Kaga Simpson - his life and memories

Well Kaga What a flipping coincidence. This Historic Coventry Forum never ceases to amaze me. Apparently I am the nephew of the wife of your Uncle Alf. We're practically brothers!!! I will have to check on the parentage of Uncle Alf. I remember Tilly quite well but don't think I ever met Alf. I have let my Ancestry membership lapse but I'm sure I will rejoin (if they tempt me back with a discount). On my Ancestry family tree a hint referencing the 1911 census "suggested" that Alfred Harold Simpson's parents were Harold & Caroline but this is obviously an incorrect hint in light of your comment that Alf's father was Arthur Simpson. Are you willing to divulge you father's full name & date of birth and also your full name & dob? (A private message would be ok to preserve your anonymity). I have attached some photos which may be of interest. The first is of my mother (Irene May Lester born 1913) with her half-sisters Eliza (Lizzie) Lester (born 1904 who married Walter Reynolds in 1930) and Matilda Louise Lester (born 1906) I am guessing that my mum is about 17 in this picture which dates the photo around 1930. There is also a photo of Aunt Lizzie & Walter in their home in Bell Green and one of Aunt Lizzie when she worked at the Hotel Leofric. Finally a photo of my Auntie Hilda Lester's marriage to Ronald Tuson. My grandad George Lester (Tilly's father) is at the back. Do you have any photos of Tilly or her family that you could pass on. I'm really into our family tree at the moment. My older brother Alan Oldham who is 74 remembers that grandad George Lester used to be doorman at a club near the end of Deedmore Road (could be Henley Road WMC). He also confirms Lester's woodyard up near Eburne School next to a canal arm (now filled in). Not sure yet which Lester owned said woodyard but I'll find out. My brother also remembers our grandad George Lester being given loads of timber offcuts from the woodyard and sitting with him by his shed at 222 Bell Green Road and helping/unhelping him chopping it into kindling bundles to sell at a few pence a bundle. I will send a personal message about Alf & Tilly's son Harold so look out for the red button.

Hi Derek I knew your aunt Hilda and Ron. My brother-in-law Terry Jones is the nephew of Hilda. What a lovely couple, I used to see them at the Technical College when there was a performance by the Youth Operetta Group. Ron always looked so smart with his black bow tie performing his usher duties. I know Ron is no longer with us, last I heard of Hilda she was in sheltered accommodation in Cheylesmore. Loved looking at their wedding photo. Best wishes, Jan

A very kind and thoughtful member of this forum has just sent this to me. October 1900 A Foleshill child named Emma Simpson was shot dead, by a gun in a canal boat at Soulbury, near Leighton Buzzard. Arthur Simpson, deceased father, in evidence said he was driving a horse attached to two boats, coming in to the middle lock of three the girl was standing in the hatchway of the first boat. A gun loaded with powder and shot stood in the corner of the cabin in its usual place behind the coal box which supported it. His second boat bumped the first boat coming into the lock. Immediately he heard the report of the gun. His man came up off the butty boat, told him what had occurred, he at once went to the cabin. The girl was in the hatchway, hanging on to the tiller, he saw it was all over with her. The gun belonged to his brother-in-law for shooting at rats. Dr Harris said death was instantaneous. Verdict - Accidental death. But the real story for me. When I was about six years old my father acquired a gun, an old 1st war gun, modified with a 12 bore single shot cartridge barrel and mechanism. I wandered into my gran's house but my grandfather was really tearing a strip off my father, so angry, so frightening for me. Granny grabbed my hand and took me down the garden. When my sister was about 12 yrs old dad took us all into the meadow with the old railway embankment, here he taught us everything there was to know of guns, especially of safety. He taught my sister to fire the gun. As each of us reached ten, he taught us how to handle and fire a gun, time and time again he would make us go to the field and fire a gun. By the time I was 12 we had the old shotgun, a 4-10, a double barrelled 12 bore plus a .22. As kids we just thought it was the war that made him so, but 'now' I see the day dad brought a gun home. Why grandad went beserk, and at nearly 90 years of age I learn the truth of why he made us all aware of the danger and safety of guns.

1960, after ten years of being a gambler, I had no employment record, so imagine what mortgage people said to me. So I got a job with Standard Triumph, with good wages. Mortgage people said 'sorry, you're out on strike too much, go and work for Courtaulds at a lower salary but more stable and we will give you a mortgage'.

