Memories of Coventry Cathedral

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To Gerda Ledger, an 82-year-old woman who was raised in Germany but who has lived in Coventry for 62 years, the city's cathedral is a symbol of peace and reconciliation.



"I was bombed out eight times in Germany, so we were more or less the same. I always used to think what a waste of life."

The decision to build the modern cathedral came immediately after much of St Michael's had been destroyed by incendiary bombs during World War II.

Later this year it will celebrate its 50th anniversary.

The foundation stone was laid by the Queen on 23 March 1956, who returned in 1962 for its consecration.

Mrs Ledger was there: "I stood on an orange box to see the Queen. We're royalists because we come from the House of Hanover."

She had come to live in Coventry with her husband Gerald, a British soldier she had met while he was stationed in Germany in 1948.

'Friendly and spiritual'

She worked in the coffee shop at the cathedral for a three-year period during the 1980s, backing up her claim that "we should live together and work together".

"We used to have a lot of canons and pastors come from Germany for meetings so I always found it very interesting."

The 82-year-old admits the cathedral is well respected back home in her native country and that it still evokes strong emotions.

Beryl Mackinder, from Whitley in the city, knows Mrs Ledger through the War Widows' Association's bi-monthly meetings in Coventry's council house - a stone's throw from the cathedral.

Like her friend, Mrs Mackinder also worked in the building on the information desk.

"The cathedral is a very friendly and spiritual place. I loved working there and enjoyed it for 13 and a half years.

"Most people came out saying what a wonderful place it was. The different nationalities that we met and chatted with was absolutely marvellous and I think the Americans loved it the best."

Mrs Mackinder moved to the city about 30 years ago and knew all about the cathedral before she arrived.

"I'd heard a lot about it and to start with I couldn't make much of it because it did seem very big. But I love the open space. [It is] light, airy and you can see everybody. It's a different thing altogether to the traditional church.

"But now it's not one of the most modern because it's been there so many years.

"Churches from all over the country were very interested. I can remember my sister coming with her church on a day's outing... to see the cathedral and they were queueing almost round the cathedral to come in and go and have a look at it."

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Sir Basil Spence's daughter remembers first Cathedral wedding

"The walls were only half built and we were down in the crypt which was a chapel," said Gillian Blee.

"It was a very beautiful chapel with a wonderful cross but it wasn't a church."

Mrs Blee and her husband Anthony were the first couple to get married at Coventry Cathedral and returned to the magnificent building to celebrate the 56th anniversary of the Queen laying its foundation stone.

But there is another reason why the pair have such a strong bond with the cathedral.

For Mrs Blee is the daughter of Sir Basil Spence, the architect who designed the imposing structure in the centre of the city which stands next to the ruins of St Michael's.

Mr Blee came into her life after he joined Sir Basil's firm shortly after the foundation stone had been put in place on 23 March 1956.

"I was working for my father so I was in the office," Mrs Blee continued. "That's how we met.

"Anthony was working on the project, as were three or four of our very closest friends, so it somehow seemed the only place to be married."

The pair tied the knot in February 1959 and, while Sir Basil's daughter says it was their idea, Mr Blee acknowledges it was an unusual setting at the time.

"It was still under construction of course. It was 53 years ago so it was still a building site," he said.

"The service was held in a little chapel temporarily arranged in the undercroft which was meant to be for storing chairs in the fullness of time.

"We were married there with a grand piano - no organ. The cathedral organist played the piano.

"We had the honour and privilege of having the bishop, the provost and my father, who was a priest, marry us."

Mr Blee admits he enjoyed a close friendship with his boss and father-in-law but the timing of their only disagreement could not have been worse.

"I think we were all a bit nervous before the wedding," he continued.

"I had been working on the designs for the pulpit and the lectern and we didn't agree on one or two aspects of that design that day.

"So the following day Gill and I married and when we got back from honeymoon we made it up and agreed on the final design very amicably.

"But that was the only time I had any crossed swords with Basil."

Mrs Blee is still amazed how much of an impact her father's work has had on people and vividly remembers another big occasion - the consecration of the cathedral which occurred 50 years ago this May.

"It was a wonderful culmination to a lot of years of hard work," she said.

"It was a glorious day and I just remember it being very golden. Everything was golden.

"The Queen was in gold, I was in gold and the sun was shining."

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Coventry Cathedral: Memories of its construction 50 years on



Coventry Cathedral, a celebrated example of 20th Century architecture, turns 50 this week and over the years has become, along with the adjoining ruins of St Michaels, a global symbol of peace and reconciliation.

The decision to build it came in the immediate aftermath of the devastation caused to the previous structure by incendiary bombs during World War II.

Hundreds of people had a hand in its construction, not least Sir Basil Spence who won a competition to design the cathedral in the 1950s.

But it could have looked very different if the man behind Birmingham's Rotunda had won the contract.

Jim Roberts, an unknown architect at the time, was one of many given 12 months to submit a design. He felt he played by the rules unlike Sir Basil.

Quality craftsmanship

Mr Roberts said: "The rules of the competition were specific. They asked to associate the new scheme with the existing tower and spire.

"Basil Spence provided the right answer but as far as I was concerned it was a total contravention of the instructions that the competitors were all given.

"With my scheme the ruins would have been obliterated because you would have kept the tower and spire but to glue the new building onto it meant the whole of the ruins would have been decimated."

One of those who worked as an architect on the successful cathedral project was Anthony Blee, Sir Basil's son-in-law.

Mr Blee said: "I saw it as a great opportunity because the building had been designed and yet there was still a lot of design to do.

"What I'm proud of is nothing to do with me. It's the level of craftsmanship that is consistent here."

The attention to detail is evident throughout. From the tapestry of Christ and the Baptistry Window to the pennies embedded in the floor and the walls of the building itself.

Peter Walker and Roy Burnett were just teenagers when they began making the stones for the cathedral in a Staffordshire yard.


Peter Walker (left) and Roy Burnett (right) with foreman Albert Bradley looking on

For Mr Burnett, it was a labour of love.

He said: "I reckon one in every 20 stones came through our hands.

"Working the ends of the stone, you could probably do 10 or 15 a day.

"But if it was a piece of the Baptistry Window you did one every 14 hours.

"A lot have got my wife's name underneath them."

The cathedral's foundation stone was laid by the Queen on 23 March 1956. But according to Mr Walker, it was not the one Sir Basil had initially picked out.

He said: "The first one toppled over.

"It had frozen during the day and it was balanced on two blocks. When it thawed the stone tipped and knocked a big piece out of it."

Digging up bones



One of those to work on the cathedral ahead of its consecration on 25 May 1962 was Tony McGregor, who helped dig the foundation for the Chapel of Unity.

Mr McGregor said: "There were graves and we were told any bones or skulls that we dug up we were to put them to one side. They were going to bury them as a communal grave.

"We were throwing all the soil onto the wagons.

"We didn't wear gloves in those days and some of the lads didn't like handling the bones or the skulls so they used to throw them on the wagon.

"Apparently [the police] found the skulls on the tip and they thought a mass murder had been committed."

Mr McGregor admits that it is only years after that he appreciates his role in the cathedral's construction. He believes it has stood the test of time.

"It'll take a good German bomb to shift this cathedral," he added.

"It's so solid."