There were other community things that the factory got us involved in. Every year that I worked there we would sign the ball that would be used in the Atherstone ...
As I grew up I still kept myself involved in the farm, but my dad was very insistent that my first proper job was not with him but someone else. ...
Henry Smith of Kenilworth was accused, in 1827, of stealing a chicken. Ultimately, for this crime, he received a sentence of two months hard labour – not a small amount. ...
We found an absorbing new interest for our retirement when we joined Coventry Photographic Society five years ago. When researching the society’s history and updating its society’s website, we discovered ...
I came to be here as a Prisoner of War in the Merevale Camp near Atherstone. This was towards the end of the war when the Italians had been moved ...
When I was a child I would meet up with a small group of four or five of my friends who lived around my street as everyone knew each other ...
These keys were “rescued” by my father when the Workhouse, by this time renamed Lakin House, was demolished in September 1974. Although I have no recollection of the workhouse its ...
From the beginning of the industrial revolution at the end of the 18th Century, until around the time of the Great War, there was a large migration of people from ...
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 ...
My mother died when I was nine, but I was looked after very well by neighbours. My father remarried when I was 13 and my stepmother was a kind lady.
I ...
I was born in 1984 and lived in Johannesburg, South Africa until the age of 15 when my family moved to the UK. We moved around a lot at first, ...
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 ...
The stick, before I made the case for the book, I used to keep holding it and sort of… its very tactile. Now I give talks about Charles Streather because ...
RE: There are quite a number of artefacts on the wall… there are not many of these left. That’s a very early erm, steel helmet from the First World War…
Interviewer: ...
RE: Of course there were two big brickyards in Nuneaton anyway and the other one was Haunchwood Brick and Tile that was owned by the Knox family.
Interviewer 1: Yeah.
Interviewer 2: ...
Interviewer 1: You said you remember going to one of the cinemas. When was that?
Interviewee: Oh god. I would have been oh, I should imagine I probably would’ve been about ...
Interviewee: I remember seeing other big blockbusters at other cinemas. The Ritz particularly was the last one to close in Nuneaton, wasn’t it?
Interviewer 1: Yeah
Interviewee: I remember going to see Jaws ...
When I was a child my father was a partner in a small general building firm. As well as various, what would now be classed as ‘DIY’ jobs, they were ...
I was actually born in Mancetter in 1949, and I lived there with my family until I married my husband at 18. We then moved in together in his parents ...
My family have always lived in this area, my dad inherited his farm from his father and he still runs it to this day in his 80s! I loved growing ...
There’s a hotel where the job centre is now, the corner of Albert Street – I can’t remember what it was called, and they used to sell chicken specs, and ...
The walking stick / sword in the photograph is from India. An officer in the British army was a friend of my Dad, and he gave this sword to my ...
Unfortunately, the war came in 1939 and, regrettably, I had to eventually leave J. C. Smith’s to work in a factory for war work. My mother was already working at ...
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 ...
