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Guide dog brood bitch Annie joins Ian of Midlands Discovery Tours at Jo’s mobile coffee van before the regular Saturday morning walking tour. Although Annie is destined to be part of the Guide dog breeding program she still goes through much of the training program that prepares such dogs to become a Guide dog. Saturdays walk though Birmingham’s Frankfurt Christmas market was a good learning experience for her with such big crowds and lots of tasty morsels on the floor. Next test is to take her on one of the Graveyard ghost walks and see how she copes with buried bones.
Before the start of last Saturdays City Walking tour I was lucky enough to bump into the organisers of FRAME_, a 3 month exhibition of small edition artworks by both local and international artists. The brainchild of Berlin artist Elly Clarke, FRAME_ displays the work of 42 artists’ in 30 of Birminghams’ every day places we might go Pubs, Coffee Shops, Arcades, Hotels, Churches and a Hair and Nail Salon amongst others.
The photos above show the artwork in two of the locations. To the left is Birmingham Artist Dan Auluk piece entitled, Why look at money when we’re looking at art? in The Old Joint Stock, Temple Row. On the right is a unique piece named, Self-adjusting, by Berlin artist Anna Mields, on display in St Paul’s Church in the Jewellery Quarter
The Old Joint Stock is the finish location of our Birmingham Sinister City Ghost Walk, whilst St Paul’s features in both our Jewellery Quarter and Birmingham Graveyard Ghost Walks.
All works of art are for sale and although the exhibition is on for three months, even if you wanted one of the unique piece before Christmas, there our other works that can take their place in the FRAME_
Our third Warwick Ghost Walk saw the biggest crowd yet on a slightly damp November evening.
Thanks to the Rose & Crown for your support, and a special thanks to Angela, again the person that sold the most tickets. Great to meet Suzie, the new manager at the Rose and Crown, we look forward to working with you on a combined Meal & Ghost Walk offer.
Also great to meet one half of the Warwick Slaughterhouse Brewery, hope we can find a way of working with The Wild Boar on one of your themed evenings.
In the four years since we started running Ghost Walks in Birmingham, this has been our busiest Halloween so far.
As well as selling out on our Sinister City and Graveyard Ghost Walks, we have had record bookings for both our Sutton Coldfield and Warwick Ghost Walks. Private bookings have included groups of Trainee Solicitors, 2 different High Street banks, a Dance School and a 50th Birthday. We have also worked in conjunction with The Old Joint Stock and the Masonic Hall at Sixty Severn Street to create combined Meal and Ghost Walk events, both had great feedback for both the food and the Walk, and we got to hear of some new haunted sites that we will be investigating further.
We were delighted to be able to take nearly 100 people into Newman Brothers Coffin Fittings Works at the end of the evening of their Twilight Tours, no Ghosts but another dimension to the Funeral industry in Birmingham over the last 100 years. Taking their lead we will soon produce our top ten books on Hauntings, Murder and Hangings in Birmingham, which if you order via Amazon using this link, Amazon will send 5% to the Birmingham Conservation Trust, the charity that have plans to bring Newman Brothers Factory back to life.
Guests on our Halloween Walk braved the driving rain, and were rewarded at the end with a “Widowmaker” cocktail and a bowl of Pumpkin soup at The Red Lion on Warstone Lane. About a third of the group wore fancy dress, but the prize went to Chantal. She had personally stabbed a muti-pack of Variety Cereal using plastic knives, and carried her next victim with her on the walk, a worried looking box of Weetabix, with the words “Help me I’m the next victim” scrawled in jam across the front of the box. It took a few of the guests time to make the connection, “Oh a serial killer”. Chantal, a great costume and a very worthy winner.
