Time Machine / Travel back in time

Reading the "Time machine" section got me thinking. If you could travel back in time for just 24 hrs to any day in Coventry's history what day would you choose? Would you go and say 'hello!' to Cofa and climb his tree? Have dinner with Leofric and Godiva? Spend a day in prayer with Osburga at her nunnery? Return to Sunday 17th May 1987 for the victory parade of the FA Cup winning Sky Blues? Check out the "Sent to Coventry" story by visiting St. John's Church when the Scottish soldiers were imprisoned? Stay at "The King's Head" hotel and stroll around the pre-war City centre so that all those wonderful old photo's come to life? Personally, and I don't mean to show any disrespect to the victims by saying this, I would travel back in time to that awful night of 14 November 1940. To experience the devastation and horror of that pivotal moment in our City's history would be truly unforgettable.

The spectacle of the combat that never was, on Gosford Green between Henry Bolingbroke and Thomas Mowbray would have been interesting. All the hype and pageantry and then to be called off at the last minute by Richard II. I recently looked around the site of Bagots castle in Baginton where Henry stayed with William Bagot the night before this event. It would have been good to see what the castle originally looked like.

What a great idea this topic is, nice one. Going back in time is something I've also given a lot of thought to in the past (the recent past, that is!) And quite coincidentally, my first instinct was to go back to the same time as Jason above. My reason for this is to see Coventry's magnificent wall very soon after it was initially finished - around the late 1300's. To spend time walking around that awe inspiring structure with 12 gates (five of them much larger than the two which remain) would be amazing. It would also solve one of Coventry's historical conundrums about whether the wall was actually fully complete by that time, and the exact route of the northern edge at Pool Meadow. And then if there's time, a nice stroll down Gosford Street to the green to find out why King Richard put a stop to Bolingbroke and Mowbray's combat! Otherwise, I'd also love to have visited in Osburga's time, the Saxon period, to see what or where exactly Coventry did begin.... and find out if there ever really was a person named Cofa!

And if the Time Machine could just stop for a quick break on the way back to the present at the 16th May 1987 - I wouldn't mind seeing Houchen's header again!!!

I'd like to go back to the day in the 1960s when we were allowed out of school early to join a long snaking queue for tickets for the game that would decide if Coventry City went up into a higher league in the football tables (sorry, you can tell I know nothing about football!). I joined the queue to save a place for my mum, who joined me when she finished work at Thornton's Chocolate Kabin and then we waited for my dad to come from his work as a self-employed plasterer - it was dad who wanted the tickets, not us. I can't believe we were let out of school (Lyng Hall) early but I swear we were, and the atmosphere was great and best of all, if I went back to that time, my mum and dad were alive and kicking!

I think that was more likely to be the F.A. Cup run of 1963? I went to St Mary's primary school at the time and remember seeing the queue stretching all the way from the stadium to the street outside the school! There was total Sky Blue fever in the town at that time of a kind I couldn't even imagine today. Oddly, there isn't a particular day I would like to go back and visit, there are simply too many periods of interest to me.

I would most like to revisit in August/September 1945. Because the war was coming to an end as the various countries surrendered and V.E Day (Victory in Europe) came when Germany finally surrendered. The celebrations were terrific and every street held parties where everyone brought out their tables and chairs and set them up in the middle of the road and then brought out the spare foodstuffs that they had been hiding away for emergencies, then we ate, drank and danced well into the night with lights blazing (as much as forty watt bulbs could blaze) and curtains drawn back for the first time in many years The next day however we were back to reality as we knew the war was not completely over and people were still being killed as Japan was refusing to surrender, then came the atomic bomb, first on Hiroshima then shortly after on Nagasaki. The results were horrific, the rest is history. V.J Day (Victory in Japan) was V.E Day all over again with street parties the like of which have never been seen since, neighbours were much closer in those days and had been through so much together that we were like one big happy family. So much has been lost over the years. Believe me, BrotherJoybert, you would not have liked (perhaps the wrong word) to have experienced the sheer terror of thinking every moment is your last. It is best experienced through film footage.

Joybert, it would have to be between the wars for me. I'm fascinated by old Coventry photos from before that fateful November. The place was so amazing - just like a film set. It's a tragedy that Coventry's architecture is now so synonymous as being dull concrete blocks and ugly. I'd definitely love to do a 'Back to the Future' and stand by The Kings Head corner watching my relations. I often reflect to old Broadgate scenes whenever I go there now and try to picture what was where from the images here.

I would like to have walked with Lady Godiva on that memorable day (as the nun) as she walked through the streets of Coventry. I can imagine the hush over the city as it was then except for the clip clop of the horse and maybe the sound of a bird now and then. I bet you Peeping Tom was not the only one taking a sneaky peek on that day!!!!!

Hello. For me, never having had the physique to have been a military figure or anyone of note, that is not easy to answer in terms of our city's history. Sometimes, if I am reading a book, or standing somewhere where some great historical event occurred, I might just wonder what it would have been like to have been there at the time. I have read accounts on here where I would have loved to have been in the frame of the event, like when a young lady from here had her doll 'Cocoa' taken off her. I would loved to have been the one to have returned it to her & made her happy again. I will stick with that one.

Like Philip, I would not go too far back in history and I would so have loved you to return Cocoa to me, Philip. Apart from giving birth to my first child and my wedding day, I think I would go back to 1987, the year Coventry City won the FA Cup. There was such excitement everywhere in Coventry, I remember hearing all the horns beeping from the cars as they drove along the A45. I sat and embroidered the City badge onto my jacket I was so proud. One downside was that my teenage daughter had gone to watch the match at her friends' and they helped themselves to her dad's drinks cabinet whilst he was out. We had to fetch her back complete with a sick bucket and towel, she was paralytic. However she recovered sufficiently to take herself off to the Burnt Post later that evening to celebrate the win. Those were the days!

I never had the delight of a daughter, instead I had to wait until my grand-daughter arrived eleven years ago, who followed my grandson by nearly four years. There is a an old mobile phone pic of them on my Coundon Wedge thread recorded a couple of years ago. I like the Burnt Post. A group of us retirees from Courtaulds have met there at Christmas times.

How strange you should say that, I was watching the '87 cup final at about the time you were writing that. I discovered a dvd copy of a VHS tape, that I made some time ago - and sat watching it this morning! Myself and my son were at Wembley that day, and what a final it was! I think I have to agree with John Motson when he said it was probably the best post-war cup final he had seen. Me? I have been researching my family history over the last couple of years, and would probably choose to go back to my family's recent past and would love to sit and talk to my great (or great-great) grandparents.

Hello again, well I expected above all the responses to the 'just for a day' post to have births and believe it or not half expected the Coventry FA Cup win, although my husband refuses to discuss Cov. City's performances over the past few years. He follows them avidly and as soon as the season starts he checks the results every Sunday, but I must say he is not a happy chappy with them these days. So, we are expecting great things this year - big sigh! All the best, everyone.

Me too, the times I have wished I had sat and had good long conversations with my grandparents. My mum did tell me once I was always 'wishing this and wishing that'. Bit late now but I do make a point of keeping well in touch with my own grandchildren. ttfn.