Kaga Simpson - his life and memories

Well well, what a fascinating thing to learn. I'm so pleased that this forum and its amazing members have once again helped to solve a mystery, thank you for letting us know.

The house I lived in the 1930's was attached to my granddad's house - in both houses the staircase was opposite the front door and curled to the centre, the fireplaces were back to back in the central wall and joined into one chimney a little way up. My dad had a large chair on the left-hand side of the fire, that no one else sat in. Mother had a smaller chair on the other side and alongside a sofa. So, mother was expecting the vicar to call one day - she had us washed knees, hair brushed, sitting on the sofa all spick and span, my sister sat in the middle of me and my brother nursing the baby. The vicar duly called and mum sat him in dad's chair, made him a cup of tea and they were jawing away when there were noises in the chimney and a great amount of soot came down the chimney, hit the fire and a cloud swept over the vicar, just as dad walked in. Dad looked at him, black face and clothes in his chair and promptly said, 'Dost tha want my pit boots and all, vicar?' Of course we were doubled up with laughter. Mum scowled, took the vicar into the back room and gave him hot water and towel. When he had gone mum had a row with dad, the first and only time I saw them really row. Apparently the chimney sweep was next door. In those days the sweep used to sign a card when he finished, something to do with insurance.

If you think coffins were a strange cargo for a narrow boat, then read on. In 1945 my dad was offered Canal House to live in (about one mile past Ansty village) along with a job. He accepted - now the only access to the house was by boat. We three older children were in the forces but there were still three boys at home. Now all our furniture had to be lugged half-way up Tusses Bridge and down to the towpath, not only the big old fashioned heavy sets of drawers, the old fashioned iron bedsteads and everything else but a piano and full sized bagatelle table, man-handled on to a narrow boat then towed five miles (it must have looked hilarious) approx to Canal Cottage. Here, the gate had to be taken off to get the piano through. Now my brothers had to cross fields to get to the village school, the same fields I had crossed when the cattle had been blown to bits by Gerry bombs. Dad was ragged by other boat people about the piano and strange cargo. About eight years later dad was told to move to Canal House, Brinklow, so everything back on the boat, towed a further mile and lugged into another house. Now my brothers had to attend Rugby schools. Five more years on and dad was transfered to New Inn Bridge, Foleshill. Everything back on the boat, only this time the whole lot had much farther to travel and to go through Sutton Stop Lock. When they reached New Inn Bridge the house could not take the piano or the bagatelle table so they were placed in a tunnel under the bridge road and there they remained. Dad retired and left the company and the canal and the table and piano. But no one on the canal could remember such a strange cargo shunted about that stretch of water.

THE INFLUENCE OF COVENTRY. As a child, places possess some striking features, which remain always in mind after first impressions, but Coventry had so many. Alighting from the tram, Broadgate, you noticed was on a hill; Bull Ring, Butcher Row north; West Orchard west; Bull Yard and Cow Lane south. Names rich in Coventry farming past. West Orchard, I watched through an open doorway ancient designs in ironwork being made, chains of different size links, also leather work. Market Place and the great fascinating market, the Barracks Square, the Drill Hall, a child's mind dazzled. But east through the churchyard, towering steeples, timber framed houses. The Council House, although appearing and giving memories to be ancient, we have to bear in mind is not really old. Priory Row, Trinity Lane, St Michael's, and St Mary's, The Guild Hall. (Here I would like to mention, we only used the entrance). The churchyard, used and called by everyone back in the past, my grandfather's day as such. But like a giant chocolate cake that had been dazzled in front of me, most of it was snatched from me at 12 years of age by the Blitz. But I was trapped in the past. But fortune came to my aid, without any expense (Army), I found myself in the Holy Land, my interest in the past returned, this was a giant step back to the past. Now I had time with the help of a padre to visit almost every place and site that Coventry and St Michael's had preached to me including the beautiful Monastery of Latrun. In the fifties I had time to read more, and to visit more historical places, again in France I was more fortunate to stay in a monastery and witness some of their prayer meetings - this wasn't so much about religion itself, but about the ways of the monks that was stirred up by Coventry's History of a Priory. So I have slept in several castles in several countries, and two monasteries. But with my age and illness l thought it was over, until a couple of weeks, when my son, his now wife a Thailand girl, took me to a Thailand monastery here in Sussex, where once again I witnessed the prayers and customs of monks.

