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School Days - By Mike Mills

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 16:24:39 GMT

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I attended Holbrooks Primary School. In those days the boys and the girls were in separate schools, which had its advantages and disadvantages when you think about it.

There was the main brick-built building, but also a wooden built classroom across the playground. The teachers must have done their jobs well because I don’t ever remember any difficulty in learning to read and write. I can still remember being so engrossed in reading Black Beauty that I was surprised when the bell rang, and I was woken almost like out of a dream as I had been enjoying the story so much. Thanks to the English Teachers, my love for poetry began in those days. The two poems that I quickly learned to love were Shakespeare’s ‘When icicles hang by the wall’ and @A song of Sherwood’. By Alfred Noyes. Here is one verse:

Robin Hood is here again: all his merry thieves hear a ghostly bugle note shivering through the leaves.

Calling as he used to call, faint and far away,

In Sherwood, in Sherwood about the break of day.

I feel a tingle run down my spine still to this day when I hear these words, just as I did 70 years ago, as I do when hearing beautiful music that brings back memories.

When I was perhaps 9 or 10 a number of boys had to move to a school annex which was as I remember a wooden building next to Holbrooks Park. I heard later that it was infested with rats, but I never saw one!

I remember the day we moved there. Whether it was to save money or to give us some exercise, we had to carry a number of books from the main school to the annex. I distinctly remember the spelling tests. There was one boy who was as fast at writing down the words and each time we had finished we looked up at each other to see who had finished first!

While there I remember hearing a new word in the song ‘Blow the Wind Southerly’. The second verse begins. They told me last night there were ships in the Offing’. So, I hurried down to the down to the deep rolling sea’. Not having heard that the ‘Offing’ means imminent. I thought offing must be another word for port or harbor.

My Gran- By Gill Yardley

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 13:30:13 GMT

My Gran - By Gill Yardley

My Gran came to Coventry in 1915 from Swalcliffe, Oxfordshire to be a cook for a Spiritualist. She met my Gramp, a Coventry kid, and married in 1916. She would often say that everyone in her village had the same surname- Lines. I’m not sure now how good this was. My other grandmother came from Nelson, a town in one of the valleys in South Wales. My grandfather was from Rowley Regis in the Black Country. He had been a miner. I never knew them; they died before I was born. The two families wove together somehow. My maternal grandparents lived in Munitions Cottages just off Holbrook Lane.

They had seven children and my grandmother was pregnant again when she died. She had been a Canary Girl, working in munitions with mustard gas, and it killed her in the end. Sadly then the family went into different children’s homes within the City council system as their father could not get over his grief. Boys to Hillcrest My mother to the girls home in Hill Street, and my Uncle Ray to the baby’s home. They were well fed and clothed in the homes and there was no abuse going on but they were not shown any affection.

My Gran was a really good cook and all-round person to be relied upon. There was always someone knocking the door for help. This might be to lay someone out, or to help at the birth of a baby. This was pre 1949 when Aneurin Bevan set up the Health Service. Doctors would not visit if you didn’t have the money, and people died.

Gran had a country woman’s’ common sense and miles of superstitions. Putting shoes on the table? Nooo. passing on the stairs, forbidden. Common sense really. Two pouring from the same teapot meant a birth within a year. In the times before birth control very likely anyway. . Crossed knives on the table meant a death. She liked people and they liked her so her house in Meadow Rd always had someone in it.

Want something sewn? She had the pins in her mouth ready. Need a few carrots from her allotment? Not a problem. Ailments were sorted out by herbal remedies or what seemed to be old wives tales. Sore throat? She had just the thing, a boiled onion slapped round your neck in a tea towel- never mind what anyone thought. There was Gentian Violet that stained your face purple if you had impetigo, and calamine lotion leaving white patches everywhere. And ‘don’t scratch’ if it got unbearable. I remember having warts and the doctor’s remedy of permanganate of potash didn’t work. Gran rubbed the warts with raw bacon, tied a piece of string round one of them. Untied it, and buried the piece of string in the garden with the bacon, and told me within six weeks the warts would all go. They did! Dad said it was because I was granny licked and believed everything she said. Maybe.

