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Other people's Coventry memories... (In surname alphabetical order)
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ny historic account of a town could never be considered complete without involving the memories of those who lived there. In these pages, I hope you will enjoy sharing the memories, anecdotes and photographs kindly sent in by visitors to this website, to whom I am immensely grateful.
think I was fortunate to have such a lovely, partly rural, twenty minute walk to school along Coat of Arms Bridge road to Stivichall Primary School. I wonder how many youngsters walk that far now. The school, actually separate infant and junior establishments, was on a huge site. There was what we called a dell, quite a deep hollow, where in the summer we would sit in the shade to listen to a story. It was commonly known as Green Lane School, as an entrance was off that road too, as well as the one we used. The infant school was a prefab looking style, probably built in a hurry to accommodate us "Baby Boomers" who were by now attending school in the mid fifties. I was at the school from 1955 to 1962.
We emerged on to Coat of Arms Bridge Road passing a small monument, surrounded by low railings, to Sir Gregory Hood. (Who was he? Lord of the Manor? There is a Gregory Hood Road I believe, named after him I presume.) We really were in rural surroundings now. No signs of any houses except, I think, a couple of cottages on the opposite side of the road. The bridge came in to view. As the pavement was so narrow under the bridge quite early on in my school life a path was made under one of the arches of the bridge for the crocodiles of children who daily wended their way to school. Just before the bridge was a lovely cottage at an angle to the road and beside this cottage a pond. I owe the fact that I can recognise a moorhen from the family of them that swam on the pond.
The far side of the Memorial Park marked out into football pitches was on our right now and an area of trees & bushes etc. beside us. There was a huge plain tree outside the school entrance. Did I climb it? I know some children did. On reflection I think I was lucky to have such a pleasant walk to primary school. Things changed when I went to Coundon Court, two bus journeys away and, in my first year, during the very bad winter of '62 / '63.
