Wyken Slough

Around 1937/8 time I delivered papers to Main Cottagers that meant crossing the old rickety wooden bridge by the weir. I saw a floater (drowned man in cut language). The bridge was either renewed or repaired, for they thought a broken rail had been the fault; before then the water lapped up to or over the planks. The only place I ever saw mud was next to that bridge, I never ever saw anyone stuck in the mud. We used to pole the houseboat around, never any trouble. We never pulled a cow out of the slough, but the 14 acre field next to the weir had a pit in the middle; we were forever pulling them out with the horse and cart.

Yes Kaga, I did realise that most of those Google images of the Slough were post 1935 but as the topic was about a 1940 incident I did think them to be relevant. No matter. As for the winter of 1939/40 I remember it well. My father had been recruited to Bomber Command. As he had been a jeweller in civvy street the Air Ministry thought he would make an excellent flight engineer. We children lived at 111 Hall Green Rd and in the winter of '39 our outside toilet froze up as did every toilet in H G Rd. This resulted in the bucket and chuck it system and resulted in further pollution of the river Sowe. The bridge you mention Kaga always seemed to be in a state of disrepair. I have no idea who was responsible for its upkeep.

LesMac, you and I could have a good old chin-wag of the old days. Eddie Branson, teacher at Foxford, lived opposite the bridge to Taylors' farm, must have been close to you. I have a feeling that the Taylors came about the late thirties, not the guy who complained about the pollution to my uncle. Bill Rose, was he the first garage owner in Foleshill?

1939 register shows the Branson's living at 111 Old Hall Road, which is now Pearson Avenue.

Old Hall Rd, never heard of it but I do know where Pearson Ave is. It was rumoured that Pearson Ave was named after a police officer that did some daring act during the construction of Pearson Ave. No idea what the act was or who the bobby was. Probably just an urban myth. Our house was quite old and by comparison Pearson Ave was very modern. As a child I knew many families in Pearson Ave but the name Branson rings no bells for me.

In the Old Maps site, Pearson Ave or Old Hall Drive is not shown to exist In 1914/19. 1937/38 it is shown as Pearson Ave.

Kaga. I knew Rose's garage very well. If memory serves me correctly the front was painted red with the name Rose over the double door. No offence intended Kaga but Mr Rose was not the friendliest man I have ever met. In fact his attitude to customers wasn't very business like. Or perhaps it was one of his employees I had contact with, I'm not sure. As for the first garage? If you can cast your mind back to the old Bell Green, just a few yards on from Cotton's off licence there was East's Garage, left hand side at the start of Henley Rd. They were both there when I was a child. It was my job to take the radio accumulator to East's to get it recharged, if East's wasn't open then I had to go reluctantly to Rose's. The radio, powered by both the accumulator and a 9 volt grid bias battery, was how we heard the sombre voice of Neville Chamberlain announce the outbreak of war with Germany.

Les Mac, I'm to old to get offended, and Bill Rose was like that. I believe Pearson Ave was named after some landowner way back. Did you know the Jones family? June was gorgeous. But I digress. Yes the accumulator was a bit of a pain so was the gas mantle but we survived. Regular, compulsory church attendance, tended to have mind-dulling effect, but the hymn-singing, in those simple, singable melodies I found the same joy as when father sang at home. I believe Dennis Lapworth was in our choir, if so and his service was at Longford Church then I and my sister attended the service, as we did with many boys that we once knew. Sometimes on the way to school I used to pass a lone dark-clad figure (May Mitten) and the dreamy stone-kicking journey ended. She represented all the demon kings, the patch-eyed pirates, and the blind beggars in my fictional life. She had the powers of darkness to me. As I approached towards her one day I fell in the ditch. She threw her head back, slapped her knee and exploded into laughter, and continued to laugh until I was out of earshot, from that moment she became human, and my fears of her evaporated.

First image from Cov 1937 directory In the next image you can see the 1939 register listing for Old Hall Road, but they have placed it on Pearson Avenue. So do you know if Hall Green Road was once Old Hall Road?

Heathite, thank you, clearly shows were I left the Branson's bike was directly opposite the farm track to Manor House Farm, Although I placed the bike in Hall Green Road in a yard, Branson's house backed directly on to it. It was always Pearson Ave to me. At the expense of boring everyone. If you stand by the school of today and look across the width of the slough, the field on the opposite side, almost the length of the slough, and gently sloping up to Main Cottages, was one of the finest producing fields in Warwickshire. One year two rows of carrots, about three inches across the head and almost a foot in length, wipe it on our sleeve, sweet, juicy, a joy to bite into; beetroot the size of swedes; an incredible field in Coventry. If we didn't finish the carrot in one go, we would put beetroot leaves round it, stuff it in our jacket pocket to finish in our leisure. We would take baskets of carrot, beetroot leaves home to Granny, who would turn it into juicy sauce or chutney, place it in large sweet bottles in the pantry for winter. When the last of the mangels came off the field, all the root crops would go into 'clamps' . It was the sights and sounds of everyday life that opened the gateway to imagination and dreaming. Lying face down on the grass; gazing into the scarlet eye of the pimpernel; or turning on my back to watch scores of peewits, wheeling and calling, above them the skylark would hover like a smut from the chimney against the deep blue of the sky. A fisherman timed the skylark hovering, four minutes and fifty seconds, but the larks' golden song alone was enough to capture me. But war came and the field was sown with Canadian Wheat.

"At the expense of boring everyone"? No chance Kaga. I have learned more about the Slough than I ever did by reading the posts, and look forward to more

Yes, I agree, if our small contribution acts as a catalyst for more of Kaga's memories then surely we all benefit.

You are correct Kaga. The Bransons lived smack opposite the farm bridge, not at 111. The Hicks family lived at 113 and owned the triangular field bounded by Pearson Ave and Hall Green Rd. There are several other errors on the list supplied by Heathite. As a boy I worked occasionally for the Hicks as the males of the familly had been conscripted. I collected fallen apples for the pigs from the garden of 111 and although I cannot remember the name it wasn't Branson. It's an interesting point that the Bransons of Pearson Ave lived almost directly behind the Bransons of Hall Green Rd. Never heard of Old Hall Rd. Hall Green Rd was so named because of the small cluster of houses at the three way junction bottom of Aldermans Green Rd, Hall Green Village.

Re: 'The Branson's lived smack opposite the farm bridge, not at 111', that is strange - because all the directories certainly do list him (Edmund BRANSON) as living at number 111 Hall Green Road from at least 1935 right through to 1960. A period of 25 years. Maybe the previous resident was H. WHITEHEAD - sorry about the poor image quality but I think it is still discernible. The image is from the Cov 1931-1932 directory. By the way, there are NO BRANSONS listed in Pearson Avenue during the same time period!