Description:Keith Whitehouse came to Balsall Heath from Highgate with his family when he was seven years of age. The house at 271 Balsall Heath Road was a large Victorian house with a big garden and high brick walls ‘The house was scary’ says Keith, ‘we kids thought it was haunted, we were scared to go down to the cellar, as we thought that there was someone down there. But with the passing of the years of my childhood, I came to love the place’
Keith’s mother Muriel and father Frederick, married during the war. Fred served abroad and in 1941 Muriel sent him this photograph and a poignant hand written message, ‘Yours Always’, so evocative of the times.