I believe that when I was a boy it was one of the most amusing times for us kids. Coventry had scores of streets that held very small terraced cottages with small sash cord windows. But the people had king sized beds of iron, chests of huge heavy drawers, that covered one wall, huge sideboards, etc, and I would think a lot more pianos, so almost every day you would see a 'Laurel and Hardy' scene. Headboards of iron railings would get stuck between stairs and ceilings, often you would see a couple of men on ladders each side a bedroom sash window, trying to push something through. Two men trying to take a settee into a house, they took off the front door, then one at each end carried into the house, still a tight fit, but then they had no room to turn it into the front room (always front room or back room, never heard of a lounge), so they lifted it on to its end and gouged a chunk out of the ceiling, still wouldn't fit, so they brought it back out again, they then took out the front sash windows, with a lot of huffing and puffing they finally got it in, an all day job just to deliver one settee. And of course tradesmen used horses, on occasions the horse would move on leaving the man chasing on bandy legs. Coalmen often tripped up, or found the door to the coal shed was too small so half the coal went inside and half outside, and little old ladies would come out and bully them. They had to take off the front door when we had a piano delivered, but then years later the council widened the road, took most of our front garden, built a wall, with five foot iron railings two feet from our front door, no way of getting furniture in or out.

The way I saw it. The years that are gone are not lost to us, these yesterdays are not dead, they live again in the posts this forum receives. Our fathers and grandfathers lived through the fateful years of poverty and depression in the 1920's. But with the advance of the thirties, progress bounded ahead, even if we forget all else, the startling advance of motor-car, aircraft, radio, the gramophone and talking pictures, a wonder period for Coventry. Our ancestors now enjoyed a weekly wage that took them from the poverty age, they had pride in what they produced, a wonder period in Coventry's history. In Foleshill alone, the Morris factory expanded, new streets like Sewall Highway, with bathrooms and toilets indoors, a new swimming pool in Foleshill Road. A new bridge and road, houses built in Aldermans Green Road, conditions in the factories brightened. The misery of unemployment almost vanished. In the centre of the city a new Hippodrome, a new Trinity Street and part of Broadgate, and Owen Owen. The entire fabric of our lives had been changed with all this. No wonder that the courage and spirit of Coventry lived on during those fateful war years.

When my wife was a schoolgirl, her brother (1 year older) had a mate, pal, friend, who often visited their house. Some years later, the day we got married, our families met, my wife and her family were surprised to see the friend had turned up as well, well why not, you see that friend was my youngest brother. My girlfriend (later my wife) begged me to meet her family, Well, people thought of me gambler, waster, drop-out, idler, and a host of other names, so as I stood on her doorstep I thought this guy is going to throw me out and kick my backside all the way down the street. As I was ushered into their living room her father took one glance at me, rose from his chair, a big grin on his face. "I know your face, young Kaga". WeIl everyone else was dumb with surprise. "Hello Ernie" I said as we shook hands. Ernie's family and mine had lived in the next street to each other for the first fifteen years of my life, as a boy I had watched Ernie play football for the 'Miners Arms', patted him on the back and carried his football boots.

Kaga. Ever since you posted your wedding photograph I have had a feeling that I know you from somewhere. I was born 1930 and lived in Hall Green Rd during my younger years. Did you know Si Russell or Percy Bonham? Both my age and lived in Aldermans Green Rd just before the Lecky works. In Grange Rd there was Maurice Morris (true!). Went to Foxford, Lived in one of those cottages just before the canal bridge. Just round the corner, last cottage before the Greyhound, Ma Beals. Visited her couple of times a week for coal, think she had some sort of deal with the boat people. She died 1943ish so that was an end to that racket. Worked down Frankie's, left there, joined army, first posting Kenya. From there to the Marines where I spent the next 25 years. Does any of that fit in with your life? Will look for some photographs.

LesMac. No can't recall any of those names. Next to the Green Man there was two cottages Windmill side, lived Frank and Oswald Nasseau went to school with me, down Henley Road on the right was Walter Wilmot. Almost every day during 40/41 I travelled along Hall Green Road with pony and trap, visited Taylors Farm a lot. Now there was a small farm near the top of Bell Green hill, on the left, I seem to recall in the early thirties they had a football pitch behind the farm? Can't remember the team. I remember the barbers was almost next to the chip shop. Used to be fascinated by the guy running the pole round the tram, then climbing in the other end of the tram to drive into town. Worked on the farm up near the basin for three years, then at seventeen and a half, joined the Army, one month OCTU then the Para's for three years. When I was a kid I was a loner, used to run up Lentons Lane, Woodway Lane, Henley Road, Hall Green Road, back to Tusses Bridge, that background fitted in with Para's. Guess I took after my old man and his paper chases.

Yes Kaga and next door to the Nasseaus was the Pinnegar family. I also knew the Taylors in particular Peter who had webbed fingers, bit like a duck. At school no one took the mick out of him, today the kids would make his life a misery. Farm at top of the hill belonged to Frank Kay who seemed to dislike kids on his land unlike Tom Taylor who would turn a blind eye as long as no damage was done. Do you remember Taylors hay meadow that lay between the farm drive and Aldermans Green Rd? Even as a child I thought that meadow was a delight as in spring and summer it was full of wild flowers and butterflies. Autumn I would go along those hedgerows collecting blackberries and rose hips for jelly, elderberries and sloes for wine. I also cannot remember the name of that football team, the ground was where Bell Green Club now stands. The barber was Dave Young and the chip shop was called The Seagull and still uses that name today. No need to go hungry during the war as chip shops were always open. I think there was a chip shop near to where you lived, wasn't there one just to the Lecky side of the drive up to the basin. That basin is now occupied by pleasure boats, wonder if any of those boaters pause to ponder on the rich heritage of that area.

