Spirit of Place: The Practice

I am delighted to announce that I have been blessed. I have had a major religious experience and will never be the same again. The nature of the experience is an incredibly local one and may need explaining if you're not acquainted with Birmingham. You see, I have seen the man going into The Practice in Selly Oak.

If I explain that The Practice is a proper local mystery which has been going on for at least 35 years it may become apparent why seeing the man is such an experience.

The Practice is a, well, I'm not sure what to call it...apparently a business in the Selly Oak area of the city. It looks like a business, but has never been known to open, comings and goings are as rare as hen's teeth, and the phone number is long since disconnected. Forget a website, and you will see from the phone number that the sign has been like that for over 30 years. It has looked exactly the same all that time, except for being more decrepit. The front is set up like a very cluttered office and the giant geraniums in the window are real and obviously cared for. I think the tree in the roof looks after itself.

Of course the Internet has taken an interest in The Practice and people have kindly found out a few definite facts about the place.

The building actually belongs to a man called Michael Summerfield, who when he bought it in 1980, was a solicitor in Harborne. I assume that if he was old enough to be a solicitor and buying property in 1980, he could be a candidate for the elderly, smart man with tidy white hair and a stick, who I saw today.

However there have also been sightings of apparently another man going in or coming out, who sounds quite different, long white hair and beard, described as unkempt and sometimes in a white coat.

The next fact I have is that from 2007 until it was voluntarily dissolved in 2023, called Freekquency Worldwide Ltd, which is a magnificent name and not at all straight laced. Sadly nobody has found what this business actually did. The sole director was an Alexander Edmund Summerfield, Michael's son, who was born in 1979 so is too young to be the man I saw, and besides has an address in London on the Companies House paperwork.

Another likely candidate, though, is Freekquency's company secretary, David Cox. In the past people have spotted a photo of UB40 inside The Practice and this provides an interesting chain to a Birmingham David Cox. This one ran a butcher's in Moseley for many years, and a record shop in Stirchley. He had definite contact with the music industry because apart from the record shop, when UB40 were young and struggling, he helped them financially and they used to practice behind the butcher's shop.

So the mystery of The Practice isn't completely solved but I do have two possible candidates for the mystery man or men occasionally seen going in or out of the mystery business. I don't have an explanation for the white coat!

Nonetheless, sightings are so rare that seeing someone go in is like seeing Elvis shopping in Sainsburys and my life will never be the same again.

Oh, this post has a tune to go with it: