Losing a pet can be a devastating experience at any time of life, but the impact can be even greater for elderly people who may feel that their own advancing years make it unwise to adopt another four legged companion. This does not have to be the case, however. There are many fostering schemes available where cats and dogs can be fostered full time or part time for as little or as long as the fosterer wishes and is able to cope with.

For existing elderly pet owners in fragile health, there is also a wonderful nation-wide specialist charity, The Cinnamon Trust, where volunteers will take the dog for a walk, fetch pet food, take pets to the vet, clean out the bird’s cage, foster your pet while you are in hospital and even find a new home for your pet should the worst happen.

The trust, which is the only such specialist national charity was founded in 1985 also offers its services to terminally ill pet owners who will be faced with the same worries and fears as elderly pet owners. in fact anyone of any age can make arrangements for pets that may outlive them to come into the care of the Cinnamon Trust.

For further details, you can contact Hall Green’s Councillor Jackie Hawthorn by email as:  Jackie.hawthorn@birmingham.gov.uk  or telephone 303-4204 or just use the link to the Cinnamon Trust website on the sidebar on this page.

The Cabinet Member for Transportation and Street Services has decided that the Stratford Road Red Route will be made permanent. While by no means without its problems (that have affected both traders and local residents here in Hall Green as well as the much-publicised problems in Springfield) the Red Route has brought some benefits to traffic. For example, there have beennoticeable improvements in journey times and fewer accidents.

While the Red Route aesthetics are not ideal (with far too many poles cluttering things up) there has also been an improvement in air quality and an increase in bus use.

There are to be further discussion with councillors, traders and local residents to hear suggestions that could help to make the Red Route work better. We have already raised several issues on the Hall Green section and will continue to keep a very close eye on things.

If you have Red Route concern, now is the time to let us know. You can ring Councillor Paula Smith (who leads for the Hall Green Focus team on this issue) on 778-6679. However, please note that this is not for suggesting dramatic changes regarding the route, but for smaller matters that could make life a little easier for those along the way.

Hall Green’s Middle Earth Weekend, recently held at Sarehole Mill in Birmingham, once again proved to be a resounding success.

While attendance was very good on the Saturday - despite both the weather and the football - the Sunday crowd was enormous. The traditional nature of the event, the demonstrations, stalls, displays and the numerous activities - especially for children - ensured that a thoroughly good and relaxed time was enjoyed by everyone who came along.

Congratulations are due to the organisers of the weekend who worked so tirelessly over several months to make this unique community occasion such a success. In today’s relentless high-tech world, it is nice to appreciate our heritage, gain balance and perspective and re-incorporate simple, traditional activities into our often stressful lives.

The first day’s performances of Viv Wilkes’ adaptation of Beowulf at the Middle Earth Weekend were certainly atmospheric - in both senses! Braving the elements in Moseley Bog as well as the monsters the stalwart cast of Hall Green’s Shire Productions delivered three energetic performances, which were ‘warmly’ appreciated by the equally determined spectators.

Shire Production’s youth drama group (the Moskeetos) who operated the large-scale puppet monsters were marvellous and a great credit to young people today. The two following pictures show Andy Rowley as the younger Beowulf (who also won the pre-performance spear throwing contest!) and Michael Wilkes as Beowulf a few decades on!

“The perils of Moseley Bog braved and nine monsters slain - not bad for a days work said a rather bedraggled Beowulf. But I have to admit dying three times myself so it wasn’t all one way!”

There are three more performances to be given on Sunday 18^th when we are hoping for a warm atmosphere - in both respects.

The first day’s crowd at the main site for the Middle Earth Weekend at Sarehole Mill was excellent, despite the elements, boding well for the second day of Birmingham’s unique traditional (and free) festival on Sunday. See you there along with the sun!

As the Middle Earth Weekend approaches, members of Hall Green based drama company Shire Productions have been taking advantage of the (so far!) good weather to hold outdoor rehearsals for their unique production of excerpts from the Anglo-Saxon heroic poem Beowulf.

Adapted, directed and produced by Viv Wilkes, there will be three performances of Beowulf each day of the weekend taking place at various points in Moseley Bog. Groups will be escorted across from the main weekend site at Hall Green’s Sarehole Mill to see the performances.

The Middle Earth Weekend will be held on Saturday the 17^th and Sunday the 18^th of May. It will be a packed and exciting programme of events and attractions, so let’s hope the weather holds!

Alas, the demolition brigade is now setting about the razing of Hall Green’s historic Highfield House. We hope that Stone Developments are satisfied with themselves and their work on this ‘position potential product’ as they describe it in their atrocious sales-speak. This destruction is legitimised vandalism and it remains a total disgrace.

