Individual results

Interviewee: Stan Bacon

Track 1
Introduction (house, born, parents). Dance on Mum's polished table. Moved to new house. Could see Three Spires and wireless mast Daventry. Father engineer - engine tester. Sold to rich people - hospitality at Dad's house.

Track 2
Baginton aircraft (Dad). Class system - families in different classes. No immigrants. Grandfather foreman for Dunlop. One sister 4 years younger - now Stratford local artist (president). Aged 5 or 6 years old moved to Browett Lane.

Track 3
Infant/Junior School (Barker's Butts). Holes in face now from gravel then. Senior school - "discipline very hard…teachers ruthless". One teacher had a drainpipe full of canes.

Track 4
Other kids not all local. Miners, Scottish (Binley), Welsh (Keresley). Gypsy boy - encampment (Barker's Butt Lane) - went on walks with him to Allesley. St.Georges Church Choir. Boy looked for birds nest - and ate eggs, etc. Violin lessons.

Track 5
Musician "all my life". Violin teacher and choirmaster (teacher). Musical family - Mother soprano (died aged 82 years old). Didn't pass any exams. Accident night before art exam - protected epileptic friend and hurt thumb.

Track 6
Froze during exams. Very shy when young. Stutterers got the cane to 'cure' them (or left-handed). Teacher composed songs, etc - ENSA. 14 years old when left school.

Track 7
School report. Work - office boy. After a year put out of work. Discipline at work. Armstrong-Siddeley - machine shop…

Track 8
Taught himself to become independent of setter. Wage packet 6d short. Got job at Standard (43 years). RAF - mine. Standard 1937/38.

Track 9
Capstan (Standard). Setter eventually. Reserved occupation until end of war. Home guard (sergeant). Dance band. Not much entertainment. Football teams closed down. Sculpture. Street fire watching teams.

Track 10
Home guard. ARP - blackouts. Rations. Barber. Home guard - "imminent invasion" - gun to protect his family. Standard - aircraft parts.

Track 11
Fortnightly nights then days. British restaurant, factory, canteens. Rations. Allotments - "Dig for victory". Home guard - holiday volunteered for army training - Aintree - huts built for soldiers (1914-1918). Rifle and bayonet.

Track 12
Grenades - lob 150 yards. Thompson sub-machine gun, etc - did courses. Trained his men. Coventry home guard - target practice, bayonet training. Fire watching duty. Sounds of aircraft.

Track 13
Factory production. Family moved to Canley. His house damaged - fleet of buses to take workers home. Father's walk time of all clear (bombing in Birmingham). Sister and Mother in air-raid shelter in Cannon Hill Road - first bombs in Coventry. House.

Track 14
Munitions - produce. Slept under stairs. Father home late. Airplane went over low - damaged near Birmingham - hit balloon cable - crashed Ansty - dropped bombs - bomb hit road opposite - houses went down. Father taken away on stretcher.

Track 15
Rex cinema 'Gone With The Wind'. Swanswell, Hillfields - bombs. Emergency services not ready. Father in hospital - RAF guarding enemy prisoners in hospital. Sticker bombs - Wallace Road. Brick shelter damaged - family also called Bacon (all killed).

Track 16
Hill Farm School bombed. Father blind for two years - ruined him - was big strong 40 year old. Moved to Charter Avenue - tin tanks full of black oil - filthy black smoke (smokescreen). Anti-aircraft gun. Panoramic view of Blitz.

Track 17
Firebombs (incendary). Home, Nov 14. Walking Spon Street - tramline curled up. Alvis - tramlines, girders wrapped around factory. Father-in-law Wyley Road. Brother-in-law - boy scout duty. Land mine - St.Nicholas Church.

Track 18
Parkside - Armstrong-Siddeley blown to pieces - "20ft high stack of rubble everywhere". His factory OK - Fletch/corner of Tile Hill Lane. Matrix factory - siren - jumped over wall - paint shop bombed. Carburettor shop - radial engines.

