Wyken Slough

I believe that she would actually have been 32, not 18 Dennis Lapworth was a civilian death on 14 November 1940

Midland Red. Thanks, do you have any info' on his death, jog my memory, as I said we went to school with him, he was a few months younger than my sister, few months older than my brother.

The Slough is only about two feet deep as any angler who has fished there would confirm. From the island up to the boathouse the bottom is a thick black sloppy mud and anyone entering the pool sinks up to the knees and that is the reason that the boy and May were unable to walk out of the water. Kerbstone once placed a photograph on this thread showing the weir just downstream of the footbridge. It is this weir that turned a stream into Wyken Pool. The weir is still there just a few yards from the footbridge. As for May Mitton. Although she was a distant relation to my mother I also have spelt her name as Mitten. May was born in Bedworth 1908. May was the daughter of a tobacconist who had a shop in Bedworth. His name was Percy Mitton who had married Clare Douglas. May had a brother and sister who were named Clare and Alfred. At the death of her parents May became wealthy enough to buy several properties including her home in Aldermans Green Rd.

Kaga, The 'Family Research' website records Dennis Lapworth's death as 'outside Wootton House, Coventry Road'. Do you know where that is, sounds like Bedworth?

If my memory serves me correctly Wootton House was in Longford Rd. at least at the time that I managed the newsagents on Longford bridge in the 1960's

Midland Red. There must be some records of his death, like I said I thought he was a casualty of the war. Either by the blackout or by a military lorry, I know there was some disquiet about it, and I now think Bill was his cousin, not brother. As for the 'slough' Norman Conquest and I will always disagree about the depth of the water, but the Aldermans Green side was a mass of tall reeds and deep pools, and private. Fishing was only allowed on the opposite side along the arm where you could walk in for a yard or so, and the near side by the road that runs up to the basin. My uncle who owned it had a hut full of fishing tackle that was hired out to fishermen on a daily and weekly basis right up till the war. If they needed a rope to pull May out then it certainly would have been among the reeds, otherwise if it had have been 2ft deep she would have just walked out.

P.S. I have no idea were Wootton House was, but I believe it was an accident in Bedworth.

Unfortunately, the schedule of Warwickshire Civilian Casualties only gives the location as Not Local quoted above

Kaga. Not if she was stuck in the mud she couldn't walk out. Been there but not done that. The small weir down stream is still there if anyone wishes to visit. Without it there would be no Wyken Slough. I fished the pool from about 1937 to about 1947 and never found a depth of more than two feet although I found to my cost that the mud was very much deeper.

Kaga, Dennis Lapworth died on 14 November 1940. He was 17 years of age. If it was in Longford Rd then he was not far from home.

This is the Citation in the Coventry Blitz Casualty Listing : Dennis Lapworth Born 1923. Son of Joseph Thomas Lapworth and Annie Twigg. Resided at 40 Lentons Lane, Hawkesbury. Killed in the Coventry Blitz 14/11/1940 Aged 17 outside Wootton House, Coventry Road. He is not listed on the London Road Mass Grave and so is not interred there.

Both May Mitten and Dennis Lapworth are imprinted in my mind. May Mitten, once seen you could not forget. Dennis Lapworth I knew well then he died during that fateful 1940, that made me think he was linked to the armed forces. But there was a couple of things in those reports that had me scratching my head. How would May be flung into the water? And why was Dennis the other side of the reeds to May Mitten? I read them again last night and suddenly it dawned on me. But we are all looking at a pool of water - we should have been looking at a sheet of ice. 1939/40 was the hardest winter we had had for some years, the slough was frozen over from Xmas onwards. Dennis Lapworth was walking across ice, he got near the reeds, and crack - he's in four feet of water. May Mitten was in the field with her horses and went to the rescue through the reeds, and crack - she's in the water. Neither was in danger of drowning in 4-5 feet of water. People had gathered but at that time the army was using the slough road often. I believe the story was the army boys came to the rescue, May had only to walk up her garden to home. I think the army wrapped Dennis in a blanket and drove him home. There were numerous versions of the tale.

I am three years younger than you Kaga but my sister is the same age as you. Neither my sister or myself can recall any substantial reed growth on the Aldermans Green Rd side of the pool. My grandfather and his mate Sy would take me fishing at the pool and there were no reeds there then, that would have been about 1937. I really cannot visualise a situation where a boy could fall from the bank into reeds and was unable to extricate himself. What probably happened was that for reasons of his own he waded in and got stuck and May tried to rescue him and got stuck herself. These Google images do not show any reeds on the AG Rd side of the pool. Checking on the Free Dictionary it defines slough as "a depression filled with deep mud". That appears to fit in with what Norman C says. Also it also fits in with the weir that was probably constructed to cover the mud. Many years ago the Slough was in the very large district of Wyken hence the name. In those early days, a depression filled with deep mud was probably the most appropriate name for it.

Looking again the newspaper article about May Mitton I notice that George Vaughan from Bedworth gets a mention. I knew George very well and he was a man that I liked and very much admired. When he married he moved to Smorrall Lane, Bedworth. He worked very hard to get his Colliery Management Certificate at Newdigate Colliery. William Morse had been appointed manager at the pit in 1947 and stayed there till the pit closed in 1964. After that Thatcher closed all the mines so all of George's studying was for nothing.

LesMac, sorry but your photo's are irrelevant, they are all after 1935. The History of the Slough - as I knew it. We have to go back to the beginning of the twentieth century. My people were boat people but the great advance by the trains put them out of business, especially the train to the Wyken Collieries. So they settled in the area, three of my dad's brothers along with my dad and their brother-in-law Bill Rose worked at Craven Colliery. The Slough was fed by two small streams, one from the Parrotts Grove area that ran under Lentons Lane, under the canal, through Main Pit Farm and down towards the Slough. A further stream ran from the other side of Sutton Stop, across the fields, through a culvert under AG Road and joined the other stream in the flood land and reed beds behind AG Road. The water then fed through a culvert under the cinder track leading by the Slough up to Main Farm and Main Cottages. In 26/27 the pits closed throwing them out of work. My uncle, being smarter than the others, saw a future in the Slough as a great fishing pool. I believe he had acquired the pool some time earlier, because I heard talk of my father recuperating down there from his shellshock of the first war. Bill Rose was living in a hut down there with his family. He either built the weir or had it built, he planted rushes, water flowers and stocked it with more fish, carp, tench, perch etc and where he had his huts, planted trees. Sometime in the late twenties he raised the weir for deeper water and more fish. But when the water started creeping up the bank and threatened to wash him out he had to lower the weir. Another uncle and family lived down there in a hut that held all the fishing gear. But Bill was a forward thinking man, he bought Roses garage in Courthouse Green, gave my grandad the job of issuing the tickets and rods for the fishing. My family spent a lot of time down there, and I mean all day through the summer. I also walked through the fields to take grandad his hot broth, and all my spare time was either there or Main Farm. But in 25/26 time Courtaulds built a factory in Little Heath, and dumped their waste on a tip at Sutton Stop. This was thought to have seeped into the stream and was carried to the Slough. There is no doubt in my mind, I watched the fish die, shoals of them on the surface, bloated; the water fowl disappeared, this was about 1935. The dead fish was so thick one time, the farmer came and loaded them on a cart and buried them, he would not feed them to his pigs. By around 37 even the reeds could not survive as the water ran through the culvert. It was a big green froth, my family stopped me going there, the farmers put up wire to stop the cattle drinking, and I believe uncle lowered the weir to get rid of the polluted water and got in trouble with the farmer. But no one cared, for the threatening war was the only thing that mattered at that time.