A Local History Facebook Group

[Philatone]

hey penguin! initially I read the piece as a single-moment captured by a single person, but taking the title more into account (and understanding it better)...

Does anyone know why 17 Borrowdale Road is missing?
Every day I walk past the empty space
and wonder why it’s not there.

No. 13 is missing as well but I suppose that’s just unlucky. ...nice

My husband was born in no. 48 in 1944
and says there never was a house there.
The plot of land was used as an allotment,
probably to aid the war effort.

I lived at 36 Norrington Road. Does anyone remember me?...nice 'refrain' of sorts; the 'posts' really demonstrate a variety of personalities, including the persistently ignored

I remember a chap once told me
before the estate was built
a property was there and underneath
there’s a tunnel that goes to Frankley.

My Mom moved into Borrowdale Road in 1931, no.125.
She remembers an allotment and a power station.

I think the tunnel started at Quinney’s Farm
and went to St Leonard’s Church.
It was used by the monks to store
all their worldly possessions.

I’ve heard about that tunnel, it goes back to Cromwell’s days.
When they burnt down the house next door to the church
they hid the treasure down the tunnel.
I live next door to where your mom lived.

Cromwell had a lot of connections to the tunnel.
The bridle path is still in place from farm to church.

I lived at 36 Norrington Road. Does anyone remember me?

About 5 years ago a well-dressed lady
knocked at my front door.
She explained that she’d spent
her childhood in Borrowdale Road.
She asked to enter my garden
and looked around for a big oak tree,
but it was next door and they were out.

The tunnel was built in Elizabethan times.

The estate was built in the Thirties
to clear the city centre slums.

Those houses missing in Borrowdale Road
line up exactly with one missing in Fitzroy Road
and another in Norrington Road. ...the idea makes sense, but it just felt clunky to me
You’ll find that the water from Elan Valley
is sent in big pipes underground to Birmingham.
That’s why it can’t be built on. ....I like how the this answers the opening, without being the line the poem closes on

It was funded by Cadbury and Austin
to house their growing workforce.

So why do they miss the numbers out?

What do you think of the estate these days?

I lived at 36 Norrington Road. Does anyone remember me?

It’s alright apart from the dog shit.

There isn’t a 36 Norrington Road. ...raises questions about both the person who says this (is it a joke, is it serious?) and the person who claims to have lived there

i find it a hard piece to critique, so I have to apologize on the minimal critiques given. seeing as how it is supposed to capture a variety of different people (which I think it does well), I think it's difficult to analyze the word choices, tones, etc. I like the development of ideas, as the community helps build a history and common knowledge base.

sorry this isn't exactly helpful, but wanted you to know i read and liked