Tbc Garage

A Memory of Kidderminster.

My father (Frank Francis) worked at this garage TBC following his return to Kidderminster at the end of the war. He worked there through all of the remaining 40s and 50s. As a young boy I had the run of the garage and its roof garden. TBC (Tenbury Baths Company) owned the swimming baths at Tenbury Wells and an open air pool and filling station at Fenn Green on the A442.
Beyond the garage on the left are the Central ABC Cinema and Rawlins paper shop, then the junction with Prospect Hill and Green street. On the skyline on the other side of town is the gas holder in the Gas Works, pulled down following the advent of North Sea Gas pipelines.
The roof garden was not visible from ground level, or even atop a Midland Red double decker bus. The garden was very attractive.
The managing director, Colonel Birtcher, lived in a large house in Bewdley which I visited as a child helping my Dad to cut grasss in his orchard.
At some point the Carpet factory behind the garage was demolished for a car park and TBC bought part of the site opening up a huge work shop for cars and lorries and even agricultural tractors. The finest in the region.