Portraits of Coventry

Bailo came to Coventry fifteen years ago seeking sanctuary. He was fleeing Guinea in fear for his life after being involved in protests against the regime. Bailo told artist Andy Farr how he feels about Coventry for Portraits of Coventry, part of our ‘At Home in Coventry’ project in partnership with Coventry City of Culture. He describes Coventry as a fantastic place, but nonetheless his life still has tensions and struggles, both within his community in Britain and fighting the enduring sense of loss of his family, who are still in Guinea.

With Bailo’s painting, Andy wanted to represent both this connection back to his heritage and family in West Africa, and the life that he is now building in Coventry. He also wanted to convey the warmth of Bailo’s heart that “shines through his face”. The shapes and colours in the background are based on the fabric and patterns of his sister’s dress, which she is wearing in one of the few pictures he has of her, and from a belt that she gave him before he had to leave. This belt represents the ties back to his culture. This imagery is combined with the use of the colour blue, the “moving blue” of Coventry, representing Bailo’s journey from Africa to Coventry.

Daksha is a force of nature; an active community organiser with a particular focus on the area around Foleshill. She spoke to artist Andy Farr for Portraits of Coventry, part of our ‘At Home in Coventry’ project in partnership with Coventry City of Culture.

Her family moved to Coventry in 1972 as a result of the expulsion of Asians from Uganda by Idi Amin. Following a military coup in 1971, the self-declared President of Uganda went on to rule over Uganda. Under his dictatorship, there was a lot of ethnic persecution and he ordered the expulsion of the country’s Asian minority, giving them 90 days to leave the country. This led to over 27,000 people fleeing to the UK from Uganda. And one of them was two-year-old Daksha.

Daksha’s uncle had moved to Coventry several years before, so when she arrived in the UK with her parents and older brother, after a brief spell in overcrowded housing, the family decided to settle in Keresley Village. Her father drew upon his expertise as a gold and silver miner to work at Keresley Colliery. They moved into Jackson Close, where the family was embraced by community, despite tensions in some other areas of the City.

After what Daksha describes as an ‘idyllic’ childhood, times became harder after the death of her father when she was only 11, and Coventry started to feel like a dark and dangerous place for her. Daksha developed a level of inner resilience and independence that is still present in all her activities today. This was one of the things that Andy wanted to capture in his painting.

She went on to attend secondary school in Coventry and later studied Economics and Sociology at the University of Leeds. Daksha now lives in Finham with her husband Brian, who she met in 1994, and their three children, Amara, James and Alex. She is the founder of Foleshill Creates, a community arts group based at Broad Street Hall in Coventry.

Foleshill Creates was established in 2019 and aims to bring people together to help tackle loneliness, isolation and improve mental wellbeing. Their workshops are held every Tuesday from 10.30am and encourage artists in and around Foleshill to showcase their work and skills, by hosting sessions for local people who are interested in developing their creativity.

In recent times, Daksha has been delivering a project funded by Orbit called ‘At Home’. The project uses visual arts and storytelling workshops to reflect on the people, places and objects which make home ‘feel like home’. The workshops asked people to reflect on their ideas and memories of what home means to them, in the past, present and future.

Andy's painting shows the cosmopolitan influences that have helped to shape who Daksha is today. The background is based on the pattern of a pocket square of her father’s, combined with the vibrant yellow of her favourite sari, a pendant from her “Nani Ma” and Hindu ankle bells. Daksha herself is wearing western clothes, and the whole painting is overlaid with elements from a mural in Foleshill (which can be found on the wall of the Broad Street Meeting Hall), created by one of the community groups she helps to organise and inspire, with local artist Michael Batchelor.

Colin talked to artist Andy Farr about his memories of Coventry for Portraits of Coventry, part of our ‘At Home in Coventry’ project in partnership with Coventry City of Culture. Colin moved to Coventry in the early 1970s to work as an Industrial Radiologist. He used powerful machines to x-ray engine castings for Alvis during the City’s industrial heyday. These machines were many times more powerful than the ones used in hospitals to see through humans!

When he arrived in Coventry, it was still a very engineering-orientated city, with a vibrant manufacturing sector producing cars, bikes, watches, chemicals, textiles, aircraft components and armoured vehicles. As Colin remembers, “The wages were high and the opportunities were immense”.

Colin has many current interests, and is involved with both Coventry and Warwick universities as a part time lecturer, as a member of singing groups and theatres and as a church warden.

For this painting Andy wanted to convey “something of the polymath that is Colin” – combining his engineering background using an image of an industrial X-ray with a photograph taken by the BBC of Colin holding a skull - Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well. This is a link to his abiding interest in theatre - he remembers as a child coming to Coventry from Birmingham to see pantomimes and later in life, he became involved in an over 50’s drama group.

In 1987 when Coventry won the FA Cup Final, Steve was there. He has still got the scarf and the ticket. He remembers Keith Houchen’s amazing diving header that took the score to 2-2 before Coventry City won in extra time. And he remembers the celebrations that enveloped the City following the Sky Blue’s victory, the one and only time in the club’s history.

“I went to the FA Cup Final in ‘87, we surprised everyone by beating Tottenham. I mean, we went to extra time and then it was 2-2, and then Gary Mabbutt scored an own goal and that meant 3-2 to us at the final whistle and Coventry won the cup.”

Steve told artist Andy Farr about the match when he talked to him for Portraits of Coventry, part of our ‘At Home in Coventry’ project in partnership with Coventry City of Culture. Steve has spent his life in the city, and was born just off the Gulson Road. Sadly, he was a victim of the decline in Coventry’s car industry in the early 1980s.

Steve is a mine of information about Coventry’s past. His recollections go all the way back to include those of his father who remembered seeing Laurel and Hardy perform at the Hippodrome, now the site of the Coventry Transport Museum.

Steve inherited his father’s musicality, modestly mentioning his Grade 7 piano almost in passing!

“I went to a lady called Mrs Russell [to learn to play the piano]. She died of a heart attack at age 68 when I was only 21. So I gave up after that, like an idiot, and people have said it was a natural gift, you could have been like Liberace….”

For Steve’s painting, Andy wanted to immortalise the 1987 FA Cup victory. The painting features a Roy Lichtenstein-inspired pop art version of “that goal” alongside Steve sporting his treasured FA Cup Final scarf, and the score from his favourite piece of music – "The Dream of Olwen" composed by Charles Williams.

When Liam talked to artist Andy Farr for Portraits of Coventry, part of our ‘At Home in Coventry’ project in partnership with Coventry City of Culture, one of the things they discussed was his time as an amateur boxer in Coventry in the 1970s, a period when most of the major companies in the city had a boxing section.

“I started off with the Rootes amateur boxing club. We moved as Chrysler took over and by the time Peugeot took over, I was the secretary matchmaker of the club. It was quite a big scene back then, virtually every company in Coventry had a boxing section… the only places that I know of now that are still going is Bell Green and I think Willenhall, but all the others have gone.”

One of Liam’s opponents was Tony “Golden Boy” Walsh who would later become a wrestler during the heyday of British wrestling, when it was a staple of Saturday afternoon TV. You can hear more of Liam’s conversation with Andy about boxing here.

Liam moved to Coventry from Ireland as a child, during the war. After ending his boxing career, he took up crown green bowls, reaching the All-England Finals. He was married for 55 years to Mary, who sadly passed away seven years ago. Liam still talks to her every day and mourns her passing. More recently, Liam has become a writer, and he shared one of his pieces with Andy:

Lower the darkness soon returns and tales of valour then recede.

Life calls for desperate measures, where heartfelt wishes are made

and we realize there are questions that should not be asked,

doors that should not be opened.

My hands are shaking.

My heart is breaking.

But I shall still sing songs, I shall still drink wine and walk this land with compassion.

and be true to my cause, wherever it may lead.

Andy was able to meet and photograph Liam outside, in person and the pose he chose for the painting was a reflective one. Capturing Liam’s tattoos was an important part of the image. As well as his wife and daughter’s names, he also has one that dates back to 1954, inked by Jessie Knight, Britain’s first female tattooist.

Alongside the 2021 painting, Andy also painted Liam based on an archive picture from the 1970s.

Angela talked to artist Andy Farr about her career for Portraits of Coventry, part of our ‘At Home in Coventry’ project in partnership with Coventry City of Culture.

Angela was a nurse for over 40 years. She trained in London at the end of the 1950s, and whilst nursing hours didn’t give her much free time, she remembers seeing performances by Bill Haley, Cliff Richard (as an 18 year old!), Adam Faith and the King of Rock and Roll himself.

She moved to Coventry to work at the Walsgrave Hospital after she got married. She was an expert phlebotomist – otherwise known as a “Bleeder”, so she was experienced at inserting needles.

Angela is one of three generations of nurses; her mother was a District Nurse, and her daughters then followed her into nursing. It was this family connection to nursing that inspired Andy’s painting.

The painting includes a picture of Angela with her mother, taken just after she had been made a Sister, and one of her daughters in their uniform.

Dot was born in Coventry on Little Park Street in 1935. When she spoke to Andy for Portraits of Coventry, part of our ‘At Home in Coventry’ project in partnership with Coventry City of Culture, they talked about many of the events she had witnessed over the past 80 years…

• Her father’s lucky survival of the bombing of the Coventry Hospital, he’d been moved to Keresley the day before because of scarlet fever
• Dancing at the Locarno and the Hippodrome
• Running with Godiva Harriers
• Managing a hotel in Blackpool

But one strand that stood out was the family’s connection to Triumph motorcycles.

Dot’s grandfather worked for Triumph when they were based in Clay Lane before the war, and then her father, husband and two brothers-in-law all worked for them when they moved to Meriden. In 1973, the owner Dennis Poore decided to close the business to build houses on the site. Dot and particularly her brother in law, Dennis Crowder Johnson, were central to the campaign to save the factory.

The workers staged a two-year sit-in and eventually, helped by the Government, set up Meriden Workers Co-operative to buy the factory and market the Triumph motorbikes they produced. The factory was supported by actors Steve McQueen and Richard Gere, who visited in the mid-70s.

Dot told Andy about their march to Parliament seeking support for the co-operative, and this features in the painting.

Ultimately the co-operative ended, and the factory was demolished, and a housing estate was built on the site. However, a new company - Triumph Motorcycles Ltd - gained the rights to the name and has been successfully building bikes in Hinckley since 1988.

Dot’s family connection continues right through to the present, as one of her sons works for a Coventry business, manufacturing components for Triumph.

On the night of Thursday 14 November 1940, ‘a bright moonlit night’, the City of Coventry was bombed into ruins over a sustained eleven-hour period. An estimated 568 people were killed that night, and Coventry lost its great medieval Cathedral, its central library, the market hall, hundreds of shops and public buildings and much of the city’s industry.

That night Rene was sheltering only half a mile away from the Cathedral in the cellar of the Golden Cup pub on Far Gosford Street. Rene told Andy about her memories of life in Coventry for Portraits of Coventry, part of our ‘At Home in Coventry’ project in partnership with Coventry City of Culture.

Rene has recently celebrated her 90^th birthday and her memories of Coventry include celebrations as well as sadness: VE Day, the Coronation and the times when the Queen visited Coventry.

Rene worked for a variety of companies in Coventry; from the age of 14 when she started work operating machinery, through to when she worked at the Walsgrave Hospital in the CSSD (Central Sterilising Stores Department) sterilising the “instruments of torture”, as she called them.

Andy’s painting of Rene includes references to that night during the Coventry Blitz as well as her 90^th birthday which she celebrated during a socially distanced lockdown. She hopes to soon be able meet with her grandson and family to celebrate with them in Gibraltar, where they now live.

Frances was, as she says, “made in Coventry”. Her mother came to Coventry from Glasgow during WW2, along with her sister, to work and train to be a skilled machinist. Her parents met while working at a factory after the war.

Frances grew up in Willenhall, “I remember the precinct, you could buy everything you ever needed. Willenhall was like a village, everyone knew everyone. My grandparents came from Binley village, as they worked at Binley pit”.

What is now Ernesford Grange used to be the coal pits and mining buildings, surrounded by farmer’s fields with horses. “My friends and I used to get a bottle and fill it with water, we would buy sugar lumps and take them to the horses, just past Corpus Christi Church and School”.

Frances’ mum worked at G.E.C and every year there would be a Christmas pantomime - “The buses would turn up at Willenhall precinct to take us to see a pantomime, have something to eat, see Father Christmas and receive a sack with an apple, orange, nuts and a small toy”.

Frances got a job at Stoke G.E.C at 16. She was one of the youngest wiring and assembly inspectors working on telephone exchanges - normally you had to be 18. She has memories of meeting her mum, who was by then a specialised assembler working with gold in a secure area, at the work canteen on Fridays and having lunch together.

She also has fond memories of family get togethers, with her parents, aunties, uncles, cousins, great-auntie, and great-uncle. Many of them been in the Binley Male Voice choir and so these gatherings often became family singalongs. Frances remembers them singing “I take you home again Kathleen” to her mum Kathleen.

Singing is now an important part of Frances’ life, but this wasn’t always the case. She overcame her fear of singing in front of others with the help of her late friend Maureen and a confidence course. She has been a member of several Coventry choirs: “Young at Heart”, “One Voice”, “Co-op Ladies Choir”, “Rock Choir”, “Willenhall Community Choir and “Gosp-Ability Choir” who performed at Coventry Cathedral.

In developing Frances’s painting, Andy decided to build into the image one of the choirs she had sung with and included Coventry Cathedral’s iconic baptistry window. Andy wanted to convey the sense of joy that singing gives to Frances and as she says, “The main thing about singing is the enjoyment you give to others.”

Image of the Gosp-Ability Choir used with permission from Sandra Godley.

