THE DAY THAT THE EARTH MOVED

We’d almost reached King Henry’s soccer pitch when it happened. The air heated up and the ground shook. Woah! What the hell was going on? Was it an earthquake? My mum and dad laughed as we involuntarily ‘danced’ on the grass. I looked skywards to see the Vulcan bomber’s engines pointing directly at us. It had gone into a steep vertical climb and although we were obviously a safe distance away on the ground the thrust of its Olympus engines was enough to give me my most memorable moment of that or any other Air Day.

Picture courtesy of Rob Orland.

The Coventry Air Show - or Air Day as it was commonly known - has now sadly passed into the history books. It was one of the highlights of the year when I was a child growing up in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. I’ve already touched on how lucky I was to live on Stonehouse Estate during my younger days in the ‘Wasteground’ blog. Another benefit was the proximity to Coventry Airport. Every summer we had Air Day to look forward to. For a kid who was very much into military things it was the bee’s knees. To tide us over until the big day, some of Britain’s earliest jet aircraft - The Meteor and Vampire - would often take off from Baginton on Sundays and fly over the surrounding area.

My brush with a Vulcan bomber may be my most memorable moment but there were many highlights. I think I preferred the roar of a jet engine when I was a kid so the Red Arrows always scored highly with their precision aerobatics and red, white and blue smoke trails.

Who can ever forget when Concorde paid a visit? From our vantage point on the playing fields off Sebastian Close we could see the traffic on the A45 come to a standstill as drivers and passengers got out of their vehicles to watch this beautiful aircraft fly over them.

And the Harrier jump jet? What a marvel of British engineering! Vertical take off, flying backwards and having a jig in the sky? Amazing!!!

The Starfighter belonging to the Royal Canadian Air Force was another favourite of mine. It would fly in a day or two before the show. On hearing the racket caused by its engine I’d rush to the field to watch it land. A parachute was deployed to help slow it down once it touched the tarmac at Baginton. It was always a relief to see the parachute as I used to worry about the plane coming off the end of the runway and blowing up!

Another ‘magic moment’ was the appearance of the A-10 Thunderbolt. This odd looking aircraft with its huge externally mounted engines was designed specifically to take out tanks with its nose mounted Gatling gun and missiles.

Picture courtesy of Rob Orland.

Sadly, since the days of the air show, British soldiers have been on the receiving end of so-called “Friendly Fire” from this fearsome beast which is also known as “The Tankbuster” and “Warthog”. Fusilier Lee Thompson from Coventry, aged just 19, was one of nine soldiers killed during the first Gulf War when Maverick missiles fired by two A-10’s hit their Warrior vehicles. It should never have happened and when I think back to the A-10 flying over Coventry I now always also think of Lee Thompson and the other soldiers whose lives were cut short unnecessarily.

The Lightning was another great one to watch. I loved its shape and ‘stacked’ twin engine arrangement. I think the fact that it flew at Mach 2 way back in 1958 had something to do with it also!

Jets may have been my favourite but they were always run close by the Battle of Britain Memorial flight comprising of a Lancaster bomber, Spitfire and Hurricane. The ‘Lanc’ is my favourite bomber from WWII. As a child I always imagined being in the tail gun turret and fending off Messerschmitt’s as we bombed Germany. Like the Spitfire, The Lancaster is powered by the distinctive Rolls Royce Merlin engines. When you hear the sound of a Merlin you never forget it and in the days leading up to the show that noise in the sky could only mean the Lanc, the Spit or both would come into view at any moment.

Seeing “Sally B” - the famous B-17 Flying Fortress - was also memorable. It still is my favourite American bomber of all time.

I only remember actually going inside the airport once on Air Day. My overriding memory is of military memorabilia stalls selling stuff from World War II - Nazi pendants and medals come to mind. Another time we walked up to the airport perimeter fence on Rowley Road to watch. It was from this vantage point that we saw a P-38 Lightning (American twin propeller aircraft from WWII not to be confused with the British jet aircraft mentioned earlier) almost collide with a windsock! There was a sharp intake of breath from everyone who witnessed it.

