Search results for ""Author Eric Armstrong""

This fascinating volume illustrates what life was like for a schoolboy growing up in Birmingham between the wars. Illustrated with over 200 photographs, postcards, periodicals and other printed ephemera, this intriguing collection recalls domestic life and public events, from the opening of Birmingham's first airport to mass evacuation of schoolchildren before the outbreak of the Second World War. Accompanied by detailed and informative text, this book will appeal to all those who have lived through the inter-war years and those who would like to know more about what life was like.

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For the first quarter of the twentieth century, trams constituted the main workhorses of the public road transport system before Birmingham Corporation buses eventually replaced them completely. 1868 brought the formation of the General Omnibus Co. which ran a fleet of horse buses from High Street to various suburbs. The remaining years of that century are marked by an intricate mesh of private companies and the Corporation owning, leasing and managing transport systems. The first horse tram in the city plodded into service in 1872, operating between Hockley Brook and Dudley Port.In 1882 mechanical power, in the form of the steam tram, pioneered a course between the Old Square in the town centre, and Aston, and quite some time elapsed before the steam tram faced competition from the cable car. By 1904 the Corporation decided to take matters into its own hands and operate its own trams and buses. Overhead electric wiring appeared along steam tram routes and 1907 brought the demise of the beasts, replaced by nearly 200 trams.Following closely the 1937 routes depicted in Volume I and including the fares structure, as well as the social and sporting activities of tramways personnel, this book is illustrated with a wealth of fascinating archive postcards and ephemera depicting tramways operation of the era and placing an emphasis on the tram in its social and historical context. A must for all Birmingham transport and local historians!

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This fascinating collection of over 200 picture postcards provides a nostalgic insight into the changing history of Birmingham during the period 1900-1945. For over a quarter of this time Britain was at war and the political and social changes experienced were immense, not least in Birmingham, a major industrial city.Each image is accompanied by a detailed caption, bringing the past alive and describing many aspects of life in the city, including chapters on wartime, work, sport, shopping, entertainment and celebrations, providing a vital record of vanished vistas and past practices.This book will appeal to anyone with an interest in the history of the area, and also awaken memories of a bygone time for those who worked or lived in the ‘Second City’.

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From 1907 to 1953, Birmingham Corporation's trams provided an efficient and praiseworthy public transport service throughout the city, carrying millions of passengers during that time. Based on the twenty-eight tram routes in operation during 1937 (a representative year with trams operating in all parts of the city except the south-west sector), readers of this book are taken pictorially on a variety of tram journeys, places and points of interest being identified on the way. In their heyday, trams travelled along all the main directions of a Birmingham compass, moving through densely populated, highly industrialised inner suburbs to leafier outer suburbs, to places of work, places of entertainment and to the busy, bustling city centre. In short, an entertaining kaleidoscope of images is placed on show.

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Before the advent of the internal combustion engine, the only reliable means of getting about on Birmingham's roads was by walking or by horse. Many businesses ran fleets of horses and wagons to deliver goods around the city, horse trams carried the burgeoning population of the metropolis to and from work, while hansom cabs carried the well-off to the Theatre or to the city's parks. Within the pages of Birmingham's Horse Transport, Eric Armstrong takes us on a tour of the city, using images of horses at work to tell the story of the growth of the city's road transport network. From the city centre to suburbs such as Aston, Birchfield, Bourneville, Handsworth, Harborne, Lozells, Perry Barr, Saltley and Sparkhill he gives us a flavour of a time long gone, when horses, carts, coaches and trams were a common sight on the city's streets.

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