Individual results

Interviewee: Gordon Bates
Logged by Maurice Rattigan

Track 1
Born 2 Jan 1933, in Ball Hill District of Coventry. Numerous relations in locality, was well looked after. We moved to a house in Three Spires Avenue, and remember being in my pram. I was about 2 years old and can remember Basset Green, a local benefactor, lived in big house opposite and he would give me sweets. I remember the back garden. We could see the Three Spires and Courtaulds chimney. Started at Barker Butts School when I was 5 years old, and I cried.

Track 2
Didn't like school at first. Was there two or three years. Mum came at playtime and gave me chocolate through fence. No brothers or sisters. Dad was a landscape gardener on Coventry Corporation and worked on flower beds at Memorial Park. Later he was groundsman at Three Spires Bowling Club. Mum helped with teas for bowlers.

Track 3
Can't remember hearing war had started. Moved to house in Kingston Road. Anderson shelters/ holes being dug in gardens. At school we had shelters in basement. Sat on forms there and learned our tables down there. Those sitting near door got to say easy tables. Evacuated from

Track 4
Centaur Road School and taken on charabanc to Studley at the end of 1939. I was with a friend, Peter Milligan, and we were last two to be billeted. People didn't want to take two kids but we had vowed to keep together. We eventually got fixed up in a remote cottage, close to a farm and a bit Spartan, and left to our own devices regarding washing and cleaning our teeth. Xmas party at Studley Castle. Had good times in the Spring. We were not used to wide open spaces and animals like rabbits and foxes. A good experience.

Track 5
Was wrench to leave home and parents, but got comfort with my friend being with me. Parents couldn't travel to see us but we got letters. Nothing happening in war so we were brought back in the summer of 1940 and back to Centaur Road School. Remember "bombers moons" and peeping out of shelter and seeing aircraft overhead. German bombers engines sounded different.

Track 6
About Apr 1941, in the afternoon, saw German plane, very low being chased by Hurricane and, rumour later had it, shot down sixty miles away. Frightening experience. Remember aircraft recognition books. But spent raids in shelter.

Track 7
Hearsall Common was near the Standard factory and that was a main target for German planes. On 14 Nov hardly had time to take cover. Spent the night under stairs. I probably slept through it. No electric, water or gas and went to Albany Road British Restaurant for meal and passed many houses that were demolished.
We were lucky our house only had

Track 8
a few cracked windows. Hobby was collecting shrapnel. In Apr 1941, in Kingston Road, I was in the shelter and a bomb dropped three doors away from our house and there was a great flash and rubble all around our shelter. Came out at morning to see that house a pile of rubble.

Track 9
Can detect re-built houses. Remember Precinct being built. Left John Gulson school to be a electrician. Walked to city centre in lunch time break from BTH and saw a lot of the reconstruction. Levelling Stone. Remember old Broadgate and Woolworth's.

Track 10
Broken biscuits from shop in City Arcade. Saw Precinct taking shape. I t was exciting time. Pedestrian areas. Free from cars and buses. As a small boy I wanted to be an engine driver. Had fair education

Track 11
at John Gulson school which was a good all round school. Was good at art and drawing. Left at 15 years and 6 months of age and went to Youth Employment Bureau and they recommended electrical engineering and went to interview at BTH in Hood Street and was shown around factory.

Track 12
Began apprenticeship at 16 years old, in 1949 and spent first six months in drawing office. Every part had to be drawn. BTH (British Thomson Houston) was a world wide company. Made horse power motors and cinema projectors and magnetos and aircraft electrical components. Learned manufacturing processes.

Track 13
Aircraft drawing office was my aim but was told I was going onto the turbo starter section for jet engines. Mr. Mumford was feared section leader, and I dreaded working under him, but it was best thing for me. Everything had to precise and perfect

Track 14
More time then to do things. Computers have taken over now. Things then went together correctly. Left Kingston Road in 1942 and went to live in Burbage with relations. Came back to live in Harris Road, in Stoke area, in 1943, and went to Stoke Council school until 11 years old, then went to John Gulson School. Mum died with cancer in 1945 and I then lived with an aunt and uncle in Colchester Street, in Hillfields.

Track 15
My uncle was stable foreman for the Co-Operative with stables in Swan Lane and Bishop Street. About eighty horses, for milk, bread and coal rounds and he'd go to work at 4am to harness the horses then he'd come home for his breakfast. At 7pm, in the evening, he'd check his horses were OK. Dad was living with another aunt nearby but he died in 1950. Then he was working in a small factory. He'd been a very heavy smoker.

