Shops of yore

I remember Riddy's well - don't recall actually ever buying anything from there though!

Around the early to mid 80s a mate and me went there on our bikes to just look around in case of the odd bargain, which they often had. We found a special offer of HALF A MILE of twin wire for just 3 quid! I didn't actually need that much, but for some reason, at that price I just had to have it.... just in case! What followed gave me one of the best laughs I ever had.... the sight of my mate, Eddie, cycling up and over Ball Hill, with his legs about as wide apart as it's possible to get and this huge bundle of wire in a bin-bag trapped between them on the crossbar! I nearly fell of my bike for laughing! I still have most of that wire up in the roofspace of our garage today!!! It's tough steel wire, not nice copper stuff, and I never found very many uses for it!

Actually I have just remembered buying something - when I was about 10 I purchased a morse code key! - no idea what I paid for it though

What did you buy a Morse key for? At least I was buying things for my first car! I needed things like spanners - it was a 1957 Moggie Minor TRW585, and I learned a lot with those spanners and things. And then I bought the dreaded Singer Chamois.......

I'd like to say that it was for my experimentation in short wave radio transmission - but then I'd be fibbing! My friend and myself both bought one to connect up to a battery and lamp-holder to practice morse code.

You could buy army wool blankets from there too if its the same shop.. Rob if you ve still got the wire weigh it in now all mentals are high price now, but shop around to who will give you the best price.

I still have the folding metal tool box that I bought in Riddys in the early fifties for about ten bob (50p). My brother bought a one man inflatable dinghy there in the late forties, that was expensive at four pounds ten shillings. We often used that on the Wyken floods.

Remember Riddy himself - with his somewhat bushy beard? (Perhaps we should put him in the "Famous Coventrians" thread....

Hello Primrose. Too true. My mum's shop was Marcia Gowns. She employed a manager Mabel Bourton. The uniform shop was Tuckers. All three pulled together with a level of help & cooperation amongst each of them that would be unbelievable nowadays. Even cover for holidays. They had all just come through the war-time.Hey! We could have had a milk shake in the milk bar cafe at the end of the shops. Happy Christmas.

Hello Tricia. Lovely to see you. Hogarths bought my mum's shop businesses in Coventry when she retired. After she retired to Cornwall, I lost all contact with Hogarths so I did not know what had happened to them. Hogarths were at the Forum & at Bishops Gate end of Foleshill Rd. My mum did have some kind of business tie with Hogarths sharing in buying, not too sure of that though.

Hi Philip, I remember Hogarths at the forum but can't recall a branch on Foleshill Road (note I didn't say THE Foleshill Road, although I nearly did ) You have such a good memory of shops, clearly due to the fact that your mother was in the retail business.

The Hogarths building is what is now Hawks Cycles, Tricia. My mum lived, slept & everything else her shops, which rubbed off on me. She had a mind set that was akin to Aunty Wainwright off 'Last of the Summer Wine'. She was dedicated to her customers. If someone came into any of her shops for something, she saw it as her job to get it for them. I remember the xray shoe size machines that Hogarths had & at the forum they also had the over-head fly wheel pulley cash containers that whizzed across the ceiling to the cash office .

Hogarth's had a shoe shop in town as well, didn't they? I can remember going in there as a kid - and the reason mainly that I remember it was the X-ray machine! (They wouldn't allow those today, with Elf and Safety, would they? ) I can't remember where it was though. Some other big stores had either the vacuum or pulley type cash carrying system. I can't remember which ones, but I do remember being fascinated by them; I think Trustee Savings Bank had one. Interestingly, our local main Nationwide branch has a vacuum system between the cashiers and the 'back office', which is actually underneath in the cellar. What goes around comes around!

I think Hogarths had a big shop in Corporation Street.

When I was a nipper, like so many others, I just loved Barnby's, but bought my Scalextric set from City Pram & Toy just because the lady over the road from us worked there and got me a good discount! A bit later, also as mentioned before, The Kongoni was wonderful to smell as the aroma drifted up the little arcadey bit as I walked past on my way from getting off the 13 and drifting up the City Arcade and so on and up to Broadgate to get the 21. Sadly I don't think I ever went in there. Harvey's in the Burges (or is that Cross Cheaping - I can never remember which way round they are?) was also a regular haunt, especially when I started to lust after the balsa side of modelling. As I got older I always used to make time to go to Len Bayliss's (Elbee) on Stoney Stanton Road; often getting off the bus there just to try to blag a brochure on the latest Triumph or Beeza. I also fondly remember Dick Shepherd's bike shop in Riley Square, even if Dick himself could be a bit of a tartar! Matterson, Huxley & Watson, and Phillips' were also sources of fascination. All great shops, and probably all gone now (?).