1961: Coventry – 21 Years After the Blitz | Target City | Voice of the People | BBC Documentary

21 years ago, Coventry became famous as the victim of an act of destruction. Today it is also famous as an experiment in post-war planning under democracy.

Robert Reid reports on the progress Coventry has made since the Coventry Blitz. He speaks to architects, planners, business owners, home owners, clergymen and residents of Coventry, old and new.

Clip taken from Target City: Coventry, originally broadcast on BBC Television, 14 November, 1961.

You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults.

Make sure you subscribe so that you never miss a single stop on our amazing journey through the BBC Archive – https://www.youtube.com/c/BBCArchive?sub_confirmation=1

You can also dive into plenty more BBC Archive on our website – https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive

[Music] November the 14th, 1940. [Music] [Music] Coventry 21 years later, but in this newborn city, the memories of that night are still vivid. While I was driving in Coventry on the night of the blitz, uh I was driving towards the center of the city when the sirens went and the town was immediately surrounded with incenduries. Fires started everywhere before the heavy stuff came in. I immediately instructed to do and uh I asked the passengers I said I can’t get you into town but if you like to stop on the bus I’ll get you out of it. So I turned off the route towards the country. folks were running along the road and I picked them up, had them sitting on the stairs and on the floor upstairs and I just drove them out to a country pub at Brandon and um we stopped there and when they called time the landlord I simply got all the loose seats out of the bus and put in the saloon they all slept on them all night all the passengers. In the morning the country police came and said, “You’re from Comry.” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well, you can’t take your bus back into town.” I said, “I’m not worried about the bus.” I said, “But I’m going into town because I was worried about how my own place had fared.” An emergency committee met in the ruins of the mayor’s parlor, lit by candles in beer bottles. King George took part. That night, he wrote, “I was horrified at the sight in the center of the town. The people in the city wondered where they were. Nothing could be recognized. But there was a twist of fate about the happenings of that night. Mr. Dennis Morris, who was regional head of the Ministry of Information at the time, tells the story. I was in this hall on November the 14th, 1940. My job was to open an unofficial and very forwardlooking replanning exhibition. It was sought out in 1938. And during the first winter of the war, the wives of some of the town officials had relieved the tedium of the blackout by making a model. A few hours after the opening, just as I was leaving the city, the siren started and the bombs started to fall. Hitler’s bombers by concentrating on the center of the city were about to make it possible for an imaginative scheme to rise from the ashes and the blood of the old Coventry. We have got that. This film made immediately after the war shows the rather utopian mood of that time. We must have vistas in Coventry. To use a very good example, it’s perfectly obvious that people will want houses looking at the cathedral. Hi. And every amenity, too. Arthur’s got the big deal. I’m an old woman. When it comes to domesticity, I want a radio and a All right. All right. There was only a minor point, mine. The old house can have a radio and an electric washing machine and a vacuum cleaner, too, if you like. It stands to reason that a council that’s building 20,000 houses, and that’s what we’re going to build, too, will find it easier to equip them with all these things than to have them added separately later. And the rent will include all the amenities, too. But what will the houses cost? About 20 million. Told you he took the big view. Well, where they come from? Not from us. It won’t. Sixums on the rates only brings in a million and a quarter. Have a heart, Arthur. That’s all right. This is a national responsibility, not only a local one. Coventry did not lack men of vision who were also practical planners with the force and the drive to do the job. Their leader was Alderman Hutchkinson. Apart from the immediate situation, Coventry could see uh an opportunity to reconstruct in accordance with ideas the planners and architects had had beforehand. And within 10 weeks, we were in London presenting to the minister a proposal for rebuilding the city on modern and visionary lines. Well, having a vision is one thing, but there were many practical difficulties. There was the problem of financial allocation, of licensing sanctions, and a limited uh building labor force in the city. With all these difficulties blocking the way, it looked as though the dream would never be realized despite all the enthusiasm. But suddenly a garden blossomed in the center of this wilderness. The people of Holland made a gift of trees and flowers to the city. It was as though this was the signal for the start. Around this imaginative gift, the new city was built. While Coventry was rebuilding itself physically, it was also trying to lay the foundations for something of even greater significance. After the war, quite a few of us realized that sooner or later we must