I guess I knew from a very early age that my life was going to be different, for I lived next door to my gran, and she had five boys and six girls and they all had partners and kids, bar one aunt. And this was the age when cars were in their infancy, and gran's yard looked more like a bike factory than the garden yard at week-ends. Sometimes there were so many people in the two houses we had a time roster for the toilet. When my uncles went to watch the Bantams, and took us kids, there were more of our family behind the goal than Bantams in front of goal - when the local bagatelle team at the 'Castle' pub played, six out of the eight were our family. When the elders played whist we kids swopped comics, fag cards and such. Once when one aunt wasn't there they talked of the time when she nearly died from heartbreak. She stopped eating for weeks and wouldn't leave her bed. She belonged to a teenage club in Coventry that went cycling, picnicking, and whatever they did in those days, including watching the silent films. The great heartthrob at the time was Rudolph Valentino and he died. Valentino cast an extraordinary spell over the women of his time - hundreds of women had breakdowns, hundreds of houses closed their curtains in respect. Just when I was getting interested in Coventry's history the war came and destroyed part of it, and created a different history, but when I came home I was older and understood a little more, so one of the first places I headed for was the Cathedral tower. Not only could I see and recall what had been destroyed both by the raids and the council but Coventry lay before me, in my imagination of its past. The waste ground that was once the market and had been for centuries, and West Orchard was probably the first named street in Coventry for in its past it had been a large orchard in the west that once belonged to the friars of Greyfriars monastery, and a bridle path had run through from the west to the great Trinity and St Michael's churches (William Cobbett?) The course of the river I knew through firemen's tales, but I could find very few books on St Mary's - one could only guess. There was no book on earth could hold the information this forum holds and most of the books today were not printed then even if someone had tried. I felt Coventry had lost its path and its past when they built the comic clock - I felt it ridiculed the famous past of the timekeepers that Coventry once had. I climbed down from the spire and joined a queue for chocolate - the chocolate put me back in a roundabout way to paintings and museums, and my crazy life.

Kaga, I've been re-reading your earlier posts where you mention driving a pony and trap delivering milk. It occurred to me that you must have crossed paths at times with my mum. Upon leaving school in about 1941 she delivered bread for the Co-op around the Keresley, Ash Green and Potters Green area. She used to take me with her but had to stop when more children came along. She always said they were the happiest days of her life. Her father was a collier and he worked many of the local pits including Griff and Keresley where he became a Deputy. They lived originally in Hurst Road before finally settling in Keresley village. Mum and dad, now in their 90s, live in Ash Green so mum is back in the place she always longed to return to. I absolutely love your recollections of "our" area, thank you so much.

Walrus, no thank yous, I'm never sure if people think I'm a pain in the butt. In an earlier post you told me who your mum was. I knew her - I went to school with her, from 8 to 12. I was in love with her sister, we boys were all in love with the two sisters, there were fights over them, of course they didn't know at the time but.... Walrus, I think my uncle and her father may have worked together at Keresley, they were the same age group. He lived in the street opposite Windmill Cemetery, he was a deputy at Keresley. They used to give him a goose every Xmas, he passed it on to his sister who was my mother. There was a wool shop in Hurst Road just before the stile, didn't they live between the two? But Jonesy made the best cream buns in Foleshill.

Most of the old folks could neither read nor write, so everything was handed down by word of mouth and a handshake was gospel. My grandfather could neither read nor write but he owned and worked ten coal boats, about 15 horses and employed half a dozen men, and bought two houses, by sheer graft. He told some rare tales as well. At some places when they tied up for a few days, he would set up a couple of stalls and sell meat pie grandma made. This pie was made of meat highly seasoned. It had a thick crust around the inside and over the very large deep brown pans that held it. A small plate of this pie was sold for three-halfpence and was usually eaten on the spot, by all kinds of people. The recipe is now lost to us. In the latter part of the 19th century and the beginning part of the 20th century Foleshill retained a village atmosphere, streets surrounded with heaths and fields but the canal infrastructure was already in place, and there were two hump-backed bridges along the stretch of canal, built for horse traffic - they were unkind to man and beast. New to my job, first day I tempted to make a short cut over the Old Church Road canal bridge with pony and trap - alas I had no sooner got the wheels on the bridge and churns and crates and bottles started rolling down the cart, went crashing to the roadway. Milk and glass scattered, tears rolling down my cheeks. I backed the pony back down and kicked the glass to the side of the road - someone helped me. I cursed myself for years about that bridge. Almost ten years later I was part of firecrew. We drove over that same bridge, and suction pipes and ladders were jerked loose, went scattering into the road. I clapped my hands with joy - the crew thought I was crazy.

