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Post by pedro42 on Sept 17, 2016 9:45:04 GMT
The back to back house museum in Hurst street may be nostalgic, but they're bit on the clinical side. I think that these photos are more realistic
Pete
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Post by mac on Sept 22, 2016 9:26:46 GMT
I lived most of my young life from 5 year old up until my teenage years in a one down and two up back to back. With a family that reached nine in number before we were moved to a normal three bedroom house you can imagine what it was like. That why it annoys the hell out of me when I hear people today that have visited the Hurst Street back to backs saying that "they are not that bad". Of course these sanitised versions of the real thing are nothing similar to the back courts with their poorly maintained properties that I remember.
If the interior of the renovated back to backs were similar to these photos then they would be more believable, but in reality I think Birmingham City Council are too ashamed if it's history to even attempt to show a true representation.
The first of these three photos is of the same design of the house that my family lived in, can you just imagine two adults and seven children in that tiny living room. In the middle of the room we had a three foot square kitchen table where us kids could eat. It almost took up the while room. The door in the corner behind the gas cooker was the staircase to the two bedrooms. It could only open about 24 inches at the most, when we moved out all the bedroom furniture has to go out of the upstairs window. The other door opened on to a three by six scullery which is where the Belfast sink complete with it's cold water tap stood. The toilet was up the yard and was one of five shared among 10 families.
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Post by pedro42 on Sept 22, 2016 21:16:25 GMT
Hi Mac Our house in Grange Road was exactly as you described here. Our family was not as large as yours, there were only six of us, but it was still cramped in the two small bedrooms. I still don't know how my mother cooked dinners in that tiny kitchen! There was no hot water, and the slack covered coal fire always seemed to blow smoke back down the chimney. The walls were so damp that wallpaper was always peeling off.
We also had a cellar, which filled with water every time that there was a thunderstorm. The rain cascaded across the bunged up drains in Bertram Road, across Grange Road & through our cellar grids. We tried everything to cover the grids but the water always got through!
We shared a yard and toilets with our neighbours.
Pete
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Post by mac on Sept 23, 2016 13:39:07 GMT
My memory of our back to back scans from 1954 to roughly the start of 1963, and although out house was not as bad as some of the others around us because it was slightly done up a little before we moved in. They fitted two electric lights and one electric plug socket. They actually left the stairs and one of the bedrooms with gas lighting and no plug sockets at all upstairs.
The attached photo shows what the Hurst Street back to backs actually looked like in the 1930's. These weren't the ones that were renovated nut I understand they were close by. Attachments:
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Post by brummiewench on Sept 26, 2016 20:16:12 GMT
Born in a back to back and then lived in two others,finally moved to a real house when I was twenty. I refuse to visit the Hurst Street houses as would get very angry. My son went and I said 'why bother' I can answer all your questions and tell you everything you need to know'!!! The real back to backs were nothing like the National Trust would have us believe, all very jolly to them but tough for those of us who lived in them. No hot running water or bathroom and a shared loo a walk away from the house, no I won't swap my modern OAP life for my Dickensian early life in the 1950s
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Post by Jerry on Sept 26, 2016 22:09:57 GMT
Born in a back to back and then lived in two others,finally moved to a real house when I was twenty. I refuse to visit the Hurst Street houses as would get very angry. My son went and I said 'why bother' I can answer all your questions and tell you everything you need to know'!!! The real back to backs were nothing like the National Trust would have us believe, all very jolly to them but tough for those of us who lived in them. No hot running water or bathroom and a shared loo a walk away from the house, no I won't swap my modern OAP life for my Dickensian early life in the 1950s I think the houses in the Black Country Museum are a bit more true to life as it was then but even they don't give a genuine picture How are they gonna replicate the damp and mould and cockroaches and bedbugs? I think they should be showing film footage of what it was really like, there's plenty of material out there Jerry
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Post by mac on Sept 27, 2016 20:35:29 GMT
Brummiewench, spot on, I think BCC are trying to fool the public with the renovated back to backs in Hurst Street. The reason being because they are ashamed that this type of housing was still in use until the early 70's. Even in the 80's they were still modernising houses that still had outside loo's and no bathrooms.
My grandchildren were taken around the Hurst Street houses not long after they opened by their schools. My eldest granddaughter then 15 thought they were lovely and quaint, needless to say she was on the receiving end of a short history lesson from her grandfather complete with personal history & photo collection. I'm pleased to say I was able to disillusion her as to the idea they were quaint. It just amazes me that the message that they were not little palaces and no images of what they were really like were not shown during the tour, and they were allowed to come away with the opinion that they had.
Like yourself Brummiewench I have not been near these house and I have no plans to do so.
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