Useful Hints

There is still a steady trickle of information coming in on the late, great Edgar Pritchard and his amateur cinefilms, of which I think the most notable is ‘The Poacher’s Apprentice’, the wonderful short, silent movie about a young lad befriending a greengrass, filmed in and around the village of Hints, near Tamworth, in 1952.

Brownhills camera whizz Edgar filmed the 1934/5 Brownhills Carnival and made the comedic short Hope Springs Eternal, both of which I featured here before I really understood the genius of the man. We now know of the existence other films – mainly due to the diligent research of Peter ‘Pedro’ Cutler, which I’m hoping to get a look at when I get some time off and can travel to the archives holding them.

Since I posted The Poacher’s Apprentice here a few months ago, much of the interest has come from Hints itself, and highlighted some of my early, incorrect assumptions. For the benefit of readers and others who might have missed it, I’m going to pull this prescient comment into the light from Hints resident Peter Edwards:

Bob

Your two posts have been brought to the attention of Villagers today, and are fascinating.

We live in ‘The School House’ and have done so since 1980. Comments as follows:

‘The Poacher‘

The picture is actually Rose Cottage – the School House is the bit that runs at right angles to School Lane. We have salveged the old village pump – it’s in our back garden after a tractor & trailer broke it off at ground level! There is no truth in the Church bell being the old school bell – the school bell was saved after the school was converted into housing, it was stored at the back of the Village Hall but unfortunately about 1990 someone nicked it! The Church bell is he original from 1883 and has been refurbished, so it IS rung for Church services.

‘Taking the Hints‘

The old school gates ARE original – they lead on to what was the old school quad and we use them every day to secure our cars!

The building known as ‘The School House’ was built about 1728 – it together with Rose Cottage was originally three cottages, converted to two. It used to be the Headmaster’s house from which he ran the school, but James Chadwick built a new school about 1860, just to the east – you can see it on one photo with the bell tower.

Might have more info if you ask!

Peter Edwards

Peter, that’s absolutely brilliant – thanks for the help. The funny thing about Hints is I never stop learning about the place. Sorry it took so long to feature this here, but the backlog at the moment is quite considerable. I am, of course, interested in your offer and will be in touch in the next week.

There was also another comment that’s worth highlighting. I spoke of a transport cafe that I remembered in the 1980s on the A5 at Hints, that was in the same building as the Post Office: mistakenly, I called it Rosa’s: I was wrong about that, too, as Bob Wright informed me:

In the 80’s it was ‘Maria’s cafe’ but this picture was taken long before that time.

Any information on the bakery next to the cafe and Post Office would be interesting, especially when it opened and who ran it, could solve a mystery that l was told of, concerning a child.

That’s fascinating – I never realised the bakery existed. Can anyone help here please, or add to the comments made by Peter? If you can, please feel free – either here on this post or to BrownhillsBob at Googlemail dot com. Thanks!