Posts Tagged ‘ history ’

Old football was rubbish

So sang Frank Skinner on Fantasy Football, but with “big money men” coming in to buy Blues and promising £5m (about enough to buy Julian Lescott’s haircut) to save the team it’s feeling more and more like Ken Wheldon is about to come back albeit dragging Steve Mcmanamanaman with him. Good time for the Mirror to open up search of their football archive, not that much stuff there at the moment – but a quick treat for Blues, Villa, or even Albion fans.

I’m a fan of a certain type of book, the ultra-local nostalgia-fests that have names like “Memories of Ward End”. They’re not heavy with detail, not well put together normally, but they’re beautiful in their sheer ordinariness. They provide the wonderful mundanity to go with the pompous history of the rich, but there’s absolutely no reason why you should care if they’re not of a place you care about. Alton Douglas has long been the Birmingham master of the “photocopied old bus ticket anthology” market, his books have a careful artlessness I enjoy. They seemed to have started quite wide a “Memories of Birmingham” and got progressively more niche, down to “Memories of Erdington Shoe Shops Between the Wars” (well almost). Which is why I’ve just spent far too much money on one on ebay: Yes, “Dogs in Birmingham” (worryingly I discover available for 7p on Amazon) a book containing photos of dogs, in Birmingham. Now the usual format of these books is a scrapbook-style rampage through the archives at the Post & Mail for pictures of an area of subject. Areas work best, everyone goes “ooh remember what Small Heath used to look like” (pretty much as it...

Beautiful set of pics from inside Moseley Road Baths from this weekend’s Birmingham Flickr meet. They’re the work of Emma Jones, who has certainly developed an attachment to the building: it’s in a dreadful state. There seem to be a lot of little things that could be done to save disaster in the future, but it’s almost as if they’re letting it run down on purpose. For example, there’s a pinhole leak in a water pipe above the unused pool. All it would take to fix it is a stepladder (it’s not very high at all) and some epoxy tape (or even a bit of rubber and a pipe clamp, which would last a few years)… but no. Instead, this tiny leak has already rusted all the metal in the seats and railings on the two stands below it, decayed all the plastic and rubber on the two floors – and is presumably therefore destabilising the structure underneath. The Friends of Moseley Road Baths are having another fundraiser on the 14th Aug — and the old place can certainly do with the love.

Costermongers to close

Nothing exciting to say, just a sad fact. This coming week according to Midge.

Michael Scott has spent the last few years hanging out in disused buildings taking photos, but rather than being arrested and locked up he’s been given an Arts Council grant and the photos are being exhibited in the Central Library until the 12th of September. He’s snapped the HP factory, the Central studios and the Lancaster Circus fire station (which I now find out is shut). Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Made in Birmingham: The 1886 Exhibition of Local Manufactures and Natural History Centenary Square Birmingham 20 June – 31 August 2009 Free The Birmingham City Council’s Website says: The Made in Birmingham exhibition celebrates one of the most important public demonstrations of Birmingham’s commercial and industrial prowess: The Exhibition of Local Manufactures and Natural History held at the Bingley Hall in 1886. This exhibition of photographs and related material, drawn from the collections of Birmingham Library and Archive Services, provides a unique opportunity to explore the spectacular shop window which the 1886 show provided for the huge variety of goods – ranging from heavy engineering and machinery to furniture, to decorative and domestic wares – made and sold in Birmingham during the late 19th century. Pop along some time. It’s well worth a look!

The hall of memory is a building I have walked past many times and never ventured in until recently. From Birmingham City Council’s website: Birmingham’s Hall of Memory was erected in the 1920s (before Baskerville House, in front of which it now stands) to commemorate the 12,320 Birmingham citizens who died in the “Great War”, which we now know as the First World War (a further 35,000 Birmingham men came home from that war with a disability). The Hall, made from Portland Stone, from Portland Bill near Weymouth, was opened by Prince Arthur of Connaught on July 4, 1925. It cost £60,000, which was raised by public subscription. Further memorials were added after the Second World War, and for subsequent campaigns, including Korea, Vietnam and the Falklands. Around the exterior are four allegorical bronze figures, by local artist Albert Toft, representing the Army, Navy, Air Force and Women’s Services. Inside the Hall are three Art Deco panels, “Call”, “Front Line” and “Return”, by William Bloye, another local artist. Opposite the Hall of Memory, outside what is now the Rep Theatre, stood a “colonnade” of Portland Stone. When Centenary Square was created, this was moved to the Peace...

Live Popular Music, the NUS and Birmingham -

Paul Long is about to embark upon some research into the role that the universities and colleges in Birmingham have played in the live popular music culture of the city in the last 50 years. And not as I first read the NHS and music. Go see if you can help

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Posts Tagged ‘ history ’

Old football was rubbish

Dogs are everywhere

Bathe your eyes

Costermongers to close

Closed shop

Friday Photo by Karen Strunks

Friday Photo by Karen Strunks

Live Popular Music, the NUS and Birmingham -

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