It’s not long for this world, and that’s a crying shame as far as I’m concerned, as it was always the first thing I saw from the ring road that ...
When I was around two years old a bomb was dropped in the back garden. Oddly and luckily, it didn’t destroy the house at all. However, it did move the ...
Here are some pictures of the track in the 1970s. I took these during the holiday fortnight, when me and a friend went into the building when it was empty ...
This is the last remaining former ribbon-weaving factory in Coventry; it stands in New Buildings and was occupied by Exchange and Mart in the 20th century. It had been standing ...
My first car was a Scootacar, which I owned when I lived in Coventry. I bought this from my sister’s work colleague in about 1966 for £35, which I borrowed from ...
Reports of the riots generated by mechanisation in the silk-weaving industry reminded me that there are former silk-weavers’ homes to be seen locally. Here are three examples: two from Bedworth ...
I have previously discussed the history of our family bakery up until the end of the 1950s. Here, I would like to conclude its story.
David Hugh Pails, born in 1963 ...
November 14th 1940. The City suffered a 12 hour blitz. All the bakeries were put out of production. There were no supplies of gas or electricity and the water supply was ...
The local association appeared to have been formed in 1903 according to the minutes.
The Annual General Meeting was held on January 5th 1904 and 12 officers were elected.
By September 14th ...
Earlier, I described the history of the building which housed our family bakery in Chapelfields. In this section, I would like to explore the background of my family who worked ...
The bakery closed on August 1st 2008 after trading for 110 years, and had been run by four generations of the Pails family. It was established in 1898 when Alfred Hugh ...
Julie Barnett wrote a vivid account of her wartime childhood that has been deposited at the Warwickshire County Record Office (Ref. CR 3913/1). The following is the first of a series of ...
We have seen in the previous article that Walter’s war experiences had seen him endure great hardship. Alas, that was not to improve. With the conditions in the camp, it ...
Walter’s wartime fighting experience was brief. It was merely months into the war, when he was taken prisoner on 9th September 1914 at Maubeuge, after the French surrendered. He had ...
Walter Kimberley’s wartime experience is one of hardship, effort, determination… and ultimately death, though not by any bullet wound. His is a story that shows war can claim casualties away ...
The Weaver’s House has been restored to show how it would have looked in 1540. This shows how John Croke, a Coventry narrow-loom weaver and his family would have lived and ...
Triumph worked on developing a truly competitive sports cars and at one stage took an Alfa Romeo apart to see why it was a successful design. Healey also went to ...
Hidden away on the kind of typical ’30s terraced street you find all over Coventry, is St Catherine’s Well. It’s a small stone chapel building on a raised platform, also ...
The Standard Triumph Competition Department was situated within the same building as the service division, on the Birmingham Road, Allesley, Coventry. The competition shop occupied roughly a third of the ...
When D day arrived, we all assembled on the car park at Allesley, truck loaded, tools, cars, lined up for loading, waiting for the car transporter to arrive. Ken Richardson ...
Come the race day, the cars looked great. We were running 928 HP (no. 59) and 929 HP did not run due to a bad engine oil leak. 928 HP ...
Towards the end of 1960, big changes came about; the Rally-Racing Department at the Allesley Service Division was closed down, and Ken Richardson and a small number of people were ...
In the early 1970s a new department was set up within the service department for press cars. We worked under Mike Brooks, who was also with Austin-Morris Press Cars in ...
Recently in Coventry I happened to pass the old Banner Lane factory. It has now been demolished. It was built at the outbreak of the Second World War, as a ...