Detour or two on road to Coventry
THANK you to Ray who emailed to ask of the origin and true meaning of the expression ‘to be sent to Coventry’. Thanks to his curiosity, I have wonderful stories of courage and curiosity to share.
If, like me, you like to know where things are, Coventry is in the West Midlands of England in the historic and beautiful county of Warwickshire. It’s kind of ‘in the middle’ being 27km east-south-east of Birmingham, 14km north of Warwick and 139km north-west of London.
Some of you may remember the story of Lady Godiva (or Godgifu as was her Anglo-saxon name), who rode through the shuttered streets of Coventry in order to make her husband Leofric, Earl of Mercia, stop imposing crippling taxes on the citizens of Coventry.
He had thought that she would not agree to his humiliating demand that in exchange for stopping the taxes, she should take her naked ride. Such was the citizens’ regard for her that they were in their homes with windows shuttered … only Peeping Tom broke her trust.
Others of you may know of the series of horrifying bombing raids endured by Coventry during one cloudless and moonlit night in
WWII.
The worst air raid in history targeted Coventry on the night of November 14. It was the single most concentrated attack of WWII.
During this time, many homes (more than 43,000), factories and public buildings were razed to the ground.
One of those spaces was St Michael’s Cathedral and its remnants stand as a quiet but powerful
reminder of the horrors of war. (In the aftermath, locals had to beg for their spire not to be pulled down – it was not leaning from the bombing, it had been leaning for over 100 years!)
On that night, 500 Luftwaffe bombers, drawn from all over Europe in an operation named ‘Moonlight Sonata’, dropped 500 tons of high explosives, 30,000 of their new horrific incendiary bombs and 50 landmines. Nazi propagandists were so pleased with the results, they coined a new word: ‘coventrieren’ meaning to ‘raze a city to the ground’.
During this raid, my Great Aunts Matilda and Gwenyd, who lived a short walk from the Cathedral, sheltered in their basement with their always welcomed neighbours. These lovely sisters and had been engaged to their sweethearts at the outbreak of WWI. Sadly, their young men did not survive and as no other man could ever measure up, these ladies pooled their resources to buy a
corner shop. After almost 11 hours of continuous bombing, the raid ended and survivors began to emerge.
The Luftwaffe had used their new weapon, incendiaries, for the first time and despite it being day, thick palls of smoke blocked the sun and even though it was nearing winter, it was as hot as a spring day.
The Germans bombed the Daimler Factory, flattening it. The library and market hall were destroyed as was the butter factory and reports exist of people running for their lives as a knee-high river of boiling butter flowed through the street beside the factory.
Local manufacturing and warehouses were destroyed by the bombs or the hellish fires. Returning Luftwaffe pilots, flying at 6000 feet, noted in their records that they could smell the smoke and feel the heat of the destruction occurring below.
My great aunts emerged to find the front of their shop had been blown off. Unperturbed, they cleaned up, swept away the glass and debris and put up a sign saying, ‘More open than usual!’. They then set about making tea for the many firefighters struggling to save what remained of their city.
The famous British cartoonist Giles heard of their situation and the sign they’d put up and a couple of days later on the front pages across Britain his cartoon of the shop, the sign and these wonderful ladies appeared with a caption heralding the British spirit. I’m proud to think their blood runs in my veins.
As for ‘being sent to Coventry’, we must roll the clock back to the 1600s and the English Civil War. During this time, Coventry was a stronghold for the ‘Parliamentarians’ or ‘Roundheads’, Oliver Cromwell’s men, who fought against King Charles I and his ‘Royalists’ or ‘Cavaliers’.
If you were a ‘Royalist’ and were caught by Cromwell’s men, after a solid beating you’d be sent to Coventry where your title meant nothing and you’d be ignored ... not something they were at all used to.
To eke out enough of a living to feed themselves and seek shelter, they’d be condemned to the most menial of jobs, quite humiliating for these ostracised nobles!
So, if you’re sent to Coventry, you are left out or even ostracised and treated poorly. Our wonderful old pooch was often sent to Coventry in response to her apparently ravenous appetite for shoes.
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© Sue-belinda Meehan – suebelinda.meehan@outlook.com.au