welovebearwood: Can you cook a proper curry?

welovebearwood: Can you cook a proper curry?: Khakan can!  Not only does he bake amazing cakes ,  he can cook a proper curry too!  We caught up with Khakan Qureshi whilst he was bus...

Led Zeppelin Celebration Day (TV spot)......The 'Greatest Rock Band Ever' and half of them were from Dudley in The Black Country.....Rock on Robert!

George Dixon : Victorian Birmingham's education pioneer and a little bit of TV history.

George Dixon was a former Lord Mayor of Birmingham of the 1870's and a renowned educational pioneer in the city. He founded Edgbaston High School for Girls in Westbourne Road to educate young women, the daughters of artisans and craftsmen in Birmingham. The George Dixon Grammar Schools were built in 1906 to honour his memory on the mile-long City Road, built at the turn of the 20th century during the municipal boom in Birmingham inspired by Joseph Chamberlain who at that time founded the University of Birmingham also in Edgbaston.

George Dixon to those 'Baby Boomers' who grew up in 1960's Britain meant a kindly, avuncular copper who pounded the beat in Dock Green in East London on black and white TV on BBC1 on Saturday evenings. 

Did you know how PC George Dixon got his name...? 

Sir Michael Balcon, then Head of the Ealing Studios was a former pupil of the George Dixon Grammar School for Boys in City Road, Edgbaston in Birmingham. 

Ealing Studios released a film called: 'The Blue Lamp' in the early 1950's starring Jack Warner as PC George Dixon. PC Dixon was shot dead by a very young actor named Dirk Bogarde (remember him...?) who played a petty villain on PC Dixon's beat in bomb-damaged London. 

PC George Dixon's name was inspired by Sir Michael Balcon's former school George Dixon Grammar in Birmingham. 

PC Dixon was reincarnated for the very successful 'Police Procedural' TV show of the 60's and 70's on BBC1, still played by the original actor from 'The Blue Lamp': Jack Warner. 

Sir Michael Balcon's daughter Jill Balcon established links with her father's old school in Birmingham some years ago. Jill was part of an acting dynasty and married into the Day-Lewis theatrical family which includes double-Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis whose grandfather is Birmingham-born Michael Balcon

The Old Dixonians Rugby Football Club for whom Sir Michael Balcon played after the First World War celebrates its centenary 1913 - 2013 on September 14th 2013 with a 'Grand Centenary Dinner' at the Botanical Gardens in Westbourne Road Edgbaston. 

Anyone with connections to the former George Dixon Grammar School and its rugby club: Edgbaston Dixonians RFC is welcome to attend the centenary dinner to celebrate 100 years of Dixonians rugby, the club being historically based in Bearwood, Edgbaston and Harborne drawing its players from those areas

welovebearwood: Local Heroes: Arthur Merriman

welovebearwood: Local Heroes: Arthur Merriman: Arthur Lewis Joseph Merriman On Saturday we visited the Smethwick At War exhibition at St Mary’s Church. It was fascinating, for inst...

Blogging Bout 'Bromwichham': On this Armistice Day I thought I would let you k...

Blogging Bout 'Bromwichham':
On this Armistice Day I thought I would let you k...: On this Armistice Day I thought I would let you know about my Grandad Arthur Lewis Merriman who served in the Auxiliary Fire Service in C...

On this Armistice Day I thought I would let you know about my Grandad Arthur Lewis Merriman who served in the Auxiliary Fire Service in Cape Hill during the Second World War.

I was reminded of his selfless service after having served in the Roman Catholic as a 17 year old in The Black Watch putting down the Irish rebellion, the Easter Rising of 1916, which probably saved him from the carnage of The Somme and the Western Front.

I happened upon the Remembrance Service at 10.30am at St Mary's Church in Bearwood yesterday. It was excellent and attended by the Mayor of Sandwell and a flag-bearing party from the Royal British Legion (one of them was a 'Green Beret' mate a Royal Marine who had obviously seen recent service by his age. The Last Post was sounded and brought a tear to my eye as it always does as I recall comrades lost in battle.

