Search results for ""Brewin Books""

'They Also Serve Who Stand And Wait' tells the story of the U.S. Replacement Depot at Pheasey Farms Estate in Great Barr, Birmingham during World War II. Part of the half-built housing estate was requisitioned by the British forces at the outbreak of the war and in 1942 the first group of American soldiers moved in. The book is a fascinating insight into the day to day activity on the base, with many moving accounts from those involved, and also deals with the impact that the American soldiers had on the surrounding area of Walsall and Birmingham.

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No.13 Herbert Road is an engaging autobiographical account of a young boy growing up in the back streets of Small Heath in Birmingham during the 1940s. Through fond recollections and amusing anecdotes, the reader is transported back to the often hard times experienced by many of the working classes in post-war Britain. It was an era of queuing in the exceptionally cruel winters of the 40s for rationed food and fuel, having shoes with holes in and making clandestine visits to the pawn broker. From the perspective of a child it was also a time of freedom and adventure, of playing on the Birmingham bombsites, go-carting, street parties and the joy and laughter that close friends and Family bring. With youthful excitement at glimpsing Winston Churchill and even more thrilling for a boy at that time Roy Rogers with Trigger, these are stories of a long-gone Birmingham to be treasured by all generations.

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People make history in the place they call home. This book briefly describes the lives of twenty-nine Brummies, native and adopted, who shaped, influenced and made Birmingham the cosmopolitan city it has become today. In some cases, their impact was not only local, but national or global. Their lives are seen within the context of Birmingham's development from a Middle Age settlement in Deritend to Britain's second city. Virtually all are forgotten or barely known today. They include: John Rogers, martyred for his beliefs; James Brindley, father of the canals; William Hutton, Birmingham's historian; Joseph Priestley, who provoked a four day riot; Thomas Attwood, universal suffrage campaigner; Josiah Mason, big-hearted philanthropist; Peter Stanford, Birmingham's first black minister; Austen Chamberlain, overshadowed Nobel Prize winner and Hilda Lloyd, women's health care pioneer, along with twenty other Forgotten Brummies.

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Birmingham's Got Talent! Well, there can't be any question about that - a shopping centre that has always rivalled almost anywhere in existence, a manufacturing industry with a worldwide reputation andtheatres and cinemas in abundance.In this collection we have tried to show that, after the terribleevents of the forties, our city was busy replenishing and starting to flourish again - shops, factories and places of entertainment and, of course, the people. In the fifties shops played an enormous part in our lives as very few people had refrigerators and daily trips were a necessity. Politically the Conservatives held their ground from 1951 until 1964 when Labour came into its own. Musically the Beatles dominated the sixties and television finally burst into colour. So, there you are, in this, our 33rd Birmingham book, there are more wonderful items to enjoy. All proving, once and for all, that Birmingham has ALWAYS had talent!

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Birmingham's streets, roads and lanes are an absorbing aspect of our history. They call out to us about long dead landowners, notable figures from the history of England, Brummies long forgotten, farms that have been swept away by the outpouring of our city, remarkable physical features, distant battles, intriguing foreign places and mysterious happenings. Such names almost demand of us that we ask questions of them. Why is Conybere Street so called? Where is the Fashoda that is highlighted in a Stirchley road? How did AB Row gain its name? For what reason are the Adderleys brought to mind in Saltley? Did people wash themselves in Bath Row? Were cherries once picked in Cherry Street? And where were Fisherman's Hut Lane, Noah's Ark Passage, Devil's Tooth Hollow Yard and The Froggery. In this deeply researched book, Carl Chinn looks at scores of street names, bringing to life their meaning and those people who belonged to them. Carl Chinn MBE is Director of the BirminghamLives multimedia project at South Birmingham College, Professor of Community History at The University of Birmingham, a broadcaster with BBC WM and a columnist with the Birmingham Evening Mail. The Streets of Brum: Part One is his 21st book.

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To Beach or not to Beach? combines the musings of an enquiring mind with a profound love of flora and fauna and a deep compassion for the world's inequalities. Rarely travelling alone, itineraries have enabled Mary to trek through jungles, cross lakes in dugout canoes and travel by skidoo across the 'Land of Nothing' behind the migrating reindeer of the Sami. Highlights and challenges are also part of expedition life: from witnessing the 5th King's Coronation in Bhutan to being dumped at a remote airport hours from the intended destination. We are invited to share the music, customs and environments of multiple regions. Mary also details the orphanages and hospitals that she has encountered, including Mother Teresa's. By the end, the reader will be much wiser about the less-frequented corners of the world. The adventures recorded are fascinating events in the life of the author, who, when she is not travelling, lives in leafy Warwickshire.

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Birmingham Accident Hospital, fondly known as The Acci, was established to manage the victims of the Birmingham Blitz, enemy action overseas and those injured in the Midland's factories. This book tells the story of its role during the War and how, in the years that followed, it became world-renowned for excellence in the management of the victims of trauma. Staff at The Acci played a major role in almost every clinical advance from the introduction of antibiotics to the establishment of trauma critical care. Although the hospital closed in 1993, relocated first to Selly Oak Hospital and then to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, its staff went on to play a key role in the management of the victims of trauma during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, once again at the cutting edge of clinical practice. The legacy and the legend of the Birmingham Accident Hospital live on.

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A collection of stories covering the early lives of two lads growing up in the Warwickshire village of Studley during the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Humorously they speak of their adventures and of other villagers, together with their school days and pastimes. They share with the reader their passion for the countryside and tales of roaming around the village. Also recalled are their memories of the industrial centre of Studley, the cinema and other places of entertainment, now long gone. The text is illustrated with over twenty beautiful paintings and drawings by Roger Thomas and more than forty photographs of 'Old Studley'.

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Brought up in a large family living in a council house in the Stechford area of postwar Birmingham, David Prosser's childhood was not easy, he knew hardships and hunger, wearing worn out clothes and pumps with holes in. But, along with his best friend Trevor, David enjoyed the freedom of his youth with nearby fields, trees to climb, a river to play in and lots of places to explore. Times were hard so they did anything they could to make money: running errands for neighbours, carrying bags of coal on their backs, spending many hours on the tip collecting scrap metal and collecting rags from door to door to sell for pennies. Just two Brummie lads getting by on their wits trying to earn enough to pay for sweets, trips to the swimming baths and the cinema.

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The development of Birmingham into a major modern industrial city can be said to have begun in 1772 with the opening of its first canal. At that time Birmingham was a small and largely rural town with a growing manufacturing base. The growth of manufacturing within the town, however, was severely constrained by the lack of a cheap, reliable and efficient means of transport for the goods it produced. These difficulties were largely overcome by the building of the canal, in that it provided a cheap and efficient means of transport to convey the town's manufactured goods to markets beyond its boundaries. The why, when and how this first canal came to be built is explored in this detailed and highly referenced account. It tells the fascinating story of how a small group of innovative, determined and ambitious entrepreneurs joined together to plan and secure its construction, and thereby also secure the City's future progress and prosperity.

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On the 31st August 1997, the world's most popular Princess,Diana, was involved in a car accident in a Paris tunnel, she was taken to the intriguingly named Salpetriere Hospital where she died a few hours later at the age of 36. Salpetriere Hospital began life as the saltpetre (gunpowder) factory in King Louis XIV's arsenal. In the mid-17th century it was decided to move the arsenal to the other side of the river Seine and on the vacated land on the left bank a hospital was built which retained the name Salpetriere. It rapidly became a despised detention centre for errant or simply unfortunate women, many of them prostitutes. But with the introduction of kindness and caring it was able to recover and, with the beginnings of psychiatry and neurology, became recognised as one of the leading hospitals in the world. It is now a busy general teaching hospital housing the medical school of France's most famous university, the Sorbonne. This book tells how it recovered from the Gates of Hell to become the world famous hospital that it is today: 'From tyranny and horror to caring and renown' ... and more.

