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<\/p>\nOne hundred years ago, Brummies would get their little tram token and escape the city for a holiday on our doorstep. So I followed in their footsteps – here’s how it went.<\/p>\n
Kirsty is a Black Country bab in Birmingham, a freelance contributor with a particular interest in food and drink, music, leisure, fun and adventure. She was a former Women in Local News Best What’s On Journalist and she’s particularly interested in hearing about new openings and brilliant things to do in the region. Get in touch: Kirsty.Bosley@reachplc.com.<\/p>\n
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Kirsty Bosley taking a staycation at Joe Joe Jim’s(Image: Kirsty Bosley)<\/p>\n
I was rooting through a tat box in an old antique shop last year when I happened upon a Birmingham Corporation Tramways token, a coin that would have once permitted Brummies to travel along the network that ran from 1904 until 1953.<\/p>\n
I took it home and, every time I held it, I wondered about all the others who would have used it to travel from Erdington in the north all the way to Rednal in the south.<\/p>\n
We have the West Midlands Metro now of course, but Edgbaston is as far as it goes on our side just now.<\/p>\n
In the 1920s, the network’s southernmost point was a holiday destination for people escaping the polluted city in pursuit of fresh air. They’d pack up their picnics and jump on the tram to visit the Lickey Hills.<\/p>\n
And so, with that tram token in mind, I decided to do that exact thing on a sunny Sunday, to see what the Brummies of 100 years ago saw.<\/p>\n
I imagined that, aside from the wonderful country park – it’s hiking trails, beacon offering views over our city skyline and the occasionally knocking woodpecker as wonderful as ever – I wouldn’t find much left that told of a Birmingham holiday.<\/p>\n
I was, as I often am when I make assumptions, totally wrong.<\/p>\n
On Lickey Road, it was signs advertising ice creams that caught my attention, because I’m that kind of girl.<\/p>\n
“It’s Birmingham-on-Sea!” I said to my holiday companion as it hearkened back to trips to the coast.<\/p>\n
We’d found Joe Joe Jim’s, an old venue that had been Fletcher’s Arcade since 1920. A black and white photo of the place as it had been years ago hung on the wall along with a thousand gig posters advertising live shows coming to this place.<\/p>\n
I was amazed. “Our place is not flash,” another sign read, but I saw flashes of wonder everywhere I turned.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Look inside the Birmingham holiday fun arcade still entertaining after 100 years<\/a><\/p>\n An old one armed bandit, a pink hippopotamus blowdrying her hair, a bumper car and a ‘CIRCUS’ sign that looked like it might have come off the top of an old coin pusher.<\/p>\n