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Busy life and times of man who lived through two world wars
Harry Goodwin lived 92 full and active years working as a Co-op milkman, seeing service in the Royal Engineers and later, in retirement, travelling the world. Here his daughter Janice Goodwin of Chellaston pays tribute to his memory.
Harry, his brother, Noel, and his sister, Eva, were all educated at Brighton Road School.
Early family photographs show that holidays were spent at Skegness - a very different Skegness from the one we know today.
The children's grandparents lived at Mansfield Woodhouse and bred Airedale terrier dogs. It was there that the two boys were evacuated during the First World War, which explains Harry's lifelong love of dogs.
At the age of 14, Harry left school and started work at the Co-operative dairy, in Woods Lane, Derby. It is said that he delivered milk from a horse and cart all round his home area of Crewton.
He stayed with the Co-op throughout his entire working life, firstly as a full-time milkman, eventually with an electric float, then in the bottling plant and, for a couple of years following retirement, was asked to help out part-time in the bakery.
Once married, they both played tennis regularly with their wives and friends.
In September 1934, Harry went abroad on his own for the first time, on the White Star Line SS Doric. It cost 10 guineas for 10 days. He visited Gibraltar, Lisbon, Oporto, Majorca, Algiers and the Channel Islands.
The Doric had entered service in 1923, having been built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard. It quickly earned the nickname "Cupid's Ship" as it was especially popular with newly weds and young people.
It was a large ship in those early days of cruising, with 736 passengers and 350 crew.
Luckily for Harry, in that he was not on board, but sadly for the Doric, the ship was to meet a tragic fate just one year later.
In difficult weather conditions, the ship was approaching Oporto, Portugal, at a reduced speed when, suddenly, out of the heavy fog, loomed another vessel, the Chargeurs-Reunis coastal steamer, Formigny, which was en route to north-west Algeria when it collided with the Doric in the middle of the night.
Incredibly, there were no casualties on either ship. Distress calls were made, the lifeboats were launched and, with no apparent panic, over a number of hours, the ship was evacuated - except for the captain and some crew members.
The Doric then slowly made her way to Vigo in Spain for temporary repairs. Many ships came to her aid during the night of September 5, 1935, including the Orient Line's brand new Orion, returning from her maiden voyage, and the P &O liner, Viceroy of India, also returning from a Mediterranean cruise.
Two months later, the Doric was scrapped for £35,000 as repairs were deemed too costly. Harry was there in Newport, South Wales, when the Doric made her final journey to the scrap yard - thankful that the collision hadn't been a year earlier when he was on his maiden voyage.
It was also in l935 that Harry met lvy Reader, of Warner Street. Ivy was the eldest of eight children born to Ernest and Edith Reader.
In a previous edition of Bygones, there was an interesting article about the life of a Poor Law Officer in the 1920s.
The officer was Ivy's father. Fife Street, like Warner Street, was a fairly poor area, with tiny back-to-back terraced houses equipped with a single cold water tap in a freezing cold scullery.
They had no bathrooms, only outside toilets, no electricity or heating, apart from a coal fire, in those early days. Yet Harry's brother and sister, and Ivy's seven siblings all survived to adulthood.
Great poverty was endured by both families. Ivy's father, Ernest, eventually became a vaccination officer and Jack, Harry's father, was a bus driver.
Harry and Ivy married in September 1937 at Christ Church, on Burton Road. He was called up for National Service in 1940 and joined the Royal Engineers as a sapper. His war record is described as exemplary. He was posted to Italy and Germany, probably also to North Africa, although the actual postings remain something of a mystery, despite an extensive search.
He was awarded five medals, which have been donated to the Royal Engineers' museum, in Kent.
After his demob from the armed forces, Harry returned to the Co-op dairy in Derby. Although working as a secretary, Ivy had suffered considerable financial difficulties, had lost the family home in Hillsway, Littleover, and was living in a flat in central Derby.
On his return, the couple moved to a rented property in Chellaston, where they shared their home firstly with Leslie, Ivy's brother, and his family, and then with Phyllis, Ivy's sister, and her family.
In December 1952, Harry and Ivy's only child, Janice, was born.
Harry loved the great outdoors and had an allotment on Radford Street, Alvaston, which he and Noel took over in 1962 after their father's death. Later, he had one on Merrill Way, Allenton.
Harry rode his push-bike everywhere, often coming home late at night, laden with homegrown produce! He also walked for miles with his pet dogs and was well-known in the Shelton Lock and Chellaston area.
Harry was also a member of crib, whist and dominoes leagues and, for more than a decade, his leadership won the teams an incredible amount of trophies.
Bingo was another passion and he was a caller, on Sunday nights, at the Co-operative Employees' Club, on Charnwood Street. In his later years, he spent many enjoyable evenings playing bingo at the Hippodrome, in Green Lane.
In 1974, Harry and Ivy went on an unforgettable holiday to New York on board the QE2.
It was after her death, in 1980, that he started going away alone to many memorable destinations all over Europe and twice to Canada.
He continued his jaunts abroad until his health started to decline and when he eventually needed round-the-clock attention, happily moved into a Derby nursing home, where he received excellent care until his death in March 2000.
If he had lived, Harry would have been 100 in April 2008, so this is written in his memory.
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