Walsall Wood School, from early last century: Image as featured on Walsall Council’s ‘A Click in Time’ site, ref. w04149
Here’s a quick one that cropped up in the week from the young David Evans – last weeked I featured here a photo of Bradford Place in Walsall from the late 1930s, primarily because it was a great picture, but also because it had a Walsall Wood Colliery truck in the foreground.
I asked readers to tell me about it, and it turns out the photo was on Walsall Local History Centre’s ‘A Click in Time’ website. Stuart Williams, from the centre, had this to say:
Photo 326 from the Walsall Local History Centre Collection, dated 1935, by William Bullock. Bullock was a professional photographer, specialising in studio portraits in the first half of the 20th century. He was also an active member of Walsall Photographic Society. His general shots of Walsall record much of the town’s transformation in the decades before World War Two.
This is why the Local History Centre is so wonderful, and the find prompted David to go digging though the site, and came up with two photos – one featured above is of Walsall Wood School thought to be from between 1900 and 1909, and shows a view that David captured a coupe of years ago, that has changed surprisingly little: it’s actually in the old school that’s now Walsall Wood Youth Club, in the grounds of Streets Corner School.
Walsall Wood Youth Club as it was in 2014 when David Evans recorded a photo-tour for the blog. It’s very close to the viewpoint of the schoolroom image above.
David visited the building a while back, and recorded a whole photo-tour, which can be seen here.
David also found the image below, which is of ‘Brookland Juniors Football Team’ from Walsall Wood in 1930. Does anyone know anything about this team? A brief mention in the news archives, but nothing other than results. To me, they look like they’re sat on a PE Bench, like we used to have in schools.
If you can add anything to these images, please do – either comment her or mail me: BrownhilsBob at Googlemail dot com.
Thanks to David as ever for the keen eye!
‘Brookline Juniors’ in Walsall Wood, dated 1930. Do you know anything about this team? Image as featured on Walsall Council’s ‘A Click in Time’ site, ref. w09247
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After looking at the middle picture that was taken in 2014 I find the picture at the top quite haunting. I had a similar situation when attending Shelfield Youth Club which previously was my infants and junior school. I would sometimes stand in the place where I had previously sat as a child and try to recollect the room as it was. What a wonder of an invention the camera is.
Hi Bob,
Wassat !!! A football team in Brookland Road in my old ‘neck of the woods’, 1930’s style. Never in this world ! My old eyes rushed to the photo to search for old, familiar faces. Nothing. Didn’t take long to discover the photo had nothing to do with Walsall Wood, so out came my rather blunt and rusty research spade.
First off, from my memory there was never enough kids of the right age in Brookland Road. Coronation Road was but a twinkle in the eye of B.U.D.C. at this time. Benny Yates’s Social Club produced lashings of Club Brewery beer and Jones’s crisps, but very little else, athletically speaking. A semi-clincher came when I discovered the league this team played in Sutton and District League, Hmm, a long way to go, in those days, for a game of football
I peered more closely at the photo. Didn’t look a very happy group, matching shirts, of course, but stockings didn’t appear to match and wasn’t there a mix of coloured and white shorts? Yet the name on the ball was clear enough ‘ Brookland or Brooklands’.
On my steam-driven computer I googled ‘Sutton and Brooklands’ and soon struck oil. Marston Green Cottage Homes was the residence for Birmingham kids who had lost their parents or who had been taken into care. The name ‘Brooklands’ was more elusive, whether the homes were titled Brooklands, or the surrounding area. I do not know, but after the homes were demolished, the name ‘Brooklands Way’ was given to a road which passed over the spot. From my research I think that in the 1970’s there was a home still bearing the name Brooklands Children Home in the vicinity.
Thanks to Birmingham Central Library who some little while ago, established a small team to develop a history of Birmingham Children’s Homes, any research is richly rewarded. There are personal memories of youngsters posted, who shook off the habitual discipline of the Home for a game of football, so I suspect, there would be keen competition for places in the team. Coaching would be thin on the ground as one player remembers, “We learned our football skills from the older lads”.
So back to semi-hibernation go I, honour is satisfied. The torment of having a football team in the next street, of my own age of which I knew nothing, has gone. Back to sleep, David.
Hey David
That was fantastic, thank you.
No need to hibernate – you’re always welcome!
best wishes
Bob
Thanks Bob,
Comment much appreciated.
Best Wishes,
David.