As a community they jelled and could be relied on. People were considerate and there was not much money around so doing a favour would be repaid in kind somehow. Everyone knew each other and spotted if anything was untoward. So in times of trouble everyone was supported. Clothes were passed on and it didn’t matter. I remember her telling me if someone offered me something never to refuse. So I don’t! There was knitting and crocheting group held once a week in Grans’ and a good old gossip was had. Tealeaves were read then too.

Julie and Michael lived further up Meadow Road. They were Ukrainian and both worked at Courtaulds Main Works with me. Julie never spoke but managed to convey how she was feeling. She was tiny and timid. I pointed to the number tattooed on her arm, and her eyes filled with tears. Michael explained that they had met in a prison camp, and at the end of the war they came here, classed as aliens. Julie had been sterilised in the camp, which devastated her life. As a couple they were friendly but guarded which was understandable. It was a condition of them being here that they had to take their passports yearly to the police station to be checked. This made Julie sad. Meadow Road with its caring spirit encompassed and understood their differences. This was caring in the community without any fuss. It was a great big melting pot with room for everyone.

Shopping -By Gill Yardley

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 12:29:12 GMT

Shopping - By Gill Yardley

I remember going to the Co-op on the corner of Sunningdale Avenue with Mam, and she sat on a seat by the bacon slicer. We ran round a bit and got told off. The grocer sliced the bacon she asked for- green back, and held it out to her to check that it was the right thickness then cut the rest. The slicer made a screeching noise.

Rations still applied on some things, most importantly sweets so we had these things called Frollies, boiled fruit similar to the Spangles that followed. Jam was imported from Australia and came in tins- Peach or peach. Eurgh we didn’t like it. The label said Koo and I thought that was something to do with Kangaroos but apparently not.

Cheese was cut by a wire into a wedge shape. There would be a small amount the taste but I only recall cheddar. The Co-op had a fruit shop, fishmonger, and butchers close by. The shop assistant in a white overall wrote the totals in pencil on a scrap of paper as she went along and added it up in her head at the end. It was not itemised but always seemed to be correct. Check number 5354 was taken and a green slip of paper hand over for the ‘divi’ which mounted up.

The divi- Dividend was important. It was collected from the General Wolfe, just inside Holmsdale Road, up some wooden stairs. This was between the Co-op Fruit and Veg, and the fishmongers. Opposite was the Emporium, where they seemed to sell everything. It had several floors and a concertina lift. If you bought something in there, the bill was paid, with the money being placed in a canister. This then whizzed up to the Emporium dome, to be confirmed by the cashier up there on a lofty throne with a pencil to write PAID on. It soon whizzed back and landed neatly on the counter.

Sugar came in a big sack and got decanted into blue bags. You could buy the sack this came in for two shillings to make a rag rug to put in front of the fire. Mostly the fire was coke and it glowed rather than burned as the goodness had been removed from it. This also came from the Co-op, there was a small building at the bottom of Lockhurst Lane bridge near the Fent shop where you ordered and paid. Then we were instructed to count the bags when men looking like black and white minstrels with just their eyes showing, tipped it into our coal shed.

L. De Cani had the “all sorts” shop on the corner of Roland Avenue where you could buy even just one screw. Further along Holbrook Lane was the Little Dust Pan, hardware shop. The Paper Shop was next to the butchers Harry Hewitt. I hated going in there as he teased us and I never understood- jus knew I was scared of him.

Further along Holbrook Lane towards Burnaby Rd there was Whiteheads Flowers, just after the open maw of the Graveyard where the bridge shaped entrance as a bit scary. There was a little cobblers on the corner of the Brookville building. After the school there was a sweet shop that sold all kinds of liquorice – pipes and wires where you blew down it to make the ball move. Laces and sticks were also mouth blackening, and Kali was very popular. This was a yellow sugar that you licked off the paper.

Mrs Chittys wool shop was here you could save the wool the cost to be spread over several weeks so that the dye run matched. Next to that was the Northampton Shoe Shop where I had my built up shoes from. On the bridge the chemist sold liquorice wood which we chewed for ever.