Standard Triumph Works Directory
Documenting Employees of the Standard and Triumph Works
For Jim Cosgrove of Coundon, the skirl of the pipes was a familiar sound at home. Three members of his family were musicians in the famed Royal British Legion Triumph Pipe Band.
My grandfather Jim Cosgrove was founder of the band when he came to Binley in 1936 to work at the colliery. He came from Coalburn in Lanarkshire and had three sons. Two of them, Jim my father and Wally my uncle were also pipers in the band. They all eventually worked at the Standard Motor Company.
I worked for the Coventry Tile Company, one of the finest tile fixing firms in the country.
One Saturday morning, I was sent to do a small tiling job at the Standard Motors factory. I arrived with my small tool bit, the tiles and other materials having been delivered the day before.
I was instructed to enquire at a certain office as to the location of the job to be done. To this day I don’t know where I went wrong, but I found myself in a very large space, which contained a full-sized model of the Standard Vanguard.
If I had been looking at a spacecraft I could not have been more amazed.
The older Standard boys will know what I mean. Two men appeared and I found myself marched into an office where a lady typist was instructed to type a “I hereby declare that I will not mention what I have seen”, etc.
I duly signed the document but said “I am a Coventry lad, and that wild horses would not drag me from what I had seen.”
I have lots of happy memories of the Standard Motor Company.
Harry Pointer, Coventry
In the late spring of 1940 Germany was winning the war and had occupied France, poising to invade Britain. And my mother was dying.
An excerpt from the House of Commons relating to redundant workers at Standard and their efforts for new employment.
Straight out of the army into factory good times ..
Continue reading “Harold Shaw”
I met my husband when I was motor company nurse
My husband and I both worked at the Standard Triumph.
My husband was a paint sprayer and I was a works sister. I started at Canley then moved to Fletchamstead and then moved to Tile Hill surgery. It was there I met David.
He came in to have drops in his ears after a big ear operation. On Valentine’s night I was taken to the dance by a couple called Ted and Dorothy Smith. Ted worked with David.
I hadn’t seen David since the dance, but then he went to Manor House Hospital for a check-up. He came in and had his drops in his ear then he asked me to the pictures!
That was in February and we married in June. I have a picture of David receiving his wedding gift, and one of myself receiving a present from the staff.
Sadly, I had to leave in 1970, as I was going through a rough pregnancy, and David was made redundant in 1972-73.
We had some great times there and lots of laughs.
Mrs Josephine Naughton, Stoke Aldermoor.