CovSoc member and Chair of the Friends of Coventry Cathedral, Martin Williams, tells us this interesting story from the 1960s. Martin writes….
One of the souvenirs produced in 1962 to mark the consecration of Coventry Cathedral was a DIY cardboard model of the new Cathedral.
I was reminded of that model by this Arthur Cooper photograph that was amongst the archive pictures rescued from a skip about which I wrote in the past. On the right of the picture is the Rev Clifford E Ross of Claverdon. He was the Bishop’s Chaplain with oversight of the whole range of events that were part of the 1962 Cathedral Festival that followed the Service of Consecration. The DIY model is being demonstrated to him before it went on sale.
I have a feeling that the person demonstrating it to him is Dick Hosking, the Head of Coventry College of Art, but I am not quite sure.
Back in 1962 I made one of those models myself. It was quite fragile but managed to survive in my bedroom for two or three years after construction before something fell on top of it. I always intended to find another of these models to make. To remind me I cut the title off the packaging, which I have used today as the heading of this article. Sadly, I have never come across any other examples of the model to make.
On the subject of DIY models of our Cathedral, in the 1990s Rupert Chicken produced a DIY cardboard model of the pre-WWII St Michael’s Cathedral. I have only ever seen that particular model referred to in an exhibition at the V&A and searching high and low I could not find any trace of the model for sale on the internet. The packaging carries the logo of Coventry City Council, so Rupert’s model must have been “official” to some extent.
This article first appeared in the September 2023 edition of Chairman’s E News