The Magic Window By Peter Dykes, Photograph by Mike Clarke

There were three things that baffled me as a kid in Vicarage Road during the mid-1950's. The first was a loud and intense roaring sound, heard usually on Saturday afternoons. The second was the incessant sound of machine-gun fire during the week. The third and most enigmatic, was the 'magic window' on the corner of Sycamore Road. When I asked my dad about these things, he told me the massive roar came from the throats of the 40,000-plus football supporters watching a match at Villa Park, cheering on the likes of Peter McParland and Johnny Dixon, who skippered the 1957 FA Cup winning team. You could hear it all round our bit of Aston, as you could the machine-gun fire. The latter, he explained, was the sound of ammunition being tested at Kynoch's ordinance factory in Witton, but I was almost a teenager before he told me the secret of the magic window.

Vicarage Road
just after demolition had begun
The 'magic window' is arrowed
Picture used with kind permission of
Michael Clarke

Even before I started at Upper Thomas Street Infants School, dad would come home from Blackmore's, the factory in Park Road where he made springs for the export market, have his lunch and on most days, take me for a walk. We would cross Victoria Road in to the middle section of Vicarage Road and after a brief visit to one of my uncles who lived along there, we'd walk to the end of the street and turn right down Sycamore Road. As we rounded the corner however, he would pause very briefly to knock on a boarded-up window, which immediately flew up for no more than a couple of seconds, before slamming down again. Then it was down Sycamore Road, right along Pugh Road, right again up Victoria Road and after crossing over, we'd complete the circle by turning left at Stoke's Stores, to return to our house in the shadow of Ansells' brewery.

Occasionally, I'd do the same walk with him when he got home from work, but in reverse. As we came up Sycamore Road and turned left in to Vicarage Road, he would repeat the ritual with the window. Then we would call in at uncle Jim's for a cup of thick brown tea or, if I was lucky, some of my aunt Olive's home-made ginger beer.

I badgered dad about the window many times, but he'd always say the same thing. "It's a magic window our kid," he'd explain. "When you knock on it, it goes up and then it comes down again and it's my job to make sure it always works." I tried knocking on it on several occasions, backed up by my mates of course. I think I was hoping that eventually I would inherit this mystical task from him, but it never went up and down for me. Whenever I broached the subject with him, he'd always hoist a sly smile and say, "Ah, you have to know the secret knock, it don't just go up and down for anybody y' know."

I didn't learn the truth about the window until around 1962. By then we no longer took our daily walks, dad was working at a hotel in town and I was going to a local grammar school. My grandmother had just returned from her daily visit to the betting shop, via the Queen's Arms of course, which stood on the corner of Park Road, opposite Buchans the chemist's. I remember her saying to him, "It still don't feel right y' know, going in to that place to lay a bet." To which he replied, "Yes, but at least it's legal. No more farting about down Sycamore Road eh?"

Then it dawned on me, the magic window was in fact an illegal bookies. In those days prior to 1960, it was illegal to put a bet on a horse unless you were on a racecourse. When I asked him about it, he explained that he'd take bets from his workmates and anyone else he trusted and put them on in Sycamore Road. Having given the secret knock, he would discreetly throw a small bag of betting slips and money through the window in the short time it was open. The evening strolls were, of course, to collect any winnings. He also told me many years later that he and my uncle Walter, who lived in Vicarage Road for a time, had been doing it since the war. He smiled in happy reminisence as he recounted the many times he and his brother-in-law had been chased by the police, only to escape by dodging down alleyways and leaping over garden fences.

There was one mystery about the magic window he never explained to me though and that was why he did it. As far as I'm aware, he never gambled.