Girls Just Wanna have Fun (In Coventry!)

Midway between our birthdays, on Wednesday I met up with Nikki in her home city of Coventry. From Walsall, it involves two trains, firstly to Birmingham New Street (22 minutes) and then on to Coventry (20 minutes), not far at all. It was icy cold but gloriously sunny - my favourite Winter weather to dress for - thermal undies, a massive sheepskin hat and sunglasses! I wore this green velvet dress the last time I visited Coventry, a similarly bitterly cold but bright day.

@vixbrearley #over50womeng #vintagestyle #over50women ♬ Gangsters - 2015 Remaster - The Specials

After a catch-up over a pot of tea in a hip indie cafe - peppermint for Nikki, rhubarb and custard for me (which also happens to be my favourite boiled sweet!) we headed across town to The Herbert....Coventry's art gallery and museum.

We paid our respects to Steve's (Nikki's boyfriend) grandad's George Medal and Defence Medal, awarded for his bravery during the Coventry Blitz on the night of 4th November, 1940 (story HERE)

We said hello to Dippy the Dinosaur, the life-size, 25 metre long plaster-of-paris replica of a Diplodocus carnegii skeleton, the first Diplodocus to go on display anywhere in the world when it was gifted to the Natural History Museum by Andrew Carnegie on 12 May 1905.

And Coventry's, Lady Godiva, the Ango-Saxon noblewoman who rode naked on horseback through the streets of Coventry, to protest against her husband, Lord Leofric's heavy taxes and immortalised by Coventry ceramicist, Ronald Brookman Morgan (1924 - 2007).  

SOURCE

Our reason for visiting the Herbert was for the exhibition, Stories That Made Us - Roots, Resilience, Representation - tracing the experiences of a South Asian family in Coventry from 1968 to 2010, drawing on Coventry Archives' Virk Collection and curator & artist, Hardish Virk's personal archive. Through sound, film, photographs, books, magazines, posters, vinyl records, cassettes and immersive design, the exhibition explores migration, activism and cultural identity across generations. 

 

Like much of the West Midlands, Coventry is home to a vibrant South Asian community, with 18.5% of the city’s population identifying as Asian or Asian British (2021 Census). Despite this, the stories and contributions of South Asian communities are often underrepresented in public collections and exhibitions. This project aims to address this gap by preserving and sharing the heritage of South Asian migrants and their descendants, ensuring their stories are accessible to future generations.

Anchored by the themes of Roots (the journey of migration and the contributions of South Asian communities to British society), Resilience (the challenges faced and overcome by migrants and their families), and Representation (the importance of telling these stories authentically and without stereotyping), it asks urgent questions: whose stories are preserved, how are they told, and what does it mean to claim space within institutional memory? This is an exhibition about legacy, belonging and the narratives that shape our cities.

Despite what those who seek to divide us would have us believe, South Asians have been migrating to the UK since the 1600s, some as servants & sailors and many others, often wealthy, royality or middle class professionals purely seeking adventure or career opportunities. 

In 1849 British-born Frederick Akbar Mohomed discovered a link between high blood pressure and kidney disease, tranforming public health understanding in England. In 1889 Cornelia Sorabji became the first woman to study law at Oxford.

I was 4 or 5,

Hiding behind my mother.

Wearing a chiffon sari.

I sense my brother and sister were next to me too.

But it was the shield of my mother I recall,

Standing in the doorway of our terraced house on 31 St George's Road,

Skinheads in front of the house.

Swearing "Paki".

They wanted to warn us,

But no one was going to get to us because She was there,

To protect us,

Shouting at them,

"Bastard, go away!"

In her thick Indian accent,

She had no fear.

She gave us that

Fight for your children.

Fight for justice.

It started on those streets in Cov where mum shouted back. 

(Manjinder Virk)

I had no idea about this - how appalling!

Virk's musical tastes were very similar to ours. 

I couldn't agree more - despite the worrying rise in racism I'm convinced that goodwill will triumph over evil and ignorance. Hope not hate. 

You can't visit Coventry without visiting the cathedral.

St Michael's, a 14th-century Gothic church was designated as a cathedral in 1918 and remains a ruined shell after its bombing during the Second World War.  Coventry's new St Michael's cathedral was cwas built immediately adjacent to the ruins and tower of the former cathedral – forming both a symbol of war-time destruction and barbarity, and also of peace and reconciliation.

The rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral provided the first major opportunity in England to combine modern religious art and architecture. Architect Basil Spence, whose designs were chosen from among the 219 submitted, called for the new structure to be built beside (not over) the ruins of the old one. “I saw the old Cathedral as standing clearly for the Sacrifice, one side of the Christian faith,” he wrote, “and I knew my task was to design a new one which should stand for the Triumph of the Resurrection.”

As a Walsall girl, I've often banged on about the sculptor Jacob Epstein and his connection to our town (HERE). His St Michael's Victory Over The Devil (1958) is instantly recognisable. 

The cathedral is impressive from the outside but for lovers of Mid-Century design, the interior will make you go weak at the knees.

Graham Sutherland's impossibly beautiful tapestry, Christ in Glory in the Tetramorph, 1962, is larger than a tennis court and took Sutherland several years to come up with a design which made Jesus look real and not a rehash of the past.  

If you've never visited Coventry you really should, if only to gaze upon the specatular stained glass - you don't have to believe in god (we don't!) to appreciate beauty.

This has to be the coolest nativty scene ever. Comissioned by Basil Spence in 1962, the figures are by Alma Ramsey-Hosking who gave birth in 1940 while the Battle of Britain raged in the skies above. Her midwife advised her to keep her baby, Not in the cot, but in your hand, where it is safer. She used this in her memory whilst modelling Mary, who holds Jesus in her oversized hand, keeping him safe. 

After stopping to admire Coventry's Civic Hall, which built in 1917, looks a lot older, we headed to Spoons for lunch. 

And, in keeping with the exhibition, we dined on Wetherspoons' award-winning sweet potato, chickpea and spinach curry accompanied by Indian Pale Ale. How dull our lives would be without Indian culture. 

And needless to say, the drinkers in Spoons loved us. If you can't pull a septugenarian in Wetherspoons there really is no hope for you.

And all to soon it was time to catch the train back to Walsall...

Thanks for a fab day out, bab! See you soon!