Trevor and Val grew up in the same area of Woodend in Coventry during the 1960s. When Trevor talked to Andy for Portraits of Coventry, part of our ‘At Home in Coventry’ project in partnership with Coventry City of Culture, one comment in particular stuck in Andy’s mind:

 “We’ve always loved each other, and the garden as well...”

Andy knew straight away that their painting needed to capture both their love for each other and for gardening and nature. Trevor has created a community garden at Shortwood Court, where he and Val live, and he told Andy about some of the plants that will be flowering throughout the year:

…daffodils, tulips, crocus, corn flowers, gypsophila, love in the mist, candy tuft, marigolds, gladiola, foxglove, evening stock, echinops, English lavender, gaillardia, roses and much more in the side garden… we have a greenhouse, plus a fruit and veg plot...

Trevor hasn’t lived all his life in Coventry though - in the late 70s he worked in West Berlin and was a regular visitor through the checkpoints into East Germany. As he says, they were “interesting but scary times”, and woe betide anyone who took a camera across with them!

Trevor and Val have been involved with many community projects, including the establishment of Coventry’s first community fruit and veg shop “2T Fruity”. As Val said at the time of opening, "Since the last fruit and veg shop closed down in Riley Square, local people have been finding it difficult to get hold of good quality, fresh produce. This is especially true for older people or people who find it hard to travel far."

When Andy first talked to Roz for Portraits of Coventry, part of our ‘At Home in Coventry’ project in partnership with Coventry City of Culture, she described how her family had moved to Birmingham from Uganda in the 70s. Later in life, for family reasons, she had needed to find a place of refuge. Coventry, with help from Orbit, became that place of sanctuary. Roz moved here in the early 90s with three young children and made a new life for them all.

After the easing of lockdown, Andy was able to meet with Roz in her home. While he was talking with her, he felt that her bookcase was an amazing encapsulation of many of the things that Roz had experienced, and the new life she was able to build. It reflected so many aspects of her life – her interest in books and films, geography and ecology, cooking and home life, sport and games. It contained mementos, cards, and photographs of her son’s rescue dog, a Labrador/greyhound cross. But, most important of all, it showcased pictures of her with her family.

One of the items on the shelf reads, “Family is not an important thing, it is everything”, and this seemed to say it all.

In his painting, Andy sought to convey the richness and depth of Roz’s life and interests, the warmth and expressiveness of her persona, but also reference some of the darker times that she has endured.

When Andy met John for Portraits of Coventry, part of our ‘At Home in Coventry’ project in partnership with Coventry City of Culture, he was struck by his passions - for enabling people to support and help themselves, and for music and bands.

Music was one of the main reasons John came to Coventry in 1983 to attend the then Lanchester Polytechnic – now Coventry University,“I started watching bands at The Lanch, saw the Smiths there, and the infamous Jesus, and Mary Chain gig - the semi-riot gig.”

After finishing his degree John stayed in Coventry. He got a job working in vocational guidance, a role which evolved when the Labour Government came in to power in 1998.

They introduced a ground-breaking initiative called ‘Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain’.

“It's the first time any Government has brought together the agendas of employment, health, criminal justice and housing; a partnership comprising the NHS Community Drug Team, Probation, DWP and Orbit Housing. You can't tackle drug misuse in isolation. You’ve got to have that joined up approach. My part of it was as an employment worker, supporting people with a substance misuse issue to provide them with the opportunity to gain stable work, education and training”.

After three years John became manager of the NHS substance misuse employment service, a service that genuinely helped many people in Coventry and Warwickshire secure work and training.

“On average we supported 35 to 40 people a year with a history of substance misuse and offending into sustainable employment. Many of those would probably spend up to £1,000 a week on heroin and crack. The impact on society and on individuals and their families from a relatively small group of people was huge and the benefits from moving those individuals on was immense. It was a real privilege to see people, people you thought would probably be dead in a couple of years, turn their lives around. I've seen people since, and they've now got families and children and are working. I've got a real passion for that and the rationale behind it in terms of the cost to society. At the time, drugs-related costs were approximately 20 billion a year. It makes sense to do something about it, to have a long-term strategy. The revolving door of short-term prison sentences resolved nothing: they come back out again to the same lifestyle, a complete waste of time and money. Sadly, from 2012 subsequent governments failed to continue the project and funding to drug services was significantly cut”.

Orbit Housing were involved in providing the housing support at the time of the initiative, which was where he first encountered them. John is now a manager in one of Orbit’s Independent Living Schemes.

When John talked to Andy about the bands he’d seen, and the work he’d done in Coventry, he was standing in front of a gig poster for Echo & the Bunnymen. This gave Andy the idea of creating a painting that stylistically resembled a band poster. The painting makes use of Coventry’s ‘Moving Blue’ and features the names of bands that John has seen live, and some of the words he used when talking about his life and work in Coventry.