Kaga Simpson - his life and memories

I joined Dunlop in Oct 1960 for a bet - some guy bet me I couldn't get a job there after being sacked from Dunlop on the corner of Blackhorse Road in 1948 on false say-so. Long story. Only intended to stay a few days at the new job, but the office held a beautiful girl, who asked me to join her for the office outing to see Ben Hur in Brum - that kept me at the Dunlop until March. The seats were the first two rows of the cinema, every time the chariots came by we got covered in bits of chariot - or it felt like it. Left the firm, won the money, kept the girl - still with me today.

The old Coventry that I knew had great lengths of the old city wall, the Victorian loom houses, the old cobbled narrow streets of the market, the old vaults and cellars of High Street and Butcher Row, and I believe the old wash house in Palmer Lane. The Great Heaths stretching from Stoke to Holbrooks. It still had an old water mill that once powered eighty looms, and scores of Victorian chapels. The Coventry of the twenties and thirties was still mostly Victorian.

I was proud of the Victorian cottage I lived in, and proud that my grandad had settled in the ancient city of Coventry. But my boyhood it was still rural. The rural life around me was farms, fields and the canal to walk along - the 'cut', for it had been cut from the turf. The hedge, tall and thick, held thousands of gay coloured birds of all shapes and colours, and held all the seasons - the snowdrops gave way to green on the ground below, that quickly turned to violet, then to a swathe of yellow primrose. The hedge changed from brown to green leaf, the gay coloured birds, chirping, turned to song, the air turned to an air of a grand mixture of songs and colour. Meanwhile in the distance you might hear the joyful voice of a boy singing, walking behind the horse towing the boat - then his mother or sister on the tiller would join in and somewhere his father, these where the same voices that filled the chapels and churches on a Sunday. The boat, hardly making a ripple, kept the canal fairly clean, the horse may make a chunter as he came near the end of his nosebag and if you were really lucky a kingfisher would fly low over the water, looking for a fish for breakfast. Its beautiful colours cannot truly be described, but in late spring the hedgerow now full of flowers and fruit, the purple of the wild damsons on slender branches which bent under the weight, picked by boys like me, and turned into jam or pies by the mothers and grandmothers of the village.

When I was a small boy about nine, I would take the old clanging tram to the centre of the city and make my way to old Broadgate. To my mind the grand old street was the essence of Coventry. It represented the faded remains of life lived there years before. I spent my time and money delving through old books and searching, I was fascinated by the city's recent past, the past represented in these streets of years ago, but even before the tram reached these streets we passed the Red House Inn (1868) on Stoney Stanton Road, a place that had been much frequented by visitors to our town, a century ago. It was not hard to image this popular resort and the rooms crowded with visitors, the horse bus sat outside - this was like half a tram, pulled by a pair of horses, it sat six inside, a small staircase at the rear led to upstairs seating another six, the driver sitting on a box seat in front. A large garden at the rear of the inn would be full of rich clusters of flowers. In Broadgate, crossing into the churchyard you would pass by Butcher Row on the other side and the grand old houses, constructed for defence with small distrustful windows, some heavily barred, and walls of great thickness, areas around the great peaceful churches - only too soon would this be a thing of the past.

There was a stall in the old market that sold pikelets, toasted over a brazier fire bucket on a long wire fork and buttered by his wife, the warm butter ran down your chin and was wiped off on to the back of your hand and licked off, they were delicious.

Nearly all the books I've read about Coventry are of its industry, but Coventry was a beautiful city in Victorian times, had huge gardens, full of beautiful flowers. Mosaic tiles in front of most shops, the churchyard new painted railings, the cobblestones bright and shiny, trees in full bloom, headstones new and bright inscriptions, set amongst well trimmed green grass, the grey richness of the churches gave it a picturesque beauty. There were many plantsmen and seedsmen amongst Coventry people - in Ironmonger Row a plantsman had a beautiful house with the doorway carved in wheat sheaves, and poppies and other plants (it was still there in the early thirties). The market place had spaces with buckets crammed with flowers of all colours and sizes, and small trees in large pots. Before and in front of Butcher Row were the pot and earthenware people, the old willow patterns so much prized in the day. From the top of Butcher Row would be Hicklins bookshop, a celery stall, a confectioners, numerous stalls and shops until the gingerbread stalls into Ironmonger Row, and scores of people Those very old drab photos do not give Coventry a true story.

The Jolly Collier once belonged to my family. I never fell in the canal once in my life, jumped in a few times to rescue people, swam in it - in the early thirties, before engines, the canal was pretty clean, it was engines that caused the swirl and big wash and the ruination of the banks - and the fishing competitions were very lively days. My dad had an allotment garden alongside the canal. Everyone knew him as an ex-boatman, he never had anything stolen but sack after sack of manure was thrown on the bank for him, and the rhubarb grew five feet tall. Dad would give them some vegetables and the odd rabbit or or two. I would help him dig trenches and fill with manure, or we would sit in the sun and he would tell me tales of old Coventry and the basin, or of the war. The tall hedgerows behind the garden were full of white flowers and song birds, and the odd boat would pass by and the conversation was thrown across the cut. He told me the wheelbarrow had come from the Crusaders, and many of our gardening tools came from the East, the barrow had the wheel in the centre and we improved on it, but the days were slow, peaceful times and the only background noise was a dog barking in the distance or a bird in the hedgerow.

