In 1940 my family moved to a small half timbered cottage in Church Street (still extant) opposite the memorial hall. There was well water but we still used oil lamps.
I ...
At Warwickshire County Record Office, we are privileged to hold a certificate of engagement to the Commonwealth of England signed by Thomas Hartwell of Dascott, Worcester in 16501.
This document hails ...
These embroidered postcards were largely produced by French and Belgian women embroidering strips of silk mesh, which were then cut and mounted on postcards. They were very popular with British ...
Labour shortages caused by men joining the Armed Forces during the First World War led to many companies seeking help from overseas. One such organisation was Rugby-based engineering firm Willans ...
Monday 11th November 1918 proved to be a typically cold, misty day. Hope had built up over the weekend that a peace treaty between the Allies and Germany was imminent, ...
As detailed in part one, news of the Armistice had spread rapidly around Warwickshire on Monday 11th November 1918 and crowds had gathered together to hear and celebrate the news.
Church ...
Commemorations are being held all over Warwickshire to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War. St Mary’s Church in Warwick appealed for 11,610 poppies to correspond ...
Rugby workhouse routine was considerably relaxed on Christmas Day. Dinner included ½ lb of meat per person with mashed potatoes and gravy followed by plum pudding, with beer, lemonade and coffee to drink.
I have previously written about Walter Kimberley, a Coventry City footballer who lost his life during World War One. He was not the only former Coventry City footballer to suffer ...
I was born and brought up in Clapham Square, one of ten children. Sadly, one of my brothers George was drowned in the canal with a friend when he was ...
The Hundred Years War is a term applied to the intermittent hostilities between England and France during the 14th and 15th centuries. One such phase featured Joan of Arc and ...
Like many other counties during World War Two, Warwickshire rallied around its wounded soldiers, holding large parties and shows in an effort to keep their spirits up.1 Entertainment at these events could ...
From about 1938 until March 1944 my Mum and Dad, Vera and Bill Gregory, ran the pub part of RM Bird and Co the wine merchants, at 32 Bridge Street; ...
My father, Ernest French, was born in Coventry in 1911 and, apart from a brief period during the war, lived there until my family moved to Kenilworth in 1957/8.
A wartime ...
I was born on 12th of June 1926. I represented Warwickshire farmers in the Victory Parade at the end of the Second World War. My dad was secretary of Farm ...
My dad then had to move us from Birmingham, so we first went to Balsall Common near Coventry and then finally to Warwick. At Balsall Common, I remember waking up ...
Food was scarce during World War One and the government did all it could to encourage voluntary rationing. The poster that this short film dramatises was found in the collections ...
Charlie wrote many letters home to his family. In this letter he talks wistfully of coming home. He died in action in November 1917.
The letter is performed by Kieron Attwood, ...
The Coventry Blitz was a series of bombing raids that took place on Coventry during World War Two. By far the most devastating of these attacks occurred on the evening of 14 November 1940. ...
In the early 20th century, Ernest Carl Maisey was a well-known and popular figure around Warwick and Leamington. He was born in Leamington Spa on 5 February 1879, the son ...
August Schneider had spent the early part of his life in Kenilworth as an active member of the community.
As a British citizen and a single man August was conscripted and ...
The Schneider family had the misfortune to be Germans living in Kenilworth at the outbreak of the First World War, and August was an English passport-holding German in Germany at ...
After his role in the First World War, August Schneider returned to Kenilworth.
Back to Germany
Life continued to be difficult for the family in Kenilworth after the war and in May ...
The experience of being bombed in Birmingham during World War Two was something we all wanted to escape from.
Escape to Heronfield, near Knowle
Clarice & Richard Usher, my paternal grandparents, ...