Individual results

Interviewee: Ernie Veal

Track 1
16/4/1908 Born Willenhall, Walsall. By canal - in aged 4 years, dragged out. Horse drawn barges. Man acted as horse sometimes. Industrial cargo. Father in factory - his dad owned it. Came to Coventry in 1916. Much Park Street - disused pub let out as apartments. Now Toy Museum.

Track 2
"My dad was a boozer!". Came to Coventry aged 6 or 7 years. Moved to Smith Street. St.Michael's School, London Road. Brummie.

Track 3
Five brothers - oldest conscripted (WW1). Saw soldiers training on barracks square - stables. Soldiers at Drill Hall.

Track 4
"Town destitute" after WW1. Dad had to pawn suit. Only boot fund if you had relatives. Big guns - Smith Street - back of his wall - "Big Bertha". Smiths works. School - S.Michael's…

Track 5
…40 in class. All children "ordinary working class people". "Teacher was the gaffer" (cane). Infant - "hard up…get some money" (when he left). Food - brown peas, "bread and lard with salt on it".

Track 6
"Hard up". Clothes handed down "with the behind out!". Played marbles in the gutter, etc. Policeman - ran when he came and they were playing football. Red Lane School (aged 10 years). Made a ball out of anything. Armistice Day - "glad war was over".

Track 7
Queued up for milk twice - told to "bugger off". Zeppelin dropped bomb on Whitley Common. Later worked at Lea Francis. Zeppelin's "were murder". Left school aged 14 years. Exam aged 11 - no money for that. First job on coal cart - looked after horse.

Track 8
Turning then Lea Francis. 1926 strike - allowed to work on. There until it went bankrupt. Lea Francis - innovations. Racing cars - won Le Mans - he couldn't go.

Track 9
He had to hold a nut in place! Racing track along the river Sherbourne - he drove round. Played cricket and bowls for works. Moved to Smith Street - "two up and two down…a little bit of a garden - we were posh then!". Only one light - gas - no candles. Gas stove.

Track 10
Men didn't do housework - "in the pub!". In football team followed by drinking. Lea Francis - racing made them go bankrupt. Le Mans around 1930. Now aged 22 years. Motor Panels - toolmaking for Jaguar, etc. There 3 or 4 years. Other jobs…

Track 11
…then Chinn's. Rolls-Royce - polishing for 15 years until he retired. Social life - football team at local pub. Some lads could sing.

Track 12
Mother used to take him to the Opera House - one man died during 'The Merry Widow'. Hippodrome - "we could only afford the gods". Saw Charles Shadwell. Met girls walking over Stoke Common.

Track 13
"Bunny run was Foleshill Road". Met wife at pub. Football club - Red Lane - he was the only one working.

Track 14
Peace procession in 1919 - "In Broadgate you couldn't move…everyone had flags". "At one time always a Lady Godiva in processions"…"she looked as if she was wearing nothing". "Only a few works had lorries" (for procession). Smith Street on Sunday mornings - Salvation Army knocked doors.

Track 15
Rugby team at school. Wedding day - reception in Nuneaton (where wife came from). Expected WW2 - had radio.

Track 16
Grayswood Avenue - watched house being built. Coventry changed during the war - not many troublemakers then. First car in 1932 - no locks (Austin 7) - "no windscreen wiper".

Track 17
4 wheel brakes. Brakes - "if you pulled up you were lucky!". Suits. Lea Francis - "shilling an hour".

Track 18
Sold car - been to Skegness in it (courting). House bombed during war - roof down. Money box - nigger boy.

Track 19
Indian "ghetto". Married living in Nuneaton for 50 years (until 1989). Remembers Butchers Row - Fishy Moore's - one man "drank all the vinegar bottles!". Ironmonger Row used to be "dilapidated".

Track 20
Precinct after the war "marvellous idea". New cathedral "rubbish…didn't like it at all…not a church". Daughter - "proud dad"…"pleased as punch".

Track 21
Nurses went down shelter. In Nuneaton through war - bomb dropped by door. Worked at Cornercroft - toolmaking until he went to Rolls-Royce. Viper engine - blades. Jet engine - Lea Francis & BTH.

Track 22
Rolls-Royce - "just another engine". Retired - "glad, that was it - finished". Worrying job - fine measurements. Mistakes didn't come out of his wages later. Trade unions - brassworkers in the polishing shop - "didn't tub thump". Vote outside gates.

Track 23
Market Square - barracks square - Wickmans - Rover works (bikes) - Barras Square "the centre of politics" - a man called Smith "a good speaker". Retirement - gardening

Track 24
Coventry now - "concrete and glass" (doesn't like it). Parents buried in Coventry - he will be cremated. Change Coventry - "like to see a good supermarket" (in the centre).

Track 25
People in Coventry have changed - more money. Wife too frightened to go abroad.

Time: 72:54
Coventry Lives Oral History Project, date of birth: 1908