In the 1920/30's, a man came round once a fortnight with a large suit case selling bobbins of coloured cottons, small bits of silk, all kinds and sizes of shoe and boot laces. Also, a man with a suitcase with brooches, earrings, etc, a guy with a kind of barrow once a month sharpening knives - all would knock on the door. Young gypsy girl with posies of violets or daffs. A guy down the road, you left a message and he came round and fixed the sewing machine, most went on to own their own shops, except the gypsy girl. The city had scores of guys selling black market goods and faulty goods, most factories had some number of items faulty they sold of cheaply to 'del boys'. Even Leyland made faulty cars they sold off cheaply to employees. Coventry had always been a good market place of stalls and booths, right from the top of Broadgate to the top Bishop Street in Victorian days.

When I was a small child one of my uncles took me to a house in Warwick Road. This was the prettiest house I had ever seen, the windows all stained glass, much like the Council House before the Blitz - don't think it ever got back to its original glass? The floor was covered in pretty tiles, several murals and symbols that I did not know at the time, later I found out, was Masonic. It did survive the Blitz. It was a Masonic house, can't remember much, but Coventry in the early thirties was full of books on the masons and their symbols, and rumours of secret handshakes, and trousers rolled up. In the Middle East I found a number of symbols and signs that I had seen in books of old Coventry - would loved to have found out more, but the Middle East erupted after 1948. Coventry was a hive of guilds, masons and so forth, that could be traced back to mediaeval times and, I believe, the Middle East. But we only have to see that our own cross was built in a beautiful pyramidical structure, that the Romans and we copied from Egypt.

Interesting Kaga, it sounds as if you were taken to the Coventry Masonic Lodge, the centre for the Masons' meetings!

When I was a small boy, we boys slept three to a bed, that had iron railings top and bottom. My sisters did the same in a smaller room. The side bars were metal also, they had a small metal piece that slotted into the rail in a groove that was a mesh base that spread all over, and the large mattress on top of that - we could bounce on it and have pillow fights that got us a clout round the head by mother. Under the bed was the potty that we dipped our toes in when we had chilblains. The toilet was right down the garden - if my sisters needed to go in the evening, then one of us had to take the torch and stand outside, but first we had to see there were no spiders or beetles around. It was hard to understand why my parents had to light the gaslight at night and the gas lamps outside just came on. Our house had two up, two down - we lived in the front room, the back room was the kitchen and bathroom in the summer. In the winter we brought the tin bath in front of the fire in the front room. At about four I joined my sister and brother at school, school being one room and a coke stove, the desks in rows. The elder kids were on the right going down to the smallest on the left. In winter the desks were arranged in a circle around the stove. We also attended Sunday School one night a week, where we were read bible stories from "Old Pop Barnes" who looked like a monk. There were words like Marmite, Carmelite, Bakelite that were hard to understand. We lived in our front room, but my uncle only used his on Sundays - you had to pass his front door, past three houses then down an entry to get round the back. It was all confusing to a small boy. The street lamps only cast a light around them, then you passed through the dark to the next one. But my younger small sister didn't run about like other kids and then one day she was gone - the horses and hearse took her away, put her in a deep hole. People told me she had gone to heaven, the Lord had taken her. I cried, and doubts and anger came in - she was my sister, why did this guy want her? It was so hard to understand. Often I would be taken in to Coventry - here were narrow cobbled streets, the old loom houses. It had altered little from Victorian days, street stalls with gingerbread shops, sweet shops, pie shops, and scores of bookstalls and shops - we could browse through pictures of foreign countries, the Crusades, knights in shining armour. Exciting, and yes, there were pictures of the Coventry Cross in these old books of Coventry. The older I became, the more I wanted to see. I would pass through the churchyard - on one side, railings and old houses, Priory Row, narrow and cobbled, old derelict houses, a graveyard and great spires. Had the knights really ridden here? The more I saw the more I read, and the more I wanted to be in their life. And you could see the three spires from a long way off. I got uncles, or anyone, to take me to Kenilworth or Warwick to see the remains of these great places. At 18 I was told I would be going to the Holy Land - guys moaned, I jumped for joy. A dream beyond my wildest dreams, a great extension from Coventry beginning.

