From the dilapidated workers' houses, a tourist attraction of Birmingham has emerged

Birmingham - For water, one had to walk a quarter of a mile with a bucket, sewage was dumped in the corner of the yard, people bathed once a week, and rats ran everywhere. "Just beautiful times, what can I tell you," began the tour of the unusual museum made up of workers' houses Back to Backs in the center of Birmingham, eighty-two-year-old guide Wesley. His storytelling is all the more authentic as he grew up during World War II and shortly after it in one of those small houses, where dozens of people were crowded into a few square meters.

Birmingham, the second largest British city in the heart of England, has a famous industrial history. By the end of the 18th century, thousands of workers flocked to the city and its factories in search of work. However, the city was not prepared for their arrival, and people had nowhere to live. Building standards did not exist at the time, and thus typically red-brick houses with narrow spiral staircases sprang up haphazardly by the thousands. To this day, only a few remain in all of Britain, and 11 of them stand together around a small yard of a few square meters, forming a museum dedicated to the history of working-class housing in Birmingham.

The name Back to Backs refers to the unusual architecture of the joined duplex houses, where the back one had no entrance from the street, and the only way in was through a passage to the yard. The spaces in the workers' houses are so small that tours need to be adjusted - a maximum of five visitors per guide.

"In 1795, the industrial revolution began, and people worked from six in the morning until seven in the evening. Everyone worked, children from the age of five. There was no school, there weren't any," evokes the atmosphere of the turn of the century as Wesley tours the houses that were completed around 1814. "There was no police, there was no public lighting on the streets, pigs and cows were everywhere, and this neighborhood was seriously dangerous," he says of the area, which is now just a few steps from downtown Birmingham in the heart of the Chinese quarter.

Each house is dedicated to a family that lived in it, and also to a specific period. The atmosphere of the second half of the 19th century is captured in the home of the Jewish Levy family, supported by a watchmaker father. Around 1850, there were about 700 Jews living in Birmingham, who fled here, like many others in England, to escape the pogroms in Eastern Europe. Next door, Herbert Oldfields made glass eyes for people and stuffed animals, and his neighbor Thomas Mitchell was a locksmith whose family lived in the house for nearly a hundred years. While the first house has only candles and a fireplace with a real fire, the last one has an electric bulb and linoleum.

"Every Friday, rent was collected, and if you couldn't pay it, you were thrown out on the street and beaten. Most families therefore accommodated tenants who shared the table with them, but also beds and bath water when everyone bathed once a week," depicts Birmingham's harsh history Wesley. "I bet, dear ladies, that I have slept in one bed with more men than you two together," he humorously turns to the two adult participants of the tour. As a child, he shared a bed with two tenants at once, as well as with many bedbugs.

The last residents moved out of the dilapidated houses, where only cold water still flowed, in 1966. It remains unclear why they were not demolished like the other houses in the area, but eventually, in 1988, they became a cultural monument. An archaeological survey a few years later showed that they are a true rarity, and the city, with the help of a public collection, bought the land from the private owner. In 2001, the complex was taken over by the National Trust, a public organization that cares for architectural and natural monuments with the help of membership fees, donations, and legacies.

"About 20,000 visitors come here annually, which is quite a lot for the size of the site. Two days a week, we also do tours for schools," say Ashton and Nicol, who work at Back to Backs. The heritage site has eight permanent employees and 18 volunteers who provide tours, a small information center, and a second-hand bookshop. Books for sale are brought in by people who want to support the museum. Proceeds from the sales go towards the restoration and development of the site. "We are glad that Back to Backs has been saved, and we hope that people interested in the history of Birmingham will continue to come here," say the staff of both the shop and the information center, over whose door a small bell jingles, and the walls are adorned with shelves of historical goods.