At last, I’m getting caught up: Over on 365days there’s just been a huge update (sorry about the lag, back to normal this week) and I’m working my way through the email mountain.
While I go get some other behind the scenes stuff done (hopefully involving cake of some kind), I have here another gem from Tony Portman via the wonderful David Evans: A Walsall Wood Parish Magazine – from October 1935.
Look at the names. Then the advertisements. Some wonderful memories there – adverts for two Chemist’s and a cycle shop. Ah, how wonderful would it be to have seen my beloved lanes as they were then, on one of those new steeds?
Also, note the sophistication of the typography, which I find surprising. Wonder who designed it? It’s very good quality.
Thanks, as ever, to Tony Portman for his continued and wonderful generosity, and to David, for all his hard work, without whom over the last couple of months I’d have been absolutely sunk.
Spot anything? Feel free to comment here or mail me: BrownhillsBob at Googlemail dot com. Fill your boots.
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I see my paternal Great Grandmother listed in the burials ( Eleanor Selina Talbot) and I’m guessing the Clayhanger Warden J. Southall is probably my maternal Great Grandfather Joe ( sometime landlord of the Shire Oak Inn). Thanks to all concerned for this Sunday afternoon gem.
Sorry, Sidesman, not Warden.
HI Bob
many thanks for all YOUR hard work! …and I hope you are recovering..
The magazine..J Clews was my great uncle Jim ( mentioned in blog article Faggots) who has a modernisitc stained glass window in St Johns Church..and this window contains the miner and whippet image which was used for one of the local statues, though I dont think Jim ever owned a dog…not in his very neat and tidy house in Brookland Road
Batkins established 1855 is a revelation..its now Streetrunner car parts in Lichfield Road ( and gets a mention in one of Audrey Proffitt’s stories )..Mr Smith the chemist became the captain in the local Home Guard, but who were the other members in this battalion?..Where was the C of E church in High Heath?
kind regards
David
Told my 93 year old Dad about this. He was just 12 in October 35. Mrs. Cunnington did the altar flowers on 27th October. We are guessing that this is Mrs Cunnington from Cunnington’s shop. Dad says that the grocers, served by Mr Cunnington, was on the right hand side of the shop. Clothes, possibly underwear, were sold on the left. Mrs Cunnington served on this side but was normally out of the shop, in the back. If a customer wanted clothes, then Mr. Cunnington had to go into the back to call her in to serve. Dad commented that she was a very slow lady and he couldn’t imagine her doing flower arranging!
An anecdote about Cunnington’s shop. Dad lived nearby and was often sent there on errands. On one occasion he was sent for 4 packets of tea ( loose in those days, of course). No one was in when he got home so he just emptied the tea into the caddy but instead of throwing the empty packets away he carefully re-sealed them and put them on the shelf. It was some weeks before his Mother took down a packet to replenish the caddy and discovered all four were empty. By now the joke had passed and Dad was too scared to own up! He was sent back to the shop with the empty packets to complain “Mom says….” Mr. Cunnington was baffled but handed over replacement packets of tea. After that whenever Dad was sent for tea Mr Cunnington carefully shook each packet before handing it over!
We still got our groceries from Cunningtons when I was a child in the early 50s. The groceries were packed into cardboard boxes to take home. My parents obviously used an empty box to store my Christmas presents before the big day. The presents were duly laid out at the bottom of my bed but they must have forgotten to remove the box. On Christmas morning they were awakened by a shout: “He’s been! And he brought my presents in a Cunnington box!”
PS. Dad doesn’t think E. Jones the Clayhanger Sidesman was his father, as he doesn’t remember him going to Church. F. Jones is also mentioned, but Dad thinks it is unlikely to be his Uncle Frank.
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