As part of our 10th anniversary celebrations, we’re featuring ten ‘People of Moor Pool’.
Mike Frost is a third-generation Moor Pool resident and you might also know him as Major Mustard, Moor Pool’s very own puppeteer and storyteller! We caught up with him recently and asked him a few questions:
I’ve lived on Moor Pool ever since I was born in 1947. Both my parents were born on the Estate, their parents being some of the first tenants. I remember my Gran Frost telling me that she watched the family house (40 Moor Pool Avenue) being built before they moved in in 1908. My mother’s parents lived first at 3 Margaret Grove and then moved to 85 Moor Pool Avenue where they lived the rest of their lives. I’ve had a roaming life on the Estate, living with my parents at 23 and then 52 High Brow before moving to 22 The Circle when I married and not long after to 1 Carless Avenue where I’ve been for the last 45 years.
I think one of the Moor Pool Estate’s strengths has always been its sense of community. Even now, when there is perhaps more fluidity in work and family situations resulting in families living on the Estate for shorter times than in the past, there is still a good sense of community; people getting together to support each other in times of need – as with the Covid outbreak – as well as coming together to celebrate national and communal events and anniversaries – Moor Pool has always liked a good party!
Moor Pool memories are legion from over the years, but I think, looking back over the last 78 years, that the memory I most treasure which encapsulates the essence of Moor Pool for me is of the Pool. As a child I remember climbing over the fence around the pool and scrambling out over the water along a large tree which had fallen into the pool at the back of the Bowling Clubhouse. There I would sit (always it seems to my memory in warm dappled sunshine) watching and listening to the birds in, on and around the pool. The peace, solitude and quiet calmness was beautiful.
I also recall the excitement of the coronation celebrations of 1952 – procession, party and games ( I came 3rd in the Potato Race!) as well as the fun we had as children running around the passages behind the houses and playing cricket in the street – I do remember having to stop playing for the rag and bone man’s horse and cart as well as the ‘occasional’ car that came down the road. Parked cars were not a problem, there weren’t any!!
As well as the Pool being a special place in my memory, another particular favourite spot is in the Spinney, or as some of us children on the Estate used to call it – “the Half-Moon”. As you turn into the semi-circular drive leading to the passageway to Wentworth Road there is a magnificent old oak tree – this was our “Major Oak”, the centre of our Robin Hood games – and for us children in High Brow it seemed such a long way from home!
I can’t think of favourite spots without a quick mention of the Circle as a pivotal place in my time on Moor Pool. The Moor Pool Hall brings back lovely memories of my Grandparent’s Golden Wedding in 1961, my own Wedding Ceilidh in 2009, the 100th anniversary of the Estate’s foundation, performing there with my “Major Mustard” show and many other happy events. Also in the Circle as teenagers we started our own youth club – “The Coffin Club” in the basement of the then Post Office – happy days!!
The survival of the Estate both in terms of community spaces as well as in its ‘essence’ has always been of great importance to me. In the 1950s, when the first attempt to buy out Harborne Tenants was made, my grandfather, George Frost, led the residents’ opposition to it (with a forerunner of the MRA) – he was also on the first Residents’ Council in 1910 and so I was aware from an early age of the great value my grandparents, parents and their friends put on the ‘Estate’. Then in the mid 1990s another attempt was made to buy out the Estate and I was part of the group which regretfully was unable to prevent that happening. After this we founded the Moor Pool Residents’ Association to try and mitigate the downsides of the sale and also to promote the continuation of what we saw as the essential nature of the Estate. The saving of the community spaces, and the work of the MRA and the MPHT is thus of immense importance to me.
I’d love to see the community life and ‘feel’ of the Estate develop and flourish further so that children who grow up on the Estate in the future may gain the sort of benefit which I feel both I and my children had from living here.
Long life, health and happiness to the Moor Pool community!
Moor Pool Hall
37 The Circle, Harborne,
Birmingham, B17 9DY
Registered Charity Number: 1148252
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