RE: BIRMINGHAM BACK TO BACKS - 8

These are more like the back to backs I remember, I'm not talking about a hundred years or more ago. This type of housing was still around in the 60's & 70's.

Phil

Too true Phil.I lived in similar conditions up until the time I was 13,but it never seemed as gritty as photos show.
Look at all those little children with not an adult in sight,I love the two little girls with the broken chair outside the "karzee".

John

Yes this is the way I remember life in Nechells until I got out of there, life in Balsall Heath and Sparkbrook was not a great deal better but there wasn't squalor all around. Even so I returned when I was at work to help my mother financially a little bit.

As you say we never really took in our surroundings, I suppose it was just that it was all around us so to us it was normal.

Phil

You can rent a week at 52 Inge Street.

Quite cheap as well, 7 days for the cost of two nights in a hotel.

52 Inge Street

Is that with outside loos , no heating, or electric light, and a carefully contrived leak in the roof over the bed, to ensure it is a genuine experience?

The reason why anybody would want to spend time in one of these places fails me. I had a caravan that had twice the floor space of the back to back that our family of 7 (at that time) lived in.

When I was in the Back to Back and the golden days of summer we used to strip off and fill the boiler with cold water and cool off.
Brookieboy

In our back to back yard the brew house boilers were used as baths for the younger kids on wash day. I'm surprised they stopped short of putting them through the mangle.

Phil,
Couldn't be done, we had to turn the handle.
Norman