firestone buildings, nottingham

[roly]

Trying to compile a family history and have in my possession a letter written by my father, who was serving with the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps, back home to Regina, Saskatchewan.

The address on the letter is given as Firestone Buildings, 5 Canal Street, Nottingham.  I've had no luck so far in finding anything about the place.  Was it, for example, requisitioned by the British or Canadian Armies or was it a private residence?  I can find no official trace of Canadian troops in the Nottingham area but a Regina Newspaper alleged that my father was the first commander of troops in and around Nottingham since Robin Hood (sic).

Can anyone help?

roly brown

[medpat]

There was a big army camp at Chilwell Nottingham in WW2 as my mother was stationed there, in the ATS, rewiring damaged tanks so the British army was already in Nottingham.

Firestone's is a tyre company wonder if they handed over their offices for accommodation.

[roly]

That makes sense...The Royal Army Ordnance Corps was stationed in Chilwell.  Perhaps there was liasion between the RAOC and the RCOC.

roly

[larkspur]

https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/gallery/51-pictures-canal-street-past-3080498

There is the Firestone tyre company. Lovely art deco-ish building- now gone. Eighth picture just under the bridge. But like you I can find no connection to Canada.

 "In the Second World War, the RCOC had a strength of 35,000 military personnel, not including the thousands of civilian personnel employed at RCOC installations. They procured all the material goods required by the Army, from clothing to weapons. Up until 1944, the RCOC was responsible for maintenance and repair. Ordnance Field Parks, that carried everything from spare parts to spare artillery, supported the Divisions and Corps."

Could it have been an "RCOC installation" for the supply of tyres maybe??

[roly]

Thank you for the lead to a photograph.

My father was somewhere towards the top of the RCOC hierarchy (ahem: he became a Lt. Colonel) and in charge, so to speak.  He may, then, just have been on a visit and co-ordinating a supply of goods (such as tyres, as you note).

As far as I can tell, most Canadians disembarked and were taken to Aldershot.  However, another post has revealed that there was a Royal Ordnance Depot at Chilwell.  It would seem likely that there was a connection between it and the RCOC.

The firestone building may have just been a temporary stopover for my father.

Next - a date.  He arrived in the UK in April 1940 and I'm pretty sure was in London soon after...

Onwards and sideways.

roly

[Jane Eden]

Hi
I agree with larkspur about the building. There was an ordinance factory on the side of the river Trent as well as Chilwell. If you look up B and Q riverside that is around where the ordnance factory was. Much closer than Chilwell.