“Thank you for posting that. Ours was the one with the chimney showing. Granny Raybould’s sister (Great) Aunt(ie) Annie moved in in 1908, new built, just married. The house and estate behind it were part of the Garden City movement.

In about 1937-38 my Dad was sacked from a Fisher & Ludlow factory making tools for making car parts; one Saturday lunchtime, a tap on the shoulder by the foreman: “Sorry, Charlie, don’t come back Monday.” Parts for the new Ford model finished – nothing till next season. He got a job as a foreman mechanic in a factory in Alum Rock [Southall company – ed.]; we lived the other side of Birmingham: two buses to get to work at 0730, or a laborious bike ride. Wages stopped if late. By that time his singing was a part-time evening activity when he could get it.

Auntie Annie had just been married for the third time, and was about to move to her new husband’s house nearby. My Dad bought her house, 84 Yardley Green Road (£400 I think). That’s Belcher’s Lane on the right; he cycled down there, across Bordesley Green.

When we moved in, there was an electrician still wiring up, otherwise all gas. No inside WC – down the yard – no heat, no light, no handwash, but at least it was a WC. No bathroom – used a tub in the kitchen. One cold tap: put a kettle on the hob. My Mom at least had a gas cooker.

I left there on the last working day of 1959. My Mother died there in 1964, my Dad died in the hospital down the road in 1970. When I executed his will it sold for about £3000.”