What brought us to Coventry, and what took us away?

Born just outside of the Coventry boundary in Keresley Hospital, I hail from families long established in Gloucester, Carmarthen, Buckingham and Huntingdon, 'shires. The changes brought about by industrialisation in the 19th C eventualy brought my parents to Coventry in 1937. At 18 years I felt little attracted me to want to stay. I was off to university and when I had finished study, 7 years later, the only attachment, apart from seeing my parents, was meeting with a small group of Caludon alumni for an evening drink. We all later married or left Coventry and lost touch with each other. For what I expect (is certain) to be the last quarter of my wife and my lives, Coventry would be alien to her very different experience of being brought up on the South Coast and I think I would find many of the changes in the 59 years since leaving difficult to accept. Perhaps my reasons for joining the forum are better summed up by: We shall not cease from exploration When the last of earth left to discover And the end of all our exploring Is that which was the beginning; Will be to arrive where we started. At the source of the longest river And know the place for the first time. The voice of the hidden waterfall Through the unknown, unremembered gate And the children in the apple-tree. Little Gidding - T. S. Eliot

My dad was a Brummie until he was 8 years old, when his family moved from Sparkbrook to Earlsdon in 1923; grandad, a tinsmith, got a better paid job at George Wilson gas meters. Their house was hit by a Hitler bomb during the blitz, and they were huddled under the stairs and survived. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. Mum was from a poor family in Spon End. One evening, my dad and his pals were going to the cinema, but at the last minute he and one close pal were let down, so they decided to walk the other way and have a pint instead of going to the cinema. They bumped into a couple of girls, one who later became my mum. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. Born in Kersley hospital, I was an only child, mum having lost three. The surgeons did a caesarian, otherwise I would not be here.

It's a good job you are here Slim cos it would be pretty damn spooky reading your recent posts if you weren't

Hello, Thank you all for your responses on this subject. Heart rendering as I read them. Please keep them coming. I feel the vibes of humility. A sweetness of coming together.

I started this thread nearly thirteen years ago and it's so gratifying to see that it still gets responses. So many of our ancestors came here to improve their lot in life. My dad, the grandson of people who'd moved to Coventry from rural Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, would never leave, much as my mum tried to convince him to emigrate to Australia in the sixties. So many of us were born in Keresley Hospital as well!

My grandad came to Coventry in the mid thirties from Gateshead, where he couldn't find work. Worked until his retirement at Courtaulds as a plumber. The taps never worked properly in his house!😄 Worked on munitions during the Second World War, blitzed out of their house November 1940. His daughter my mum, worked as a teacher at Templars junior school, where she met my dad, a young teacher who had moved from Blaina in the South Wales coalfields. I was born in 1955. We left Cov on December 31, 1969, for my dad to take up a head teacher's post in Norfolk. I now live in the North East of England, BUT you can take the kid out of Coventry but you can't take Coventry out of the kid!...

Hello, I've so enjoyed reading the posts on this topic, some going back fifteen years. I posted in 2012. HCF, was my first significant media outlet. Facebook only came about because of linking information. I did use YouTube to record holidays for a short while prior. Please carry on.