Virtual-Brum Site Information
This is an unofficial Birmingham website that is the personal website of Peter Gamble. Views expressed are not those of Birmingham City Council or any of it's agencies. The official council website can be found at www.birmingham.gov.uk
History
| 10-March-2000 | Visited the Antique Postcards of Birmingham website by Arnar Thor Oskarsson Inspired by the guestbook to take digital photographs from the same places as they are today. | |
| 17-March-2000 | Taken most of the pictures on Arnars page from the same place in most cases. Uploaded to BT Internet webspace | |
| 24-March-2000 | Registered virtual domain name. www.virtual-brum.co.uk | |
| 30-March-2000 | bought 45 old postcards of Birmingham. | |
| 07-April-2000 | More photos added exceeded 10Mb of available webspace | |
| 14-April-2000 | Many pages and photos added site moved to freewire.net 50Mb available. Navigation improved | |
| 16-April-2000 | More photos added. 31Mb now uploaded. | |
| 17-April-2000 | Under Construction signs removed. Pages are now regarded as 'under continuous improvement' | |
| 21-April-2000 | More old postcards added, Message Board (forum) added, More books added to books page list and other minor changes. | |
| 23-April-2000 | More photos added to Hall Green, Kings Heath and Moseley and other minor changes. | |
| 27-April-2000 | Online Bookstore added. New start page. | |
| 29-April-2000 | Meta Tags added, 14 more old postcards and more photographs. New Stats counter. Now >40Mb | |
| 06-May-2000 | 2Gb Webspace on BT Server. All files uploaded | |
| 10-May-2000 | Registered with Search Engines and UK banner | |
| 18-May-2000 | Pages on old server replaced to point to BT server. | |
| 21-May-2000 | School Reunion list has first entry. | |
| 26-May-2000 | Domain www.virtualbrum.co.uk registered. | |
| 02-May-2000 | >55Mb | |
| 03-May-2000 | Site mentioned in the Birmingham Evening Mail. | |
| 24-Jun-2000 | More photos contributed by Colin Hickman and Mac Joseph All links verified so no dead links on this site! now >65Mb. | |
| 03-Jul-2000 | New banner created. Site listed on UK topsites | |
| 06-Jul-2000 | Listed on Rootsweb Sites to visit. >620 visitors on first day. | |
| 07-Jul-2000 | No 1 on UK Topsites. | |
| 10-Jul-2000 | Site still 'under continuous improvement' | |
| 13-Jul-2000 | now >500 Pictures. Pubs page added. | |
| 01-Aug-2000 | now >600 Pictures. Canals and Churches pages added. | |
| 10-Aug-2000 | Advertising and Search pages added. | |
| 13-Aug-2000 | Removed URL masking. | |
| 28-Aug-2000 | Site search changed to SearchButton.com | |
| 30-Aug-2000 | now >700 Pictures over 100Mb webspace used. | |
| 08-Sep-2000 | Sitemap page added. The navigation links on on every page will be removed so the right border is not so long. This will reduce the need for scrolling down pages and me having to fill empty space on short pages with adverts. It will also allow me to increase the number of links and pages yet still keep easy navigation about the site. Graphics on the sitemap will be very limited for speed when returning to the page. | |
| 15-Sep-2000 | Navigation on right of each page removed. Some areas moved to newpages. Solihull page added. now over 70 pages and >110Mb used. | |
| October-2000 |
Hits counter changed to display total hits to reflect the number of
visitors not using the home page. Aerial Photos (Links to
streetmap.com) Ex-Pats Forum added. Local History pages with contact
details for local societies and events. Hosting of Acocks Green
History Society website. Now over 90 pages and 130Mb used. Over 20,000
visitors,
|
|
| 20-November-2000 | Featured Website on BBC Birmingham Online | |
| 28-December-2000 | More history pages added including Selly Oak and St Martin's over 120 pages, 1000 pictures and 160Mb used. | |
| 05-January-2001 | Near disaster struck! Every page corrupted by an error in the shared borders. I spent hours and hours trying to fix it. I ended up reformatting the hard drive the recreating the web without the right hand border. Everything seems back to normal and the PC is running a lot better in general. | |
| 22-Jan-2001 | Featured readers website in Internet Advisor magazine Issue 23 Feb 2001 | |
| 26-Jan-2000 | BTinternet launched BTanytime service. Webspace must be reduced to 10Mb. | |
| 03-Feb-2000 | Links to Pubs and Canals pages removed. These pages have not been updated for some time so a large numbers of new photographs were missing. New pages will be made soon. | |
| 22-Feb-2001 | Files uploaded to new server. New URL www.virtualbrum.co.uk is the main URL. Existing URL's still point to BT Webspace these will be redirected at a later date. All existing Email addresses will stay the same for the time being. | |
| 24-Mar-2001 | A change in my day job has meant I am now working in Europe some of the time so I have had less time for working on the site so updates have been less frequent. | |
| June 2001 | Updated now posted on Home Page | |
Acknowledgements
|
I would like to thank all who have contributed to this site in various
ways including sending in photographs, writing, other material and with
publicity. I may have missed some out here so please forgive any
omissions here. Colin Hickman, Peter Ralley, Carl Chinn, John Essex, Colin Scott, Mike Byrne, Mac Joseph, Terry Shakespeare, Ian Bachelor, Ed Doolan, Alton Douglas, Tricia Mason, Steve Sidaway, Rod Birch, James Hyland, Jane Green, Keith Martin, Tony Chew, George Lovegrove, Robert Deloyde, Derek Harte. Malcolm Boyden. |
|
Wythall Postcards Archive. Most old postcard pictures of Hollywood, Wythall, Maypole, are from the Libraries collection. The collection was kindly made available to me.
Wythall Library |
|
Old Black and white Postcards of Birmingham where shown as Birmingham
Public Libraries are reproduced by permission. Some of the cards are no
longer available from the library.
Birmingham Central Library |
|
|
|
|
|
Digital Photographs
Contributed By Colin Hickman Mac Joseph for Photographs of the Bull Ring Terry Shakespeare and Ian Bachelor for photographs of the Black Country.
|
|
Colin Scott
For the loan of a wonderful postcard collection. The cards were the collection Eva Berry of Eversfield, Solihull. Most were posted to her by her brother between 1904 and 1920.
|
|
Dr Carl Chinn. MBE
For having us on his afternoon Radio WM show in July and September 2001 and his kind permission to use material from his books and Brummagem Magazine
|
|
Peter Ralley
For kind permission and supplying 'Our Kid' cartoons |