Memories - early or general

Harrier You poor lot, especially your dad. By my era the dangers of fireworks were well publicised, such that I was quite scared of them. I even worried about my dad lighting them. Post firework night, there were always loads of little sticks strewn round my Coventry home from spent fireworks.

In the late 50s we got together with our neighbours for a fireworks party. It was raining so we all stood in the conservatory watching my friends father set each firework up and light the blue touch paper before retreating to watch the display. All went well until we got into the rockets when one launched and hit the guttering on the roof, did an immediate u-turn and dived towards us in the conservatory. It smashed through a pane of glass and in the confined space could not build up enough momentum to smash out again no matter how many attempts it made! We all dived for the door to escape the errant rocket, no longer concerned about the rain outside. It eventually burnt out and we continued the display outside, as the conservatory air was both unbreathable and opaque. Yes the Catherine wheels all malfunctioned in one way or another and all the plants in the conservatory eventually died. The evening must have been exciting as I still remember it 60+ years later.

I remember, they were called Bengal matches.

No idea if this fits in with this theme (as it might be an Austin 7?), but hopefully interesting anyway. This photo was taken in the access entry that ran behind the back gardens of Siddeley Avenue and Lodge Road in Stoke. It is of my mother and grandparents who lived at number 18 Siddeley Avenue. Photo taken: June 1939.

Hi all, In a separate section of our website, Rob invited contributions about folks stories of growing up in Coventry. To our more silent members who are a bit shy of posting. I wondered if any of our members would like to share memories more to do with their growing up eras, on our open forum. This might be a dead lettuce before it starts but who knows. Please avoid the well documented aspects like schooling & so on that are already very well covered. I'm prompted on this after seeing the number of hits for video clips of children playing in the fifties & sixties. Do you wish that you could magic yourself back to being ten years old again. I was reminded of this when I responded on FaceBook, to a train picture at Stratford upon Avon in 1958. Now, I'm not going to open out on that as railways around Coventry are well covered like schools, as well as I'm quite open regards sharing. So, those of you that have happy memories of Coventry, or even memories of what you wish that you could have done, but are a bit shy of posting, what did you enjoy. It's a Friday, weekend in front, just an hour or so & you will be on your way home from school. What happened next???

Fond memories. In the late 1940's I remember fondly my dad taking me to many away matches of the Cov team. I saw many cities and towns I did not know at an early age and some good football. We used to get a coach from the Pool Meadow and most times it seemed that the same people were on it. I remember particularly Sunderland when City played Sunderland in the cup. If I remember right Sunderland won 1-0. Alf Wood was magnificent in goal and Trevor Ford went and congratulated him at the end of the game.

Argon - the FA Cup Third Round 6th January 1951 - Sunderland 2 Coventry City 0. You were one of 36,988 spectators. My memory is not better than yours - I had to look all of that up!

Hi all, Guy Fawkes night approaches, many having commented on past memories, but what are your thoughts now, as what used to be a one night a year do is now around a six week period, through most of October into November? The issues in the news of property damage, pets welfare & so on. Any thoughts?

I have a friend with a rescue dog with a past in the shooting 'sport'. She's terrified by bangs. Each year the firework season gets longer and now there's not much of a gap before Christmas and New Year parties start.

Hi Anne, Did you have tea parties, where you served your orange in teacups to your teddies? My neighbour Angela did, whilst I was too busy playing trains.

Yes Phil, in the summer mum used to make me a tent with a clothes horse and old blankets. The clothes horse would just fit on the back windowsill at 90 degrees. I had a lovely china teaset that my great Aunt Rose sent me from Canada that we would put drinks in but more often than not it would be water! I played with the girl next door. We used to pick the flowers out of the private hedge for decoration a dress up and act plays. A few years ago, through my family tree, I got in touch with a second cousin who I had never met before. We found that Auntie Rose had sent us both the same presents for Christmas and birthdays and we had both been to visit her in Leamington when she came to England in the 1950's. Sadly was not here very long before she had a fatal stroke. She was in her 80's and had to wait until her wealthy boss died and left her some money in his will.

I've loved every second of reading that. Thank you

The unbranded orangeade my dad bought could have doubled as paint stripper and maybe as a consequence I just drank water. As an adult I enjoy the odd quality fizzy orange and a daily coffee but most of the time it's still water.

I can still remember the orange ice lollies, post war, made by using orange squash and pouring into a mould and putting in a stick before leaving in the ice cream fridge that was in the shop my family had. A delicious novelty in those days.

How about the orange concentrate you got from the welfare. Mum picked ours up along with the malt extract and cod liver oil.