Shops of yore

Freeth St was the gap between 25 & 26 Jordan Well. If so, it's a rare capture of inside Freeth Street at ground level! Looks right from BFA from 1946 - circled the support beams and the house at the end!

It is rare, yes Neil. I've now dug out some of the bomb damage pictures I've taken and it matches one looking the other way at the left side of your photo. There are several pictures of derelict buildings from along Freeth Street but I haven't pinpointed them yet (too modern).

Looking up the word faggot and pea gives results in a number of topics on the forum, so I'm going to pose my post on Shops of Yore. I adored the shop in Albany Road just up from Atkins & Barker. I couldn't decide whether a faggot and pea batch or a pork and stuffing and the obligatory crackling on the top batch was my favourite after a night out on the pop. Sadly now long gone but are there any such shops still left in Coventry?

Shared that pic in the Freeth Street thread

Suitably Chastised, the shop was probably Brookies (also known as the chip shop that doesn't sell chips). There was also one in the seventies in Spon End called IIRC Ann's Cook Shop. I don't think there are any still left but a plethora of every other kind of takeaway though.

I thought people in Coventry, back in the day, after an evening on the pop, sought sustenance from the Parson's Nose?

A Parsons Nose bad hand (doner kebab) was the order of the day only if you'd had your fill of pop in town, belushi. If you were doing the Craven Street and Spon End crawl then for me it was a faggot and pea batch most of which went down the front of my best bib and tucker if I was totally kaylied.

Brookies...... of course. Thanks OL.

Your turns of phrase "on the pop", and "kaylied" show your age (and mine)! I wonder if these were phrases were Coventry-speak, or if others elsewhere used them. I don't remember a doner kebab being called a bad hand either.

Oops sorry belushi, bad hand is a description of a doner kebab that I've picked up from living here in North Staffordshire since the mid 90s. For all the world when you're holding one it looks like you've got a big bandage on your hand, hence a bad hand. Soz, I'll talk Cov speak from now on.

Another joke was that Benleys was so bad they'd employ shoplifters just to get people through the doors!

We used to call the kebab meat elephant's leg!

Gilbert's minus a clock?

Wasn't Gilberts with the clock in the Burges? I know that there was a clock in Broadgate on H Samuel on the other side.

At least three Gilberts, Broadgate, Burges pictured here, The other on High Street.