Memories - early or general

I think my oldest memory is, strangely enough, the lady from next door rushing round to ours to tell my mum that the King had died - so that's 1952. At Easter 1952 I started at kindergarten (why don't we have an English name for that?) in Browns Lane - I went on the bus from The White Lion at Brownshill Green to the Daimler factory on Browns Lane in the morning (do I recall there were green bus tickets used in the early morning rush hour?) and at lunch-time I waited for my dad to come and pick me up in his Standard Vanguard.

The green tickets were workers returns, I remember them.

The first house I ever lived in in Coventry had no electricity upstairs. It did at least have an upstairs bathroom (the size of a closet) and wash basin which was unusual at the time. When I say 'bathroom' I mean 'bathroom' as the toilet was still downstairs out the back! It was of limited use as well since there was no electric light. The main source of entertainment during the day was the radiogram (remember them?) because television didn't begin until the early evening. In those days radio wasn't just 'pop & prattle' like it is now. There were comedy reviews, drama series, quizzes, sci-fi even! The street outside was cobbled and still lit by gas. A man had to come round with a long pole every evening to light it. The alleyways between the houses weren't gated-off then like they are now and could be used as a short-cut to wherever you wanted to go. The child-minder in charge of me was amazed that I could find my way around the alleyways of Earlsdon easier than she could and she had lived there for decades!

Although I was 2 years and 5 months old when we left, I still retain memories of a few things at 69 Kingston Road, Earlsdon, where I was born in April 1965. I recall playing with a tin clockwork train - and constantly 'losing' the key. Well, actually I kept on poking it through a hole in the skirting board, much to the annoyance of my mum, who eventually tied a length of wool to the key so she could fish it back out of the hole each time! I also remember being passed over the garden fence to be held by the next-door neighbour. Although I couldn't articulate my feelings in words at that age, I can remember the strange feeling of being in the 'wrong' place, looking back at my parents, who were in the garden where I thought I should have been! My final memory of that house was when we left there - and being allowed to sit in the front of the removal lorry with my toy box, as we drove to our new house in Druid Road, where my parents still live. As for "town", my earliest recollection was going into Lyons' cafe while we waited for a bus in Broadgate, and being bought a chocolate cup cake if I'd been a good boy! I also seem to recall that Broadgate was only black and white in those days!!!

My dad worked at Jones toolmakers near Pool Meadow for many years and very often worked on Saturdays. He would bring my mum, sister and I from Rugby where we lived, by car and drop us off by Pool Meadow and we would make our way to Owen Owen for breakfast. They had a basement restaurant and did wonderful sausage and bacon rolls. I loved Owen Owen and it started my love affair with department stores. Mum would go shopping in one store and leave us in the Coventry Pram Company? It was opposite M&S, they sold "Fairie Glen" dolls and clothes for the dolls, a cheaper version of "Sindy" and "Barbie". We would spend our pocket money on outfits for the dolls. I remember eating at the round Wimpy bar in the bottom precinct, in fact there were Wimpy bars everywhere in Cov and having clothes bought for me at C&A, the indoor market and having rides on the roundabout. I went to see shows and films at the Apollo and loved the theatre building. Later on in my teens I visited Cov frequently on my own, by bus or train from Rugby. I remember Chelsea Girl and the old BHS that sold food, Woolies cafe and Saturday nights with friends going to the Locarno. I loved the revolving stage and to me those nights were magical. Coventry to me is an old friend and I always feel comfortable visiting the city.

Hello Looloos That would be "City Pram Co". They were located some distance away in the Lower Precinct but they did have a display kiosk opposite M&S. Despite the name they sold a lot of boys' toys as well such as Scalextric and Action Man. Wonder what happened to them?

On about bathrooms, where I lived most of the bathrooms were hanging on the outside walls (tin baths), but in our house my dad fitted a cast iron bath in the corner of the kitchen. The bath had the waste pipe fitted and cold running water, no hot. Also, he made a table which was hinged to the wall and with a pulley system the table could be raised and lowered over the bath to hide it. You knew it was bath night when you walked into the kitchen and the table was raised up and the copper boiler was being heated up. The water when hot was "saucepanned" out of the boiler and into the bath. When the bath was not in use it became my playground. Climbing in between the gap of the table, the bath became my "space ship" and the "spin-drier" my rocket motor. By raising and lowering the lid you could gradually bring the "rocket engine" up to full power and fly to distant planets. Flash Gordon I think warped my mind I spent many a happy hour flying around the solar system all in the saftey of our kitchen but I think with the spin-drier going at full speed, whistling away, hour after hour did not do it much good. This was mainly done on a Sunday evening while me mum and dad were having a kip before the "Black and White Minstrels" came on the tele as in those days the tele shut down for a few hours.

Oh the tin-bath, 'orrible! There was big ridges on the bottom and marked yer bum I think it was Sundays, then Robin Hood with his Merry Men was on the tele, tinned salmon and cucumber sandwiches, rounded off with the 'London Palladium' and to bed ready for school.