Track 16
I stayed with my relations until I finished my apprenticeship and then went into the Forces at 21 years old. In the REME, as National Serviceman in November 1954. Almost like being evacuated again. Being uprooted. Went to Bamford in Dorset for square bashing. My civilian qualifications stood me in good stead as an instructor in electrical engineering near Reading where I could get home easily at weekends.

Track 17
I enjoyed it there. In Nov 1955 I was posted to Cyprus. Nicosia under canvas. On Radar. Wonderful climate and enjoyed it there. Beautiful scenery travelling about. Never any trouble while I was there

Track 18
First time abroad. Left in Nov 1956, but in Oct there was a crisis in Egypt and a possibility of having demob stopped. Was worried. But went to Aldershot for demob as reservists were being sent out. Started back at BTH immediately.

Track 19
Got General Service Medal. Had good times in Cyprus. On Wednesday evenings, local WVS ladies came and I was invited out for tea by one

Track 20
and later found she was the Deputy Governors wife. A beautiful house. The Deputy Governor would take us back with armed outriders. Back at BTH as design draftsman.

Track 21
Met my intended wife who worked there as a tracer and got married in 1960. £5 a week and then when finished apprenticeship I got £9-16-6d. Different from a £1 a week in the army. When demobbed the wages were £12 a week. When we got married we pooled our salary. Went dancing at weekends to GEC ballroom and tried to get in the club upstairs.

Track 22
But had to make do with a cake and a glass of orange from the canteen. Rialto Casino had a little bar. Then the Matrix. All had live bands. Would walk girls home, especially if they lived locally. If you could borrow dad's car it gave you great pulling power with the girls. Followed Coventry Speedway, the Brandon Bees, on Saturday nights. Special buses to Brandon.

Track 23
Went to speedway in best clothes so could go dancing afterwards. Got interested in Badminton. Factory teams. Leagues. Factories then had sports facilities for their workers. Reasonably good at Badminton and played for BTH and then Rootes.

Track 24
Had better courts there. Each factory team could play with two guest players from different factory. High standard in Coventry.

Track 25
Played four or five times a week. Played from 15 years old until I was about 60 years. Worked at BTH until 1967 until parent firm collapsed.

Track 26 -

Track 27
Was section leader and that advanced my experience of controlling people. Went to Brico, at Holbrooks, after they advertised, and got job at £1000 a year in a new factory on electronic petrol injection system.

Track 28
Aston Martin, Ferarri, Jaguar were using system (explains system at length).

Track 29
Developed over four years. Aston Martin were only making six cars a week. I was learning a new set of parameters. Brico had a tie up with Rolls Royce, and RR were going bankrupt in 1971 and the group was doing badly and

Track 30
can remember going into work one Monday and was told we were redundant from Friday. Lucas from Birmingham were taking over the system and offered me a job although it meant travelling to Birmingham daily. I was design draftsman again. It was completely new and with more money.

Track 31
Lucas was a family affair with many relations working there and had a family atmosphere. Electronics with cars. I was in charge of five draughtsmen. Good people. Designing printed circuits. Semiconductors early days.

Track 32
Transistors. Testing for vibrations (describes description of designs).

Track 33
Exciting time. Self tested on cars.

Track 34
Working for local firms. Worked with Lucas for fifteen years. Designing instrument panel for Jaguar. Lucas bought out Smiths Industries, and they had a centre at Whitney, near Oxford, and Lucas moved some of it's work there and I worked there, didn't move home

Track 35
but travelled one hundred miles a day for eighteen months, and still worked at B'ham occasionally. Jaguar chief engineer offered me a job at Jaguar, had interview and they made an offer too good to refuse and I worked there from 1985 until 1995, when I retired a couple of years early. Had a very happy time there with very good atmosphere.

Track 36
Fords take-over brought a breath of fresh air through the place. Quality had suffered though volume production. People then became responsible for their own quality.

Track 37
Suppliers quality also got better. I was in charge of section on switch design.

Track 38
Co-operated with German firm. Quality was foremost with Fords.

Track 39
Jaguar were in front of BMW and Mercedes on quality. Team work.

Track 40
Previous there could be parts missing and they relied on the dealers to check them. The word on quality soon spreads. When I was 63 years old the opportunity came for me to leave with a package deal so I retired. I wouldn't have seen the new products through.

Track 41
The wife's still working. It came at the right time for me. Always been happy at Coventry and have many friends here so I would be reluctant to leave the area and make new friends. We live in a nice area with friends nearby. Eight couples socialise together. Rainbow Pub, at Allesley village on Thursday evenings for our meetings. We collect for nights out together.

Track 42
Every thirty weeks someone arranges a surprise night out on a mini bus. I have time now to do and enjoy these things now. Our little followed the same pattern regarding Youth Employment Office and probably the same dance halls.


Coventry Lives Oral History Project, date of birth: 02/01/1933