Individual results

Interviewee: Doreen Jacobs

Track 1
Born Gilbert Street, Coventry. Family moved to Beake Avenue. Father worked for valve company and then Singer sewing machine - soldier from age of 16 years to 32 years. Oldest child. Parents not affluent.

Track 2
Played in Highfield Road. Hated sprouts and potatoes. Easter eggs (1939 or 1940). Remembers Blitz night - 'Glory hole'. Mattress under stairs - family.

Track 3
Heard bomb - hit house next door - their house was a shell. Father cried. Anderson shelter - incendiary bombs dropping - less dangerous street shelter. All clear - bomb crater in Nicholl Street. Civil defence / ARP.

Track 4
Aunt's house. Milk for baby. Grandparents house in Mowbray Street. Zinc baths - no water. Payne's Lane - big static water tank. Incendiary bombs.

Track 5
Paper round. Shelter - "terrified". Under the stairs a memory "not to forget". Coal dust on faces. Stayed with grandparents. Bomb craters.

Track 6
Grandfather "very Victorian". April Blitz - Anderson shelter - had to be dug out after a blast. Father firewatching. Aged 6 years. Bombed twice. Up at night wearing siren suits - "fleecy material - keep us warm". Candles. Neighbours shared shelter.

Track 7
Sweet ration. Apples when in season. Smarties had to be shared out. Butter rationed mixed with milk. Suet puddings. Clothes - dressmaker in Nicholl Street. Man a carpenter - made toy tanks. Christmas presents. Not evacuated (husband was).

Track 8
Street party - cakes. Ingredients hard to come by. All got dressed up. Social evenings - Frederick Bird School - "really great times". Shelters at school (Frederick Bird). Gas mask.

Track 9
Mother had a gas mask for a baby. Bomb damage money not enough. Second-hand piano - lessons. Scholarship to go to Stoke Park. Parents hones? about bomb damage. Father lucky to come home alive from WW1.

Track 10
Mother's family bright. Wanted to be a hairdresser or dressmaker. School - domestic science. Teachers - strict at Frederick Bird. Very shy.

Track 11
Bad memory - Maths teacher "Girls from the gutter" (describing girls who didn't have to pay). Left school aged 16 years - Triumph. Moved to Canley. Lloyd's Bank until after married. First pay packet - board and lingerie (stockings).

Track 12
Suit at second-hand shop for work. Fashions - ankle length coat, aged 14 years. Utility clothes. Triumph Engineering. Bank - machine room. Met husband at music lessons.

Track 13
Courting - pictures - Scala or Gaumont. Cinemas then - Palladium in Hillfields "grotty". Globe. Gaumont "very nice". Pictures only entertainment. GEC ballroom. Husband "a really good dancer".

Track 14
Wedding day "a bit sad" (father died not long before). TV - 'Toddler's Truce'. Did own catering. Aged 21 years. Honeymoon in Jersey. Earning more money.

Track 15
Father's death affected her (he was 56 years old) "a lovely man" (had malaria in India). Father buried in Coventry. Lived with mother-in-law - "traumatic!". Left bank - Morris Engines until had her son when aged 26 years.

Track 16
New council flat on Sewall Highway. Had son in 1961. Had daughter 1964. Had babies at home - heard horror stories about hospitals. Doctor thought she was brave having children at home.

Track 17
First house bought - still in (Wyken). "Great…brilliant…waited so long" (to have own house). Did their own decorating. "Softer" than her Mum. Daughter 34 years old now. She never had confidence. Son has a business. Part-time for 14 years.

Track 18
Morris Engines full-time before it closed. Men still there from before, but with "white hair!". Emptied strongroom on last day - work in skip.

Track 19
Husband worked at Morris Number 2 works - made redundant - upset him. Had a heart attack later - 1990. Triton company - Herald Way. Purchasing.

Track 20
Retirement - glad to escape pressures. Retired aged 60 years - then hospital! Change in Coventry - Precinct "building going on around us". Other people moaned about change - "I think things should move on". Cathedral "wonderful".

Track 21
Retired age 60 years. Always worked - hospital afterwards. Husband suffered with depression. Future of Coventry - "I think plans are brilliant". Positive about the future of Coventry.

Track 22
"I think the Hippodrome is a monstrosity". Birmingham "Quite nice". Doesn't see herself moving out of Coventry. Daughter lives in Solihull. Like to see the streets cleaner and less vandalism.

Track 23
"Nice area where I live". Coventry people "very reserved until you got to know them" (used to say). Coventry dialect / phrases - what job (worm turning at Herbert's). All family speak the same. Went to a posh school - Mum said "you needn't come speaking like that here"!

Track 24
Wants to be cremated and sprinkled on the rose garden. Doesn't fancy the worms getting her! Proverbs - glass houses / rolling stones. "You'll get a backhander (slap)" Mum said. She didn't stand for any misbehaving from her children.

Time: 71:58

Coventry Lives Oral History Project, date of birth: 1935