Track 19
Reserved - but "every young man volunteered for forces". Voted Labour and they sent him down the mine! Fire in mine - filled with sand to starve fire of oxygen.

Track 20
Mine - man on floor being violently sick - "bury his tools" (to go back and get them safe from others). Another man - helped him. Stan fell down - had to be rescued - given peppermint juice - dizzy riding home. Compassionate posting - wife called up. Headache.

Track 21
Doctor - sent him back to work unfit (directive). Insects in mine hatched in bark - flies on sandwiches. No toilets - no fresh air. Men sweating - flies over everything. Hornets.

Track 22
Nasty stings. Released on medical grounds. Poor sick pay. Signed on dole - end of 1946. Porter Award - days pay for having a day off. RAF because of dole - two years in RAF.

Track 23
Married aged 21 years of age. Women called up - "You didn't know if you were going to live to see next week". Married April 4th - Home Guard guard of honour, St.George's Church. Four years Home Guard, one year mine and two years RAF. "Utterly disliked working down the mine".

Track 24
Windroad - tubs "donkey work". Stomach complaint. Debt. RAF 1946-47 - Flight mechanic engines (FME) - Airspeed Oxford (training plane)…

Track 25
Medal with Home Guard (Town Crier regalia - medals). Demobbed 1948. Lichfield - Wellington bombers - set fire to aircraft. Dropped RAF stuff down mine shafts.

Track 26
Big bands - Eddie Harvey (arranger for BBC - trombone in his band). Father figure to kids - "matron" (aged 22ish). Friend in Hereford - played rugby for Coventry. Into art, music, etc (not sport). Standard, Banner Lane…

Track 27
Cutter grinder for tractor engines. 'Joiner' of societies (Coventry archery champion in 1956/57). Rations - sales. Worked nights. Dad - allowed…

Track 28
Him to join a cycling club. Coventry Camping Club. Parents not well off. Bike.

Track 29
Blow out - inner tube. Butts Stadium - cycle track. Town crier - American band at the Butts. Mother active. Dad cracked some jokes.

Track 30
Family friendly - "followed their style". Lost first child after 4 days. Married 1942. Daughter "very precious".

Track 31
Two girls. Five great-grandchildren. Works social club - learnt to dance. Played harmonica aged 7/8.

Track 32
Town crier in Germany (Kiel). Open Kiel week. Burgermeister came here. Break of seventy years before him as freelance Town Crier. John Mutton (Lord Mayor).

Track 33
Martin Weston - Coventry/Kiel beer festival. Honorary Town Crier.

Track 34
Stand - canal basin (over 50's) - "no-one came" - got all my stuff. Dismayed that he isn't recognised more. World Championship Town Criers - Canada.

Track 35
No money from council. Never been asked to do civic duties. Lifeline - promoting Coventry in his "declining years" (last twelve years). Burgled.

Track 36
Promote Coventry - born here. Town crier - news items. Taught himself calligraphy & heraldry. John Mutton (ex-mayor) supplied him with civic gifts. Given others illuminated scrolls.

Track 37
Advertised Motor Museum. Heraldry. Future - technical, business parks. Technology. He's sad that aircraft industry didn't carry on.

Track 38
Talent now. TV proclamation to save Swift building. "Great lot of apathy in this town on a lower level". Staying here. Retired seventeen years (Massey-Ferguson). House has four bedrooms.

Track 39
Conscientious housewife. Valuation of house - angered neighbours. Parents buried in Coventry.

Track 40
Not religious. Grandparents buried in London Road. No belief in after-life. Always likes to think he's done good in life.

Track 41
Regrets the fact that Town Crier hasn't had an impact on city. Hopes someone will take over. Kept memorabilia to promote Coventry. Shy wife.

(122.40 minutes).
Coventry Oral History project, date of birth: 1921
Note - Stan passed away in 2003.