Handsworth & Perry Barr Through Time

A colourful, complex mix of contrast and continuity typifies much of what has happened to Handsworth during the past century. Soho Road, and nearby, provide a prime example of radical change: bright, lively shops run by people of West Indian, Pakistani and Indian background share space with an elegant Muslim mosque and imposing Sikh Gurdwara (temple) silently calling into question a famous poet's dictum, 'Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet'. Handsworth (and part of Perry Barr) remains a residential suburb, its most famous residents surely being Boulton, Watt and Murdoch, the trailblazing eighteenth-century entrepreneur engineers whose work attracted world-wide acclaim. Even just a skim through these pages will reveal intrinsically interesting as well as highly nostalgic comparisons and contrasts, of then and now.

Eric Armstrong was born, raised and educated in Handsworth, Birmingham. Following army service during 1942 to 1947, he became a student at Birmingham University. During retirement he has developed a keen interest in postcards of old Birmingham and has written a number of historical books about the city.