Coventry Arts Umbrella Club Archive: Jim Runnalls Remembers the early days of the Coventry Umbrella Club.

I got a very interesting email from Jim Runnalls, a former pupil of Bablake School and
Aeronautical Engineer and one of the founding members of the Coventry Arts Umbrella Club. Jim has been mentioned on this site before in relation to the article on Matlock. This is Jim in his own words - and hopefully he will tell us some more - which i will add to this page.

My name is Jim Runnalls and I was a very junior teen age 'founder' member. I'm now 83! I recall that the Umbrella had been going for some time before the Goons visit. I do remember Harry Secombe's brief speech when he declared the Umbrella Club 'Open and long may it rain!!!!."

The UMBRELLA could truly be described as a centre of culture in what was a more or less WWII bombed site. Little Park Street was a tiny jewel of medieval Coventry which Hitler failed to completely flatten. It housed a few lawyers and the registry office where I was married and one or two solicitors offices going towards the cathedral. Opposite the club and to the south was a wasteland which became a fairground once or twice a year. On the north side of the club were the remains of a magnificent three story house with internal staircases and balconies which I and a few others pleaded with the Council to restore. Like the Umbrella they poured concrete on it all. The south side of the club housed an medieval courtyard with small dwellings one of which was the home to a very disabled young man who was wheelchair bound speech impaired youth and who played a small xylophone using a clay pipe gripped between his teeth. The entrance to this courtyard housed a fabulous little medieval pub. With The Registry Office opposite it was an almost complete community. Wasn’t it ironic that the clubs creative core were employed in the City’s architects office where they created the awful precinct of concrete devoid of people which destroyed my already battered City?

I was ORIGINALLY adopted by Geoffrey Saunders and Stanley Sellars who PROVED able to generated cultural instincts in an aeronautical engineer. We holidayed in St. Ives together and I met Barbara Hepworth etc.

Rex Chell (Architect) was another notable. We were controlled by an (to an 18y.o.) aged couple. The gentleman who’s name escapes me who controlled most of our more crazy ideas and his more sedate wife.

John & Jean Astle ran the music room which I built with my Bablake music master!!!!

Donald Lindon, jazz musician/double bass who was also a Chartered Quantity Surveyor in Coventry.was I think the musician you were searching for.

When they built a new Central Police Station nearby. We were frequently ‘raided’ but soon they left their helmets near the front door and joined in the fun! The Lady Mayoress, Pearl Hyde quite often would arrive at the club in her official car, in all of her regalia and come to drink coffee and talk to the youngsters who were shaping her city.

I worked closely with Terry Watson on the Umbrella Magazine and am guilty of designing one of its most awful cover pages.

I have to say that those days were extremely beneficial to me and I hope that The UMBRELLA still enthuses the youth of my City.

James Runnalls – Freeman of Coventry.

Jim Runnalls Aeronuatical Engineer & Bablake School July 22, 2021 at 11:20 AM

I'm writing to you as a founder member of The UMBRELLA. I'd left Bablake School at sixteen in 1954 to commence an aeronautical engineering apprenticeship with Armstrong Whitworth. The Corporation bus from Cheylesmore where I lived passed the front door of no. 97 and its magnetism was irresistible.

I became a founder member and was responsible for much of the interior decoration before that visit by the GOONS when The DEDICATION by I think was Harry Secombe who declared I hereby name the club THE UMBRELLA long may it rain. which it was at the time! the Coventry Registry Office was opposite. My wife and I were married there and celebrated in the club afterwards. Geoffrey Saunders and Stanly Sellars were witnesses I think. My Bablake School music master (name escapes me) and I built the Hi-Fi system upstairs. i was instrumental in the Umbrella Magazine and much else before marriage and children intervened. The Umbrella gave me a wonderful early upbringing and has had a profound influence on my life. There were so many guiding lights and never was anything untoward. The Umbrella gave my a start in life which was irreplaceable. I cannot describe the awful impact of its eventual destruction supervised by Arthur Ling.(City Architect)

The Umbrella at Little Park Street in mid to late 50's.