Coventry Buses - past and present (Click to see this topic in full)
Hi all, It's not easy to imagine how public transport will pan out post Covid habit changes. Our councils are trying to maintain city centre footfall by whatever means, it's part of their revenue requirements. If city centre traders are not trading, just imagine the additions to the rates to compensate. Whizzing around as I have this last couple of days, passing suburbs lined with uncollected rubbish bins, suggests possibly the high volume of folk who are unaware of the bin dispute, which is my analogy to awareness of bus travel that I want to share. It comes down to IT. Just as motorists nowadays use Sat/Nav, I use Bus/Nav. No it's not called that, there are various apps, but I use Google Maps Go. It's best if you are actually signed in to Google, but to try, select Google Maps. Let your device establish where you are. Select an area where you know there's bus stops. They will show up as a symbol on the display. Touch a bus stop with your finger, where to your amazement, every bus serving that stop is displayed in that region of time, along with its times & realtime info. The same applies for trains & trams. It's so simple to use, even I can use it. Without it, I couldn't travel or whizz around like I do. If only folks could learn to use that. Who needs a timetable! Just yesterday. I went from Roland Ave in the morning, boarded the No 55 to Bedworth. It continued eventually to Nuneaton, but using Bus/Nav, I could see that only a minute away was a No 48C going to Nuneaton, the direct route. So, there I am in Jenny's cafe, my breaky ordered which included free coffee before 11am, whereupon I watched the No 55 arrive in the bus station at least ten minutes later. After a brill breaky, I boarded the No 20, for a whizz to Cov, to enjoy half an Abbott at the Earl. After saying goodbye, I walked through the cathedral walkways to Trinity St, for the No 56 to Roland Ave. No waiting at shelters at anytime for more than a minute, anywhere. It's all on my phone. What a pip! I don't think that a motorist could match my times yesterday. I left home at just after ten, was back home for half two.

Bombing aftermath (Click to see this topic in full)
It looks highly possible that Holbrook Lane could be the location but I haven't got enough data close to the right date to pinpoint it. There are confectioners but the names and locations aren't quite right. For what it's worth, this is my best guess. Number 114 or 120 depending which way that terrace is numbered. The houses are older than most and that fits the map, where the area was mostly fields. It's very near the exit to the Dunlop Works, which makes it a logical place for bus stops. The numbering shown in 1950 is hard to connect to the properties in 1937. Thanks OddSock

Bombing aftermath (Click to see this topic in full)
I wonder if the bus stop sign offers a clue. I don't know much about bus stops, but I think the one in the picture might be one on a works route (perhaps 'Route A'). Does this help?

Broadgate (Click to see this topic in full)
What a great photo. I think I used to get the bus to my grandma's house in Willenhall from here. After that, it was from Pool Meadow. Coventry Transport seemed to move the bus stops fairly regularly.

Coventry's lost subways (Click to see this topic in full)
I think there was one, Osmiroid, that went from near the bus stops in front of Holy Trinity to Owen Owen basement and I think it also came out by the side if OO as well. I think this is the one mentioned here.

Bombing aftermath (Click to see this topic in full)
Those who didn't go through it can't imagine what it was like. We truly respect your memories and when we debate these photographs it's not to dismiss you or the people whose lives were devastated but to provide accuracy. We bring together maps, aerial views and photographs of the area before and after the war. We follow the clues. I've spent the last 8 years looking at images of Coventry. I know the place better than my own street. You see the city in colour, I see it in black and white. I see images frozen in time, you see the places alive over time. I have no memories to change what I see in photos, so I can't be influenced by what might have happened an hour before the photo or an hour afterwards. I can't tell you what it felt or smelt like, I can only work out what the photo was looking at. I'm getting quite good at it but someone else will notice stuff that I don't. Or know something - I don't even know where Keresley is, let alone where it might have had bus stops. This is team work and together we're all better than as individuals.

The Blitz - 14th November 1940 (Click to see this topic in full)
Of those images labelled as London, the one of mangled bus stops is obviously Coventry.

King Henry VIII Grammar School (Click to see this topic in full)
Hmm! Prefects at KHVIII. Not too many posts I see on this subject. As I made my way up though the forms of KHVIII I had little to do with prefects and I liked it that way. I got a few essays for being cheeky but that was about all. I did admire the sporting ability of some : I remember Maher, Breakwell, Kirkland, John, Montgomery but no others. There were some who took direct action on occasions but I have no recall at all of their names. I was made a prefect in my next to last year as were many of my friends in the science stream and did not particularly enjoy the disciplinary side. What I did like was to mix with pupils of my age group who were not in the science stream who I regularly mixed with, thus renewing friendships from earlier years. I also became a more than useful table tennis player and reached my pinnacle when I played for Leeds University Club and became a county player for Derry in N.I. many years later. It was good fun in the pre-ole (cheers, MR), and I missed the camaraderie when I left. But there was one thing about being a prefect I had trouble with and that was the wearing of the red and black tasselled prefect's cap. Not so bad in school but out of it one could be mercilessly teased about it by the general public (bus stops and our trek down to the old cathedral on Founders Day for instance). However I often wished I had saved my last cap (left on a spike on the railings outside the school gates on my last day) but it was somewhat worse for wear! I have no picture either of me wearing it to show my children what an idiot I looked wearing it! I think in an earlier post ? who put rather wittily, I thought, not left but "escaped". I did not feel this way but rather sad that I was leaving many very good friends who I would probably never see again.

