By Maz Woolley
Text and photographs copyright of the Author(s) unless otherwise stated.
Readers may be aware that I was born, and grew up in, Coventry during the period when it was often called ‘Motown UK’. For many youngsters living there in the 1950s and 1960s, a paper round was a good money earner to pay for your comics, Matchbox toys and items that your parents were not keen to fund like Cigarettes.
The period when I grew up in was probably the time when local newspapers were sold in the greatest numbers, and had the widest influence over their readership. Most urban areas of a reasonable size had a daily paper from Monday to Saturday and some had lunch editions and even a special Saturday edition to cover local sport. In Coventry the Coventry Evening Telegraph was our main local newspaper with multiple daily editions and the ‘Pink’ on Saturday. This was a sports newspaper printed on pink paper, and it was particularly popular during the football season as its front page was inevitable part of the coverage of that Saturday’s Coventry City match. It also covered the other professional clubs in the area like Nuneaton Borough and Bedworth United, as well as all the local leagues as well. The newspapers area of distribution reached beyond Coventry to cover much of Warwickshire as well. Sadly its buildings on Corporation Street are no longer a Newspaper office but have been converted into a boutique Hotel.
Nowadays such local newspapers have shrunk in circulation. Many have disappeared altogether, others are now only printed weekly with a website to give running coverage of stories and newly breaking items. These are all put together by centralised teams of journalists who do not live in the local area. Small wonder that they have lost the major role they had in setting local opinion on local topics.
I remember grabbing bales of newspapers swung out of the back of the van by the van driver and taking them into the shop ready to be bundled up ready for delivery. I seem to remember that the van drivers were always in a rush as they had a lot of stops on each round to get through in the shortest time possible. Some certainly liked racing stops and starts.
The Coventry Evening Telegraph vans had a particularly attractive livery as they were painted gloss black and the lettering was in the Gothic style that was used for the papers masthead. They were always immaculately maintained and were a good advert for the paper. Several promotional models were produced by Lledo in this livery, in particular a Morris Z van and and a Morris LD van. Although I bought them they were of limited appeal since I never saw either van in use delivering Evening Telegraphs. Sadly, despite multiple trawls of the Internet I cannot find any record of the vans used in the fleet, so I may be wrong and the Z and LD might have been used, but I personally think that they were used by Lledo as they were available in their range rather than as a result of any detailed research.
An Austin A40 in this livery has been preserved as part of the collection of the Coventry Transport Museum.
Photograph by Robert Knight converted to black and white
Reader Manuel Goikoetxea has recreated this in a nice re-paint of a Dinky Toys Austin A40 as shown below. It would have made a rather nice contemporary toy.
Photograph and Model – Manuel Goikoetxea
During my attempts to find information about genuine Coventry Evening Telegraph vans I came across one photograph showing a group of vans awaiting loading in the yard. This showed a cross section of vehicles on the road at one point of time. This photograph is sadly a commercially restricted image from Getty Images and although I can’t show it here click on the word Google in green and this will show it to you via Google .
The types of van shown in the picture were the:
- Austin A60 10 CWT van
- Morris Minor van
- Bedford CA Series 2 LWB van
- Some type of forward control van based on Commer Superpoise
- Commer/Karrier Forward Control van
- Morris Oxford Series III van
- Austin A40 10CWT van
On reflection I realised that UK Artisan 1:76 scale producers could provide kits of all these vehicles, except the strange Superpoise? based van. Mainstream manufacturers offered the Morris Minor van and little else. An example of what a wealth of our vehicle history is covered by small scale white metal and resin kit makers.
Another UK small scale operation, Black Square Decals, could make me the Coventry Evening Telegraph lettering in gold, which was not possible on my ink jet printer, so a ‘lockdown project’ was on.
The kits/made models used were as follows:
- Austin A60 10 CWT – John Day Vehicle Scenics White Metal Kit
- Morris Minor van – I could have used an old Mopok Dinky Dublo copy but decided a more accurate model was to be made by re-spraying a Pocketbond Classix Morris Minor van
- Bedford CA Series 2 LWB van – This is a Rod Parker white metal kit kit now available from Daryle Toney of John Day Models. This was chosen because it more accurate than the commercially available Bedford vans
- Commer/Karrier Forward Control van – Road Transport Images (RTI) resin kit
- Morris Oxford Series III van – This is a Rod Parker white metal kit kit now available from Daryle Toney of John Day Models.
- Austin A40 10CWT van – Road Transport Images (RTI) resin kit
I decided to make up a couple of the more common types of van in the photograph and prepared all the kits, sprayed with primer and then finished the models in gloss black. The Classix model was just de-constructed and any polish removed before it was over sprayed black. Finally the models were detailed and allowed to dry before the decals were applied.
To provide a backdrop I created a couple of A4 wide buildings loosely based on the photograph of the vans in the yard. To do this I used Model Builder a US software package aimed at the railway modeller.
So what did it end up looking like? The photographs are shown below.
‘Blast from the past’ is the feeling I get when looking at this display. Something a little different that kept me occupied whilst ‘locked down’ here in the UK.
The vans shown were selected to match the ones in the Getty Images photograph, linked to earlier, as closely as I could. But that photograph was clearly taken in the very early 1960s and as time wore on other vehicles were used such as the Marina van already featured in MAR Online here. Another van I remember in the Coventry Evening Telegraph livery was the Triumph Herald Courier as one lived in the same street I did at the time for a short while. It was the only Courier I remember seeing so I suspect it was ‘on trial’ rather than in service. Its performance might have appealed to the Drivers, but its small payload of 5CWT would not have pleased distribution managers. Another Pocketbond Classix has been over painted in gloss black and will be finished in this livery and will appear here at a later date.
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