Goldsmith Mansions

A Memory of Peckham.

I was taken to live in Goldsmith Mansions as a baby of two months in 1946. I lived there with my parents until approximately 1949. I have a memory of walking up the staircase to our flat. I have a much more vivid memory of the inside of the flat, the living room and fireplace and my cot moved into this room during a bout of whooping cough. There was a small kitchen then 2 bedrooms, mine led off from my parents`room. My mother befriended one of the feral cats from the yard outside. She named him Mick. During the heavy snow, in the dreadful winter of 1947, she went outside and brought him up into the flat, the snow was up to her knees. He often brought her a gift of a dead mouse.
On the day that we moved out to Essex, Mick ran off. I remember sitting in the back of the removal van crying out for him. At a later date we returned to see him, he came running up to us for a fuss but would not leave and come with us. We never saw him again and I often wonder what became of him and the other feral cats when Goldsmith Mansion was demolished.
The photos from our time there show the outside of the mansions, a local park and one of what must be Peckham Rye. Also some of Mick.
Sheila Watson nee Brownlie

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