Going to bed fully dressed at 6pm on a Saturday night; waiting for my younger sister to go to sleep and the next-door neighbour baby sitter to come round; then (shsh!!!!) going quietly down the stairs and off to the speedway in a kid's seat on my dad's pushbike; parking it at the house next to the carpark entrance; then racing around the terraces pretending to be the Bees' next superstar! The men's smelly toilets behind the back straight terraces. Smith's Crisps with blue salt packets and speedway pictures on the packets!! Swallows swooping across the track on a summer night!!!! Allen Walker's commentaries on the Fireworks at the end of the season - "Oooooh. Aaaaaah!". Very precious memories for me, aged around 4, 1951!

Luxury, Dutchman. When reading some of the posts etc and reference to the lamp lighter takes you back to an almost Dickensian age. My recollection from that period was gas lighting upstairs and down. I remember having to go to the shop to get new mantles (made of cotton I think). Anyway, as for toilets we had to share with four other families, we all had a key and took turns keeping it clean. It was not a nice place to be, in the winter, buckets of hot water to unfreeze the pipes, reminds me of the poem by Will Shakespeare, When icicles hang by the wall, from Love labours lost (my favourite poem). I think I may have injected a bit of culture, then spoil it by saying Lol. Colin.

As a kid in about 1950 me and my best mate Michael spent a lot of time on the canal towpath, living in Leicester Causeway the canal was more or less at the bottom of the garden. Heading towards Foleshill Road the first thing was the steam engine, you could see it through a window with lots of shiney brass, I know what it was driving but it was always running when we went by. Further on was the pear tree hanging over the wall, we would stand on each others shoulders trying to reach the pears but it was too high, and what made things worse the wall had glass cemented on the top, so one day I had a brainwave, mums clothes line prop, so armed with this we could wack em down, the pears were hard as rocks and we did not realise if we had left them a while longer to ripen they would have been nice to eat. Further on was the sawdust field where we could do all sorts of acrobatics without losing any skin from our knees etc, the woodyard itself was opposite Cash's Lane and up a bit towards the bridge. Further on was the advertising hoardings we would climb up the back of to look down on the bowling green at the side of The Prince William pub, we would tease the old boys by shouting "I could do better than that" or "you missed it mister", the canal widened further on so they could turn the barges round, they loaded them with some evil smelling stuff from Courtaulds. I remember the horses pulling the barges and if the rope went in the water and the tension was taken up again it would spray water all over the place. Anyway one day mum called me in for my tea, and in that short time (30 mins) my best mate Michael fell in and drowned, and I will never forget his dad asking me if I wanted to see him in his coffin in the front room, so I did and his dad said "thats the cleanest I`ve seen him", what a horrendous thing to say. things were never the same along the canal without Michael.

The Coventry Canal must have claimed many lives over the years. I remember, in the late 50s, a toddler from Proffitt Avenue drowning near to the Navigation bridge and my own sister falling in opposite the scrapyard by Priestley's Bridge. Luckily a worker from the scrapyard jumped into the water and got her out, to our eternal gratitude. I've fallen in many a time, especially when it was frozen. On a lighter note, the Cov Canal was always much too polluted to consider swimming in it but the Oxy was ok, near the Jolly Colliers, nice and warm but contained a lot of suspended clay which made you a reddy brown colour. It was a day out in the country back then but has the M6 traffic screaming over it now. Progress eh?

I nearly copped a packet myself down by the Foleshill Road bridge, I fell in head first, my older brother was having a fight at the top of the steps and he saw me come up after several jumps off the bottom and grab me by the hair, and after squelching my way back home I got a good hiding and sent to bed.

Hi all This brings back so many memories to me. I too recall tragedies from my early days. A toddler drowned in the Potters Green canal arm, which eventually led to the canal arm being drained & filled in. Partly, how the canal bridge came eventually to be used to bridge the Sherbourne at Spon End. Water was always a magnet to me & no matter how many times mum would tell me not to go near the canals, I can't recall now how many times that I fell in at Red Lane. On Sunday school outings, it was always my trousers hanging up to dry.

I recall being fed in my wooden high chair, crawling then being picked up by my mum telling me to listen to the dicky birds singing, as she was whistling back to the birds on the rambling rose along the fence, also recall an advert for toothpaste singing I wonder where the yellow went when I brushed my teeth with steradent. My dad plugging the iron into the light where an adaptor was fitted to the bulb so the bulb didn't have to be taken out. My dad having to put his parking light on his car which was from the side window at night. Pop rifles toy where a cork hanging from string attached to the rifle so when you pulled the trigger the cork shot out the cork on the string would stop it going any further as it was attached to the rifle. Sweet shop and post office shop toy. Playing the grand piano at the Jag and Daimler club Radford. Collecting silver paper from fag packets for the blind people to get them a blind dog which the Jag and Daimler club saved all the silver paper from the fag packets for me which my dad told them what I was doing, it all made a giant ball which was given to the blind via the Jag and Daimler club. Buying saving stamps at school which was to encourage children to save. Having small black board and chalk at Hill Farm learning to write our letters prior to paper and pencil, which was to save money. Girls in the juniors having to eat soap for swearing. Playing clubs and hiring stilks from the hut bottom of Owenford Rd. Going on the roundabout when it was in the Precinct. Cutting cardboard out to put inside my shoes which had holes, which the Coventry Telegraph published my poem of my childhood not so long ago. Being baptised at the little church on Hawkes Mill Lane by the White Lion.