GEC Copsewood (Telephone Works, Stoke)

Johnnie, I have no doubt that my dad William 'BIll' Nicholls would have known your dad. We lived at No. 5 Second Avenue, he got the house because he was a part time fireman, it had an alarm inside, it used to frighten the living daylights out of me when it went off. Personally I never worked at at the GEC but to keep up the coincidences, I spent my entire working life in IT (Computer Operator, Systems Programmer but mostly as a Database Administrator) and I'm still friends with someone who was a Computer Operator at the GEC.

A photograph I have in my collection:

Great photo but it's a little too small to see faces clearly, any chance of getting a scan? I also have a photo somewhere of the works Fire Brigade but I'm currently in the middle of decorating my study. As soon as I can get to it I'll scan it in and post it up to this thread.

Hi 20A-Manor House. I thought I knew the fireman in your photo who is sat near the fire engine's front wheel - it's my very good friend Eddy Holland. I phoned him up to tell him about your photo and he said it was him, he had some great times in the Works Fire Brigade and the competitions. I was best man at his wedding in 1968 and he was mine in 1970. He now lives near Kings Lynn.

I think I have mentioned on the forum before that I believe my Paternal Grandparents met whilst they were both working at the GEC Stoke Plant. I knew my Grandfather was a Driver/Chauffeur but was recently surprised to find this cutting from the Birmingham Mail dated January 24th 1931. It seems Road Rage is nothing new! Sadly I never met him to ask about any of this but a bit shocking all the same!

Oh my word, what a thing to happen to a chauffeur going about his business! So much in Coventry involved the good ol' GEC in some way - Bev and I met at the Spon Street GEC factory three and a half decades ago. (Interesting also to note in that article that Frank Spencer was another GEC driver.... so, he did pass his test in the end, after all! )

My dad's family came to Coventry in 1922 with the Peel telephone works (later changed to the GEC) from Salford in the Manchester area. The company built houses for the workers and a sports club and installed a farm all within the Copsewood estate which was in effect a gated community. My grandfather was a supervisor and in charge of the assembly works. I found some official photos of the factory and estate online but the ones in my family's archive are the only ones I have seen which were taken with the workers actually there. I discovered them in 2015 while clearing my parents' house in Wyken. The photo shows my grandfather in his pinstriped suit surveying the workshop and as you can see there are some Christmas decorations up.

That's wonderful, Mitzilynne, thank you. Do you know which years your granddad's photos are from? I think we'd all love to see more of them, so you're welcome to post them on here, if it's OK with you. And there's plenty of room on the server, so you can make them all a larger size if you like.