Earlsdon

Good one Prof, takes me back to the 70's. My father opened the launderette there and I can remember it being fitted out.

The "Summer of Sunflowers" mural at O'Toole's Cafe which is at the corner of Westwood Road / Earlsdon Avenue North. The envelope and message on torn note paper in the video are a tongue-in-cheek reference the cafe receiving something similar recently from a confused and possibly disturbed individual in relation to Ireland flags.

Thank you Prof, Gosh, the memories. Friday night was music night at The Albany. Either Archie or I on piano, Harry on double base, Reg on tenor sax or clarinet. The pints on top of the piano, you could play a tune in them. Very light music, often starting with Friday Night is Music Night theme tune, always finished off with Bye Bye Blackbird. Pam & our Michael sometimes there, in the soft playroom upstairs. The Salvation Army often came in. No joke, total reverence as the barmaid would sing Amazing Grace. A beautiful voice. I saw tears in Reg's eyes once, as he was bending his notes to accompany the lady. He was the best tenor sax player that I've ever known. An ENSA player. He could bend any note into the next. Only a handful in the world can ever do that.

Oh if only. Can you imagine the delight of seeing & listening to the clips of Rob & his son Steve with their band playing at the Devon. I wanted to be there. That brought all my memories of the Albany flooding back. Then when my Michael practising at home with his band before he got married.

From Rob's pics....

I've just come across an old print of "Hyde's Stores", 38 Providence Street, Earlsdon. This is the first home I remember in the mid-1950's. The delivery van number plate was "LOG10" I'm pretty sure! The photo was taken sometime between 1953 and 1959.

Directly opposite The Astoria Cinema

I love personal posts that you would otherwise have never have known about - Dave Harrison a user on FB on The Coventry we used to know page posted this recently - This is 4 Stoneleigh Avenue, the home of my grandparents from new in 1924. Shown here shortly after completion, it was designed by my great grandfather, as were many of the houses in the area. Last time I passed the house, it still had his signature stained glass in the front door. On Monday 24 July 1944, my grandfather who can be seen at the gate, fell out of a first-floor bedroom window and landed on the drive below, dying from his injuries. My grandmother remained at the house for 52 years, until she died in 1976. You can just see his Grandfather on the lower right of the old photo -

I've only just noticed the NLS mapping has this great Air View 'Map' from wartime which still shows the remains of The Grange which became Pinewood Grove -

It also shows the two greens at Three Spires Bowling and Sports Club in Morningside. One was sold off, I believe in the late 1960s.

Now that is very interesting .... in 1877, might be '78, half a dozen industrialists with a direct interest in the cycle industry got together to provide funds for the construction of a banked cinder cycle track - one of the first in the country dedicated to cycle racing. It can clearly be seen on the local Ordnance Survey maps of the time. Four meetings were arranged each year during the spring/summer/autumn attracting all the best riders from around the country. This was before the bicycles as we now know them were invented (which was in the mid 1880s). They were 'ordinaries' that is 'penny farthings'! This track was on the site used now as the bowling green in Morningside. When a different group of businessmen from the weaving/clock industries seeing the income being generated in Earlsdon raised enough to finance themselves to allow a banked cinder cycle track to be built at the Butts; the death knell of the Earlsdon track was sounded. Spon End being far more convenient than Earlsdon for transportation of the large penny farthings from the railway station as well as ease of access for the paying public (and a far better prize list was introduced). The Earlsdon track closed and the land was used for 'agriculture' then an area for the coventry council parks department. Over the years it escaped development because the original businessmen slapped a covenant on the land stipulating it had to be used for 'sport related activities'. At one time greenhouses existed on the site. Both cycle tracks reluctantly allowed Godiva Harriers to organise athletic club races on the grass, inside the cinder cycle tracks. This proved to be a long term problem because when the city council took the Butts over in the '30s when the Rover Company's tenancy ran out, the track measured about 360 yards so was not fit for purpose because it fell short of the stipulated 440 yards which was required for serious competitions .... and the surface was still grass!