Coventry Archives

Photograph no.7 m.e.:-

Question:-  Dead easipeasi Blog. Why is the above appropriate for what is below?

Dear Blog,

                I thought that you would like to know that I can see clearly now, the rain had gone last Friday morning and there were no obstacles in the way as I had an appointment at the opticians, BOOTS in Coventry City Centre. I caught the local bus into town, the dark clouds had gone and it turned out to be a bright, bright, sunshiny day. I got my spectackles and as I was in town I popped into the City Archives to check on a bit of a problem I am having with a club photograph from 1914. The scene depicted in the photograph was of a group of runners lounging about on the grass in front of a marquee on a bright, bright sunshiny day in April. No dark clouds to spoil the view, I suspected the photograph was taken at the Demon Cycling Club Sports but I wanted to confirm that fact.....

In the Archives I checked with the 'Graphic', usually a good source to check for photographs from that era ... Nothing. No pickies, no report. No mention of the sports.

 I checked with the 'Coventry Times',  ... Nothing. No pickies, no report. No mention of the sports

I checked with the 'Herald',... Nothing. No pickies, no report. No mention of the sports

I checked with the 'Midland Daily Telegraphic',... Nothing. No pickies, no report. No mention of the sports.

I have moaned to you before Blog, Have I not???? Many times ... many many times!! Well I may have mentioned it before but I am going to mention it again. Now there is a surprise for you (Yawn).

One of the legacies of the Millennium, thanks to funds for the National Lottery, each town and city archive around the country was given very many copies of theirown local paper(s). Not all newspaper titles mind you, just a couple. I assume no locals were canvassed as to which newspaper was preferred for copying????? Here in Coventry, The Times, The Graphic and the Herald, and later the Midland Daily Telegraph. One of the first, if not the very first local sports paper to be published never made the Newspaper Archive blokes at the National Archive Copying Centre. Cries of 'Shame' off stage right??

But what was copied would be GREAT for local historians you might think, Blog. GREAT for a record of the city you might think, Blog. GREAT for a reference resource you might think, Blog?

Well Bloggsie Boy you would be wrong on three counts as far as my interests are concerned. 

Count number uno:- The Newspaper Archive blokes at the National Archive Copying Centre couldn't be arsed to check what the quality of the copying was .... resulting in the newspaper column next to the fold on each page being unreadable because the page was not flattened before it was copied and it appears on fiche distorted. So that was a good investment, wasn't it!!!?

Count number duoes:- The Newspaper Archive blokes at the National Archive Copying centre couldn't be arsed to check what the quality of the copying was ....resulting in very, very many pages being so faded that they are totally unreadable. So that was a good investment, wasn't it!!!!!??

Count number tresses:- The Newspaper Archive blokes at the National Archive Copying centre couldn't be arsed to check what they were copying. All around the country, on a Saturday night, the local papers printed a sport edition, usually in a different colour. These were known affectionately by the punters as 'the green'un', or the 'pink'un' or the 'blue'un', depending on the local chosen shade of paper. The editors quite naturally understood that the sports readership would pick up their special edition to follow their sport / team / general sporty interest. Understandable. Come the Monday edition, the editors again quite logically understood that the sports readership had picked up their special edition on Saturday to follow their sport / team / general sporty interest. So the editor would see no point in repeating ALL the sports content of the Saturday special edition, 'the green'un', or the 'pink'un', or the 'blue'un' depending on the local chosen shade of paper. So far so good ... all nice and logical and what any sane reader would expect. BUT :- here we are dealing with the Newspaper Archive blokes at the National Archive Copying centre who couldn't be arsed to check the logic of what they were copying .... "why copy a special sports edition" ... Why indeed?????? Admittedly some copies did sneak through, but as Paul would have said 'Not a lot'!!

So sports minded researchers of local sports results like me have buggerall to refer to. Yes, results do appear in some specialist sports magazines but not in that much depth, it has to be said. Understandable. So that was a good investment by the Millennium grandees, wasn't it!!!!!??

Luckily we now have the National Newpaper Archives putting local newspapers on line. Fantasticmossa. No more trailing into the city using my old age pensioner's bus pass!! You would think that was a brilliantty idea, wouldn't you Blog??

Well Bloggsie Boy you would be wrong on three counts.

Count number uno:- The Newspaper Archive blokes at the National Archive Copying Centre couldn't be arsed to check what the quality of the copying was .... resulting in the newspaper column next to the fold on each page being unreadable because the page was not flattened before it was copied and it appears on line distorted. So that was a good investment, wasn't it!!!?

Count number duoes:- The Newspaper Archive blokes at the National Archive Copying centre couldn't be arsed to check what the quality of the copying was ....resulting in very, very many pages being so faded that they are totally unreadable. So that was a good investment, wasn't it!!!!!??

