Re~Stirred Forum

Can anyone who lived in the city at that time tell me what the Bournbrook area was like then?

What I want to know is what the shops were like. I'm assuming there were still cheap food places, aimed at the students. But were the fewer of them? And what did they sell?

I lived there 81-82 and went to school at KES (travelling each day on the Bristol Road from the south) from 71-78. I don't remember a massive shift in shopping, but this was some time ago. Obviously disintermediation has occurred over a number of decades.

Dis in ter me di a tion noun

1: the diversion of savings from accounts with low fixed interest rates to direct investment in high-yielding instruments
2: the elimination of an intermediary in a transaction between two parties

First Known Use 1967

(Merriam-Webster online)

Stop showing off John. I assume you mean all the local banks have closed. True.

Funnily enough, and this may reflect time in the sixth form (1969-71) what I remember is the pubs. The Gun Barrels was a big late Victorian brick double gabled pub with fancy bargeboards and old-fashioned smoke rooms which still had fixed leather seating round the bays and unused waiter service bells. The Brook had just been rebuilt but was still called by locals "The Steps" because of its old predecessor where the doorway was up steps. The Bournbrook Hotel and the Station were still called that, and were traditional pubs.

Even when I moved to Selly Oak in 1988 there were three butchers in Bournbrook alone, as well as local institutions like Winters the Jewish alteration tailors.

There is a Lloyds TSB at the top of Oak Tree Lane - and three or four bank branches on the university campus. Not exactly on the Bristol Rd but near enough.

Moving from wholesale and retail to supermarkets (which cuts out the wholesaler).

Cheaper prices for the retail customer by cutting out the middleman.