with the following notes:

Here is a fine group of chaps from the 1967-71 undergraduate course at the planning school, posed in front of the “sheds” next to the canal. From the left-
Kevin Thomas, Ned ???? (repeating a year? or perhaps just keen to get in a photo), Chris Hargreaves, Bob Jolly, Roger Wooton, Malcolm Turner, Neil Hunt, Les Herbert, Brian Hughes, Keith Perry, Brian Jones, Barrie Eden, Norm Smith.

Dave (Trains) Holroyde is missing as is Clive ??????. Perhaps one of them is the photographer.

Neil Hunts Commer Van is visible on the right, as are the girders supported on brick piers which formed the improvised volleyball court. No sports hall in those days!

Some of the names will be familiar to aficionados of the planning scene in Birmingham, Nottingham, Hong Kong, Somerset, Hampshire, Worcester and all points of the compass,

Someone was trying to think of the name of the gentlemanly landscape architect lecturer of the period, was it Sewell?

Message from Beryl Taylor, Former Clerical Staff, 1984 – 1995

Thank you so much for your invitation to the Reunion. I regret that I shall be unable to attend as I live in Redditch now. Travelling to the UCE would have been fine if I could have come in the summer months but I am not happy about driving home in November or even travelling by public transport in the dark. Nevertheless I send my best wishes for a happy reunion to everyone who remembers me and my thoughts will be with you on that day. I will refresh the memories of those I did work with whilst at the UCE. I started work in the School of Planning and Landscape Architecture when the establishment was a Polytechnic. I think the date was 2nd January 1984.

When I came for my interview I liked the atmosphere and I know it was a job I would enjoy. I am not sure what my exact job title was but I had to act as clerical support to all the lecturers in the School of Town Planning and Landscape Architecture. Altogether there were about 25 lecturers. All the members of staff were very pleasant and because Alec, my husband was a lecturer I knew exactly how to deal with them anyway!!! In fact I think that Alec sometimes forgot her was not in the lecture room when he arrived home until I reminded him of this fact. The reason we moved to Redditch was because Alec had been diagnosed in 1993 with motor neurone disease and it was necessary for us to have a bungalow. I was able to continue working at the UCE until October 1995 when I was MADE to retire because I was 65. That was the rule. Sadly Alec died in May 2004. However Redditch is a lovely place to live. All the ring roads are covered with trees and the foliage changes to beautiful colours in the autumn. That is when I think of Roy Winter because he was responsible for landscaping in the area. I live in a lovely friendly Close and have a good social life with my neighbours.

Alec used to be a member of the Birmingham Beekeepers’ Association and he used to keep bees. I still go to the Association meetings on the last Friday of every month although I only attend as a theoretical beekeeper. The Association has a Social Secretary so we usually meet up once a month for a mid-day meal at a restaurant in the area. I went to Trace Your Ancestors evening classes last year and I have got all the information to start writing everything up for posterity. This year I am back with the evening classes so that I can write up my family history. The members of the class are very literate and so our discussions are most interesting.

Our three lovely daughters are great fun to be with. Carol lives in Redditch, Anne in Salford and Elizabeth spends most of the year with her husband in Kuwait where they are both working.

Best wishes to everyone who knew me.

Beryl Taylor

Message from Roger Smith, Alumnus of Town Planning, 1956 – 1959

Hello, is anyone there? Can anyone hear me? No, this is not the NC&I campaign to find lost investors but a call to anyone who attended the first diploma course at the School of Planning in the original premises at the corner of Broad Street and Oozells Street. I have spoken with David Sewell recently and he lives in Fareham, Hants, fairly near to his daughter.

The photographs sent in were taken at the very end of the course, hence the glasses – we did not drink in class ordinarily – honestly, we were always quite sober!

Message from Mick Bruton

I am sorry to miss the celebrations as I have some happy memories of my time with the then ‘Poly’ and would have liked to renew acquaintances with former colleagues, possibly in the ‘Sack of Potatoes’ at Gosta Green. Perhaps you could pass on my best wishes to those who remember me. I am not sure who is still there but Jean Badman I remember well, along with many other characters such as Geoff Crook, the two Harry’s, Chris Paris, Mike Gibson, John Tate, Norman Strothers, Pete Fidler, Geoff Crispin, Paul Edwards, Chris Baines, Alan Green, Len the Technician and the many others whose names escape me.

I will be thinking of you all on the day.

Message from Martin Brookes, Alumnus of MSc Town Planning, 1973 – 1975

I have spent most of my career in local government – Southampton, Stafford and South Oxfordshire but I am now a self-employed public sector planning consultant and planning inspector. I also do some editing work on ‘Development Control Practice’.