Count number tresses:- The Newspaper Archive blokes at the National Archive Copying centre couldn't be arsed to check what they were copying. All around the country, on a Saturday night, the local papers printed a sport edition, usually in a different colour. These were known affectionately by the punters as 'the green'un', or the 'pink'un' or the 'blue'un', depending on the local chosen shade of paper. The editors quite naturally understood that the sports readership would pick up their special edition to follow their sport / team / general sporty interest. Understandable. Come the Monday edition, the editors again quite logically understood that the sports readership had picked up their special edition on Saturday to follow their sport / team / general sporty interest. So the editor would see no point in repeating ALL the sports content of the Saturday special edition, 'the green'un', or the 'pink'un' or the ;blue'un', depending on the local chosen shade of paper. So far so good ... all nice and logical and what any sane reader would expect. BUT :- here we are dealing with the Newspaper Archive blokes at the National Archive Copying centre who couldn't be arsed to check the logic of what they were copying .... "why copy a special sports edition" ... Why indeed?????? Admittedly some copies did sneak through, but as Paul would have said 'Not a lot'!!

So sports minded researchers of local sports results like me have buggerall to refer to. Yes, results do appear in some specialist sports magazines but not in that much depth, it has to be said. Understandable. So that was a good investment, wasn't it!!!!!?? ACTUALLY IT WAS AS I ONLY USE THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER ON LINE ARCHIVE WHEN I HAVE A SPECIAL MONTH'S OFFER OF A QUID. Otherwise it is back on the local bus into the city using my old age pensioner's bus pass to use the computers at the local Coventry Archives.

BUT ... BUT .... BUT...   Blog, I have a big problem ..... I sit there for hours trying to decide whether to use the local micro fiche reels on the micro fiche machine facilities to do research, or do I use their computer to use the National Newspaper files to do my research ..... I am buggered if I do and I am buggered if I do, because of three counts ..... I have a feeling of déjà vu coming on Blog ......

............... the bad feelings have appeared, and the dark clouds have covered the blue skies and it is starting to rain .....

                         Colin

Coventry Road Death revisited

 Photograph no. 6 m.e.:-

Question:-  This is an important photograph in the History of Coventry Godiva Harriers, but do you know why, Blog??? Needless to say I know all the names of the Godiva runners in the photograph, but what is the event which is about to take place?? Where was the photograph taken and when??? What is a Polytechnic Harriers doing on the photo??

               And now, THE $64,000 question for which I may just give a substantial prize ... what is the name of the dog???? I know, but do you Blog????

Dear Blog, 

                  I told you last time about the upset of the badger being killed ... well I don't know if it is the young bucks vying with each other for the top job of Boss of the Sett or whether it is the start of the mating season or whether it is a bit (lot??) of both but the badgers ain't half kicking up a racket in the early hours each morning. I need all the beauty sleep I can get if I am to look at my best for next weekend and the noise of all the bickering is not helping.

                 Part of the 'spec' for the top job must be to demonstrate to the rest of the Sett settlement who can plough up the most grass on my estate. The little (big??) sods have found another way into my extensive grasslands and have started competitive digging. I assume it must be an open competition from the extent of the damage. If this continues, I will be able to plant all my vegetables directly into the freshly dug ground next spring and forget all about rough digging and preparing my usual patches for cultivation?? Also I have yet to find where the little (big??) sods are getting in!!

                Gardening Question:- If it takes a male badger, a female badger and a baby badger three  and a half hours to dig 12.62 square metres of my grassland, how many hours will it take two male badges to dig the same area of my grassland?

                 Answer:- No time at all because the first three bastards have already done it!!

               Must stop now Blog, it is time for my pills.

                                               Colin    

The University of Warwick Traffic

Photograph no. 4 m.e.:-

Question:-  What has the bloke in front to do with my trip in ten days???

Dear Blog, 

                 Last Sunday was the last Race Walk of the Midland Winter Walk League. As usual I marshalled at the turn roundabout where walkers pass after about 600 metres, 800 metres and 850 metres when we use the I kilometre lap. All 3 races were very competitive, the first, a 5 kilometre race was extremely close with the young lad who took the race out in the very early stages just, only just, managing to hold on.

                The Godiva Harriers club used the Warwick University Business Park roads to stage the event. I think that a maximum of a dozen cars use the road during the 3 to 4 hours the races take to complete. Drivers are good humoured about any small delay ...  most being office workers / cleaners with the occasional motorist scouting out the area for an interview in the coming days.

