FOLLOWING the welcome from president Val Davies and the singing of Jerusalem, we moved on to our speaker Derek Clarke, whose talk was entitled Birmingham Back To Backs.

What a brilliant speaker he was too. In no time at all we were transported back to our childhood memories.

It was recognised that it would be beneficial to preserve some of the older buildings of Birmingham for future generations to see how their ancestors lived.

After much searching these properties were found near the Hippodrome Theatre. Mr Clarke showed us slides of the progress of the renovations and of the discoveries made, including a doll hidden under floorboards.

Once the properties had been completely renovated they were open to the public and are now owned by the National Trust.

Many of our ladies were only too keen to share their childhood memories and it was lovely to see the mementos and photographs they had brought in. What a wonderful nostalgic journey.