Tribute to Christine Jones: Lynchpin of her Warwickshire community and childhood witness of the Coventry Blitz

One of the last surviving witnesses of the Coventry Blitz, Christine Jones, has died aged 94 after decades as ‘a lynchpin of her community.’ Her daughter, Sally Jones, has put together the following obituary.

FAMILY TRIBUTE TO CHRISTINE JONES

Mrs Jones, who latterly lived at Newbold Pacey near Leamington, grew up in a close-knit, sporty family at Broad Lane, Coventry.

She was 11 when the Second World War broke out. A Girl Guide, keen to ‘do her bit’ for the war effort, she enjoyed being self-sufficient, making campfires, producing ‘feasts’ in an old kettle from any food scrounged from the pantry and vegetables from the family’s allotment beside Hearsall Common.

Her father Priday Smith, Chief Cashier of Lloyds Bank, Coventry was too old to fight, but became a full-time fireman as German bombers pulverised the city night after night.

Christine was evacuated in 1939, during the ‘phony War’, but ironically returned a year later, just as the bombing onslaughts on the city’s engineering factories ramped up.

Interviewed by her journalist daughter Sally Jones years later, she vividly remembered the night of November 14 ,1940:

“It was like a giant, deafening firework display, the biggest raid we’d ever seen. Waves of bombers roared over, hour after hour, with Dad and his brigade in the thick of it, spraying water on the Cathedral and the blazing buildings in the city centre.

"Sadly the water supply failed after the mains were hit. By morning Coventry was flattened and the Cathedral completely burnt out.

"Dad arrived home at dawn, unrecognisable, exhausted and grey from head to foot after wheeling his bike over piles of rubble, with no idea where the roads had been.

"He said one man was frying sausages in the burning ruins of his house.”

The raids made Coventry so dangerous Christine was sent to her grandmother’s home at Hucclecote in Gloucestershire and enjoyed organising bazaars and amateur theatricals like ‘Lady Windermere’s Fan’ as fund-raisers for the war effort.

Rationing of treats like sweets and fruit was tough on everyone and Christine particularly loved cheese so her mother Madeline would post her own ration, two ounces of shrivelled Cheddar, to her each week.

Christine joined the Sea Rangers and eventually became a Ranger captain, taking her troop trekking and learning seamanship aboard large rowing boats on the Coventry Canal.

She took a two-year course in Domestic Science, first working in catering at Coventry Hippodrome on £4 a week.

Here she dealt with a drunken head chef and a manager who handled complaints about his kitchen’s cleanliness by bribing the hygiene inspector with whisky or butter.

She met big names – including the Tiller Girls, the young Frankie Howerd and Laurel and Hardy, who offered her a generous tip of 2/6 – which she promptly returned, in embarrassment.

When her father brought a shy young bank clerk called John Jones, recently arrived from North Wales, home for supper, the two bonded over a shared love of hill-walking and sailing.

After only three dates however, Christine suffered life-threatening head injuries in a car accident while working as a school meals supervisor in Suffolk.

This left her unconscious for two weeks and she had to learn to walk and talk again - so Jones sent a stream of joky letters and sketches to cheer her up.

He proposed soon afterwards and the couple married in 1953. A decade later, Jones became manager of Lloyds Bank Coleshill and during the perishing winter of 1963 the family temporarily lived in the freezing Bank House above the branch.

Mrs Jones took her two children Sally and Edward, later a long-serving Lloyds Bank executive, sledging and skating and produced slap up teas worthy of the Famous Five.

Typically she threw herself into local life - the church, the WI, the tennis club, the local Guide company and making spectacular costumes for the Coleshill Carnival.

When she entered her signature marmalade in the WI produce show for the first time and won, the local ‘marmalade queen’ who was expecting to win it as usual was furious – it took several years before the two spoke.

In 1969 she co-founded the weekly Coleshill Country Market. This gave local people the chance to drop in for a chat and a cuppa as they bought home-baked goodies.

She was cooking for this within months of her death, proud that it was still going strong over 50 years later. As school cook at Oak Cottage Primary School in Solihull in the 1970s, she enjoyed introducing picky eaters to a wide range of unfamiliar tastes.

Mrs Jones played at Coleshill Tennis Club for 55 years, loving the camaraderie of club nights and league matches – and only gave up doubles aged 89, saying she was getting slow and letting her partner down.

She also taught her daughter Sally to play aged 9 and followed her progress in county and national tournaments.

She loved watching any family activities, from Mastermind appearances to netball, Real Tennis and cricket matches, particularly cheering on Warwickshire Ladies battling at County Tennis Week, most recently last July.

As the team’s unofficial mascot, she was always ready with her tin of flapjacks for “the girls” after long matches.

Although widowed in 2011, she remained dauntless, keen for new experiences and unfazed by celebrity.

Meeting the famous chef Ottolenghi in the green room of ITV’s ‘This Morning’, recently, she happily swapped school meals tips with him.

Then just months before her death, she gamely travelled with the family by open boat and Land Rover over wild terrain to remote Cape Wrath in northwest Scotland.

She is survived by her two children and three grandchildren.