Who Do You Think I Am?

I do not know how old my grandfather was when he left home.
In the part of Leicestershire where he was born and lived, most of the males worked in the mine - a job for life and death.
After leaving school at 14, Walter didn't want to go underground, but strruggled to find alternative work locally.
He departed for the industrial West Midlands, met my grandmother and the rest, as they say, is history...

On family visits to my Grandparent's house, the conversation between my Mum and her parents was littered with references to relatives I had never met - Aunt Fanny, Aunt Nell, Aunt Teapot Lid (Lydia) and Cousin Barbara. These were the closer blood relatives on my Grandmothers side. In the shadows lurked husbands and children, but I never really worked out who was married to whom or remembered what their names were.

My grandfather had another army of relatives - solid working class non-conformists residing in the East Midlands. I knew little about his side of the family - other than he was one of four and had a brother (Fred - who lived in Derby and drove trains) and two sisters - one called Violet and the other's name I have long forgotten. I am hoping it was Primrose...

My mum often talked about her family visits to Coalville. Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, when all the talk was of evacuation, she spent some months living in there with her Grandmother and younger brother. However they didn't settle and despite the dangers of living in Birmingham they soon returned to spend the remainder of the war in the city.

I had never been to Coalville, so on a January day we set off to discover what was there.

Entering the town we passed the wheels of the colliery at Snibston, and the site of the Discovery Centre - now sadly demolished.

To park the car we drove down some narrow streets of small terraced houses. I remember thinking - I wonder if my granddad walked down this road, and then realised that if he had done so it would have been about a 100 years ago!






At the centre of Coalville is a large tower, part of the war memorial - a tall art deco styled building that dominates the skyline.










In the main street many shops are boarded up. Much of the town' retail business is carried out in the adjacent Belvoir Centre Shopping Precinct, which houses the usual low end stores found in any small working-class town - Wilkinsons, Home Bargains, Poundland, and Argos, to name a few.

As High Street shopping declines, units are either left empty or filled by charity shops.  Some local retail business have survived and hopefully thrived.







We noted this interesting window display, but did not venture inside...

Behind the disused colliery at Snibston on the edge of the town, we observed parkland, but did not have time to explore it on this occasion.








Coalville is a typical post-industrial working class town.
It has survived the decline of the mining industry, which gave the town its name,
employment to generations
and drove my Granddad away to Birmingham, which became a smoke-free zone....
I would like to think that this was in his honour,
but I suspect it was more to do with the welfare of the many residents of the city.
I do remember that my grandparents were limited in that fuel they could burn on the open fire in their home and thinking that the coke they burned was a poor relation to the shiny black coal we used in our fireplace.

As we were leaving the area we encountered an M&S Food on the edge of Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
"Do you want to pop in and see if they have any soup?" enquired by fellow traveller.
We did and I was able to  purchase nine tins to stock up my cupboard.
Maybe the trail hasn't gone cold after all!