If anyone subscribes to Jo Billing's 'We Love Bearwood' blog and website there will be a piece on my Grandad Arthur Lewis Merriman who moved to Poplar Road in Bearwood in 1935 from their home in the back-to-back courts of Winson Green where he worked as a furnaceman at Guest Keen and Nettlefold for over 30 years from the 1930's until he retired in 1964.

 Arthur was an Auxiliary Fireman at M&B's Cape Hill Brewery during the second shout and was a bit of a hero in 1940 when he and his men went round putting out firebombs and incendiaries dropped on Winson Green, Ladywood, Bearwood and Smethwick during the Birmingham Blitz with his bucket of water and his stirrup pump, which we had, along with his shiny black ARP tin hat until about 25 years ago in our outhouse where we lived in Willow Avenue, Bearwood near my Mom's family in nearby Poplar Road on Bearwood's Poplar Estate.

My Mom's family the Merriman's lived in a back-to-back court in Dugdale Street, Winson Green. Grandad Merriman as we called him used to drink in The Park Tavern on the corner of Dugdale Street and Dudley Road and also the old 'Cape of Good Hope' pub where he would drink his pints of Ansell's Mild and his packet of Woodbines and would place his bets on the 'gee-gees' with his bookmaker pal Freddie Harris. He also drank in and the pub known locally as 'The Engine' whose proper name was: 'The Locomotive' outside the main entrance to the Cape Hill Brewery where the old M&B War Memorial used to be at the bottom of Cape Hill. I have leant Jo a photo of Grandad Merriman in his AFS uniform for her piece on him. He died in 1971 and is buried in the Roman Catholic plot in Quinton Cemetery in Birmingham with his wife Alice Gwendoline Merriman (nee Langley) from Little Comberton near Pershore in Worcestershire.

Grandad hailed from the beautiful Glocestershire Cotswold village of Chipping Campden where his brother Mark Merriman's name appears on the Roman Catholic war memorial opposite 'The Volunteer' pub on the High Street.

As a young man when he worked as a farm labourer in Campden he would slake his thirst after a long day toiling in the fields in The Eight Bells a whitewashed thatched cottage pub near the entrance to the village just off the main road into Campden.

There have been Merriman's living in Chipping Campden at least since 1781 which we managed to verify from the 1851 census with Robert Merriman being born in Campden in 1781.

I would like to tell you about another war hero I knew in the 1970's: George William Hollis of Floyer Road, Small Heath who served under General 'Bill' Slim with his 'forgotten army' at Kohima in 1943. George Hollis was a Brummie serving under a Brummie general in Slim in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers REME in Burma in the Second World War, fighting the Japanese as they attempted to invade India and occupy and take the 'Jewel in the Crown' of the British Empire.

1500 British and Indian army solders resisted 15000 Japanese at the Hill town of Kohima as the Japanese attempted to invade India..The battle lasted for a month and the British and Indian defenders succeeded in repelling the Japanese advance and India remained intact as part of the empire. India was an important source of resource on the South - East Asian front where the troops were under General Slim were dubbed: 'The Forgotten Army',  India provided troops, ordinance and industrial manufactured goods such as vehicles, petrol, oil and fuel along with food supplies. 

The Indian railway system, built by the British was crucial in supplying the front and keeping India intact and  part of the British Empire. Singapore had fallen to the Japanese in 1941, a huge shock for the British and they were determined the same fate would not befall India......

After the victorious Battle of Kohima, George Hollis had some R and R in Bangkok in Siam, where he met and fell in love with young Eurasian girl Maria Seidel, who had a German father and Siamese mother.

George continued to see Maria in Bangkok when on leave and when the conflict was over was determined to marry her and take his young bride back to England where they would live as man and wife and start a family.

