Broadgate (Click to see this topic in full)
Now this shows a rebuilt Coventry City centre to be admired, with Lady Godiva proudly centrally displayed & bus stops again sensibly located around the perimeter. At that time my mum worked in one of the pre-fab (cake?) shops. As a Coventry kid after the blitz I loved the rebuild but when I returned a number of years later, I was shocked by what greeted me, I seem to remember that Lady Godiva was under a tent !! seemingly pushed to the side ?? Centre character destroyed !

Woodlands School (Click to see this topic in full)
Goodness, so many memory jerkers in this thread! I was at Woodlands 1960 - 1965 so I had a couple of years under the headship of 'Knocker' West before the onset of tyrannical head Mr Thompson. I think it fair to say that other than never being a fan of the previously mentioned cross-country running (hung over games master's easy option?), I 100% enjoyed my time at Woodlands. Maybe that's down to fact that I never got caned nor impacted by flying board rubbers or pieces of chalk? There is no denying that misuse of corporal punishment was rife at the time but I managed to escape with no more than a couple of detentions. All of which, of course, would have been based upon totally trumped up charges. My journeying to and from Woodlands was somewhat different to the five minute walk I had enjoyed whilst attending St Christopher's junior school. The preferred scenario to get to Woodies would start with a 7:50 am car ride with my father to his place of work at the bottom of Melbourne road. Then a short walk to one of the three sheltered bus stops on the city side of Spon End arches in order to catch a number 13 bus. The journey home would normally be the number 13 bus to Glendower Avenue and a walk down Glendower and up and over Grayswood Ave. Unless of course it was tipping it down with rain. In that case it paid to stay on the 13 until Hearsall Common and then get the number 1 to the Grayswood terminus. I well remember my first day. Enjoying something of a 'grown up' senior school vibe, I duly presented at Gibson house, the realm of Jim newton who would later become my English teacher. After being given a short welcome and a personal up-and-over book locker, it was soon time to be taken across to the main assembly hall. It was there that the 'grown up' vibe took a bit of a dent when I and the rest of that years 'fuzzer' intake, were instructed to sit down, cross-legged on the bare floor and be quiet. Names were then called out allocating individuals to their first year classes. On hearing your name, you were expected to stand and follow a master to your first classroom and lesson. I started in 1B. I played rugby and basketball (Capt.) and athletics for the school. I avoided going in the swimming pool like the plague. With a leaning towards maths, physics, TD and metalwork, I chose to give 6th form a miss and instead took an apprenticeship at Wickmans. I believe that if you were intent on learning, Woodlands really did have a lot to offer. Facilities, across the board, were top notch.

Coventry Buses - past and present (Click to see this topic in full)
You can get either a 20 or a 148 from the bus stops at All Saints Square in Bedworth. Alternatively, depending where you have parked, you can pick up the same buses in Coventry Rd by the Old Black Bank pub. Both buses go into Coventry by the old route, under what was the iron bridge into Bedworth Rd, over the canal into into Longford Rd, and then Foleshill Rd. You need to get off the bus outside the old Ritz cinema, just by the junction with Windmill Rd, and opposite to where the New Inn once stood. Cross Foleshill Rd and go over the New Inn canal bridge. On your immediate right you will see the bus entrance into the Arena Retail Park, you will come out at the far end of Tesco so will need to walk across the full width of all the shops to get to the Coventry Building Society Stadium. The 20 bus will be a double decker and the 148 will be single deck. Both run a frequent service throughout the day. Coming back, the bus stop is just a bit past where the New Inn once stood, but not as far as the old Vauxhall garage (can't remember the name).

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 cafe 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, cafe 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 cafe 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!