get back into international friendships, more particularly with those for whom we were estranged during the war. Immediately after that is in 46, council Briggs, the reigning mayor, decided to open negotiations with Keel and a very happy and successful trip that was so much so that when I became the mayor of Comry in 1951, I decided to enlarge this international friendship scheme by contacting Yugoslavia. Our arrival in Belgrade was really exciting. realizing as we did the poverty through which they were suffering and obviously suffering that he he offered us£12,000 worth of timber as a free gift to the citizens of Comry to build anything we liked. We said club, pub, church, anything. Then the word theater was mentioned. He said, “Yes, that’s what we’d like to do, a theater.” But theaters and gardens, however pleasant, do not make a city. Coventry was still faced with a gigantic task of building a brand new city, a complete framework for living. Today, the task is far from finished. New developments constantly alter the shape of the task. For example, Coventry, which earns its living for the most part from the motor industry, now has more cars per head of the population than any other city in the country. The rooftop car parking system is already far in advance of the original plans. Anticipating still more cars, facilities for parking a further 1,300 are already under construction. [Music] The new plan is just about at the halfway stage. Let’s take stock. What do the people of Coventry think about the people’s city? Well, no scheme is ever perfect, but make no doubt about it. On the whole, they are proud of the place. Oh, I find it most exciting. I I was born in Coventry, and as a little girl, I I knew the old Coventry, but then when the Blitz came along, everything disappeared. And since then, it’s all been prefabrication, lot of rubble, and now the new shop’s opening every day, and it’s all rather exciting to walk around. I’m commentary born and I’ve seen all the changes that are to be seen. I mean that very building there for instance was once a a market and I’ve se like I said I’ve seen all the changes and I don’t think you can find a better city in the country and when it’s all completed and it will be a marvelous place. Marvelous. What do you think Phyllis? Oh I think it’s terrific here. I come from Dublin and about 3 months here now and I lived here before for about 2 years. I thought I’d never get back to it. I really liked it. I was born on the night of the great um raid, the night that the cathedral went down during the blitz and I’ve um lived here for quite some time. I think that they’ve made a very good job of rebuilding the city and I think it’ll be very good when it’s you know completed. I am an old Coventryan. I’m a freeman of the city. Uh I knew the old Coventry when it was just a quiet more or less a country little town. Uh the streets were narrow. In the old town, for instance, one never had places where one could sit and enjoy the lunch hour in peace. In the narrow streets, the trams were rolling by. If they wanted to sit down, they got to go and sit on a gravestone in the cathedral yard. But now, I think it’s going to be absolutely wonderful. And by and large, there was much the same sort of reaction in the new suburbs. Tile Hill, for example, with its 11story blocks of flats. I live right at the top of the 11story flats on the eighth floor. Um they’re very nice. I’ve got a little boy who plays on the landing outside, so there’s plenty of fresh air. Central heating is very handy. You’ve got no fireplaces to clean. Um very nice and modern, you know, and spacious really. I think they’re very nice. We like them very much. Beautiful. Nothing to compare with them in country. I don’t think we’ve lived in all types of um houses, flats, caravan, bungalows, and there’s nothing to compare with the 11story flats. We really love them. Again, many people like the village green type of development at Willen Hall. Where do you come from? Just outside Aiden. But And how do you like how do you like living down here in Willen Hall? Oh, I think it’s smashing. How long have you lived here? About 14 years. Where did you come from? I came from South Wales. And how do you like living here? Perfect. This is my first summer here. And uh we’ve got a lovely garden as well, which we didn’t have in the other place. And we’ve made it very nice now. And we’ll have all our meals out in it, I expect anyway. Especially my two eldest boys. They’ve got a tent and they’re going to be in the garden all the time. Don’t touch that. Tina, where do you come from? Well, I was born in Coventry, but I’ve been living in Belgium for four years. I married a Belgian girl and I came back here nearly two years ago to live on this estate. And how do you like it? Oh, I think it’s marvelous. It’s terrific. Well, I travel all over Commonry uh during my work. And without a doubt, it’s accepted. It’s the ideal estate in Commonry. How did your wife like it? Oh, she worships it. She adors the people here because in comparison with the the life in Belgium, uh it’s a much quieter life and she appreciates it. You know, I’m afraid on the other hand, I don’t so much. You know, I soon have the life in Belgium, but my wife and family’s happy. So, that’s the main thing. But the new Coventry doesn’t suit everybody. Well, of course, you’ve got to progress. I’ll admit that. Naturally, the mess it was