On Thu, 18 Nov 2004, BH Williams wrote:

[excessive quotage now snipped]

I was only four or five at the time and much more interested in the
seats which had backs that could be folded according to the
direction of travel...

Sounds like me as a toddler on the rare occasions I was taken on
Birmingham trams. Where can we see one of those today? We never
actually went to the terminus (Rednal, IIRC), and I was fascinated by
the idea of changing ends and reversing the seat backs.

But they'd been abolished before I was paying proper attention.

It was a great pity that none were preserved

Indeed. I wouldn't want the place to be overrun with antiques, but
we've plenty of scope for keeping a few. Works for me (the house is
from the 1880's, perhaps a bit earlier ;-)