REMINISCING: BERMONDSEY GIRL DAISY TELLS US OF A WORLD OF FACTORIES, HOPSCOTCH AND FINDING LOVE ON THE BADMINTON COURT

Daisy Wilson was born Daisy Smith in 1919 and grew up in 1, Rouel Street, in which she lived right up until she married in 1940.

It was a simpler time then. Small children would entertain by themselves with objects they found Daisy thinks it was superior increasing up back then. “We could participate in in the road without the need of obtaining to dodge autos – all we had to dodge was the horse and carts!” she explained.

“We applied to get a little bit of rope to perform skipping or significant bounce with all the other young children in the road. That exact bit of rope would then be tied all-around the top of the outdated fuel lamps to make a swing.”

Daisy’s eyes lit up as she recalled actively playing marbles and hopscotch. “Nobody minded if you chalked a hopscotch outdoors their dwelling. I was also extremely fantastic at roller-skating I used to skate in Linsey Avenue since that was a good clean street.”

But straying absent from the security of the entrance door was strictly forbidden for Daisy, specially up together the river the place cranes would be lifting hefty loads basically above the heads of pedestrians, plus the unsafe tides in the Thames. “I wasn’t allowed to go up there till I was about 13,” remembers this lady with pretty much a century of reminiscences.

“But even then I wouldn’t go down on the seaside as I was constantly frightened. I never like drinking water as I never learnt to swim.”

“I utilised to go around Southwark Park a whole lot as a baby and then when I had my personal small children I would acquire them over there. All you desired was a bat and ball to enjoy your self.”

Daisy with her paternal grandmother
and a cousin

Some Saturdays would be put in with aunts and cousins in Greenwich Park. “We utilized to get a penny journey on the No. 68 tram to get there I was an only kid so I appreciated going out with other children. All we took was a sandwich and some water and we’d devote the entire working day there. I liked it.”

As time went on the borders of Daisy’s world expanded. “If we experienced someone older with us we have been permitted to go around to the Tower with a picnic or a jam sandwich and participate in all day on the huge guns there.”

Xmas was often a exclusive time of the calendar year for Daisy, which would be invested with her grandparents in Wolseley Buildings, two roomed flats with shared bogs and h2o. “It sounds pretty crude but individuals used to get on with it,” she remembers. “And Xmas was the only time we at any time experienced chocolate.” These days, nevertheless, she sits with a packet of Jelly Toddlers and Werthers Originals often inside attain.

Daisy’s mum, also Daisy, at 1 time worked in an animal skin manufacturing facility – section of Bermondsey’s huge leather field. “If mum was at any time out of perform she would conveniently find a different career. She labored in Hartley’s Jam Manufacturing facility, Crosse & Blackwell’s canning factory in Crimscott Avenue, and at Easter and Christmas she labored in Shuttleworth’s – the chocolate factory – so she usually labored, but was often there when I got residence from university.”

Her father Bert’s employment was not as regular. Daisy reveals: “It was a bit iffy for Father as he was a welder and couldn’t generally uncover work. He applied to queue up at Surrey Docks exactly where the men called on at the bus shelter in Redriff Road, to see if there was any everyday do the job there. Now and yet again welding careers came together 1 was generating Crittall Windows out in Essex, so he experienced to leave really early in the morning, and then a occupation earning toys for Triang.”

Charlie Wilson was a member of the well-known Oxford and Bermondsey Club for boys and Daisy went to Time and Abilities Club, where younger females went.

“One working day, when we had been about 16,” begins Daisy, “a information came from the boys’ club asking if any ladies preferred to play badminton. We did not even know what it was but continue to managed to find 4 of us to participate in. We went along and ended up supplied associates – I obtained Charlie – and we turned quite good at it. And, guess what?” she asks rhetorically. “All four of us girls ended up marrying our badminton companions!”

Daisy associated tales of taking part in in opposition to clubs in the East End and the thrill of strolling again victorious more than Tower Bridge to halt at the espresso stall that was the moment there. “I employed to have a sav sandwich and a cup of tea,” she tells me, remembering people content periods with a chuckle. “I liked a sav sandwich.”

Daisy Smith’s 1st position was in Hobbs, a drapers store on Southwark Park Street. “I used to get 6 bob a week (30p) and had to give my mum 4 bob of that (20p),” she laughs at the memory.

“I ended up with two bob for myself (10p).”

The Bermondsey female provides “we didn’t have a great deal income to spare but we were joyful and that is the key matter.”

Hobbs didn’t give shell out rises, so Daisy moved to a baker’s in the Previous Kent Highway and then to a career in Gamages, the big division store in Holborn. “That was a charming career, I liked it there.”

In 1940, when Daisy married Charlie, who labored at an estate agent’s in Grange Highway, they moved into two rooms just along from her spouse and children dwelling at No.7 Rouel Highway.

“With the bombing and all that,” starts this neighborhood legend, “we got bombed out and was presented a flat in Penge. I experienced to journey to operate by coach and my partner joined the military.”

Even though at Penge her very first son Peter was born, so Daisy moved back again to Tenda Road to be near to her spouse and children and has recollections of evenings spent in the Anderson shelter at the conclusion of the back garden. With her mum on the lookout soon after newborn Peter, Daisy received a job in the workplaces of the aged Bermondsey City Hall in Spa Street, exactly where she invested many content decades.

When the war ended, and with the spouse and children extra settled, Charlie and Daisy experienced extra children: Barbara, Bruce, Pam and Amanda arrived and in 1962 they moved into a property in Wilson Grove. “You had to have 5 kids to qualify for a dwelling,” Daisy recollects, “and we had five.” Anita, the youngest, was born subsequent in the new property that the Wilson siblings were being raised in, and it is the household where by Daisy lived happily for the up coming 56 decades. Her daughter Amanda and her family members however are living in that dwelling, but Daisy regrettably passed away in 2018 at the grand age of 98 – not lengthy following she did this interview.

RIP Daisy Wilson, a accurate Bermondsey Girl

This report is introduced to you by our sister publication The Bermondsey Biscuit and Rotherhithe Docker