I am living in Oxfordshire and would welcome any news of any fellow students on the full-time MSc course.

Message from John Pearson, Alumnus BSc Environmental Planning, 1992 - 1995

Please pass on my best to those who may remember me, I was on the BSc Env planning course from 92-95 then post grad town planning 95-96. Love the picture of the 93 course trip can’t remember where it was but I’m front and centre in the green jacket and my hair is slightly shorter these days.

Have many good memories especially the trips to Amsterdam and Prague, being locked out of planning history lectures in the first year on Tuesday mornings for being more than 5 minutes late and losing the intercourse football tournament final as the 2nd year planners.

Anyway, I hope you will be posting lots of photo’s on the website so we can see what everyone looks like now. And yes I did become a Town Planner.

Many thanks to those who attended.

In addition the Alumni Reunion now has the Programme available.

• What roles and responsibilities should spatial planning play in delivering the ambitions for the future?
• Are there any further lessons from the work of the RTPI Education Commission?
• What more can initial professional education and lifelong learning do to help to deliver the ambition?

However this is far from an exhaustive list, we’d like you to contribute your own questions. What would you like to see discussed? If you think there are burning issues that need to be addressed, add your ideas for questions below as a comment:

My connection with the school was as a student of the Birmingham School of Architecture which at that time operated in Margaret Street in the wonderful building still used by Birmingham City University. Once a week during the early part of the course which I attended from 1955 to 1960 we migrated to Broad Street where Leslie Ginsburg would talk to us about what we now call urban design, talks which I found so stimulating. I don’t recall any examinations or tests from his course but I know that it became easier for me to develop ideas in broader brush strokes of architectural design, to consider that architects had a wider responsibility to the community in their approach.

Of course, at that time town planning as a legislative practice was only 10 years old and still considered to be an art practiced by designers (architects, and, amazingly, civic engineers) and the concepts of sociology or economics for example were not part of the mix. As an illustration of this perusal of the Ginsburg Collection at the school indicates very clearly the professional design attitudes then prevalent. Equally, Professor Larkham can talk fluently about the architectural background to and influences on the town planning in the 50’s and 60’s and I recall with pleasures conversations to this effect.

As an architectural student all this suited me down to the ground and even now I enjoy working in the school part time with Professor Chapman in modules to do with urban design. I graduated in 1960 so my visits to Broad Street must have been between 1957 and 1960, probably in 1959 (second year).

After some hectic years as a salaried architect working generally on town centre development projects in the UK I decided to undertake a course to gain a Diploma in Town Planning offered by the school. This was a three year twice weekly evening school course which was held in Gosta Green.

At this time the school was in what is now the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (BIAD) at Gosta Green. The actual accommodation for the school, taken up in the mid 1960’s, consisted of two major rooms and some smaller ones which were actually above the stage in what would have been the scenery fly tower had the stage been in use. The stage was in a theatre area which was never used as it housed the library. The rooms had bare block walls, a fully exposed riveted steel framework, and a noisy wooden floor… I think the diploma course was the only one available - I’m not sure.

There is a nice bit of folklore here concerning Professor Peter Dovell, a wonderfully outgoing and enthusiastic head of school. It became apparent that in view of increasing student numbers the two rooms were not the best way to use space and he asked the local authority if they could be knocked into one. He waited for ages for a response, got none, and so in frustration, during a holiday period, took this fairly large wall down single handedly. After the break we trooped in and were amazed to see what we thought was work in progress. In fact Peter was not a plumber or electrician so stopped work when the wall was down, leaving us to listen to our lecturers through a maze of unsupported radiators, pipes, wiring and conduits, hanging sockets and light switches. As I recall it stayed like this for some months!

Incidentally, the course was heavily staffed by visiting lecturers from practice in West Midlands Planning Offices - sadly I can’t recall their names, but I do recall some permanent lecturers, particularly Geoff Crook, Alan Edgar, Peter himself, Kevin Thomas, (Dick, and a very gentlemanly landscape architect whose name escapes for the moment).

I completed the Diploma course with only one major scare, the dreaded subject of sociology - you know Family and Kinship in Bethnal Green etc. I failed the final year exam twice and was told if I failed once more I would have to leave the course! Happily I spoke with the acting Head of School at that time, Judith Knowles, and she diagnosed that I was in trouble because I was answering the exam questions as an Architect, and NOT as a Planner. Wow. It was the first time I realised that one had to adopt different approaches according to one’s professional background. But it did the trick and at last I passed. Then, amazingly, I was asked if I would apply for the post of a lecturer - and was appointed.

