Reading Smethwick Striver's post, it took me back. My grandfather owned an electrical shop on the opposite side of Cape Hill, across from the main gates of M & B. For the first few years of my life, my parents and I lived beind the shop. As a very young child, I recall going to the Christmas parties held in the brewery with their own firemen supervising the event. When we had a street party in Raglan Road, we all wore fancy dress, and I went as Britannia. For my helmet, Dad borrowed one from a M & B fireman and painted it silver.
I well remember the Beehive Public House. My grandparents lived a short way up Cape Hill from the shop, and they had a back entry which came out in Raglan Road. I would leave the shop, and go past the newsagents, then turn into Raglan Road where I met my grandfather. He would be carrying a jug, and had been to the Beehive. When I asked what was in the jug, he told me it was special brown milk. I believed him, as our milk was delivered to the shop in churns, and we had to supply our own jugs to carry it into the kitchen. No throw-away plastic cartons, nor even glass milk bottles in those days.
If you lived in Raglan Road, you would have attended Cape Board School I expect. I remember the Infants and Juniors were two separate schools. I was only in the Infants for a few weeks after September, and I caught measles, mumps and whooping cough in quick succession, and didn't go back to school until after the Easter holiday. When I returned, I'd spent such a long time in bed and could only do jigsaws and reading, so I had passed everyone else in my class. I finished the whole reading scheme for the Infants, and then had to walk around to the Juniors to change my reading book two or three times a week. I thought (at 5) that I was the 'bees knees' going up into the other school for my books.
I was born in 1947, and lived on Cape Hill opposite the gates of Mitchells and Butlers Brewery for the first 6 or 7 years of my life. When we moved to a road which was further up 'the Cape', off Waterloo Road, my grandfather still had the electrical shop.
Much of the contracting work he did was for Mitchells and Butlers. They had a Survey Department, and it was the job of the Surveyors (amongst other things) to see to the maintenance of the public houses. If anything went wrong, day or night, to do with the electrics, then it was my grandfather's firm that was called out.
When M&B decided to 'move with the times' and refurbish some of their pubs, my Dad worked with the surveyors and architects to design the new layout and to work with a theme. I remember one pub near to Coventry Airport which had pictures of aircraft painted on the walls and ceilings. A special paint was applied, which glowed in ultra-violet light. When Dad fitted the lights, he got a similar affect when the girls were dancing, wearing white blouses. He also designed a record deck and speakers for the DJ, which would flash coloured lights with the beat of the music being played. Unfortunately he never patented it, and since that time (in the 1960s) you started to see those pulsating lights all over the place. Even today the DJ often have their own sets of pulsating lights with them on stage.
I don't know if you have heard the reason that the brewery was sited in Cape Hill.
My Dad told me that there was an artesian well near to the top end of the land, so the brewery had its own water supply. I seem to remember him telling me that there was a row about it, because someone else had been relying on the water, but once it was being used for the brewing, the other users couldn't have it any more. I'll try and get him to tell me the full story, if he can remember it.