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Standard Vanguard, full-sized model

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

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Josephine and David Naughton

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.