in, they’ve got to do something, haven’t they? And of course, this is what’s happened. All square walls, no architecture, you know, just square walls, square windows, everything’s square. That’s the trouble, isn’t it? Criticism of that sort is to be expected. But what about this? Well, my opinion of it is that uh there’s too many big buildings going up in this city and uh the housing accommodation is in a deique and I think that they should they should provide more houses for people instead of them living in rooms and paying £310 and4 a week and some of them is living in in overcrowded places and I I think it’s very unfair on the working class. It’s perfectly true that Coventry still has its tumble down back streets. Not far from the city center, there are rows of houses with no indoor lavatories. Worse still, houses with no water supplies at all. [Music] But areas like this are scheduled for demolition and redevelopment. And in its planning, Coventry has learned how to sell its ideas to its people. Plans and sketches aren’t hidden away in an office in the council house. There are models which are displayed in the city architects department just by a bus stop. Everyone can see what they’re going to get for their money. and it does cost money. The rate payers have to foot the bill. What does this rateayer think about it? Well, I think it’s a a very fine concept. I don’t think anyone can quarrel with it. Um uh there are criticisms that the rateayers federation in Coventry have leveled at it. Um particularly they feel that too much uh money is going into the uh new coventry uh in the in the center of the city and not enough money is being spent upon the older suburbs uh which are suffering uh as regards street lighting uh paving um poor roads and uh drainage. I I feel that uh uh we haven’t been able to attract uh a very large number of good quality shops here which is unfortunate. I don’t think uh the the um corporation are to blame in this respect. I blame this rather on the uh shopkeepers. But I would point out that the both the corporation and the chamber of commerce have done their utmost to persuade betterass uh owners to come into Coventry and have failed. Um it must be realized that a big business concern who are likely to set up in Coventry have their own ways and means of judging a city and we feel that that is the complete answer. Uh we agree there’s a lot of money in Coventry but whether uh there would be money for a higherass uh business uh seems to be proved wrong. Otherwise these people would undoubtedly come here. I usually go to Birmingham to do my shopping. I usually find things better to fit me up there. Yeah. There’s no fittings here. The shops are a lot bigger. You know, more room. It’s hard to find places for shoes and clothing. all that. The shops uh are all right. You can find most of the things here that you want. I think very nice. It’s not always convenient for old people. There’s a lot of climbing in it. And for young mothers and children, it’s a bit inconvenience there. But mothers with young children present the planners with other problems. For example, the 11story blocks of flats. Where do the toddlers play? What about the safety factor? If you live on one of those upper floors with an open balcony, I live in the flats, the 11story flats, I like them very much, but I don’t think they’re very successful for the small children as I think they need a garden. I think the council could do um a bit more for the safety of the children at the top. Um it is quite easy for them to climb over the balcony on the outside. Um but you just have to keep your eye on them. That’s all you can do. is the answer to these problems. The village green type of estate at Willen Hall. It’s very good up here for the kiddies and everything. It’s safe and the kiddies play in the grass. Plenty of lawn for the kiddies to play in. Though I live in a flat, there’s still plenty of lawn for the kiddies. It’s an ideal place for young people. This is bring up your children. You look around and there’s plenty of area for small children to play like the culde-sacs and things like that, but there’s no actual playing fields near here only apart from crossing over a main road. I mean, when I was young and I lived in an industrial area, I had what three parks to play, you see. And um that’s what 20 years ago. And um they’re still there now. They haven’t been redeveloped. And I think that the council could have done more say for for teenagers in respect of playing. I mean, you get them playing, kicking the ball around here, but they can’t really let themselves go unless they cross the main road and that and they can’t have anything organized like we used to do. We used to have quite a few things organized in the parks near our home. Like, I like living out here, but not enough variety, youth centers and whatnot. Yeah, we need a youth club and everything. There’s nothing to do. You get bored at night and that. It’s nice up here, but you need a youth club and everything. Then we’ll be all right. I really think they could do with a a swimming pool. Keep the boys off the streets, which is there’s quite a lot of boys on the streets around here. There’s a shortage of all sporting facilities, but why particularly swimming baths? Well, Coventry has produced some of the best swimmers in the country, but local bathing facilities haven’t kept pace with the demand. This is a model for a big