Val Goodyear-Burrow was born in 1938. She lived at 79 Tavistock Avenue during the war years and can recall specific memories of wartime: shelters, blackouts, gas masks and air-raid sirens. She also remembers watching the gliders coming from the Handley Page direction, playing around the area, swimming in the river and the swimming baths, New Barnes mill and the prisoners of war building the prefabs at the end of Tavistock Avenue. Her father used to be in the RAF and Val remembers air force men with severe burns visiting them. She had family in the USA so they were sent food parcels and toys at Christmas.
Interview date: 29 January 2014. Interviewer: Sandy Norman
Oh, what happy memories of those days. I lived at 56 Tavistock Avenue with
my brother Peter and my sister Lesley, and my mother of course.
I remember the VE street party at the end of the war. I have a photo of
that somewhere. I remember taking a barrow down Doggets Way to get
coke from the Gas Works. I am now 94(!) and I wonder where all the years
have gone. I also remember Lily Welton who lived in the upstairs flat next
to us and going there to Sunday School before it was moved to a larger
venue in Vesta Avenue. Oh, I could go on and on about that time.
But very happy days.