Ministry of Pensions fire, 1964

Roystockdill stated in the previous post : The following words that appear on the Mirror Pix reference were MINE! These words must have been lifted by the Mirror from the Evening Telegraph splash front page because I distinctly remember writing them! That's a co-incidence. Morgana posted just the other day under the topic 'Quirky facts about Coventry' a link about fashions. One of the Telegraph photos shows a teenager who I knew, yet other shots taken on the same day of him and others in 1969 are all available to view on line but shadowed with the Mirror Pix logo ! Maybe the CET sold them to the Mirror along with narrative pertaining to various City events.

Trinity-Mirror bought the Midland Newspaper Group which includes the Coventry Evening Telegraph many years ago and thus owns all its archives. The current Coventry Telegraph is a regional edition of the Daily Mirror.

Just remembered, we took the top floor off that building way back probably late 60s, and they replaced it with the effort you can see today...

Ah, but that was a fire! I was working then at Bristol-Siddeley (Parkside was - I believe - the plant's location name) on a street that ran parallel to the Ring Road. Consequently, the view of the inferno (for inferno is no exaggeration) was, from the slightly-elevated Parkside, and given the additional aid of being on the second floor of the company's main office building, quite staggering. The smoke was dense, but apparently finding a way to its dispersion seemingly well below us, and off to the east. Whether there was an political fall-out from Civil Defence's decision to store highly-combustible materials (cardboard coffins, blankets and such) in this location I cannot recall. There certainly should have been, whatever the actual sparking of the fire, but then where else was available in the city at that time? Unlike the heavy snowfall in Buffalo, New York state, in 1978 or thereabouts, no buttons/badges were issued by the municipality that boasted "I survived", but survive I did (at quite a remove) , survive we did (ditto), though Dutchman's experience was at ground zero, and his survival is the more remarkable for that. This Forum's capacity to surprise, to remind me of things long forgotten, continues to thrill me.

A friend of mine asked for help to organise old photo slides. Among them are many photos of the ongoing fire in June 1960's at the Morris factory and of the construction of the coventry ringway. Her father had a chemist shop in the city and was a very keen photographer who took every opportunity to snap whenever he could. My friend was going to bin the slides but as a historian myself l feel that someone would appreciate them. Can someone tell me where we can donate the please. Kind Regards. Carol Collins.

Welcome born and bred .

Yes, welcome to our forum. May I suggest our very own webmaster; Rob. I'm sure he would provide an excellent home for them and maybe scan them and include them in a gallery on this site?

Yes! I second that. They will get a wider appreciative audience on here than squirreled away at the Herbert, never to be seen again. Let everybody see them. Derek.

Thirded! Looking forward to seeing the Ring Road ones.............

Ditto to that....

I'm curious to know which chemist it was as there was one almost opposite the Old Morris who would have had a grandstand view of both fires as well as of the Gosford Street Flyover being constructed?

Any slides or negatives ought to go to an archive such as the Herbert eventually, as only they will have the correct storage conditions. Old film deteriorates if not kept at exactly the right temperature and humidity. If you have boxes of photos or slides you may wish to mark on them "to be donated to the Herbert (or the Warwickshire County Archives)". I know that they will be very grateful for such donations. Never bin anything - future generations will be grateful for you saving the items. Can I suggest that anyone who has old photos scans them and puts a copy on the Geograph website (www.geograph.org.uk) . Of all photo websites, only Geograph is archived for the future (by the British Library UK Web Archive project). Also on Geograph it is possible to accurately locate the photos for the benefit of future generations.

Hi all, Firstly, many thanks to you all for showing such faith in me! I've finally made time to scan these slides, and I've processed the ones of the fire at the "Old Morris" building in Gosford Street, which was the Ministry of Pensions & National Insurance by the time it caught alight in 1964. I've given more details with the first slide, which you can all view in the Forum Gallery. I'll try not to be too far behind with the reconstruction slides, among which are some wonderful "never to be seen again" views of Coventry - places now buried beneath our city's last four decades of progress. Some of the views will also require your help to identify some places....

Thank you Rob brilliant and thanks for the effort you've made to show us these and thanks to the donor.