My name's Kaga, because my brother wrote left-handed and I could not say kagy-handed in one go. The emergence of letters for everyone, not just the elite classes, began in the 18th century, and the best quill was the third feather in from a goose's wing. Right-handed people preferred a quill from the left wing of a goose as they were more comfortable over the hand, a left-handed used the the right wing feathers.

I can remember my grandma when I was very small, she had a big box of letters and postcards, and supplied me with hundreds of stories from the past, and the shoe box with its letters and postcards I read over about ten years of my life. They sketched and painted even the ones that couldn't write, animals, clothes, utensils. The postal system offered that a letter posted at breakfast time could arrive in Coventry by tea-time, and they believed that expressing their thoughts and feelings was the right thing to do. They had no qualms about writing their love affairs, bereavements, rivalries, failures, triumphs, nothing was held back. They braved the elements, extremes of the terrain, covered great distances along perilous roads in skirts cut, daringly, four inches above the ankles and short black boots with coloured laces. Granny was my contact with a vanishing world. P.S. My ability to remember stories from the thirties far exceeds my ability to remember why I walked into the kitchen.

There was something magical about the old folk and the past. I was about to write about old Farmer Colledge that owned the farm I spent a good many years at. Not only was he so at ease with these great shire horses, they were always glad to have him around, it was uncanny the vibes that passed between them. But he was also organist at both Ansty and Shilton Church. When I was very small, when I heard him going in to practice I would race through the entry in to the orchard that was outside his room, sit on the swing on the apple tree and let his music enthral me. He not only played hymns but music from shows etc., but on occasions would play what we call today meditation music. This was music that suited the organ more than the piano. Even as a kid it seemed to be smooth and lull you into some romantic frame of mind. He would also play and chant something I didn't understand. I asked his son, he said it was far off monastery music. That none of his family knew, or knew where he learnt it. Way back in the early thirties this was so far out of reach for the life around us I was completely in awe of this great man. A few years later someone threw some yew tree cuttings to the horses and they were dead in a few minutes. I cried for weeks. I think it broke his heart, but then the old folk were much more used to death than ever we could be, and it leaves so many stories of the past.

Would this be farmer Colledge whose farm was one of the `victims` of the M6 in the late 60s?

I said that was a lovely story Kaga. What a horrible ending, was the feeding of the yew deliberate? I hadn`t thought of that one previously, but I did know, you don`t put horses in a field with a certain type of yellow flowers (sorry name won`t come to me).

Greg, yes the one and same. When he was due to retire in the thirties he built four houses between Stringer's shop and Jackson's shop, retired to live there. When you go by the Slough the farm was to the left, at the top it overlooked the Slough. The yew clippings were from the main cottages by the basin, the man was not aware they were dangerous. Yes I heard the motorway destroyed it. The gun during the war was between the farm and the canal. Did you know the Clod banks? I'm doing a little research that's altering my mind about them.

It was from my grandparents (born in the 1870s) that I learnt to enjoy hearing about the past and came to know the county of my birth, early memories and smells of the farm, the smell of new mown hay, the apple store, the frothing of the milk into a pail, the pig looking over the wall of his sty, the running free of the fields and woods. The gentle glide of the canal boat along the clear water, the swish of the rope when it became taught, the small roach and bream we tried to catch with a stick and line with bent pin, the changing colours of the hedgerows throughout the seasons. The ancient lore, the home made remedies, the slipping of a key down your back for a nose bleed, the blue bag applied for a wasp or bee sting. Home made cold cream from rose petals boiled down in lard, a simple poultice of camomile and poppy heads boiled down for a toothache, the cool dock leaf wrapped round the hand if stung by nettles, found so conveniently at hand. A boiled onion for cold cure, the common potato worn on a string draws uric acid from the body for rheumatics, a slice of raw potato placed on burns, lavender packed amongst clothes as disinfectant, chickweed bruised and laid on to relieve the pain of rheumatism. There was no end to to the number of plant remedies, all now lost to the new generations. I cannot help looking back with regret at the disappearance of windmills and watermills, the local fairs and the gipsies - strange, mysterious, unapproachable people with gaily painted caravans. Whatever you thought of them, they brought colour and artists and pictures for your eye to feed on, poise of body and self-possession of liberty, olive complexion, rings and ear ornaments and gaudy dresses, to our heritage. I have fond and great memories of those days.