Time Machine / Travel back in time

For me it would have to be the longest day in 1610, armed with cameras, batteries and memory cards. Ideally I'd photo the city from one end to the other but if I had to limit myself to one small part of the city it would be a walk from Broadgate to Jordan Well. If I were able to travel to meet someone it would be to see Dr Troughton. I'd praise him for his work and ask him to draw every little bit of the city and place half the work in store, only to be opened in 2016.

Difficult to pick just one really. First one I can't actually put a date on because it's a myth, but intrinsic to Coventry and would be Lady Godiva's horse ride and Peeping Tom. Just to see if there is any basis in reality for it or not, not for any pervy reasons! Secondly, pretty much any time during the dyeing and weaving period so I could collect a sample of 'true blue' cloth so we knew exactly what shade it is! Thirdly, April 1967 to watch the CCFC-Wolves game at Highfield Road. And lastly, although an obvious choice, it would have to be November 1940 to witness the bombing because it is impossible to even begin to contemplate it otherwise. I'd also take the opportunity to look around before the destruction to see exactly what the city looked like and whether all these fabled buildings that were lost were all that great. Then again after to see how much was destroyed by air-raids and how much pulled down after. Oh, and also to give Donald Gibson a good slap and tell him his and Ling's ideas ruin the city centre.

1. Visit Wm Middlemore Cycle Saddlery Works, late 1800s or 2. Visit the later Middlemore & Lamplugh or 3. Visit the even later Middlemores Whichever it would be pre-1936 before the destruction of the city centre, I need to check out Butcher Row and sample a few pubs like The Golden Lion, The Royal Vaults and The Old Talbot Inn. Also the City Hotel and Kings Head if they allow non-residents.

Sounds exciting

I'd like to return to the early 1950s - the era of my childhood, but not as a child. It would need to be me with knowledge of how the city - and especially Westwood Parish - had been developed. It would need to be springtime so that the leaves didn't obscure the camera's view. And I would need plenty of energy, batteries and memory cards to make the most of each day.

When Brother Joybert first asked this question back in 2011 I didn't know which day I would return to. Having had time to think I now know I would return to the day when plans for the Ring Road were finalised and burn every single document in the planning office. Then I would visit Ladbrokes and place £5 on Coventry City to win the FA Cup in 1987.

What a wonderful thread, the variety of people`s imaginations are fantastic. Just a couple of thoughts. I have seen "True Coventry Blue", (or at least I was told so) my Grandfather used to pull out a piece of ribbon and say "Now that`s True Coventry Blue" - way back there were ribbon weavers in the family. Placing a bet, perhaps I would only make a short journey back to last say June/July, before the start of the football season, I thought I heard you could get good odds on a team of Premier "No hopers" Going back a few more years 1947 - winter Returned to Coventry from evacuation But the big memory was all that snow, my uncle made us a sledge and we had enormous fun on the Rifle Fields hill- now covered in that enormous estate Allesley Park - how on earth could they do it - that was the best sledge run for miles around? !

For me, I think I'd choose the period around 1932-33. I'd be able to enjoy travelling on Coventry's trams, seeing the motor cars and buses of the time on the streets of the city, watching Clarrie Bourton knocking in the goals for The Bantams, and journeying to Brandon to see Tom Farndon riding for Crystal Palace against Coventry.

Interesting one, AD. I didn't pick the City v Wolves game deliberately because I was there the first time. What a day it was, though. Of course we didn't actually clinch the championship until 2 weeks later against Millwall, but the Wolves game was the day I think we knew we were there. My reason for avoiding the Blitz was that my parents lived through it in Coventry and always said how awful it was. As others have said, however, it was the pre-war city that I would love to have seen to compare it to now. Was Peeping Tom a myth? It was probably folklore which may have been based on fact and embellished over time, I reckon.

Actually I have little information enough to imagine that exact date, but I might have wondered about exactly where one went for a "Good Meal", never mind a full English breakfast. My early memories of post war eateries only stretch to the "Geisha" (One tram stop before Broadgate?) and Pattisons, if it was originally near the top of Hertford Street. Funny about the date - I could have been there, having made my entrance on a frosty night in May 1935. (I have had the blame for fruit failure that year - ever since!)

Flapdoodle, I have no idea of your life, but when you talk of Gibson and plans etc, I think your looking at things as of today. To my knowledge the man in the street never heard of those plans let alone saw them. How would he? Up to the mid fifties, you went to the tax, employment, or Council offices, you were treated like dirt, first you queue until their wish, then you were told to write in, then your letter would not be answered. I can only think you are too young to know the drastic way things were run in those days. But saying that the complete opposite is the banks, in those days you did know your bank manager and often could see him the same day, but not today. As I have posted before, the war changed everything, had your time machine landed in Coventry before the war on the factory holiday closing days, it was a ghost town, everyone went on holiday the same fortnight, if you could afford to go away, Interesting about wanting to experience the blitz, would you want a guarantee to regain the machine unscathed? Mister D-Di, although I can't remember individual games, I missed few home games in 35/6, at one time had 50/60 programmes, I also had a blue and white panelled cap, but the real thing that comes to mind is when a Coventry player kicked the ball clean over the stands from around the penalty spot. My choice would not be Coventry but a trip I made.

If I could revisit the past for one day I would love to go as a little girl of about 8 yrs of age with my Grandfather, who I never met as he died in 1935, into town on a Saturday evening. Apparently the shops stayed open then until quite late. We would walk around town looking in the shop windows, enjoying the sights, sounds and smells and ending up at Fishy Moores for a pennyworth of chips, eaten out of newspaper of course! My Mother often spoke of doing this with her Father and how much she enjoyed it.

I would choose 79 AD, the time that Vesuvius erupted and swamped Pompeii with ash, that really must have felt like the end of the world. But if it has to be Coventry then sometime before the completion of the destroyed Cathedral, the balancing act of the workers in those days must have been worth seeing.

Having read all of the posts on this old topic, and fascinated by some of your thoughts and requests. But for me I would really love to be able to spend another day with my mum and dad.

Me too, Mick. Particularly to share with my dad all the family history I've unravelled in the years since he left us, stories I'm sure he knew little or nothing about. In a general sense, I'd like to go back to, perhaps, the 1880s, as long as I could be armed with a digital camera.