During my time of watching the air show I think it was organised by the Royal Air Forces Association. They pulled the plug sometime in the 1980’s and moved it to RAF Cosford which they considered to be a better location and more suitable for jet aircraft which often couldn’t land at Baginton.

There have been “Air Shows” at the airport since then but nothing has really come close to what I remember from my childhood. Most have been largely propeller based and tragically there have been fatal crashes.

All is not lost though. The excellent Midland Air Museum on Rowley Road has a great collection of aircraft - including many of my favourites from Air Day! It also tells the story of Coventry’s many links to the aviation industry inside its “Sir Frank Whittle Jet Heritage Centre”. Maybe with the demise of Thomsonfly flights from Baginton we’ll get another Air Day soon? Here’s hoping!

Useful links:

http://www.midlandairmuseum.co.uk/

http://www.awa.uk.com/home

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Whittle

Thanks to Rob for allowing me to use his pics from the 1988 show.

The Waste Ground

Stonehouse Estate was a great place to grow up. I spent the first 13 years of my life there and enjoyed the vast majority of that time. Unlike today, children played outside and were pretty much left to their own devices. Video game consoles were primitive, home computers virtually non-existent and television limited to three or four channels. There was no hysteria about the paedophile threat and drugs were not rife. In fact, the only harm one was likely to suffer was self-inflicted or at the hands of other kids.

The estate had greens to play ball games on and plenty of entries leading to garages that were ideal for hide and seek, but the real beauty for kids was the surrounding area. The River Sowe with its stepping stones and pipes to shimmy over, numerous playing fields, the woods at Whitley, air raid shelters, pill-box and the remains of Whitley Farm inside the grounds of Talbot and Bunny Rabbit Hill with its wild horses to name but a few.

One area that was a regular haunt lay at the back of Sedgemoor Road. I knew it simply as ‘The Waste Ground.’ It was also bordered by Baginton Fields School, Stonebridge Highway (A45) and the King Henry VIII and Whitley Abbey school playing fields. It had the remains of roads, brick built man holes and buried kerb stones. Moss covered clumps of bricks and concrete encased pipes lay around as did an industrial sized water or oil tank that was known simply as “The Old Boiler.” Up to five kids could sit atop this graffiti covered relic and rock it from side to side to see who could survive the longest without falling off. A lone telegraph pole stood nearby but nothing of substance remained to give any indication of what once stood on this land. I recall asking my parents what used to be there but they didn’t know.

It was a great place to play. Bikes could be ridden round the roads and it was ideal for games like hide and seek and “Soldiers”. When kids grew out of these games the isolation made it an ideal spot to light fires and chuck aerosol cans and paint pots on them. The results were certainly more exciting than any experiments conducted at school in Chemistry lessons that’s for sure! The waste ground was also home to the estate’s bonfire on November 5th. Without fail, the bonfire would always be set alight before the big night and have to be re-built from scratch on the day or the day before. “Willenhall Kids” would always get the blame for torching it. The other thing I remember about the waste ground was that it was a great place to find nudey mags! Clearly Stonehouse Estate had its fair share of tossers!

In 1982 the waste ground was invaded by Travellers. Fear gripped the estate and extra padlocks were purchased for all garages and sheds. Kids were told the waste ground was out of bounds until the Travellers had moved on. ‘Travellers’ is a nice way of describing people who usually illegally camp on other people's land, don’t pay taxes and don’t clear up after themselves. In this crazy Politically Correct world that we now live in I have to respect these people and their way of life. That's all well and good but I’m sure if I decided not to pay my taxes, illegally camp on land not belonging to me and desecrate it I’d be banged up pronto. Anyway, I digress, back to 1982 ...