This they did, marrying in a Civil Ceremony in Bangkok and travelling by troop ship back to Tilbury. They set up home in Birmingham in the 1940's.

I recall Maria telling me of the awful racism that she suffered in forties Birmingham, with much tittle-tattle and gossip in the street.

Maria gave birth to Alan Hollis in 1954 and Alexandra Victoria Hollis followed on May 24th 1958. Alan was a bright boy and passed the 11 plus and went to Sheldon Heath Comprehensive School were he got 'A' Levels, being particularly talented at science and mathematics.

Alan got a job with British Gas in the fledgeling computer systems department in the early 1970's where he trained as a computer programmer and engineer.

Alexandra Victoria (Maria and George were staunch Royalists) went to St Benedict's School and like Alan was bright and passed her 11 plus attending George Dixon Grammar School for Girls in City Road, Edgbaston, quite a trek across the city involved 2 buses for a  shy, young 11 year old girl.

Vicky as she was called by the Hollises thrived at George Dixon and passed 10 'O' levels all at the top grade. She entered the 6th Form at George Dixon where she became my first girlfriend in 1974 when George Hollis celebrated his 50th birthday.

I recall his two brothers Alan and Raymond carrying him somewhat 'the worse for wear' in drink after his birthday party at his local chapter of the Royal and Ancient Order of Druids at their Lodge in Small Heath. 

George was an enthusiastic, keen and diligent member of The Druids, which like the Royal and Ancient Order of the Buffalo, the 'Buffs' was like a working class version of The Freemasons, where working men rather than professionals or local government and public officials like policemen and soldiers met to drink, share ideas and socialize in a semi-formal setting with regular dinners and meetings being held weekly and monthly throughout the year in rooms known as 'Lodges' with the recitation of formal ritual being a common feature of all three organisations along with a structured hierarchy for advancement within the order.

Maria and George had another child Sara-Louise in 1975 who was a lot younger than her siblings and was doted on by her parents.

I well recall, Alan and his wife and children applied to emigrate to the Republic of South Africa which was then still under the yoke of Apartheid. Alan was refused entry to South Africa because he was deemed to be of mixed race having an Asian mother and white father. 

This was a sign of the times in the world of !970's Britain, where casual racism was common among British men and women and in the 1964 General Election in nearby Smethwick   the Black Rights activist Malcolm 'X' had visited to see first-hand for himself British racism against Black and Ethnic minorities.

Alan continued to work for British Gas as a computer programmer and had a family comprising two blond, blue-eyed sons, who ironically would have passed for Afrikaaners in Apartheid South Africa.

Vicky continued to do well at George Dixon Grammar School and was made Deputy Head - Girl in her Upper Sixth year passing 4 'A' Levels and getting a place at the University of Birmingham to study law. I followed her as her first boyfriend to the University of Birmingham studying for a Bachelor of Commerce degree in accountancy.

While at the University of Birmingham Vicky applied to join MENSA as he had an IQ of 150 plus and was accepted as a member. She eventually obtained a 2:1 LL.B Degree in Law from the University of Birmingham and after qualifying as an ACA accountant with Deloitte in Birmingham set up her own small accountancy practice.

After 5 years together, once we graduated our interests changed as I pursued a career in rugby coaching and Vicky became interested in equestrianism, representing the University of Birmingham in the one-day equestrian event.

We stopped going out in 1979 after 5 years together.

As for George and Maria, after a lifetime together, bringing up 3 successful children in a mixed-race family in a very racist Birmingham at the time, a city not as diverse as it is now they had grandchildren whom they doted on a pursued and ordinary family life.

George Hollis passed away in 1992.

Maria may well still be alive as a feisty pensioner well into her 80's.

That was the Hollis families story, a story of war, turmoil love and family; of racism and hatred and friendship and good times....

A 'Birmingham story'..............

Birmingham licence for City TV

Birmingham licence for City TV