new bathing pool which has been designed to meet Olympic standards. No date has been set for its construction. Again, it’s a question of priorities. Apart from sports, however, there are other social activities for young people if they care to take advantage of them. Some of these are centered on the Belgrade Theater. There are lunchtime concerts. There are art shows. Young people are taught about acting and theatrical production. Now, this shield is molded, and to show the molding and the depth, we’re going to light it from Admittedly, these are minority interests. After nightfall, there is very little life about the streets of Coventry. [Music] For the majority of youngsters, there is almost nowhere to go except this one huge dance hall. [Music] Well, someday I guess I’ll find myself another little girl to take the place of my true. [Music] This, by the way, was just an ordinary week night with hundreds of couples dancing to the strains of pop records. [Music] For many older people, a night out follows the old conventional line, just dropping in at the working men’s club, where bingo is the latest attraction. Three and two, 32. Two, 20, five and six. [Applause] I live in pre-war house far cheaper than you can live in a council house. Yeah, but you crib about the council house tennis not paying. I do not care about paying rates. Why are the rates going up every year? Even this year alone, come council are paying three rates per year. Well, well, of course that’s something we’ve got to face up to, isn’t it? I mean, don’t let’s run away from this. The rates have got to go up, haven’t they? Yep. You see, we we’re in the trade union movement. We’re fighting ourselves for higher wages. Well, obviously the council employees for one thing will want higher wages. Well, we’ve got to pay for it as rate payers. That’s just one thing. So, therefore, in a vicious spiral. A couple of miles away in the lounge of the Belgrade Theater, another argument is going on. This time between young people. I suppose it’s a nice place to live, but they haven’t done really an awful lot for the youth. When you’re building a city, I suppose you haven’t got to be self-centered, but I think they have tended a little bit to be more for the older people of Comry after for the youth. After about 11:00, there isn’t a thing to do. Commentary is just deserted. I want to leave. I want to get to London. There’s nothing to keep me here. All this, you know, all these new buildings going, they’re so boring. Can’t stand them, you know. There’s no life at all really. There’s only the theater. I can’t well I mean I like coming to the theater but I you know can’t come here every night for enjoyment. I mean there’s dances but uh well there’s fights every night you know. Well I first came to Coventry in 1942. My father had come here previously with my brother because they were unemployed in Durham in the pits in Durham. And uh about 6 months after he been down here he sent for my mother and me. I came from Yorkshire, a little leads in Yorkshire in 1928. We came down here because it was a distressed area in those days. There was no work and we came down here for work and we my husband found work. We brought the one little boy with us. He was only 18 years old when we came here. We found work and we lived in the mun cottages. used to be in them days but went through all the blitz but since then we’ve prospered and we’re now buying our own house and our children are buying their houses. I came from a little place called Nandiglaw in Malmishia at 1928 because we were unemployed and came up here for work. Came to country and I found work and I’ve remained in comry and since I’ve been here there’s been a lot of changes. Well, there was one change. It was the blitz that changed everything for us which is a change was a change for the better. I like the new commentary. I like the buildings and especially the cathedral. And from the point of view of entertainment, I think we’re as well provided for here as in any other provincial town. It was a place that you could walk around at night and really enjoy. I’m very sad to say that the planners in Coventry, they appear to be carrying on what it started. Well, I like it, but I think that the new Coventry is not is not inhabited by Coventryans by birth. It’s full of immigrants like me and other people of different colors and sizes. The old Coventryans have moved out into the suburbs or into different parts of the country. I know an old lady who’s now living in Devon who was born in Coventry and she said that when she came back she was quite disgusted. She wanted to get a gun and shoot down the GDiver on the clock. I think that comry has done a marvelous job of work in everything what they’ve tried to do since the war. And what about it as a place for young people? I think they’ve got every opportunity if they’ll work to for good jobs, opportunity for all the children here, the younger generation. There’s good work in order to wait for them. And I should say that they have a very good future of the children of Coventry. And that future must start in the schools. From a planning and an architectural point of view, a great deal of imaginative work has gone into the building of Coventry’s new schools. What is sometimes the subject of controversy is the educational policy? Is this policy of concentrating on comprehensive schools effective? Here’s what a headmaster says. Well, I’m