The Coventry you will never know

When we went for a trip on the Watercress Line, I was told that all of our watercress now comes from Portugal.

I love watercress. The only time I had it straight from the stream was when I was quite young and went to Dunster, my uncle picked some and it was lovely. I believe you have to be careful as there is something else that grows with it that is poisonous. I think it is quite a difficult crop to farm. When I worked for Florette there was quite strong competition to get contracts for it. I know there was one time I had to pay the invoices weekly rather than the usual 30 days. One of the products I could never understand was lambs lettuce, it was one of the most expensive things that went into a bag and I thought it had no taste.

Anne, Watercress can have liver fluke on it, that is the problem if it is not from clean water I believe.

Yes I did the Watercress Line trip some years ago. It was really nice to ride with my granddaughter on a "real chuffer". We also did a very interesting circular walk around the watercress beds, up hill and down dale. I have picked it in the wild, when I was evacuated during the war, it was at the mouth of a small stream that ran into the River Meas.

Argon. I believe the secret of watercress is it has to be grown in flowing water.

Kaga, That is my understanding tooI think that may be why it is cultivated and thus controlled. I assume liver fluke risk is somethinng of the past.

Hi all Unfortunately liver fluke is alive and well and can be passed on to animals and humans by infected snails. Living in the West Country I'm not too far away from watercress farms. All have very good clean, fast flowing streams or rivers which are needed to keep the crop clean and growing. The cress is grown in beds with the water flowing through them. It's lovely stuff, but I would not advise eating "wild" cress as not only is liver fluke a possibility, but listeria, salmonella, Weil's disease and a whole host of other nasties can be found in most streams and wet areas.

Blimey, you've got me worried now, Covgirl, since, as I've posted before, my dad would take me a walk, as a nipper, by the Chain, then pluck watercress from the Sherbourne, and bring it home for us to eat. I shudder to think of what was/is in the river - industrial waste, rubbish, detritus, water voles/rats' urine (yes we often saw big rats when playing as kids), which carries Weil's disease... I daresay my mum washed the cress thoroughly, but that may not have been sufficient. But I've survived and am fairly healthy and normal (in my opinion). When I was teenager and became aware of these biological horrors, I once asked my mother "mum, what are you doing about the salmonella?". She said "oh don't worry, I always fry it up in the pan along with the rest of yer food"!

Don't worry Slim he probably picked wild garlic as well, that would sort it out.

By 1939 we were used to the cars on the streets, the new shops with their gaudy advertising signs, the noisy engine background. Then the lights went out. The blackout they had warned us about - we were used to dark nights but this was something different, the darkness total, completely silent, the hum of the city suddenly gone, the skyline in all directions not there. Tall buildings were blocking the starlight sky, for once darker than the night sky. People came out of their houses, standing near their doors and peering in to the darkness - even the oldest people had seen nothing like this. There was a hugeness to it - not just a house, not just a street, not just the city. There was no glow on any horizon, not even a cigarette alight, as if the world had died, just sheer darkness.

Kaga, you have a gift for description, the onset of the blackout could not be more brilliant and evocative, yet chilling. I was alive during the war but I was only between the ages of five to ten, so to be quite honest I have no recollection of the blackout as such and in fact I have not many real recollections of the incidence of war on the life of the general population. I cannot really remember any specific occasion that I would have even ventured out and viewed the night sky, or even had reason to do so, but I do however remember some early mornings when I had to catch the bus to travel to school in winter mornings. I would guess the usual routine was for my mother to hoik me out of bed at say 7am, wash, breakfast and be on my way on foot across 5 fields to the road (we had a cottage in the middle of nowhere) and be ready to catch the Midland Red bus on the main Birmingham to Nottingham road, which would take us to school in Ashby de la Zouch. So we must have made our way across the fields in the dark, without incident or accident, opened and closed gates and threaded our way through an already busy farm yard and take our stance on the main road just after the farm drive. This spot was half way up "Bird Hill" as it was known locally. I cannot visualise the bus approaching in the distance, except it must have had shaded lights, but I do remember we identified the various models of bus that arrived, because there was always a sort of thrill of excitement when a more modern vehicle, what we called a coach had been put on the service when the regular one was away for repair or servicing (or maybe damaged in enemy action?). There is one specific thing I can remember is that 2/300 yards further down the hill, on our side of the road was a large café/parking area where lorries were parked overnight. If it was really cold, they used to light little fires under the engine to warm up the oil so they could be restarted and I do remember seeing this practice on a number of occasions in the early morning. Kaga, I know we had double British Summer time during the war, but I cannot remember if we had the ceremony of putting the clocks backward and forwards or even what the effect on the dawn would be, i.e would it push it forward and mean dawns were lighter earlier, and if so what would be the effect in midwinter?

