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LMS Route: Birmingham West Suburban Railway

Bournville Station: mrb1481

A Cadbury Brothers Scammell 'mechanical horse' passes beneath heavily graffitied Bournville Lane bridge in 1936

A Cadbury Brothers Scammell 'mechanical horse' passes beneath heavily graffitied Bournville Lane bridge in 1936. The lorry was carrying scrap packing boxes to Waterside where they would be sold to employees for firewood. Above the Ovaltine advert of the left is a square mounting board for a mirror which was angled to assist drivers coming through the bridge to view the road. The graffiti illustrates the prevalent political climate in the period leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War. Oswald Mosley left the British Union of Fascists whose 'lightening' flash was adopted from the SS, Hitler's bodyguard. Anthony Eden Eden became Foreign Secretary at a time when Britain was having to adjust its foreign policy to face the rise of the fascist powers. Initially an appeaser (at the time of this photograph) he later resigned in 1938 as Foreign Secretary allegedly through a growing dissatisfaction with Chamberlain's policy of appeasement

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