Around 1900 time, everything involved coal, and my father had helped to bring it in to Coventry. But the pits had closed one by one, and my dad had been forced to work in the last one, the Craven pit. The collier, in most cases, dropped down into the bowels of the earth, crawling through corridors of the earth, with their tools, heat, noise, a dark, damp, cramped space, foul air, and above all extremely dangerous. The bumps on the back where they hit the roof were called 'Buttons on the Back'. The men worked in gangs, the head of the gang was paid for the coal he dug, and he in turn paid the men who worked in his gang. The intimacy of pub and pit. Every pit had its burning bank. As a boy my dad walked many weary miles behind his horse, giving him the freedom of fresh air, so it became harder than most. After a few years he went to war. The camaraderie of the miners was the same as the men in the trenches, corridors of wet, foul earth, dark, cramped conditions, extreme dangerous. This had been my father's youth. but he loved sport - that saved him from the demon drink of those days. Several of his uncles owned pubs.

Coventry was built on sheer hard work and wars. Little had changed in Coventry at the beginning of the 20th century, from the 19th century, the same weaving and silk houses were still there, but more slums in between. Only the aristocrats had money to spend, and it was called the age of decadence. The population had swollen in the 19th century according to the amount of work available, but near the start of the 20th fashions had changed, laws altered in the silk and weaving, and there was a decline. But come the Great War and work surged. Populations grew from new immigrants. Not only were uniforms needed and arms, but England sent 8,000 horses to France. They never came back, so we needed self transport, so the factories turned to bicycles, millions of them. But the country was deep in debt, the prosperity of 1918/19 collapsed. First, the railways went on strike, and unemployment loomed, the subsidy to the mining industry ceased, and the miners refused to accept wage cuts. It dragged on from April to November, when it collapsed. Industrial workers throughout the country ceased work, everything was at a standstill. Hyde Park was closed to the public, it became a food depot. Special constables. Naval ratings manned power stations. Military force was brought in, mounted police guarded tramways. and they closed the Craven pit in Coventry. 1928, serious flooding swept the country. The Thames embankment collapsed at Westminster, drowning 14 people in nearby basements. 1933, the government took serious steps to demolish slum houses and rehousing, the whole project estimated cost was £115,000,000. Coventry made a bold effort as we know. 1939 and we start recruitment again. War again.

The slum clearances are the source of some very interesting and novel images. Sad that those buildings were demolished but a chink of luck because they'd have almost certainly been destroyed in the war. So out of destruction came rare photographs of the past but it probably saved lives too because the people had to move further out from the centre.

Dad walked out the back door. I followed. He sensed that I wanted to talk to him alone. Dad had come out of the First World War wearing a German army leather belt with a silver buckle that had the words "Gott Mitt Uns" on it. The only time he removed it was bedtime and bath-time, and then it was only an arms length away. A few months previously, my sister and I had discussed this. It may have been war booty at the start, we both thought it may have been spoils of war at the beginning, that had turned into some sort of shrine or guilt, but no one ever dare ask him. He had also brought back a large picture made up of postcards, three cards wide and about six cards deep. The centre picture made from these cards was "The Virgin Mary", the outer corners of the cards were various shots of Ypres Cathedral. Every time the sirens went, dad wrapped in a blanket and took down the air-shelter. We looked back up the garden. No one had followed. I said, "Dad, tell me about Uncle .......". It hit him hard, his face clouded and angry. The he said, "You know he died, you went to his funeral. What do you want to talk about him for?" "Dad, he once took me to a house, that held secrets of some kind". "Yes, it was one of those Mason lodges. Your uncle would not work on the boats, had nothing to do with them. He came to live with his grandad in this house, read a lot of books. His grandad had paid for him to go to school, everything. While the rest of us had to earn a living. When he grew up he owned a firm, but shared nothing". But dad was still puzzled. "Dad, I have just done an army exercise, where we had to hide away from people. The police and Home Guard searched for us. I managed this time, but next time it maybe for real, I wondered if there was some way I could know his friends, or get help of sorts if they keep secrets". Dad shook his head, thought for a moment. "Kaga, don't tell your mother or your brothers". I went to walk away, then thought, "Can I ask grandad?" "He won't know any more", and shrugged his shoulders. I walked back to the house, then went next door to grandad's. Granny was in the kitchen. I sat up close to him. "I want to ask you a delicate question". He looked at me. "You got something on your mind, then spit it out, let's have no nonsense". "I want find out what secrets or friends my Uncle ....... had. It may help me in the army". He wasn't as shocked as dad had been. "Well, he belonged to the Masons, they will tell you nothing unless you're one of them. He went to a place t'other side of 'Kinky Hub'". I sat up. "'Kinky Hub'? Where is that?" "Oh, Broadgate. When I was a boy, that's what we called it. Like a cartwheel but more spokes, streets, pathways led off in all directions. I shook my head. "Why have I never heard of it before?" "Because it was a boat nickname. When we asked another boat where he was heading, he would answer 'Kinky Hub' if he was going into Coventry. If not, he was going Bedworth way. When they closed the 'Craven' they closed Coventry cut, about the time you was born, and the saying died out".