Roger. Yes, the mornings were lighter for the farmers, they were made to produce much more foodstuffs, but there were a lot of spin-offs - the breaking into shops, looting warehouses, etc. The great big black market was under way, everything fell off the back of a lorry. But there were worse things. Women were very vulnerable, with all the darkness. A 19 year old girl had worked for four years at a shop, each evening she left the shop at 5 pm, caught the bus right outside the shop, travelled four stops, got off the bus outside her home. About a month into the blackout she caught the slow crawling bus, everywhere was inky black, even inside the bus the conductress shone a pencil-like torch down on the floor of the aisle just enough to see where the vacant seats were. A man had followed her onto the bus and sat beside her, as he did so he let his hand fall down to her blouse and touched her breast, then apologised saying he had missed the back of the seat. The girl was fuming and embarrassed, he tried to make small talk but she kept quiet, but eventually she reached her stop. The next night the same thing happened but this time he cupped his hand - she stood up, slapped at his cheek but caught him on the side of the head, and pushed by him as the conductress asked what was going on. The girl got off the bus and walked home. Next day was Sunday. But Monday she went to work as usual - at 5 pm she left the shop. There were two soldiers at the bus stop - when the bus finally arrived they let the girl on first. The conductress shone her torch, the girl sat in the same seat, the two soldiers sat behind her. At the last moment the guy got on and sat beside her. Then a dozen things happened - in a split second, down went his hand straight into a mousetrap the girl was holding. It slammed to, trapping his fingers hard, a fist hit him on the back of the neck and the guy pitched head first out of his seat and landed on his knees. Then a hand groped for his collar, hauled him up whilst pounding him around the head and ears with the other hand - a third fist caught him with a pile-driver in kidneys that sent him sprawling into the panel in front of him. Another caught him in the solar plexus that doubled him over, puking. The rest of the passengers were scrambling for the platform - they couldn't see what was happening but they had a very good idea. The girl followed, at the same time the driver felt a train had run into his backside. He stopped the bus - shaking, he walked round keeping his fingers touching the bus until he got to the platform. The last soldier was leaving the bus, said "I should call an ambulance mate, there's a guy having a fit in there". End of story. The 19 year old girl was my sister's best mate's elder sister - the two soldiers, her brother and his mate. But girls teamed up with us boys they knew, to go to the cinema or places. Older women would ask us to walk with them to shops etc. and this had a lasting effect long after the war.

Yes, Kaga, your story reminds me of an incident during the war that happened to my aunt, and which I'd forgotten. My aunt was always very "plump" during my life, right until she died in the year 2000. But she had been a slim attractive young woman, in her late twenties, maybe 30, during the war. She lived at the family home in Earlsdon, and had never bothered with boys/men. My father told me in later years that she had been "attacked by some queer bloke in an alleyway in the dark, during WW2, and that the shock had had such a profound effect on her that for the rest of her life she piled on the pounds". He didn't go into detail, so what actually happened was left to my imagination, but he added that during the war there were a lot of unsavoury characters about, as if it were not uncommon.

Today is a very nostalgic day for me, for 79 years ago today I stood in the school playground confused - the first day of the war at school - for yesterday we had declared war on Germany, and today there were less than 40% of kids turned up. For a time we would lose sport - sports master joined RAF - there would be no more woodwork or cooking lessons. Even the grown ups had no idea what would happen. A whole lot of things changed for us you wouldn't believe. But nothing happened for a year, then the Blitz. But not only did the people of that time suffer, but so did you, for you lost the real history of Coventry's people. In 1939 there were over a score of bookshops that had books that told the story of Coventry's life, the great cattle market, the daily life in the 17th/18th centuries - all lost in the great fire of the Blitz. Even the buildings that survived, paperwork was lost, thousands and thousands of books turned to ashes. After the war the new bookshops only had modern books, very few had those old books that were such a delight to read. We know little about the people that lived in those house photo's on here.

I think I may have been taken in the centre of Coventry before 1930. It would be hard for anyone to imagine it in those days - no buses, few phones, lots of horses, small narrow streets. All Coventry slang you never hear of today - people feeling nowty. Kids slept 3-4 to a bed. Because so many could not read or write they sketched or illustrated letters or sent postcards that we all love today. Often a latched front door that opened straight into the living room, a flag-stoned kitchen with sunken pantry with thralls. Some of the houses still had old looms and spinning wheels, that my mother and aunts used when they were kids. In conversation they couldn't bear the word vest. Knitting for an unborn baby would be hidden hastily under cushions if a man entered the room. If you showed too much affection they would blush and edge away, at the same time cousins drifted in and out as intimately as brothers or sisters. Yet very saucy postcards were allowed. People could not shake off the feeling of the old workhouse times, but most knew the countryside as if a plant themselves.