with a musty smell, quite dark inside as well. How about Horsleys the grocers, the last of the old family grocers in the days when supermarkets were in their infancy, I would go in with the red book with the weekly shopping order and a man in a brown overall coat would go round collecting the provisions and marking them off with a pencil that he occasionally licked before lodging it behind his ear. The Post Office, devoid of modern technology, with a post mistress who had regulation glasses on the end of her nose and hand writing of artistic... Read more
Help Needed
I'm looking for a man called David from Great Barr who used to drive an ice-cream van with his brother in the 1970s. He is believed to be married with two boys, possibly in his 60s or 70s now. Any information, however small, would be gratefully accepted. Thanks.
Walking to School
I lived in Goldieslie Road (from 1966 - 1979) and went to the Town County Primary School (juniors). I used to walk to school past the Driffold every day (unless I took the 107 bus!) Sometimes I walked up through the gardens. I had a friend called Michelle who lived in the Driffold and I used to call for her. We used to dawdle our way to school via the top road and down past the "Cup". I've tried to find her again after all these years, because we lost touch when she went to the Girls Grammar school and I went to John Wilmott. My memories are of the beautiful flower beds in the Driffold gardens and a particular one of sitting there once with my grandma when I was very young. I haven't been to Sutton for a few years now, but have recently discovered my third cousins who lived there as well. Our grandmothers were cousins. Nostalgia rules ok!
The Driffold
I lived in no. 3 The Driffold. I attended Town County Primary and then John Willmott Grammar School. I have the happiest memories of living there with Sutton Park just down the road. We used to play near the duck pond identifying all the ducks and fishing- trying to catch pike. We cycled everywhere. In the summer we'd cycle to the outdoor swimming pool and spend all day there swimming in the pool and the lake. Our mother would wheel the pushchair with the latest baby and a picnic lunch there later. Such wonderful happy times. I sang in the choir at Holy Trinity. It was my whole life. Three weddings on a Satuday with the red carpet equalled 7/6d which was a lot of money then. I loved Sutton Coldfield. The best days of my life. Now living in Newmarket. Lovely but very different. The best years were spent in Sutton. Very nostalgic!. We had such fun as children. The Guides every Thursday night in a corrugated iron shed,... Read more
Chester Road.
I spent 9 years from the age of 6 to 14 years old, (1936 to 1944) living in the Princess Alice Home & Orphanage in Sutton Coldfield.
I do not recognise any of the pictures on this website. So I am presuming there have been many changes, besides the demolition of the Home and surrounding property.
I do remember spending so many weekends in Sutton Park, just a short walk from the Home. It felt longer when I was small. We played in the Woods, Picked Blackberry's and Bluebells. Swam and paddled in the streams and Picknicked, until we were so tired we had difficulty walking back to the Home.
I attended school in nearby Boldmere walking to and from there along Chester Road.
During the war when Coventry was bombed the German planes returning to Germany dropped their remaining load, as they passed over the Home. Luckily none of the children were killed or injured, although we were all very frightened.
Whilst walking to school (in... Read more
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