LesMac, yes Hilda's chip shop, opposite the Miners Arms pub, but here we run into several topics about the basin - the basin had a rich heritage of the coal mining. Wearethemods, close to the basin was a large house with a large cellar - when the pits closed the cellar was used for stolen goods but the gang was caught. During the thirties the cellar lay idle, but during the forties the Home Guard used it for various activities. I think the house more or less fell down over time, wouldn't be surprised if the cellar is still there. Somewhere in Coventry there was a road with a bank running along one side, for about three hundred yards - the Home Guard dug into it, put a oil drum full of explosives in there, refilled the soil and turfs, within two days it looked a normal bank. There was enough explosives to disarm a tank, a lorry load of soldiers - 'poof', no more. In 1944 the authorities had it blown up, classified it as a unexploded bomb - that was the story I heard.

Hello Kaga. Wasn't there several houses at the Basin? Were those few houses miners cottages? There is no sign now that the houses ever existed. There was once a pit shaft there covered by a dome of bricks. Some of those bricks were missing, by dropping a stone down there we could judge the depth of the shaft. Not very deep compared with other local pits.

LesMac. Yes there was a total of five houses, plus the train halt (deeply historical), a huge thriving industry before and at the turn of the 20th century, not actual miners but the 'gaffers' lived in those houses. Train would stop and unload the coal, it was weighed and graded, then shovelled onto a conveyor belt and onto the narrow boats. Much larger than Keresley at that time. Yes there's a number of old mine shafts, one had two Stonehenge granite blocks over the entrance, one has my name engraved on it. There was at one time five ponds and two brickyards within half a mile radius. Can you imagine, drinking in The Bird in Hand till around one in the morning, staggering to that pathway that led over the rickety bridge of the slough and up to the marrow boats in the basin. That's what some of my 'kin' used to do. Within half a mile of the basin in 1940 they had a gun site, for a few weeks it was a Lewis gun, then upgraded to a 'bofors'.

Do you remember the old fashioned grates with the big ovens either side, we had one in both front and back rooms. Mum would put two inches of jam in one of those white pudding dishes, cake mix and greaseproof paper when it came out the oven tip it upside down on a plate, the hot jam running down the sides, spoons were flashing in from all sides under mum's arms, you just couldn't resist. Rabbit and veg stew with thick brown gravy, chunk of bread and the gravy running down your chin. Toasting bread in front of the fire with the old toasting forks on a cold winters night. Dad would dampen down some coal slack at night place it at the back of the fire, in the morning one poke with the poker in the morning and a blazing fire, mum would place all our clothes on the guard, when we came down in the morning lovely warm clothes to put on. Upstairs we had enormous wooden sets of draws. Autumn time out would come the woollen blankets and eider downs, leave the draws open for a few days to air and in would go the newspaper and apples and pears, every week one of us would go through the drawers removing the fruit that needed eating or throwing away. As bread and flour was not rationed during the war this continued for us. We were poor but never hungry.

Around the time of the late 1920's the suburbs of Coventry were mostly farms and fields and heaths, in spring and summer fields clothed in beautiful wild flowers, hedges abundant with wild fruit and berries, birds of colour and song, the sky filled with song from many skylarks, the slough teeming with fish fed by two clean streams. The houses rang from laughter, crying, squabbles. Street life was the same, the village like one big family, ten-twenty kids playing football in the street ages from five to 16, we grew up as a friendly community. and the city for shopping, entertainment and pride. This was the world I was born in. But mid-thirties the streams began to get polluted from industrial waste, the fish and birds began to die and the world was talking of war. And my life turned upside down. Gone was the laughter. 1939, elder brothers and sisters, friends, were called away to war, and the houses died, the laughter and life were missing, so was the local football team, the team of our friends that we had grown up with, every one of them enlisted. Parents with a couple of teenage boys now had anxious faces, the smiles gone and everywhere was talk of 'Destruction'. The beautiful flowers were ploughed under, the birds fled from the gun-fire, lorries full of soldiers, tanks, guns across the fields, where people once picnicked. Teachers taught gas mask drill, first-aid etc, real lessons curtailed at a very early age. Bombing - relatives and friends died, the city I knew and loved, destroyed, hate took the place of laughter, my education was now learning how to kill and destroy, for more years than I had at a normal education. Buildings can be replaced, but memory remains the same forever.