Those members of the Planning Committee that voted for the demolition and those officers that recommended it should be ashamed of themselves. A building that was of historic importance to the area has been sacrificed on the altar of profit motivated mediocrity to be replaced by another intensive development including yet more flats.

As if there weren’t enough in the area as it is, with many remaining unsold. Perhaps that will prove to be a sting in the tail. The sad scene at the corner of Highfield Road and Robin Hood Lane underlines the necessity of preserving all that we have got left.

Not yet the end of this particular Eden it would appear!

The bungalow, with the evocative name of ‘Eden End’, number 100 Smirrells Road situated at the corner with Kedleston Road, did not reach its reserve price (which we understand to have been £375,000) at the auction held last week and so has not yet fallen into the hands of developers.

Further good news for the area came on Thursday when the City Council’s Planning Committee rejected yet another application to demolish the bungalow at the end of Harewood Close and erect massive residential blocks on the site in what is still a locally important environmental green oasis.

We are at present strenuously resisting a planning proposal to erect more flats between Scribers Lane and Baldwins Lane and, of course, there remain other significant development threats. While profit driven developers will never consider heritage or environment you would have thought that they would have noticed the number of unsold flats in several parts of Hall Green. There are now many of these in both long established and new developments.

Overall, sustained vigilance by everyone in Hall Green along with concerted efforts continue to be needed to preserve our area and its many minor Edens.

Residents will be all too familiar with the increasing number of so called ‘Development Opportunities’ that beset us in Hall Green and which we continue do our utmost to resist. Current building threats that we are fighting include sites in or near Baldwins Lane, Scribers Lane and Harewood Close. There is continual sniffing around throughout our area by agents and those seeking to profit from dense construction on our green areas, frequently mature gardens.

One of the latest possibilities is likely to be number 100 Smirrells Road. This is the large bungalow situated on the attractive site at the corner of Smirrells Road and Kedleston Road.

As can be seen in the photograph, there is a good deal of greenery surrounding the bungalow, and the site has an area of over one third of an acre. An interesting hedge, mostly of holly, surrounds the bungalow and there are some good trees. Hedges are difficult to protect unless, as in the case of our medieval hedges, historic reasons can be cited. We are exploring this possibility.

There is an ironic aspect to the sale of 100 Smirrells Road. This is the name of the bungalow. It is called ‘Eden End’. Perhaps not boding well for the site itself, we must sustain our efforts to ensure that this will not prove to have wider significance for Hall Green, which, as a highly attractive mature suburb, has many of its very own little Edens. Long may they remain so.

I was recently in contact with a local resident in Brooklands Road, Hall Green, in connection with commemorating membership of the Women’s Land Army and Timber Corps, who carried out immensely valuable work. Pictures of posters had appeared in the press around the same time and one such is reproduced here.

With this in mind, and following a discussion with members of the Hall Green Preservation Group about wartime events in Hall Green, I recalled some time ago being given a photograph by a resident in Robin Hood Lane. While by all appearances not connected with WLA activity, the picture does show harvesting in Hall Green! The photograph is of the Moorlands in Sherwood Road which was formerly home to Moor Green Football Club with which the resident had a long connection. The ground certainly seems to be producing what looks like a very good crop!

These days, for different but very strong environmental and local reasons, we need to work together to help ensure that we keep and look after the green land that we have left. This should including gardens, enclosed green spaces and areas on the highway - some of which are historic. If we can achieve this, it would be another victory well worth digging for!

The recently established Hall Green Preservation Group has been very busy over the past month and has set up several subgroups of enthusiastic and public spirited volunteers covering houses; gardens, the environment and trees; pubs, social establishments and schools; unusual and mixed styles. A historical thread would also be followed.

A meeting of all the HGPG sub-groups recently held at Hall Green Library was shown some of the very wide range of resources on local history, records, maps and photographs that are looked after by the library staff and to which interested residents can be given access.

All this will be very important not only in recognising what we still have in Hall Green as well as what used to be but, crucially, for building cases to fight for and protect all of the important remaining parts of our unique local heritage.

As well as the continuing threats from would-be property developers sniffing around in several locations in our area, an early concern is the condition of one of the bridges in the Dingles, by the ‘whirl-hole’ as well as the central path itself.

Hall Green Preservation Group is undoubtedly the best hope that we have to ensure that disasters such as the demolition of the locally listed and historic Highfield House (now, alas, underway) are never allowed to happen again.