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'Old Bill' began as the cartoon creation of Captain Bruce Bairnsfather: born amidst the carnage of WWI 'Old Bill' lampooned life within the trenches and went on to become a beloved character within the play The Better 'Ole which filled the music halls of the United Kingdom. But who was 'Old Bill'? Certainly, there was no agreement amongst professional historians. So, when John Belcher was handed a collection of documents and photographs by an elderly relative, he was both surprised and intrigued to discover that 'Old Bill' was apparently his great uncle, Thomas Rafferty. This discovery set the author off on a journey to find out more. Who exactly was this remarkable man, a Lance Corporal in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment who had died at the Second battle of Ypres? What was his connection with Bruce Bairnsfather? Why had Bairnsfather denied to his widow Kate that he had known Rafferty as 'Old Bill'? Kate would, all the same, eventually be acknowledged and accepted by the public as the wife of 'Old Bill' and be presented with a Commemorative Peace Medal. Over time, however, Rafferty - the man behind the myth - was quietly forgotten. This book is the culmination of several years' research by John Belcher, his great nephew, that collates a range of evidence to establish Rafferty's claim to be the real 'Old Bill' of the western trenches. All royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to charity.

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During its eighty years under London's legendary Oxford Street everyone from Louis Armstrong to rock icons the Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols and Chuck Berry have played the historic 100 Club. In Ace of Clubs, with foreword by Jools Holland, we read its story in the words of the people who came to the club to play, work, dance or just listen to the music. Handsomely illustrated in colour, this is the first comprehensive story of one of the world's longest-running clubs, its seventy-year jazz history and its transformation into the greatest grass-roots music venue in the UK. Now granted special status it is ranked alongside Abbey Road Studios, Jane Austen's home and Shakespeare's birthplace. The 100 Club's story is an inspiring and frequently hilarious must-read for music fans everywhere.

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Here is a selection of paintings by artist Robert Geoghegan about his home city of Birmingham where he has lived for all his life. His work is full of the detail and colour of modern urban life, often combined with a nostalgia for old Birmingham. Some of the works portray ordinary everyday scenes like someone walking dogs, a lollipop man or getting on the bus with an off peak pass, while others show many of the city's landmarks such as Selfridges, Aston Hall and the Custard Factory but always with a comic twist. There's something here for everyone – from depictions of modern-day Goths in Pigeon Park to yesteryear's children hanging off the back of the old Corporation buses. There's football pictures about the Blues, Villa and West Brom – both tragic and comic! One about Jasper Carrott and of course King Kong has to make an appearance. Here the Birmingham buses are peopled by bears, Morris dancers, druids, Santa Claus and even the Royal Family. There's pictures of Birmingham's public statues: the Iron Man squaring up to a Cyberman, Bullie being harassed and the statue of Victorian reformer Thomas Attwood attracting the attention of the police. The Beatles, characters from Father Ted, Dracula, Daleks and the Peaky Blinders all make an appearance in this enthralling collection. Robert sells prints of his work at local art markets in Moseley, Kings Heath and the MAC as well as in the city centre before Christmas. His work is also available to purchase online at robspaintings.com. As well as being a practicing artist, Robert is an art tutor who has run art sessions in primary schools for many years and also teaches drawing and painting to adults.

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This second book by Maggie Payne is a collection of fond reminiscences and anecdotes about her life growing up and living in the small town of Alcester in Warwickshire from the 1950s onward. The book describes what it is about Alcester with its people and traditions that makes it so unique, with plenty of scrapes that Maggie gets herself into along the way! A well-known figure in the town, Maggie is a former Alcester Mayoress and Chairman of Alcester in Bloom and these lighthearted memoirs are intended to put a smile on the face of the reader as they take a walk down memory lane with her.

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When Alex's bowling hits a rough patch, his sister tells him he needs to be more aggressive. Alex doesn't think much of this advice and embarks on his own journey to discover what kind of preparation will work best for him. Can Alex sort out his bowling in time for the important match against the dreaded Smasher Jones and his team next week? This story touches on the themes of mindfulness, resilience and the sometimes underrated art of just being yourself. At Chance to Shine, our aim is to improve the lives of young people through participation in cricket. In schools, we take our work in the classroom as seriously as our work in the playground. For this reason, we are delighted that Alex's cricketing journey continues in this new reading book. You will find some familiar characters and meet a few interesting new ones. My favourite is Smasher Jones! Laura Cordingley, Chief Executive, Chance to Shine.

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This first and ground-breaking biography of Arthur Jefferson, the father of Stan Laurel (the mastermind behind the legendary comedy partnership of Laurel and Hardy), reveals that he was a major influence on his son, a fine comic actor himself, a successful playwright, and an excellent example of the provincial theatrical lessees who provided Victorians and Edwardians with their main source of entertainment. It describes the ups and downs of his life, family and career and how, in middle age, he had to confront the challenge to the world of intimate, local, live theatre from the emerging global, silent and then sound cinema industry. Ironically, it was the success of films like those of Laurel and Hardy which all but destroyed the provincial theatrical world that Arthur loved.

