Vale Onslows Shop Fire

sprintdave · Feb 1, 2018

About a year back I posted a pic of Vale Onslows in Birmingham being partially demolished. They have moved to a new site in Bordesley green not too far away and vacated the old premises last friday i believe. There was a fire at the old place sometime over the weekend or early Monday and the Stratford rd A34 has had to be closed for the building to be demolished.
Many happy memories of sat mornings waiting in the queue for bits for my Starfire, then A65. It's a bad area now, full of African cafes and them drinking coffee all day while some of us work. Grrrrrr

Johnjo · Feb 1, 2018

sprintdave said: ↑

About a year back I posted a pic of Vale Onslows in Birmingham being partially demolished. They have moved to a new site in Bordesley green not too far away and vacated the old premises last friday i believe. There was a fire at the old place sometime over the weekend or early Monday and the Stratford rd A34 has had to be closed for the building to be demolished.
Many happy memories of sat mornings waiting in the queue for bits for my Starfire, then A65. It's a bad area now, full of African cafes and them drinking coffee all day while some of us work. Grrrrrr
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I've been retired 10 years now, but for about 20 years in the 1980's and 90's I was a fireman on that patch. Had some huge fires in that area during my time there. Shame to see the old place go.

Bodger · Feb 1, 2018

Yes not looking to good now it's got to be demolished as it's unsafe

Bodger · Feb 1, 2018

DFunnily enough in the early 80's i ran into the back of a land rover on my starfire looking into the window of vale Onslow. ( single drum front brake was never much cop) The engines didn't like being thrashed much either. But when you were a teenager you weren't very sympathetic to the inner workings of a engine, plus the fact it had plain big end shells.

sprintdave · Feb 2, 2018

My Starfire had a twin leader front brake which was pretty good. Agree about the engine tho, but it taught me a lot about mechanics and due to a gearbox that kept skipping out of 4th, a lot about gearboxes too. Lol happy days.
Good pic Bodger. I work now for a motor spares company and it is causing us lots of problems as we have lots of customers around that area.