With the Travellers showing no inclination to ‘move on’ the older teenagers on the estate decided to take matters into their own hands. Word was passed around for everyone to meet at Baginton Fields School playing field for a game of ‘football’. I went along with a friend called Elfy and sure enough a game of football was in progress. All the estate hard-cases were in attendance. They were waiting on some friends from nearby Willenhall to turn up. We went to play on the climbing frame by the school playground. Shortly after the school caretaker and his dog walked past. He was armed with a crossbow! Not surprising really as there were numerous gaps in the hedge that separated Baggy Fields from the waste ground where the Travellers were camped.

Eventually the reinforcements from Willenhall arrived and the football match came to a halt. Catapults and baseball bats were revealed and the Stonehouse Action Force marched off towards a gap in the hedge that led to the waste ground. My brother, four years older than us, told Elfy and I to clear off in no uncertain terms. We let the soldiers pass through the hedge and tagged on at the end. Once through the hedge however we bottled it and decided to make our way back onto Sedgemoor Road and the ‘safety’ of the estate. Slipping through a broken fence we emerged by some garages. The entry led to the road. As we reached the end of the row of garages and turned the corner we were confronted by the sight of two Travellers wielding baseball bats, one of whom was a dead ringer for the wrestling legend Giant Haystacks. Fortunately they were looking elsewhere and we quickly retreated without being seen. But what now? Back to the waste ground where battle was raging? It would be an understatement to say we were absolutely terrified. One of the garages was open so we took refuge in it. Surely it was only a matter of seconds before Giant Haystacks and his chum would find us and beat the living daylights out of us?

With bodies shaking like leaves and our bowels threatening to dislodge their contents we awaited our certain doom. It truly was one of those moments when time seems to go in slow motion. After what seemed like an eternity we heard women’s voices and decided to emerge from our hiding place. We were greeted by two policemen who asked us who we were and what were we doing? Before we could answer, two women in their back gardens said, “They’re children from the estate, we know them, it’s nothing to do with them!” With that the old bill let us pass and we were safe.

I caught up with my brother a bit later and got a full account of the ‘Battle of the Waste Ground’. After a number of windows in the Traveller’s caravans had been smashed the Stonehouse mob were confronted by several Traveller men emerging from caravans with shot guns. This was the cue for a rapid retreat and it was everyone for themselves as they ran for their lives! It put mine & Elfy’s garage episode into sharp perspective ... Shot guns! Christ almighty!

The next day the Travellers ‘moved on’. It proved to be a hollow victory. The ‘Waste Ground’ was now truly wasted. The Travellers had destroyed every young tree in the vicinity. Rubbish was strewn everywhere including copious amounts of human excrement. Truly disgusting! The manholes were filled with rubbish and all in all the place felt soiled. Literally.

Not long after the council dumped tons of shale or chippings on the tracks of the waste ground to prevent another Traveller incursion. My family moved away from Stonehouse in 1983. Some years later the waste ground became the “Baginton Fields Nature Trail.”

A few years ago I first came across the excellent Willenhall Virtual Museum website. I was searching to see if any of my Dad’s relatives got a mention as they were amongst the first to live on the Willenhall estate when it was built and, according to him, played some part in establishing the social club. While looking at the site I came across some fascinating articles about “Baginton Fields Hostel” and was delighted to discover that this was in fact what had once occupied the “Waste Ground”. The mystery - to me at least - of the roads, manholes, clumps of concrete and bricks and the buried kerb stones was explained at last.

The hostel complex was constructed during the Second World War and in 1945 was home to hundreds of Dutch children who were ‘evacuated’ from the Netherlands for health reasons. Later it was home to displaced people from Britain and around the globe. The Virtual Museum website tells the story in great detail with accounts and photographs from people who lived there. The home page is here:

http://www.virtualmuseum.co.uk/index.htm


Today there is nothing on the site to commemorate its past. It is still a nature reserve but Coventry Council has permission to allow houses to be constructed on part of the site. Local residents are quite understandably opposed to this. It is unlikely that houses will be constructed in the current economic climate but once this is over no doubt the houses will be built as residents opinions, nature and history cannot be allowed to stand in the way of a fast buck.

http://www.savethomaswalk.co.uk/index.html