Corley Open Air School

I was sent to this school roughly 1946 as I had been diagnosed as having a 'weak chest' can't remember that much about it so couldn't have been too bad, I can't remember having any schooling whilst there?

I, too remember COAS. I was there for 10 months in 1947. I had had pneumonia and a collapsed lung. I seem to remember being not unhappy. The staff were quite kind. I also remember Miss Caborn as head and a Mrs Caldecot who mended clothes. I remember the open sided dormitory in the winter when the caretaker boarded up the open side when it snowed. A teacher slept in an enclosed room in the very centre of the room. We were at the school ALL the time - no going home ever until your time was up, weekends, Christmas, all the time! When it was your birthday, you were allowed to name (I think) 7 friends to have a birthday tea with you and your parents came to bring the tea. At Christmas we had a carol concert and I read the lesson that year in the presence of alderman Stringer. I remember telling my parents that I read the less to old man stringer!! We all had numbers by which we were known. My number was 37.

Was anyone a resident at Corley open air school in 1945

Hi, My mother was a patient there in the 30's due to having had rheumatic fever and being very small and feeble as she called it, she told me of the open veranda, walks around the area, picking flowers in the meadow and having to eat a lot of food to build her up, it certainly worked as she lived to be 86, survived stomach cancer, 3 children and my father! A very strong lady, I took her back to Corley a year before she died, she remembered Corley rocks they used to climb, but we could not find where the school had been, If it had not been for for Corley, she would almost certainly have died as a child.

Hi Morgana, Curiosity is said to be a dangerous thing and I read through this thread and heard of people playing on Corley Rocks - I knew them well - going there on my bike quite often, but I hadn`t heard or seen the school. However curiosity opened the link and I scrolled down and saw the picture of the school and read the story at the side. It mentioned Centaur Road school as having a similar section for the purpose of sick children. Centaur Road was my first junior school, I don`t know if I was there for any particular reason, because for the life of me I cannot remember the place, but I did have an operation in Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital about that time for "swollen glands" - I was never told the reason or the outcome or where and the period of nursing - still got the scar on my neck.

1937 1938 1947 1949

Hi Tilly I know this is an old post but I have just found this forum. I remember COAS very well. I was there in 54 or thereabouts for 9 months as I had an eye condition, tho I don't know if that was the real reason as I had had TB as a small child and was very weedy and skinny. My eye problem cleared up in the unpolluted country air of Corley, remember how smoggy and dirty Coventry was in the 50s? Corley was great, tho I was quite homesick as we only got to see our parents every other Sunday for an hour. I remember 2 Italian ladies who worked there looking after us in those huge open air dormitories and they were very strict. There was also a young teacher there who only had one arm I recall. Some children had beds on the balcony where it was very fresh and breezy. My friend Dorothy slept there but if she had nightmares she would creep into my bed. Yes! lots of Corley memories. Regards, Myra

Corley Open Air School, didn't it open 1930 as a TB hospital? There had been a big spate of the disease in the twenties. My uncle went there in the thirties, can't remember the year, or his age. The next step would have been Switzerland. The Milk Pasteurisation Act (not compulsory) in the 1920's, milk blamed for killing kids.

Corley Open Air School was a huge step forward in health terms for Coventry and Foleshill (Alfred Herbert's name was linked). Yes, TB was like today, you need to isolate, it can be caught. But way back in the 1920's it was a very frightening and dangerous disease - thought to be caught from milk, it spread at an alarming rate, and only pasteurised milk recommended, but it was like a dirty word to us kids. You weren't supposed to read about it or talk about it, those days people knew too little and believed too much. An aunt died from it, an uncle sent to Corley and my father told to eat milk puddings (gas WWI), my family in moral chaos for a time. Even in those days there was a link to badgers, but local farmers shoed that idea, with the area being coal mining and the canal a deterrent, there were no badgers on local farms north of Coventry. But Corley Open Air was a great leap forward in 1930ish time or so my family thought, and having had the disease myself in 1985 I know its effect.

Hi gschuckelt, welcome to the forum Some of the pictures came from reports about the health of the city and there may be a lot more information about the school in the text. I'll give you a link to all of them but when I get time I'll have a quick look to see if I can find the copies that the pictures came from. If you don't get there first. Health reports at the Wellcome Foundation. There is more information about the school to be found at the Coventry archives and you may be able to find something about them from the index here.

Hi Helen, Many thanks for these links. I'll take a look at them and see what I can find.

Hi All, My auntie attended this school in the early 1970's. She was sent there by Coventry Social Services due to her bad asthma. We've recently learnt this was an experimental school and she now suffers with numerous health issues. Has anyone else experienced anything similar?

Hi rkp66, welcome to the forum