all in favor of a 100% comprehensive policy because I believe that it’s the only method yet suggested which would provide the educational and social pattern which is really fitting for a 20th century. For a variety of reasons, uh one can’t say that Coventry is really comprehensive. It’s largely due to history, the 11 plus, all sorts of things. It isn’t possible for instance to say that in Coventry there is at the moment a single comprehensive school. In other words, we are more comprehensive at the bottom than at the top. Well, of course, the critics of comprehensive schools would like to have it said and would like to believe that the there has been a leveling down. Well, in my mind, there is no doubt whatever that there’s been a great leveling up throughout. Uh from the point of view of results, GCE results if one must talk about them, we can say here quite confidently that our results can compare with any in the city. And from the point of view of general behavior, general usefulness, growing upness, our experience over seven years here has been that it has been of enormous benefit to every youngster in the school. Apart from formal education, the teachers of Coventry have taken on another task to create in youngsters who come from many different backgrounds a feeling of unity. The head mistress of a comprehensive school for girls explains how she and her staff put this into practice. We are very fortunately surrounded here by beautiful woodland and grounds and the girls have seen young trees planted. They realize that they have to come to maturity and approach the beauty of those already there. They have their own natural ponds in which they do work in connection with their science. And I do find that after uh a few weeks, uh the girls do have a real sense of preserving what is here. An awareness of their own surroundings is naturally linked with uh a sense of one another. uh we do make attempts in our English work in this school to correspond proper correspondence between individuals of shall we say the highest ability group with the lowest ability group just as uh formal as a letter through the go. At the same time, always at Christmas, uh, children in the various houses make up uh, food parcels which they themselves take to the homes of old people recommended by the parish priests. It’s probably true to say that people outside Coventry have heard more about the new cathedral than anything else. [Music] To some people it will be just a showpiece, to others a monument, but to many people in Carpentry itself it will be a place of worship and something vital in the life of the community. The cathedral does not remain aloof from practical problems. Members of the staff work with the city authorities on the welfare of young people. It seems to me that there are young men getting lost. I think that’s the word. They’re stumbling through no fault of their own sometimes, certainly not entirely because we haven’t been able to provide what’s necessary. We all know there’s a tremendous shortage of good lodgings. And it seems to me that while this period has beaced, if I can be quite specific, we need a small hostel. In fact, the word hostel doesn’t describe the the quality of the setup which we need with an experienced warden um perhaps just 10 beds where young men can be welcomed at short notice if they got nowhere to sleep tonight. This is the problem. Well, that would that would that would be a grand it’s a grand idea and I think it would be a real start towards dealing with this very serious problem. A temporary chapel has already been opened and midday services draw congregations of several hundreds each Tuesday. After the service, a snack lunch is provided in a builder’s hut. Over the lunch, the cathedral’s industrial chaplain talks with an employer and a trade union leader. But one wonders if it’s just going to be a building or whether it’s going to become the center of something real. Yes, of course, Simon. It’s which side of industry that you’re going to get into this chapel. It’s important because the men I represent on the shop floor, you know, still have a big antagonism towards the church. And I don’t think it’s only one-sided. You know, there are some employers who have a bit of suspicion about uh church and industry. Yes. But you both um belong to firms which do like a great many other firms in this city allow us to come into your factories. It’s important that uh the members of the church should know what industry is like nowadays and secondly uh it’s very important I think to adapt the message so people can uh understand it more easily. Well yours your firm’s the same. Do you think by our coming into your firm we serve or beginning to serve any useful purpose? Well, I must uh register some caution here, Simon, because you see it’s in its infancy in the building up of trust. I think Christianity’s got a lot to say about this which is vital in industry and also I think the church can in a way that other institutions perhaps can’t get people from various levels together so that they can take off the the hat which says I’m a shop steward or the hat which says I’m a boss and meet as human beings. Well, actually, I think it’s an architectural monstrosity. But after all, what’s one man’s art is another man’s poison. What worries me about the whole thing, of course, is there’s a lack of sense of priority. It’s symptomatic of our age. What we need in