Walsall Lives 2009


After a break of four years the Walsall Lives calendar made a reappearance in 2009. The years that had elapsed from the previous edition in 2005 allowed me to add to my collection of Walsall photographs, memorabilia and ephemera.

The photograph that takes prime place on the cover is owned by Thomas Gameson Limited and shows their factory in the 1960s on the left of the picture with the now demolished premises of John Shannon & Son Limited in the background. In the near foreground is the junction of Peel Street and New Street can just be seen. The area where the cars are parked had once been a densely populated area of the town with over-crowded, dilapidated houses which were demolished in the early to mid 1930s. This area was always a good playground for us as youngsters as we made our way home to Caldmore from a Saturday morning at the Gaumont watching the “flics”. The site today is occupied by Asda Supermarket.

Don’t forget to click on each image as this will enlarge it when you do.

Calendar 2005Read More »

Walsall Lives 2004


04 coverThis post shows the third edition of the Walsall Lives calendar in 2004 and the final time it would be published in A4 portrait format, all subsequent editions would be produced A4 landscape.

The cover for 2004 features a lady connected to the Eyland family dressed in mourning clothes around 1900. To her right is a great picture of Walsall market in the days when it had quality as well as quantity and snaked its way up the hill from Digbeth to the very top of High Street. As Sir John Betjeman said in 1959, “Walsall is a borough which is obviously proud of itself and I thought that if the local council could turn the old High Street into something worthy of the charming and modest buildings, Georgian and Victorian, above the shop-fronts, it could be made into one of the most attractive streets in England. This is the age of local councils. Their increased powers mean that they can make or mar the treasure they have inherited from the past. Local pride can save a place…..short sighted cash considerations can ruin it.

Sadly no one in authority was listening!

The Bridge on a busy day in the 1920s fills the bottom left corner along with a section of an apprentice indenture for John Fenn, son of the landlord of The Priory in Park Street. Although not the first car to grace the streets of Walsall it was the first registered car to take to the streets. The picture shows Charles Gameson, grandson of Thomas Gameson, with his chauffeur in his 1902/03 Wolseley bearing the number plate DH1, still seen around Walsall on the Mayor’s official car.Read More »