Coventry City Council workers

Did anyone work for the City Council in the sixties? I started in 1963 at the age of 17 as a trainee gardener and finished in 2006. I was working for Parks and Cemeteries in 1963 and Building Services in 2006 so I had been around a bit by then. I could fill page after page with the things I've done and the people I've met and worked with over the years. Perhaps you were one of those people?

Yes I worked for the council in about 1958, the depot was right down the Foleshill Road opposite the canal basin, we worked on road maintenance and on payday they would bring the wages round in a taxi, and I recall we had a proper steam roller, the driver put a piece of slate over the smoke stack at night to keep the fire in to save him lighting it the following day.

That was a tiny bit before my time. I believe that was when that depot was described as the City Engineers Depot. Known as 99 Foleshill Rd to everyone else.

The depot I remember was at Leicester Row right down by the basin.

Hi to all. I started work at the City Engineers Depot as an apprentice painter and decorator in 1963 at the tender age of 15. At the back of the depot was the Apprentice Training School run by a Mr Frisby. We were there for two weeks before being sent out to our respective "gangs" of which the one I went to at Fenside, the foreman was named Stan Mills. He was the only foreman I never got on with. My wage, being paid to the nearest 50p (ten bob), was £2.50 one week £2.00 the next week. Considering i earned £5.00 when i was at school this was a drastic wage cut for working more hours. I thought I knew Coventry well until I started travelling around the different council estates, never knew half of Coventry till then. One little ditty, cannot say too many, was working on some council houses that were at the side of the Harnall Lane bus depot. I had the job of painting the new airing cupboards in the back bedroom. In one house I could not understand why anybody would want all the walls done in gloss paint? Also there was only a bed and mattress, nothing else? Lol, thick or what, when it suddenly dawned on me all the girls (women) were laughing at my red face which got redder when i was offered a "freebie". I had good cups of tea there but nothing else!!! That was one of a few more houses of ill-repute I worked on, you certainly saw life as a painter.

Further to my original post I ought to add that my dad also worked for the council. He was the foreman gardener on the Willenhall estate. We lived in Marlcroft in Willenhall Wood. When I started work on the same estate my dad said "stick with the gardening and you could end up as a foreman like me". However, gardening was not for me and two years later I went to work as a tractor driver/gang mower operative then moved on to a job as a mechanic in the "Fitting Shop" at Shortley Road. My foreman was Colin Chamberlain and his boss was a chap called Cyril Conniff. If Health and Safety had been around as they are today that "shop" would have been closed instantly. Very happy days for me though

There is a similar subject going on within CWK205 the Coventry Transport Forum. It is titled Coventry Corporation and deals with the era before the City Engineers when it was the old Coventry Council when the city dustbin lorries were painted in the city transport livery the same colour basically as the buses of the corporation. With the memoirs of the old Shelvoke and Drewry dustbin lorries.

Thank you for the heads up sandylane.

There is a model commercially available - here's the link

Hi all We have a dustbin lorry doing its round in Bramble Grove.

It is not strictly correct for domestic rubbish. The lorry that has been modelled in the picture, was used in the fifties & sixties for commercial pick-ups. The rear bit where the bin-men tipped the dustbins in, came with different designs. I like it though, showing that even our posh districts created rubbish.

My uncle's brother is Colin Chamberlain and my dad is Jim Elks

I also started with the Council but it was back in 1953, Easter and the man in charge then was a Mr Robinson. It all started because I enjoyed Art at school (Barker Butts) and that was what I was good at, but when we were visited by the youth employment officer and I said I wanted to do something in painting, it was the council painting department, where he got me the job. I was sent on first day to Whoberley Hostels, painting outside, mainly drownpipes and service pipes. I soon learnt to be pretty quick on moving, because sometimes a window would open and all sorts of things came if you where not quick enough, well I don't need to elaborate. I stuck for a month, then got a job with KB Benfield on new houses in Sunnyside Close, off Four Pounds Avenue, and stayed with them for one year, before getting an apprenticeship with Plumbs Shopfitters

I worked with your dad for some years then. Hope he is well