this city first and foremost is a hospital, especially with the number of young married mothers having children now in overcrowded conditions and the fact we’ve got so many dispersed parts of the hospital we’ve got here. No, I think we need a hospital first, don’t you? Well, no, I I don’t agree with the priority statement. Uh I do agree that we need new hospitals in the city but it does not seem to me to follow that uh if the cathedral had not been built when it was that we would now have had a modern hospital. This conversation is taking place in the new college of technology. The principal of the college is talking to the chairman of the governor’s area. uh we have had a degree of cooperation from industry and a degree of interest from professional bodies and and various other societies and so on which is quite unusual. This is equally true of the local authority. I think they’ve done remarkably well because people who have governed this city are people who have had experience rather than formal education. And I think they’ve done remarkably well and I’m rather worried what the effect is going to be when we have a new university. Well, it may change the character at all because the people we’ve had here are the kind of people who think and do. Whereas in the university, we tend to produce people who can only think and say. Think and do that could well express the practical link which exists between technical education and industry. Coventry’s future depends on its industry. On more than one occasion during the past 12 months, work people have known what it feels like to be unemployed. Rightly or wrongly, they judge political and industrial developments by one simple standard. Will it set us back? Taking work out the city. Well, that’s something that’s causing us grave concern. Of course, isn’t it factory is worried about this? where every union manufactured workers. You see, we’re also not only worried about that side of it, about work going out of the city. We’re also worried about the common market. Now, I’ve said before and I’ve always said it, we’ve fought for the conditions we’ve got here and we’ve got good conditions and I don’t want to see them lost. And I feel that if we enter the common market, these people will come into the into this country and work and we may lose what we’ve already got. I think I’ve got some grave doubts about entering this common market. But I think we’ve got another problem, you know, about what we do if we don’t go in the common market. Whatever the doubts, whatever the fears, the task of creating the new Coventry still goes on. The planners have still a big job to do. The success they will have depends on all kinds of considerations. The well-being of the city, its prosperity in terms of steady employment and so on because the shopping community will suffer unless there is work and wages and contentment all around. Coventry believes it’s building and building for many years ahead and is terribly anxious about the world situation in which war could destroy all that the planners are patiently doing. We realize that um uh peace has an essential condition for the continuity of this and other cities and you my lord mayor are now making a gesture toward international understanding, peace and goodwill which we admire tremendously. As Alderman Archinson knows of course that we are in in carpentry pioneers of the twinning of towns in at local government level in Europe. Because of this we have had considerable experience in the past of meeting the mayors and members of the councils of these local authorities discussing problems at local government level interchange of school children and so on. So we felt that at a time of international crisis that experience could be put to another use and we’ve called the mayors of these towns together in a conference to discuss the international situation and to demonstrate at any rate that we can at this stage even a critical period like this meet together and in spite of our ideologies differences of of ideas can meet together and discuss the problems of peace and uh this object In view, we have convened this conference and the result of it is that we have here a document of nine paragraphs which has been unanimously agreed and signed by the signatur signatures of the mayors that have attended this conference. Among the signatories were the mayors from the heroic city of Stalenrad. parks in Australia named after a Coventry and wish Coventry good progress in the future. The Czech town of Lichi whose people were massacred by the Nazis. The mayor of Sienne in France Warsaw first victim of the war. the Italian partisan town of Aosta. In a world and in cities still scarred by war, the efforts of men in their search for peace are conditioned by memories of the past. These are the barriers to international understanding. But a younger generation is coming along. All I can hear of is people’s stories of the war. I mean why we are expected to live and be brought up to scratch I I often worries me. I think we should forget that sort of thing. I don’t like it at all. We should know about it but we should learn from our mistakes. I mean we mustn’t live in the past all the time. I hadn’t know people who were killed in the war. The only thing that I know about the war is more from the German side from my German friend who until she was five knew nothing but the inside of a bunker in Berlin. [Music] [Music]