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1990-1999
1990
August 6th
- Local
temperature reached 38 deg.C. (99 deg. F)
9th May
- Abbey
Street railway signal box burnt down after closure, by vandals.
Nuneaton Hospital League
of Friends launched a scanner appeal and within 14 months raised £365,000.
Mrs. Daisy
Haynes (formerly McBean) a well known local character and charity worker who
was born in Jamaica. She raised tens of thousands of pounds for charity and was
awarded with the C.B.E.
Demolition started of the
Sterling Metals factory.
Traffic calming measures
(road humps) brought into use throughout the Borough.
Nuneaton Borough
beat Swansea to reach the second round of the FA Cup. They lost 1-0 at home to
Bournemouth. The match drew an attendance of 4000, and was screened live on Sky
TV.
Nuneaton
Sea-Cadets re-formed.
20th July
- Manor
Hospital closed. Accident and Emergency operations transferred to the new wing of
the George Eliot Hospital at Chilvers Coton.
Work started on
a facelift for Attleborough Green which was made a conservation area. It was
completed in July 1994.
Nuneaton Rugby
Club's "Harry Cleaver Ground" in Attleborough Road sold for housing
development. They moved to a new ground in Eastboro Way
26th January
-
Mr. Terry Maidens of Whitestone was murdered at home by a shotgun blast in
front of his wife and children.
March
- the large
Sterling Metals site cleared.
July
- The bus
operator, J.Lloyd & Sons ceased trading from their premises in Avenue Road.
7th January - Larry Grayson, the Nuneaton comedian died
aged 71. Born in 1923 as William Sully White, son of William Sully, a labourer,
and Ethel White. He never met his father. From the age of 14 onwards he seemed
to have acquired the ability to entertain, mimic and make people laugh and
originally trod the boards as Billy Breen. In 1968 he was spotted by Paul
Raymond in the Gaiety Box Revue and his TV career took off. In 1972 he started
his own ITV show: "Shut that Door" and in that year was voted
"Show Business Personality of the Year." He took over the BBC's
"Generation Game" which he hosted from 1978-82. In 1994 he made a
guest appearance at the Royal Variety Performance. His style of comedy was that
uniquely English genre, the bumbling fool, perhaps more perfectly presented by
that great comedian Tommy Cooper. Larry's was a camp style of his own. He walked with a mincing gate and flapped his
wrists limply, adjusting his hair regularly, and mesmerised his audience with
inuendo and gossip about such characters which he brought to life in your
imagination: "Slack Alice", "Everard", and "Pop it in
Pete" the postman. Seeing him perform you could certainly see the
"Nuneaton" in him. He always looked a bit uneasy in front of an
audience as much as to say "what am I doing here?" and "why are
you daft lot paying to see me?"
His gossip always reminded me of the prattle I imagine he would have
heard amongst the hard bitten housewives in the little court tenements of his
youth in Abbey Street. Such comments as "Look at the muck in
'ere!" "'e's a nice
boy!" and alluding to those draughty houses, with their doors opening
direct onto a cold dank yard "Shut that door!" All set off with such catch phrases as
"Oh what a gay day!" He once said "If I drop dead and get to the
gates of St.Peters, you can't stop me saying Shut that Door!".
It is surprising that
in two centuries there have been two famous Nuneaton personalities who have
risen to main stream national fame: one was a woman pretending to be a man -
George Eliot (1819-1880) the other was Larry Grayson who sat on the fence of
his sexuality, but despite that never offended anyone.
January
- Stockingford church centre opened.
March
- A TV
programme "Local Heroes" dealt with John Barber, patentee of the Gas
Turbine in 1779 who lived in Attleborough.
May/June - A BBC TV
crew came to Nuneaton to make a documentary about Courtaulds Mill, and the
campaign to save it from demolition. It was shown in the series "One foot
in the Past". Broadcast August 1995.
July
- Demolition
commenced Courtaulds Mill.
15th September
-
Naomi Smith murdered at Ansley Common.
4th February
-
Roman pottery remains found in Weddington Road.
February - Harold Lapworth, one of Nuneaton's great characters and custodian of Courtaulds Mill
Clock passed away. He regularly wound and looked after the clock so that
Nuneaton people had a regular time check throughout the day.
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