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In Down to Earth, Nancy Cooper gives us a glimpse into the real life of a seventeen year old young woman who is recruited into the Women’s Land Army in 1943. It is a big change from her life at Old Hill in the Black Country, and a welcome escape from the secretarial training that she was desperate to avoid. She soon found herself living alone, far from home and working on several farms. She managed to milk 30 cows, working alone, as she did her part in providing the country with enough food in the shortages both during and after WWII. At one farm she cared for a yard full of pigs, who cunningly tried to outwit her attempts to share their food out. Dealing with unfairly jealous wives, strange billeting arrangements with a nocturnal visitor and rats everywhere were also ways in which Nancy’s resourcefulness was tested. There is now a memorial to honour the work of the Women’s Land Army at the National Arboretum in Staffordshire. If you go to see it you will notice that the rats have got in on this as well!

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The Worcester and Birmingham Canal, some thirty miles long, was created from 1791, when it was authorised by Act of Parliament, to 1815 when it was completed 24 years later. Although intended as a broad canal for barges and having five broad tunnels, it was eventually completed with narrow locks due to financial difficulties. From Gas Street Basin at the Birmingham end it passes through the suburbs of Edgbaston, Selly Oak and Kings Norton, then through the long West Hill Tunnel and via Hopwood and Alvechurch through countryside to Tardebigge, all this section being on the Birmingham Level. Then it descends in stages via fifty-six narrow locks and two barge locks to the River Severn at Diglis via Stoke Prior, Hanbury Wharf, Dunhampstead, Oddingley, Tibberton, Blackpole and the eastern suburbs of Worcester City. The earlier chapters of this book trace in detail the successive stages reached in making the canal and the reservoirs needed to safeguard the water supplies of millowners, the financial and other problems faced, and the saga of the Tardebigge Boat Lifi. Later chapters cover the history of the canal following its completion, its use for both commercial and pleasure purposes, its administration and management, its upkeep and maintenance, its involvement with railways, and the various industries and amenities which were established beside it, Three of the final chapters feature past and present places and items of interest located along the canal from Birmingham to Worcester. Of special interest throughout is the impact the canal had upon the lives of countless people, those involved in its construction, those who lived and worked on the boats, those who were employed by the Canal Company as engineers, lock-keepers and maintenance men, people who worked in canalside factories, shops, public house, boatyards, and on wharves, and those concerned for the welfare of canal boat families and their animals.

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Over 80 ex-employees and their descendants give perceptive and often humorous accounts of life in the Enfield works, charting its expansion from a humble needle factory into one of Britain's best known motorcycle manufacturers. Contributions include Enfield-trained Bill Lomas, double World and British motorcycling champion, and Johnny Brittain who describes how he became the youngest member of the British winning team in the 1953 International Six Days Trial. They create a company renowned for its family atmosphere, where generation succeeded generation - a company whose expertise not only produced first class motor cycles like the Bullet, the Crusader and the Interceptor but also pioneered air-cooled diesel engines and were even involved in the development of atomic energy. The concluding stories are by those who worked there during the final ten years, when the company was reduced from a workforce of over 1,500 to one employee in the front room of a terraced house.

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The fifties was the decade that saw Birmingham getting back to its feet, shaking off the dust and demolition of the war years and slowly getting on with the business of "Life as normal". For that reason we've deliberately weighted the book in favour of the later years in order to show a brighter city. Digging deep, we've discovered quite a few rare items and, bearing in mind your comments, once again included dozens and dozens of those much-loved street scenes. Lots of firms jostle for position with their advertisements and we do hope that many of our 300+ images ring bells with you. It seems a miracle to me that so much photographic evidence of Birmingham's past still remains!

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Many books have been written about Leamington's history, but this one is unique - it is the first to document the history of its pubs. The authors have painstakingly researched more than 200 years of history tracking back to a time in the late 1700s when the small village of Leamington Priors had around 300 residents and just 2 inns. With more than 220 entries and 250 illustrations, this comprehensive work traces the number of co-existing pubs from just 2 to a peak of over 100 before the progressive decline to less than 60 at the end of 2013; opening/closing dates, licence listings and snippets of social history are also included. Whether you are a serious historian, a nostalgic Leamingtonian with a hankering for the local pubs of bygone days or someone who will just enjoy checking out the photos over a quiet pint, this is the book for you.

