John Goldsmith grew up in the 1930s at 35 St Stephens Road Bow, where the Tredegar Practice now stands. His talk was illustrated by 30 of his own drawings of childhood memories.
John’s great great grandfather worked at Barking fishing port. His father worked at an oilcloth works at Old Ford. He painted patterns on it. Oilcloth was superseded by linoleum which started to become available from 1864.
John said: “I was born on 10th October 1930, a couple of days after the R101 disaster. My parents were Charles and Jessie Goldsmith. We lived over the shop, so to speak, at St 35 Stephen’s Road, Bow, London E3. The business was road transport and dad’s office next door overlooked the yard where the trucks were stored when not on the road.
“Up until the outbreak of World War 2 life was comfortable. Dad was very keen on flying in a De Havilland Puss Moth from Gravesend airfield. Summer Sundays were spent there, and my mates came along too. My first flight was when I was four years old. Dad’s brother Bill had a Puss Moth too. He had caught the bug for flying when in the Royal Flying Corps during World War 1.
“Suddenly all things changed. Hitler invaded Poland and Chamberlain declared war on Germany.
“I was evacuated to Mum’s sister’s pub at Banbury and heard the sound of the sirens on 3rd September announcing we were at war. One year passed and things in my world were more or less the same until 7th September 1940. That Saturday was a beautiful day, sunny and warm. The siren went, but it often did, and nothing happened.
“Then, came a sound of rumbling air engines. I stood outside our house and saw masses of Nazi bombers heading for us at many levels. They seemed to have the freedom of the sky. There were no ack-ack guns firing, or any Spitfires shooting them down. The bombs rained down over the docks to the south of us and the sky became an awful blood red colour. Us kids watched and watched and scaled the stairs to the roof of a block of flats. From there we could see the East End was on fire. It was the start of the Blitz.
“I was sent away again to be evacuated with a family in Cowley near Oxford. The house was near the Morris works, turning out defence weapons. I was there for eighteen months but eventually returned to Bow after the Blitz had finished.
“Friends had also returned so life became almost normal except for rationing and restrictions on travel. We kids made our own entertainment because there were so many bombed houses that adventures were frequent with only one or two mishaps.
“Hitler was now becoming desperate and sent V1 and V2 bombs to “beat the population into fear and submission.” He did not know the character of us Brits, because it did not work and, ultimately, “Peace broke out,” as dad would say.
“One final result of all those bomb sites arose when worthy Councillors gathered to think of ways of using the cleared land. One Lady Alderman said, “Level the land and let the children play on it”. Well, that is exactly what we did with stripped down bikes, and we created Cycle Speedway. But that is another story.”
John Goldsmith 31 March 2023.
(All the illustrations here are by John Goldsmith)