Coventry Buses - past and present (Click to see this topic in full)
Yes Kaga, and condensation streaming down the windows in winter, and very healthy up the winding stairs in the 'smoker's lounge'! I never saw the used ticket bin full either, there were more round the bus stops, together with all the ciggy ends, than anywhere. We were like robots in those days, performing the same act going home every evening, and more often than not with the same crowds scrambling on the bus. 'Oh to be in England now that winter is here'. Ding, ding, off we go. The conductor would shout something which I could never understand - ah, that was it - 'hold on tight' (for the benefit of those standing). Oh what a merry we lot were.

Our world in miniature, hobbies (Click to see this topic in full)
Hi all The footbridge crossing Central Six is in the news just now, so with that in mind, on our railway, folks living in Hawks Mill have long complained of the long detour to reach Hounds Hill bus stops, the church & first school. We now have a footbridge, nearly complete once I have a tin of blue enamel top coat to finish the centre box section. Hope you like.

Broadgate (Click to see this topic in full)
Excellent pictures! Yes, I see nothing unusual in them being redecorated, the bus stops nowadays seem to be changed every few years. ps, Have to query that last picture, as far as we know that part of Broadgate was demolished in 1936, and the City Jewellers building was called something else in the 1935/36 picture pre-demolition.

Retirement (or Last of the Summer Wine) (Click to see this topic in full)
Hi all, only me again I feel 108% today, after a couple of months of feeling yuk! I ate a soft cheese dish at a pre Christmas dinner, a brie concoction that I knew wasn't right for me, yet I carried on eating it. I was speaking to a friend who had coped with a similar experience earlier last year, where she told me that it had taken several months for her system to get back to being right after eating something that disagreed with her. I wasn't ill as such. Just that I had little appetite, what I ate or drank didn't taste as it should, as said yuk. I did have a bit of medical advice, which was to drink loads. I also followed advice from the net, which I found really good. So, without anti-biotic pills & so on, this last week has been brill. It was a good sign when my food & drink started to taste as I remember them, part of the net guidance notes. Pam made me a plain flavoured milkshake last week which was like heaven. I had one today in Café Italia, just a plain milkshake, not a thick-shake. It was fab. In fact it gets the three "brills" score. We are not an advertising site, but with so many coffee houses struggling with decreasing footfall, experimenting with coconut milk & so on, Café Italia maintain their high quality. I enjoyed a flat-white recently in there that was sucking-ly nice. For whatever is negative about Coventry, that café in Trinity street is brill. It has another perk too. It's right opposite my bus stops. Whahey! PS. One bonus maybe that drinking so much (plain water mostly) I haven't had so much as a snivel so far. What a pip!

What happened on THIS day in Coventry's history? (Click to see this topic in full)
Telegraph photos taken on 31st May

Railways around Coventry (Click to see this topic in full)
Hi all I enjoyed another ride aboard the Ninky-Nonk from the Ricoh to Coventry this morning. The first available train for bus pass users is 10.28am being the first after the 9.30am free pass threshold time. Just a nice time to enjoy a M&S latte before commuting. Those that have not used Coventry station buses for a while will notice that the bus stops are now to the left hand side of Eaton Rd, all with digital timetable displays. Every train that I have boarded so far has been well used, with passengers joining at the Ricoh. Because the first train for bus-pass users is so late, it is quicker to go to the town centre on the bus, but I do enjoy the novelty, as well as showing off in the M&S café. Well, you know what I am like! PS There is a down side to this. The popularity of this service is due mostly to the journey time. The return ticket price of £5.10 return from Nuneaton is matched by the journey time of 22 minutes from Nuneaton, compared to the No.48 bus service of around an hour at peak journey time. We might see a scaling back of bus services in consequence to this. From the Ricoh to Coventry station, the journey time is 8 minutes.

Broadgate (Click to see this topic in full)
Definitely MR, It's not what the public want or need for convenience as it was in 'those days', it's what the planners want in the name of progress (or whatever kick they get out of it)! Besides paving costs less to maintain than a beautiful island of greenery being a far more welcoming sight when entering the city.