Daisy Wilson was born Daisy Smith in 1919 and grew up in 1, Rouel Road, where she lived until she married in 1940.
It was a simpler time then. Children would entertain themselves with objects they found; Daisy thinks it was better growing up back then. “We could play in the street without having to dodge cars – all we had to dodge was the horse and carts!” she said.
“We used to get a bit of rope to play skipping or high jump with all the other children in the street. That same bit of rope would then be tied around the top of the old gas lamps to make a swing.”
Daisy’s eyes lit up as she recalled playing marbles and hopscotch. “Nobody minded if you chalked a hopscotch outside their house. I was also very good at roller-skating; I used to skate in Linsey Street because that was a nice smooth road.”
But straying away from the safety of the front door was strictly forbidden for Daisy, especially up along the river where cranes would be lifting heavy loads literally above the heads of pedestrians, plus the dangerous tides in the Thames. “I wasn’t allowed to go up there until I was about 13,” recalls this lady with almost a century of memories.
“But even then I wouldn’t go down on the beach as I was always frightened. I don’t like water as I never learnt to swim.”
“I used to go over Southwark Park a lot as a child and then when I had my own children I would take them over there. All you needed was a bat and ball to enjoy yourself.”
and a cousin
Some Saturdays would be spent with aunts and cousins in Greenwich Park. “We used to get a penny ride on the No. 68 tram to get there; I was an only child so I liked going out with other kids. All we took was a sandwich and some water and we’d spend the whole day there. I loved it.”
As time went on the borders of Daisy’s world expanded. “If we had someone older with us we were allowed to go over to the Tower with a picnic or a jam sandwich and play all day on the big guns there.”
Christmas was always a special time of the year for Daisy, which would be spent with her grandparents in Wolseley Buildings, two roomed flats with shared toilets and water. “It sounds very crude but people used to get on with it,” she remembers. “And Christmas was the only time we ever had chocolate.” These days, though, she sits with a packet of Jelly Babies and Werthers Originals always within reach.
Daisy’s mum, also Daisy, at one time worked in an animal skin factory – part of Bermondsey’s huge leather industry. “If mum was ever out of work she would easily find another job. She worked in Hartley’s Jam Factory, Crosse & Blackwell’s canning factory in Crimscott Street, and at Easter and Christmas she worked in Shuttleworth’s – the chocolate factory – so she always worked, but was always there when I got home from school.”
Her father Bert’s employment was not as regular. Daisy reveals: “It was a bit iffy for Dad as he was a welder and couldn’t always find work. He used to queue up at Surrey Docks where the men called on at the bus shelter in Redriff Road, to see if there was any casual work there. Now and again welding jobs came along; one was making Crittall Windows out in Essex, so he had to leave very early in the morning, and then a job making toys for Triang.”
Charlie Wilson was a member of the famous Oxford and Bermondsey Club for boys and Daisy went to Time and Talents Club, where young ladies went.
“One day, when we were about 16,” begins Daisy, “a message came from the boys’ club asking if any girls wanted to play badminton. We didn’t even know what it was but still managed to find four of us to play. We went along and were given partners – I got Charlie – and we became quite good at it. And, guess what?” she asks rhetorically. “All four of us girls ended up marrying our badminton partners!”
Daisy related tales of playing against clubs in the East End and the thrill of walking back victorious over Tower Bridge to stop at the coffee stall that was once there. “I used to have a sav sandwich and a cup of tea,” she tells me, remembering those happy times with a chuckle. “I loved a sav sandwich.”
Daisy Smith’s first job was in Hobbs, a drapers store on Southwark Park Road. “I used to get six bob a week (30p) and had to give my mum four bob of that (20p),” she laughs at the memory.
“I ended up with two bob for myself (10p).”
The Bermondsey girl adds “we didn’t have much money to spare but we were happy and that’s the main thing.”
Hobbs didn’t give pay rises, so Daisy moved to a baker’s in the Old Kent Road and then to a job in Gamages, the huge department store in Holborn. “That was a lovely job, I loved it there.”
In 1940, when Daisy married Charlie, who worked at an estate agent’s in Grange Road, they moved into two rooms just along from her family home at No.7 Rouel Road.
“With the bombing and all that,” begins this local legend, “we got bombed out and was given a flat in Penge. I had to travel to work by train and my husband joined the army.”
While at Penge her first son Peter was born, so Daisy moved back to Tenda Road to be close to her family and has memories of nights spent in the Anderson shelter at the end of the garden. With her mum looking after baby Peter, Daisy got a job in the offices of the old Bermondsey Town Hall in Spa Road, where she spent many happy years.
When the war ended, and with the family more settled, Charlie and Daisy had more children: Barbara, Bruce, Pam and Amanda arrived and in 1962 they moved into a house in Wilson Grove. “You had to have five children to qualify for a house,” Daisy recalls, “and we had five.” Anita, the youngest, was born next in the new home that the Wilson siblings were raised in, and it is the home where Daisy lived happily for the next 56 years. Her daughter Amanda and her family still live in that house, but Daisy sadly passed away in 2018 at the grand age of 98 – not long after she did this interview.
RIP Daisy Wilson, a true Bermondsey Girl
This article is brought to you by our sister publication The Bermondsey Biscuit and Rotherhithe Docker