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Birmingham would definitely not be the place that it is today, without Eddie Fewtrell. Born one of ten children in the 1930s, in the backstreets of Aston, much of Eddie's childhood was spent keeping house and caring for his younger brothers. An alcoholic father and an invalid mother prevented him from attending school and leading a normal life - a scenario a million light years away from the vast nightclub empire that he was destined to build. By the 1970s he had become the most powerful man in Birmingham's Clubland. With the support of his large family, in particular his seven brothers, he went on to achieve even greater success.Eddie's first club, the Bermuda Club, was in Navigation Street, Eddie moved to pastures new, in the form of the Cedar Club, on Constitution Hill. Over the next few years Eddie opened Rebecca's, Abigail's, Boogie's nightclub, Boogie's Brasserie, Edward's No.7, Edward's No.8, the Paramount pub and Goldwyn's. Barbarella's became the top showcase for many up and coming UK pop groups. In 1989, he sold his clubs to Ansells but he returned three years later to open a new wave of clubs. Professional success came at a high price; Eddie reveals how his millionaire lifestyle and the pursuit of wealth led to tragic consequences.Other contributors include Laurie Hornsby, Kenny Lynch, Patti Bell, Tony Christie, Raymond Froggatt and H. Cain, Mike Alexander, BBC WM presenter Phil Upton, pop legends Bev Bevan, Steve Gibbons and Chuck Botfield. Comedians Don Maclean, Dave Ismay and Eddie's good friend Bernard Manning, interviewed shortly before his tragic death.

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Reality Shows. They may be all the rage on television at present but let's face it - the real reality is here! The minute you open the book you see life as it really was. The streets, and there are dozens of them, leaping out at you as true-to-life as ever. Much loved stars still topping the bill. Cars, that we now know have ceased to be manufactured, travelling along our highways. Factories, that haven't existed for years, were in the 60's proudly standing as if their lives and ours depended on them - and indeed they did. Here's a show bursting at the seams with more than 350 images and you can't get greater reality than that. Enjoy a decade which began - wait for it - over half-a-century ago.

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Brenda Bullock, brought up on a council housing estate in Sheldon, holds up a mirror to Birmingham in the 1940s and 1950s: she tells of the games played then in the streets: hopscotch, queenie, marbles, skipping, roller skating. She takes us back to school life during and after the war, to what it was like to be sick before the advent of the NHS and antibiotics; the struggle to make ends meet and find enough food to put on the table; the pawn shop, hiding from the rentman - all the experiences shared by so many children of the '40s and '50s, all illustrated by line drawings of the old Birmingham landmarks by architect, Matthew Bullock.

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Camp Foxley tells the history of the military camp built in the grounds of Foxley Manor House, Herefordshire, from the outbreak of the Second World War until the late 1960s when it was demolished. During the war the camp saw the arrival and departure of several Canadian and American military units. From 1944 to 1945 two American hospitals based there received casualties from the European Theatre of Operations. After the war the camp was used to house Polish refugees who were later joined by homeless English families. In the late 1960s the temporary camp, which had been built only to last for the duration of the war, was finally closed and the last remaining occupants were found homes in Hereford. The book tells of the day to day activities on the base, using accounts and previously unpublished photos from those involved. It also deals with the impact that the occupants had on the surrounding area of Herefordshire.

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The Girl from Guildford Street describes a working class childhood, growing up in Lozells, Birmingham, 1957-1968. The author and her sister and cousins were the last generation to grow up in the back to backs: Birmingham council houses, two up, one down; no bathroom, inside toilet, central heating or hot running water; centred around a back yard with outside toilets, sheds and a brew'us or wash house. The author looks at family life in the back to backs, and how whole families lived on one street. The author's parents both worked in local factories at a time when manufacturing was booming in Birmingham. This is not a misery memoir - it is the story of a happy childhood in one of Birmingham's poorest areas. It also looks at the Sixties - the fashions, the politics, the music, the hairstyles, the World Cup - as a golden age.

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Have Drums Will Travel.

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