                 Warwick University as an increasing traffic problem. The public roads are totally inadequate to cope with the twice daily commute. The University tinkers with the problem instead of grasping the nettle which is what will have to happen sooner rather than later. An example of the tinkering is the latest traffic development which entailed the construction of a single track. one way relief stretch of tarmac which left one of the bigger car parks leading onto a mainish road which the authorities have recently change the limit from 40m.p.m.h. to 30m.p.h. on a straight part of a road                 And the result of this innovative feat of traffic management you ask Blog??? Well I will tell you ...... not only do other car park use the new slip road as a rat run, but the two super market customers at Aldi and Tesco have cottoned onto the idea of a cut through ..... and so it was on Sunday for the Race Walk. I had to handle the largest amount of traffic ever in over 15 years of two / three events per year. BY FAR. The chance of the next Race taking place is a big fat ZERO unless some  preventative measures are introduced.

          AND THE SAD FACT IS THAT I WAS GOING TO TAKE PART. BLOG, I KID YOU NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

        This type of Walking Race is graded a 'B' standard meaning that the straight leg rule is not rigidly enforced, encouraging new participants and accommodating older walkers whose age mitigates against the fluid walking action.

·         While on the subject of road safety and speeding traffic, it was most sad to see on my morning walk today at about 4am, the dead body of a badger just outside my Mansion Gates in the Lane. The body was in the middle of the Lane by the main 'out crossing' from the badgers' large home at the bottom of my estate. I am pretty sure he was the Boss Man, the alpha male. I shall be interested to see which of the younger males in the Sett exerts his authority. For the last three weeks I have had to erect parallel wire fencing strips across the estate as the family had started their usual autumn mass destruction of my grasslands and lawns. They do more damage than pigs with their snouts as they forage for food. During the summer they managed to get onto my land, and in the course of a single night managed to destroy totally all my sweet corn of 50 sturdy plants. Despite this, I shall still deeply miss watching the old boy ferreting around during the early hours, especially in summer when I am not freezing my gooooollies off!!!

·         I did try to shift the corpse as it was a traffic hazard, but it was too heavy to struggle with. At 9am I phoned Coventry City Council to make them aware of the traffic hazard in the narrow country lane, used by mothers for their twice daily high speed tot drop off. I was assured that the council would remove the body with the hour!!!!! Oh yes Blog!!! If you believed that, you would believe that pigs would fly. Well I have to tell you Blog, before my cup of tea at 10 o'clock, I had seen a couple dozen flying pigs. Blog I kid you not. SO IT IS VERY WELL DONE COVENTRY CITY COUNCIL ......I you don't hear me say that very often Blog.

·                            Colin

·         PS Do you know what these here spots are at the side of my letter Blog???? I thought at first it was my ink form my fountain pen dripping but they appear dry enough. Perhaps it is the paper equivalent of wood worm???? I know we have a lot of silver fish in this old Mansion, perhaps they have mutated??? I wonder if they will be as tasty as the silver fish are on my toast at breakfast?? We shall see.

World Record Holder or Not - that is the question. Well one at least!

Photograph no. 3 m.e.:-

Question:-  What is the famous athlete in the middle doing at the Butts Stadium in Coventry? When was he doing it? Why was he in civvies and not in kit?

Dear Blog, 

               It sometimes is a funny old world. Last Saturday was the Midlands Women's Cross Country League at Coundon Hall Park, in Coventry. This is the Park around which I did an awful lot of my training years ago, when you were just a young lad Blog. In the winter, in the dark, I could still use it as there was never any other users which enabled me to train in spikes, on a soft surface on grass doing various forms of fast -slow, fartlek etc.. If I wanted to do hill work, there was a nice long hill, or if pure speed work was the session, I could use the lights from the main road to have a perfectly clear stretch of runable surface. IDEAL, Blog. For the last 45 years the park on the outskirts of Coventry has slowly been left to decay. Long gone are the toilets. The car parks were pot holed and almost undrivable. Even the Gypos had given up on using the park!!! So you get the picture?

Imagine my surprise therefore when I saw all the tree planting, a huge area of landscaping and fresh tarmac for parking with individual bays painted in on Saturday. I may be a cynic Blog, but why would the council go to all this trouble and expense after all these years to a huge swathe of park land, miles away in the greenbelt, from any housing in a park which is hardly ever used???? Even the sports pitches were abandoned some years back as the parkland is a mud bath for the six winter months of the year. Is it a coincidence I ask myself ...'Is it a coincidence Colin?' ... that the Coventry City Council want to build several thousand new house, a couple of schools and a shopping centre on designated greenbelt land, just across the road from the park???? Surely not????? No Council would employ such tactics to drive a coach and horses as well as cars, buses and lorries through protected status country side. Not in this day and age??? I can't believe that they would do that, not no how, never.

