Eggbert's Travels

Thursday 30^th July 2015

SHE SAID:

Once Geoff & Steve had left for the cricket I headed into the city on the bus.

First stop was the “Back to Back” National Trust museum. This museum/houses is all that remains of tens of thousands back to back terrace houses built towards the end of the 1800's across England. Each house has three floors, with one room on each floor, & one window per floor too!

One lot of the houses faced the street (the more expensive ones) the other faced an inner court yard, which also contained the privy, wash house & cooking areas.

These places soon became slums, with a large amount of people crammed into a small area. Though they were lived in till the 1960's, with slow improvements from candles, to gas lighting & finally electricity, none ever had inside toilets, as there wasn't enough room.

After that tour I headed to the “Bullring” shopping area for lunch & a walk around the shops, then back to the BnB around 3.30pm.

I think Geoff will be crying in his beer tonight as the Aussies seem to be self destructing today!

 

Our Birmingham BnB, which actually has 4 rooms let out to people

The corner shop which is still a sweet shop is/was one of the Back to Back houses.
With the doors to the right the "front" of the Back to Back terrace

The inner court yard, for the laundry, sewage, cooking & for children to play

The archway is the entrance/exit to the street

More of the Back to Back which in the late 1900's were turned into shops

HE SAID:

Well, I can not say that the cricket was dull. In two days I have seen lots of wickets fall, and been entertained by the singing England supporters around me in the Hollies Stand. I did not hide the fact that I was an Aussie: standing and clapping and cheering when our players did well, but the beer-soaked wits of the Barmy Army did not deign to point their barbed dulcet tones toward me. There were plenty of other Aussie supporters that drew attention to themselves in silly ways, and these were the targets of chants and songs. It was quite good fun. The cricket could have been better, but it was still fun.