NOTE - I have now redeveloped this material on a new blogspot site for the Coventry arts Umbrella - here http://coventryartsumbrella.blogspot.co.uk/
The Coventry Arts Umbrella Club began in November 2nd 1955 at its base 97, Little Park St. Martyn Richards tells us
"The Umbrella Club opened in November 1955 by Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan. The trio were presenting their Goon Show at Coventry 'Hippodrome' Theatre, now demolished. The Umbrella's Golden Jubilee celebrations were held in the city in November 2005. The club is now run from the home of its secretary but once its poetry group was a 1000 strong. The Umbrella magazine (to be featured on this site) had entries from Coventry born poet Phillip Larkin and Susan Hall." Martyn Richards
Not sure when it moved from Little Park St. but when I joined in 1969 at 18., it was based at 18, Queen Victoria Rd. Many Coventry's musicians played or frequented the Umbrella, including Two Tone's Neol Davies and Brad (John Bradbury), Sniff and the Tears guitarist Loz Netto and Ron Lawrence, most of the Urge, Indian Summer and Dando Shaft. I came across the Umbrella at the Butts tech while an apprentice electrician doing day release. Heavily into John Peel and writing song lyrics, I was attracted by a poster for an Underground Music and arts fest called Transcendental Cauldron. I worked with, drummer Al Docker at DF Gibbs near the General Wolf. He organised the bands and took me along. Much of my creative developments Isince, in Coventry and Teesside, developed out of that environment. Hobo naturally developed out the work with the Umbrella and the Hobo Workshop was facilited by the Coventry Voluntary Service Council, whose chairman served the Umbrella executive.
Poet / Teacher Terence Watson was one of the main driving forces behind the Umbrella. The Umbrella at Queen Victoria Rd. was a former private dwelling that might have been a solicitor's office had it not been the Umbrella. It was notplush like the Midland Arts Centre in Birmingham, but it was homely! As you went in, there was a counter area where people would sign in and pay. Moving inside with the stairs on the left and a function room (someone's former dining room) with a piano in. This was used for courses / meetings, discos and group practices or lounging when not in officil use. Moving through the house along the hall, with it's Lord of the Rings style mural on the wall, you would reach the Kitchen area. The Kitchen had a hatch and they would serve nonalcaholic beverages and hot dogs, often open to 3am at the weekend when late night band or folk clubs were on. In front of the hatch was a small sitting room where people say to eat and talk. The Umbrella was a melting pot with people from all walks of life intermixing, from long haired hippies and musos, to beared Irish folk singers, poets, buisiness men, actors etc. Informal discussion ranged from the ludicrous to the highly intellectual and often the conversations were pretty heated. Sometimes you'd walk in and there was a seance going on. Another time you find Neol Davies playing a sitar. Just sitting in the coffee area was a cultural education and often a challange intellectually. Often fun too!
Moving outside to the back door you walked into a shed that was infact a little theatre seating about 50 people. Here bands like Asgard and Railroad practices or played. Films would be shown here or theatre.
Upstairs and past the ablutions, were two rooms, a small front room used mainly as an office or store room I think and the big main room where the bands, folk club, drama group, lectures, band pratices, poetry and folk and discos would take place. Upstairs again were more office / committee rooms. Only committee members were allowed up there. So much in a small venue. There was a piano in this room too. It was a place you could get involved with as a committee member or organiser. it's the place that started me off at 18, organising the bands and mixed media events. I began to learn piano here, read my first poem to an audience and performed my songs with guitar to a live audience.
By 1972 the premises at Queen Victoria Rd were condemned and no further premises were immediately available. the Umbrella moved to the Royal Navel Club temporarily before being rehoused at the Charterhouse on London Rd. Although a grand and listed building, the Umbrella seemed to have lost its sense of the 'Underground'. It was then I moved on to develop Hobo.
The Charterhouse is the one surviving. largely unaltered, building from a Medieaval Carthusian monastry founded in 1381 and built about 1415 as the Prior's guesthouse. It was presented by its last owner, William Wyley to the City council in 1940 to benefit the communty educationally and culturally.
Below is taken from the main Umbrella About sheets on the back of their programmes c 1972
About the Umbrella
The purpose of the Umbrella Club is to encourage the enjoyment, practice and appreciation of the arts by providing a meeting place for people interested in the arts, by making available facilities for members to engage in a wide range of artistic activities, and by sponsoring or promoting all kinds of arts events.
There are six activity groups for members: Debating and discussion, Drama and Literary, Film and music (General and Classical,) Visual Arts. These categories are for admin purposes and not intended to encourage functional exclusiveness. In practice there is contact and overlapping between activities with a resultant interplay of idea and techniques. New and experimental ideas are explored through poetry, painting, photography, film, music and drama and mixed media, by both professional and non – professional practitioners. We are working towards an environment in which all ages and sections of the community can freely enjoy creative activities in the arts.
The Umbrella is organised and run by committees elected by the members as provided for in the Constitution and Rules The whole operates within the framework of Coventry Arts Umbrella Limited ie limited by guarantee and not having share capital. It was set up in 1968 on that basis and is a registered charity.
The Umbrella is established to promote and increase the appreciation and understanding of the arts generally. It operates without distinction to sex or political, religious or racial or other opinions. The Governing body of the Umbrella is a council which includes elected officers and executive committee members’ together with a wide range of organisations and interests in the area and nationally.
The Umbrella’s income is derived from membership subscriptions, profit from coffee-bar, admission, commissions on exhibitions sales and an annual grant and guarantee against loss from the ’s Arts Association.
Communal facilities such as the coffee bar encourage a cross-fertilization of ideas always with the possibility of making things happen.
NEWS GOSSIP AND RUMOURS (from Broadgate Gnome 1971)
"Arts Umbrella premises condemned; Council forces move to Chace Guildhouse. resignations expected; a crack in the Bureaucracy? Will Coventry now stand a chance of getting a real Arts Lab. Will the Umbrella ever get it together to let Gnome have an article?"
Further information and resources, including Umbrella Magazine, mins, Programmes, flyers etc. can be found in
Coventry Archives at the Canal Basin in Coventry.
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