Back to the Midland Women's League ..... 430 runners, Blog I kid you not. All results out by first thing Sunday morning, Blog I kid you not. Clear maps with lots of information. Plenty of marshals around the course, no shit Sherlock, Blog. A decent, pleasant testing course; Blog I am still not kidding you! No car parking issues, Blog that is almost unbelievable. Plenty of refreshments, sup up Blog. So well done to all concerned .... and I don't think I have ever said that  before, Blog?  I moan and I groan and I criticise  and it is always everyone else's fault but mine, So praise from me is not a common occurrence - about as common as President Trump not bragging or blogging or twittering or face painting for a whole week.

Compare Saturday's Midland Womens' Cross Country League fixture to the Men's Birmingham Cross Country League held in the same Park. Many problems with parking; marshals ... what marshals - who needs marshals when you are enjoying yourself?? The same old boring course that has been used for centuries. The Course ... where the bloody hell is the course?? Who's pinched the course, it was here last year, Honestly it was. And which bastard has burned down the changing rooms, Blog I kid you not!! and... Results finally after a couple of days. A m I only kidding Blog for dramatic effect?!!

Well Blog if I wasn't kidding it would bugger up my chances of ever going down to the clubhouse again. So I must obviously be kidding?                      

Hello Birchfield => => hows yo fixed fer a new member?????????????????????

                                     Colin

String Vest

Photograph no. 2. m.e.:-

Question:- Why would an athlete wear a string vest in the Munich Olympic Marathon in preference to his national vest? How much did the string vest cost in M. & S. in the Coventry shopping precinct in 1972? How much did a packet of felt tips cost from Woollies in the Coventry shopping precinct in 1972? .......... why did the Munich crowd  watching the Olympic Marathon race around the streets of the city go wild shouting 'Vive La France, vive La France' when the string vest went passed them???

Dear Blog, 

                  Combining thoughts of the title above with the topic in my last missive to your good self ...... when I returned from  the Olympic Games in 1972, which incidentally cost me three weeks wages - Blog, I kid you not ..... it cost me seven weeks wages when I ran in the Commonwealth Games; thank you Warwickshire County Council, nowt likeus givin a smidgeon of encouragement??? - I gave my Olympic vest to the friend who's death I reported in my last missive to you. He kept it in pride of place in his glass display cabinet from 1972 until the time of his death in 2017, two days short of his 100th birthday. At his funeral his daughter offered me the vest back, but I told her I had given it to her Dad so it was now her's or her son's if either wanted it. A couple of days later I saw her again and she told me that the family had discussed the destination of my Olympic Vest and they had decided that her Dad would have preferred it to come back to me. I thought that was very sweet of them            and, wait for it Bloggsie,  I could easily still get into it .... In fact, it was the first time I had ever tried an Olympic vest on; Blog, I kid you not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

                                         Colin

It's Like Starting Over.................. again, again, again.


Photograph Quiz:-
                              Photo 1m.e.:-

Question:-

                What event would this be??? Where would this event have taken place???  When would this event have taken place?? Name the athletes in the picture ...................

Dear Blog,

                 As I have just celebrated another birthday I am bursting with enthusiasm once more. So I will break an old habit and give you a smidgeon of an answer. The little bloke in the centre with the long sleeved t-shirt under his Coventry Godiva Harriers vest was a long standing friend. He died a couple of months back, TWO DAYS short of his 100th birthday. Happy to say that he would have appreciated the irony of the Queen having already sent him a congratulatory card, which went up in flames at the same time as he did.

I have a stack of stories about him. I will confine myself to one at the moment. My wife and I had moved into our first house having spent a number of years living in a caravan .. NOT a mobile home, but a holiday caravan, 25' by 10' and freezing cold in winter!!!

He generously asked me if I would like his red and black currant bushes (8 of each) as they were well past their best but they would last a couple of years with luck and they would fill a space in my empty new garden. I accepted thankfully. He had had then for ten or twelve years or so.

And did they last me a couple of years. No way, Jose!!!!

When we moved into my dilapidated estate mansion, a decade later, the bushes moved with us!! And now twenty five years later, they are still weighted down with berries each year ... enough for pies and more pies, enough to fill my huge freezer, enough to make enough wine to last the year!!!

So much for his 'couple of years'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

................. and he told me my mini van wanted a decoke after it had done 60,000 miles ... now that is a really good story. Honestly. Worth waiting for.

And talking of wine .. this year's estate crop of grapes has been exceptional. I let you know what my wine teastlesss lik wen  navetessted sum.

                                                               Colin

P.S. Thanks for that wonderful card you didn't send. And what a present??? .... exactly. What, a present? Surely not?