Hi all, Hi Kaga
"Thunderous roar", you call it, heard from time to time all over Wyken. Living in Wyken, the freedom I enjoyed riding my bike was often out Ansty way. Trainspotting at Shilton or Brinklow were regular school holiday haunts for me. My school Easter holidays 1959, about age eleven, I can remember cycling near to the present Combe Abbey, when that roar was deafening. Thank you for sharing, Kaga.
ps. My bike then was a Phillips Junior Sports, new to me a year previous, but my confinement at Paybody's meant that I didn't get to use it much until 1959. Can you imagine the freedom I felt that Easter 1959, where virtually every dry day I was pedalling out that way. I was used to seeing road signposts travelling with mum or dad, but this was a new experience. I still remember the sign saying 6 miles to Coventry as my chum & I sat to eat our sarnies. Stu & I always did it proper. The following Saturday, Stu & I had sufficient funds so as to enjoy egg, chips & beans at the cafe that was situated along Clifford Bridge Rd.
Combe Abbey wasn't a free to roam area then, it was bought by CCC in 1958 but used by the GEC for its student accommodation (where have we heard that term of late, hey?). The lane next to the current entrance to Combe went right past the Ansty works. Almost a country lane, so to see a huge trailer lorry negotiating its way along was quite a sight. On one occasion I saw a gent working there who my family knew very well, Mr Golder. Such happy memories for me.
Combe history accounts.
Some dates quoted from Wiki regards to Rolls Royce:
"In the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, Armstrong Siddeley Motors had its development plant for gas turbines and aircraft rocket motors as well as the Gamma rocket motors used in the Black Knight and Black Arrow launchers. The plant is now the Ansty engineering works of Rolls-Royce."