Around 1968/9 the school moved out of the ‘attic’ and settled into a prefabricated single storey building on a site sitting between the canal junction and Aston Road, still very close to the Gosta Green Building. As the Aston Science Park grew the site of the ‘huts’ as they were known was cleared and remains a landscaped bank to the canal.

Although not built for the school it provided ideal accommodation and with an ever increasing number of students and staff (actually up to six) it became home to the school in a way absent before or after as it moved into bigger and bigger shared accommodation. We had our own caretaker, Derek, who arrived from Tamworth every day in his ‘Dell Boy’ Reliant three wheeler and looked after us very well. Mind he was a regular attender at the student parties we were able to host, without the authorities knowing. Probably.

Another bit of home spun folklore centred on a senior lecturer in landscape architecture whose office window was smashed whereupon he scrounged some hardboard and nailed it into place. For a year he politely asked for a new pane of glass, but to no avail. So he requisitioned from the Director of the Polytechnic a new piece of hardboard, using all the appropriate forms, competitive quotations in triplicate ( made up of course), and it worked - within 24 hours he had his new glass.

For most of us moving away from our own little home with its town centre convenience to the remote site at Perry Barr was a wrench. Certainly the professional relationship with students keen to learn was very strong, and there grew a positive interaction which I am not sure survived the move.

So, I think that with a starting date with the school, as a student, in 1967/8, with two stints of teaching, one for 20 years, one for eight years, and still teaching part time for Jean Badman and David Chapman, I am the person with the longest connection with the school (and the most retirements) you will come across! And I have enjoyed all of it. Congratulations to all involved.

Our archive has some photos of early application forms from the 1950s.

• Local government- a crisis of legitimacy?
• How can representative and participatory democracy co-exist?
• What difference will e-government make?
• Will the English ever embrace regionalism?

Here they are, hard at work.

This course can be one rung on a ladder of opportunity for staff in planning and related employment who are seeking qualification for membership of the RTPI, but are unable to be admitted directly to a Masters programme, because they do not have appropriate pre-requisite qualifications at undergraduate level.

Over the years, planning education at UCE Birmingham has enabled many people from a wide variety of backgrounds to progress to full professional status by such routes.

If you’re a former or current student, or if you were in the workshop, what are your thoughts on these issues? How did your time here help form your opinions on them?

With the death of Walter Stranz at the end of August the TCPA lost one of its most respected, devoted and likeable supporters. He came to England from Nazi Germany in 1939 and took a wartime degree before training as a teacher. He first became involved in the Association’s affairs when he was elected to serve on its council in 1972, when he was a Labour councillor on Redditch Borough Council (where he later became Chairman of its Planning Committee and Mayor).

As secretary of the Midlands New Towns Society, a Board Member of Redditch New Town Development Corporation and, in the 1970s, a councillor on the Hereford and Worcester County Council, he provided a unique combination of experience in the two principal levels of local government, the new towns, and the voluntary sector, not to mention holding a teaching post in a local secondary school.

With this experience he brought a thoughtful blend of intelligence, wisdom, commitment and quiet energy. For many years he served on the then Executive Management Committee, and on various working groups, notably the Poplars Working Group (predecessor of the Lightmoor Working Group) and the Neighbourhood Initiatives Foundation. He was elected Chairman of the Association’s Council in 1989, a post he held until 1992. Sadly, towards the end of his Chairmanship he contracted Parkinson’s disease, a condition from which he suffered increasingly for the rest of his life.

He wrote extensively for Town & Country Planning, and although deeply involved in planning and local government matters in the Midlands, he wrote perceptively on matters ranging more widely, from the impact of the Channel Tunnel on Northern England, to how water privatisation would weaken the increasingly frail powers of local authorities to direct developments to specific sites in the interest of good planning.

Walter was Chairman at a time when the TCPA was in the early stages of working out its ideas on sustainable development and at the same time setting itself an immensely far-reaching agenda - on the one hand showing through its local projects how the bottom-up approach to decision-making could be made to work in practice, and on the other developing new principles and a new philosophy about planning a sustainable world. It was also a time when the Association was struggling to keep itself afloat financially and operate under a revised constitution. It was a reflection of his inherent good nature and patience as well as his wisdom and political experience that he was able to guide the TCPA at such a challenging period.

Walter was enormously respected and admired locally in his adopted town of Redditch and was made an Honorary Freeman of the town in 1994. A permanent memorial to him is under consideration by the local authority.

David Hall, Vice President and former Director TCPA, October 2005

Other articles:

• Obituary - The Guardian
• Obituary - Worcester News
• In Memory of a Town Freeman - This is Worcestershire
• The Naming of Walter Stranz Square