The night watchman’s fire, Cooksey Lane, 1938

I have very fond memories of Kingstanding, having moved there in 1938 from Vauxhall. I was 11yrs old. We lived on the corner of Esher Rd and we could look down Cooksey Lane from our window. The houses on the other side of Esher Rd were still in various stages of Construction. One night I was out there playing on a pile of sand and the night watchman came along and caught me, said he was taking me to the police station but he took me to his shelter with a big coke fire in front of it, sat me down and gave me a sandwich from his lunch bag. Needless to say, after that little episode I would go down Cooksey Lane and sit with him almost every night till they finished the houses in Esher Rd and down the one side of Cooksey Lane. At that time it was a wonderful place to live even though the war had just started. I was able to walk to Sutton Park and Barr Beacon and I remember the family Sunday afternoon walks to the various pubs in the area, Deers Leap, Parson & clerk, and a few others. I grew up and went to work at W.Cannings in Birmingham, my youngest brother went to work at Thompson’s Butchers on Hawthorn Rd. I was drafted into the RAF in 1945 was released in 1948, married my childhood sweetheart who also lived up Cooksey Lane, and in 1953 we came to USA where we still reside in Sunny California.