Mobile and Home Deliveries

Well, Morgana and Tekmelf, you have beat me to it Over dinner, we were trying to remember the name of the coal-yard up Longford by the pub and it was Bray's I reckon. Then my husband was jumping up and down saying that's it! 'King', horse and cart, greengrocery around Radford, coinciding with his time on the Co-op milk round in the 1960's! He is still racking his brains for his first name and keeps saying, Albert? Mr King lived in Four Pounds Avenue he says and he reckons his son took over the 'round'. That's brilliant both of you

When I was a boy around 1950 in Southbank Road we had a milkman called Fennell. He drove a very peculiar three-wheeled open backed vehicle - delivering the milk in churns and the customers provided their own jugs. The vehicle was usually festooned with rabbits and I guess meat was still on ration. Does anybody else remember him, the odd vehicle and where he came from?

Thanks for that, Mick, I've never seen any photos of that particular form of transport, what a sight, with the rabbits on as well. Surely, such an unusual spectacle will be remembered by others. Hope so

Having just done a walk around the University of Warwick campus, we passed Cryfield Grange Farm. Thinking back to when I was a small lad growing up in Tile Hill North (60's-70's), I seem to remember a van delivering potatoes on the estate, with the name Top Crop on the side, would I be right in saying they were from this farm??

The potato delivery van, and the name Top Crop, rings a bell, but I thought he came from Eastern Green. I might, of course, be mixing up a couple of different vans.

Hi Mick I wonder if the vehicle you remember was a Scammell Scarab which was a small three wheel lorry, I can recall Astleys using them many years ago but these were tractor units pulling trailers, could have been converted to a short flat bed though?

One the subject of coalmen, whenever I was visiting my grandmother and there was a coal delivery, she always asked me to count the number of bags as they were being taken into the coal-house to make sure she was getting what she had paid for.

Anybody remember Mr Toogood? He had an old bus and delivered groceries around Tile Hill in the 1950's. He used to blow his horn and we would run out and see what he had on board before being shooed off the bus by our mums who wanted to shop with him. Some years later he had a mobile chip bus, ah the smell on a winters night!! When he dropped the chips into the hot fat the steam that came up filled the whole bus, you couldn't see 6 inches in front of you. I lived in Dunhill Ave, I remember the Ponderosa when it was all ponds and fields with Patsy the Shetland pony up the top near Broad Lane and the little farm on the corner of Jardine with his pigs. We used to go down Eastern Green Lane to the brook and get plums and pears from an old orchard by the brook that nobody seemed to own. The baker that came round Tile Hill had a big wicker basket,lovely bread. Our milkman for many years was the same bloke, curly headed fella rain, sun or snow he always turned up. Anybody in Tile Hill North remember Les the rent man? Nice guy imagine going around today with a big bag of money in Tile Hill!!!!! I live in sunny Australia now, come back now and again Back in Nov 2013 for a few weeks, love to meet with anyone from the old days Tom

Hi Tom, and welcome to the forum Thanks for a great post, which covers several subjects Toogood's has been mentioned elsewhere in the "Canley" thread which you may care to read Because of the topics you cover, I am going to copy the Toogood's part into the "Canley" thread, and also the whole of the post into a "Tile Hill" thread Look forward to more memories from you - and perhaps when you're over you could attend one of our "Breakfast meetings" in town

I, too, lived in Burnaby Road and remember the Co-op delivering the bread by horse and cart. The horse used to go on the pavements so that he could nibble at the hedges before he moved on to the next customer. My mother used to look out for any droppings for manure for her garden. We lived by the bottom rail crossing where the train crossed the road to get from the Dunlop to Foleshill Station.

My great-grandfather Arthur Carter had a butcher's shop at 271 Foleshill Road. This photo, taken from an old article in the Coventry Evening Telegraph, shows Arthur on the cart and my grandad John Arthur, known as Jack, to the right with his basket, just outside the shop in about 1910, looking up Cash's Lane

Hi, I noticed a couple of posts regarding Toogoods mobile shop which used to go around Canley and Tile Hill, so I thought this picture of the mobile shop might be of interest. The picture was taken in Page Road, Canley. Cheers Binkey

Thanks Binkey That's a great shot. I hope you have more photos like that stashed away somewhere!

Hi Foxcote. Regarding the photo of Toogoods mobile shop it was amongst over 750 negatives I retrieved from my loft. They originally came from my late father in law who was then a keen photographer in the late 50's and early 60's. They are mainly of family life around Page Road in Canley during that period, although there are also many pics of Coventry city centre. The photo posted is of lads having fun with their trolley in Page Road. The grass looks a bit bare, but my wife tells me that is where the Marley chocks were!! Glad you liked pic of Toogoods, certainly brings back memories.

In the 1950s just a few streets from Page Road we had Ernie Hodgekinson in his converted coach His was two-tone green. The illustration is just a 1:76 model of vehicle