Famous Coventrians

Incorrect, sir! Frank Whittle was born on 1 June 1907 in Newcombe Road, Earlsdon, Coventry, and therefore is a fully-fledged Coventrian

Hi MR I long understood that Whittle was born in Coventry, and then read a book a year or two back that said he came from Lancashire, much to my surprise. I didn't check on it, just felt slightly disappointed, and now having checked along with your comment, obviously the book was wrong. (I wonder where some of these authors get their info from??) So we can discard that one. But how about Jackie Fisher? His family had some roots in Warwickshire, hence going to Packington, and attending KH. Surely we ought to adopt him as at least an honorary Coventrian, don't you think? Regarded by some as the most important admiral after Nelson, I think he deserves better recognition than he has these days. [Incidentally, four admirals lived in or came from Norfolk - and two were First Sea Lords - not just, but including Nelson, and it seems to me a bit perverse that Nelson is the only one remembered nowadays. Sir Arthur Knyvet "Tug" Wilson, First Sea Lord after Fisher; Fisher; and the 4th son of the Earl of Kimberley, Admiral Sir Philip Wodehouse, more or less contemporary with Nelson (a friend of mine owns the house that was his) were all of some repute.]

Into Room 101, or should I say, the same bag as Jimmy Hill and Nigel Boocock

So you don't think John Fisher should be included? After all, as an old boy of KHVIII, he was an "Old Coventrian"!!

I have thought of another Coventrian to add to the list, but "famous" isn't quite right (nor "infamous" ) but certainly well-known! Mike Kimberley.

Can I add two musical old boys from The Woodlands School 1954-59. The first is John Goodison who was part of the group Brotherhood of Man. He co wrote 'United We stand' under his song writing name of Peter Simons. A YouTube clip is to be found here. John and myself spent many an unhappy hour at the back of Frank Perrin's maths class trying to understand calculus, perhaps that's why he became a musician. If you search on the web there is more about him, a big man with a very big voice. He died a few years ago. Another who made a name in a musical field was Prof Brian Ferneyhough. The dreaded words at assembly in McLachlan House were 'Ferneyhough will play his trumpet'. Ferneyhough was born in Coventry and received formal musical training at the Birmingham School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music from 1966-67. His teachers there included Lennox Berkeley, a respected teacher though a conservative figure who preferred the works of French impressionism to the internationalist avant garde. Ferneyhough was awarded the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1968 and moved to mainland Europe to study with Ton de Leeuw in Amsterdam, and later with Klaus Huber in Basel. Between 1973 and 1986 he taught composition at the Hochschule f

I don't know if it was Goodison or the other male member of the group who told this story but they once played a stadium in Yugoslavia and to their amazement 100,000 people turned up. It transpired afterwards that the government had mistaken the name of the group for a United Nations delegation and had ordered every member of the Communist Party to attend!

Found this a bit more on Goodison Biography YouTube

A very interesting thread, but you have all forgot other coventry people ....US ! We are here to remember our city on this fantastic forum to talk about the best city in the world !!! PeterW

Hear, hear.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned some bloke called Rob Orland!

Er, we didn't mean 'notorious'!!

I'm in touch with Mike's son Tony. He was born in Browns Lane when his dad was at the Jag! Mike's had some health issues lately which forced his retirement from Lotus. Still gets about though and I made him aware I was a Cov-kid too!

Who the bloody hell is he???

I think he's the little devil (Hell) who went down in history for creating Historic Coventry.co.uk