Home Home

 
Index...

Search this site:
1. The Art School, Ford Street, remembered by Liz Bayly
2. Schoolday memories of Pauline Bearcock
3. Little Park Street & Spon Street, by Mick Billings
4. Memoirs of Stoneleigh Abbey, by Catherine Binns
5. Birch family war-time memories and the next generation, by Wendy Lloyd
6. Hillfields memories from the 1930s & 40s, by Jerry Bird
7. Bombers over our Radford Streets, by Jerry Bird
8. Voyage on the Queen Mary with Cecilia Cargill
9. Schoolboy fun around town with Patrick Casey
10. Dunlop Rugby Union Club, by Lorraine Clarke
11. Pre-war memories of Norman Cohen
12. Remembering Courthouse Green School, by Robert Coles
13. The Life of Riley, by Ron Critchlow
14. Wartime memories of Wyken, by Alan Edgson
15. Boyhood Memories of Peter Ellis
16. From boyhood to young adult, by Peter Ellis
17. War and Workplace memories of Mike Fitzpatrick
18. 1940s & 50s remembered, by Ken Giles
19. World War Two memories of James Hill
20. A selection of 1940s and 50s memories, by Rod Joyce
21. Pictures of a Coventry ancestry, by Lesleigh Kardolus
22. Innocence, by John Lane
23. A plane crash over Exhall, by John Lane
24. Post-War memories of Keith Longmore
25. Growing up in Willenhall, by Josie Lisowski-Love
26. Coventry Zoo and the Hippo attack, by Paul Maddocks
27. The thoughts of a younger Coventrian, by Paul Martin
28. Growing up in Hillfields, by Jan Mayo
29. Winter before central-heating in Hillfields, by Jan Mayo
30. Viewing the Blitz from Birmingham, by Mavis Monk
31. Family memories of Eric Over
32. Early working days of Barry Page
33. Band life with Derick Parsons
34. Brian Porter, A Coventry Kid
35. Experiences of the Coventry Blitz, by Joan Powell
36. War-time memories of Brian Richards
37. War-time memories of Jeanne Richards
38. Coventry Remembered, by Andrew Ross
39. The Coventry outings of Brian Rowstron & family
40. Time Gentlemen Please! - Jo Shepherd's Family
41. The life experiences of Mike Spellacy
42. Humber Works photographs of Peter Thacker
43. Early Coventry memories of Lizzie Tomlinson
44. Post-war decades remembered, by Mike Tyzack
45. Fireman Frank Walduck, remembered by Peter Walduck
46. Early memories of Coventry, by Muriel Wells
47. Family memories of Burt West
48. A Childhood in Stoke, by Graham Whitehead
 

Fireman Frank Walduck, remembered by Peter Walduck


Peter Walduck lived in Perkins Street, Coventry, in the late 1940s and 50s with his mother and father, Vera and Frank Walduck. His mother used to sing on the stage of many clubs in and around Coventry, and was a member of the Variety Artists' Association. She was known at one time as the "Vera Lynn" of Coventry. Peter now takes up the story....

My dad Frank, was in the National Fire Service during the war, and I spent most of my time as a child in the Fire Station in Hales Street, which is now known as "The Old Fire Station". My dad had a serious accident whilst fighting a fire in the old Riley factory when he fell through the roof, suffering a fractured skull.
As time went on he then worked as an Ambulanceman for the old City of Coventry Ambulance Brigade, and was killed on duty at Baginton Aerodrome as it was known then, in 1950. The photo of his funeral can be seen below.

The funeral of Frank Walduck 1950 The funeral of Frank Walduck passing the Fire Station, Hales Street, on a wet rainy day in 1950. It was taken by the Coventry Evening Telegraph and put into a beautiful frame by Coventry Glass when they were in Vine street. Peter donated the photo to the West Midlands Fire service, where it is now on show in their museum at the Central Fire Station in Radford Road.
Peter points out the firemen in the "old kit" and the Fordson fire appliance poking its nose out of one of the doors.
The building with the short steeple in the background is Holy Trinity Church School on the corner of Ford Street.

My mother went on to marry again, and she passed away 5 years ago.
As for myself, I went to Wheatley Street School and remember my childhood days in Perkins Street with great affection. I was a Coventry Transport Bus driver, and when it became the West Midlands I left the "Corporation" and moved lock stock and barrel to this part of the country and drove buses for United Counties and eventually Green Line in and out of London, but all the time never forgetting my beloved Coventry. I always wore a small Coventry Transport badge on my uniform jacket wherever I drove buses.


Peter Walduck, always a gentleman and a pleasure to speak to, sadly passed away in 2012. His legacy for all to continue to enjoy is the Friends of Coventry Transport website, https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/cwk205/, where there is always a lot of talk about Coventry transport and the old Corporation.


 
 
 
Associated pages....
Home | How this site began | Bibliography | About me | My music | Discussion Forum | Steve's website | Historic Stoke, Coventry | Orland family website
Top of the page
3,330,620

Website by Rob Orland © 2002 to 2024