I married Ken Ashford on 23rd December 1939. He was a Coventry kid. We met at my Grandmother’s house. I moved to Coventry where we lived with Ken’s father and ...
On Sunday 10th February 2019 commemorations were held for the hundredth anniversary of the death of trade unionist and MP, Joseph Arch. Coming from a family of agricultural labourers, he ...
I was still at school in Warwick when World War 2 was declared. At first it didn’t make much difference, except having to carry our gas-masks and putting the black-out ...
There are two sets of almshouses in Mancetter.
Cramer’s Almshouses
These were founded by James Cramer, a local man who made his fortune in London as a goldsmith. The building was erected ...
I grew up in the Dugdale Arms, Nuneaton. Our family had run “The Dug, or The Duggie”, as it was known, since 1911, but its history extended further back than ...
The Dugdale Arms in Nuneaton had been in my family since 1911. My mum and dad took over as landlords in 1957, having lived next door to The Dug (as ...
The Dugdale Arms in Nuneaton, also known as The Dug, had been a pub since the 1860s.
For the first 9 years of my life we lived at 36 Dugdale Street, ...
Sunday school attendance dipped sharply after the Blitz when children were evacuated and never recovered to its former numbers of over 100. For several Sundays after the Blitz the Sunday ...
Meon Hill was said to have been caused by Old Nick himself: he was watching the construction of Evesham Abbey from Ilmington Hill when, in a fit of annoyance, he ...
Today, Rupert Brooke is possibly best known as a War Poet and is included on the Poets of the First World War memorial in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey, alongside fellow poets, Wilfred Owen, Edmund ...
The almshouses were founded in the 1570s by Thomas Oken, who has been called ‘Warwick’s most famous son’. He was a silk merchant – a self-made man without children who ...
In part one, I mentioned Romilly Lunge’s overseas adventures. His life in film had seen him mix with many famous people. Hitchcock once interviewed him, and they both admitted to ...
I do still go round Coventry city centre, which has changed a bit from my time as a student. The old fire station is still there, by Pool Meadow bus ...
The fight for votes for women involved militants who were prepared to break the law – often called ‘suffragettes’ – in contrast to the law-abiding suffragists. Most suffragettes belonged to ...
After leaving school in 1983, I went to Coventry (Lanchester) Polytechnic, as it then was, at the start of the Michaelmas Term in 1983 to study a BTEC Higher National ...
The war went rolling on and by the start of 1944, things were getting tight. I never remember being hungry, but I certainly remembered being cold. My grandmother used to ...
Primitive Methodists were meeting in a barn at the time of the religious census of 1851; the form was filled in by ‘Precher’ Charles Adams a brickmaker from Stockton. The ...
A 500-mile cycling and walking network is being set up in the West Midlands and named the ‘Starley network’. This prompted me to investigate further: there’s a Starley statue I ...
My wartime memories start rather in Coventry round about 1939, when I would have been five years old. We got bombed out of Coventry after the 14th November Coventry blitz and ...
I eventually left the King’s High School Kindergarten and landed up in the Prep department at Warwick School, but after a while I had to leave for being disruptive and ...
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was formed in 1944, replacing the Miners Federation of Great Britain. At the request of the Midlands Area of the NUM, Warwickshire Miners’ Association ...
The first Warwickshire Miners’ Association was formed in 1872. A Bedworth printer, Mr John Colledge, was elected as the Secretary. The society’s first report was issued in June 1872, which ...
Pit Ponies were used in mining from the mid 18th Century to the late 20th Century, with the last pit pony leaving the mines of Ellington, Northumberland in 1994. At ...