Coventry Telegraph

The Midland Daily Telegraph was one penny and with 12 pennies to a shilling, twenty shillings to one pound, 240 telegraphs for £1 I think it was the late forties when the football pools became important to the people, the large prizes made people more aware of gambling and big money, so results became more needed than ever, so more competition to get the results on the streets first. Which was ridiculous as you had weeks you could claim, and the wireless gave out the results also. But those vans in the fifties just raced each other. Ten years later television outdid them all. But the football league results were on the front page, easy to see in a glance but today I find it hard to find results. There were also little pocket supplements that were so handy to read if out in the open but they turned them into newspaper size and the wind made it more difficult to read them. I think the Telegraph was a five column spread with few advertisements.

Wikipedia article on MDT, CET etc

Midland Red. So who do we believe? I have a paper by an FT Bunting, chairman of the Coventry Evening Telegraph, that says the MDT continued to be the main source of local news for the duration of the war.

Kaga Just looked through the British Newspaper Archive, and the title of the newspaper changes on Monday 17th November 1941 You should be able to see the change here

Midland Red, thank you, yes the bombing pictures were by the Midland, then they changed. Another question, those Sat afternoon vans, weren't they seasonal? Once the football stopped in the spring the number of vans dropped. Talking of the Telegraph, I phoned them one early Monday morning about '53 time, I was jumping with joy, I had a top dividend on the seven draws Australian Pools Results - only six draws and one away was top divi. I asked for their sports reporter, told him I had top divi, what do you think it will make? Oh you're well in, should make thirty, forty thousand at least, I thanked him, threw a big party, It made a few hundred only, only six draws in all their matches but about twenty odd aways. I was gutted. Another time I had eleven correct results (twice) on the twelve results panel and away win and a home win but it was a late result, the home team were winning 1-0, there was a penalty in the dying seconds and a score became a drawn game, left me with two second dividends. Ah woe is me.

1939 - like most kids I had a paper round, the evening paper being the local 'rag', the Midland Daily Telegraph. Delivering this paper we took along our gas masks, had to be aware of the blackout and the sirens. We were asked to deliver from the outer and back towards the shop, if the sirens went to take shelter or get home as fast as possible. I read all the war news from that paper, I kept three papers back to deliver to Main Cottages as I also delivered milk to them in the evenings, sometimes I had letters and parcels to deliver as well. But in August 1941 gave up the paper round and started work full-time, and yes two months later they damn well changed the name to Coventry Evening Telegraph and I missed it. So for almost two years (apart from a few weeks evacuee), I delivered the Midland Daily Telegraph, never delivered one Coventry Evening Telegraph.

Photos from 2016

MR, bet that place was a hive of activity in its day.

Hi all This makes grim reading, as if that wasn't bad enough, the Coventry Telegraph latest circulation is down to 18000 copies. Audited circulation.

A sad situation but a sign of the times. When I was a newsagent in the 1960s at Longford we sold 625 Evening Telegraphs, at Sewell Highway a similar figure - that would be about 6% of the present circulation in only two outlets. At the weekly local paper where I work the circulation is almost the same as the present Telegraph one, and the population of New Milton and Lymington where we also circulate is only about 60,000. Perhaps it is time newspaper publishers had a rethink about their business policies.

Some of the photos I took when walking around the Coventry Evening Telegraph offices and printworks on a self-guided tour: It's a great place, my four photos here don't really do it justice (I wanted to show photos of the huge basement/printworks but they didn't turn out very well - it was a bit dark down there, I think PeterB had more success in post 87 on this thread). I'm hoping to look round again, but I wouldn't recommend it to people who struggle with steps as there are a lot of stairs (and a lot of walking). See the VisitCoventry.net website. Luke.

A good proportion of the work gone on at the CET building and the VisitCoventry website linked by Garlands is done/run by my mate Alan Denyer. He is a true Coventrian and building enthusiast!

Plans revealed for Telegraph site

The British Newspaper Archive have recently added more scanned images of the Coventry Telegraph and Coventry Herald. They now include the Telegraph for 1897-1898, 1904-1919, 1922-1923, 1925-1934 and 1936-1951 and the Herald for 1808, 1820, 1824-1835, 1837-1873, 1877, 1906, 1908 and 1914-1940.

Thanks for that information McSporrran: So far I've found my ancestors: 1. Up before the Town Council for making dodgy police uniforms 2. Breaking up a fight between his and another tailor's apprentice 3. Getting involved in a dog fight (although he was cleared) 4. A witness in a horse biting incident. 5. Bailing his insolvent brother out on numerous occasions