My Mum, June Friend (was June Hayes) is Aubrey’s cousin. Her brother, my Uncle Bill Hayes has just informed us that sadly, Aubrey has recently passed away.

Some of Aubrey’s recollections above were known to me but many were brand new! I remember Aubrey hosting a Bar Mitzpha for one of his sons in the ’70s which our family were invited to – I couldn’t believe the amount of food! What a treat! Aubrey dropped in on my (late) father’s business in Sutton, Surrey in the early ’80s. We were specialists in lifting equipment. My father’s name was Terry Friend. Later, we visited Aubrey and Janet at their opulent home in Barnet (I think it was).
His parents still lived in their East End council flat – know to me as Uncle Sammie and Aunt Bessie, I visited them one day because I had a delivery to make for one of my Dads customers close by. Aunt Bessie opened the door and was so welcoming! She rustled up salt beef and gherkin sandwiches in no time! And Uncle Sammy told me about various film stars, celebrities and villains that he’d had as fares in his cab – he’d retired by that point.

My Mums Mum was Rachel Hayes (nee Levy), and was the sister of Aubrey’s mother Bessie.

My Mum’s early life was riven with tragedy. She was evacuated at the age of 5 with her brother Billy who was 11. They arrived in Cuckfield, Sussex where Mum was passed around from post to post due to being “difficult”. She wouldn’t settle – even punching a hole in the window of an elderly spinsters cottage because the old lady had insisted on locking Mum up. At 5 years old, it’s hard to fathom that adults couldn’t work out what was troubling Mum. An enforced separation from he parents and big brother (he’d been billeted elsewhere) following the destruction of their East end cottage just weeks before, then being put up by total strangers in a village setting… Several weeks later, her Dad, Will Hayes who was reserved occupation (lorry driver) was on his way to visit them in Sussex having completed a non stop shift driving from the London docks to Liverpool and back when he crashed and was killed near Redhill.

Mum returned to Bethnal Green when she was 11 and was enrolled into Daniel Street school – along with the Kray twins!

She is 88 now and in poor health but has all her “marbles!”

R.i.P Aubrey Goldsmith.

,

You went to Coopers Company School with my wife Stella Rotman and My friends Martin Vasner and Monty Goldberg who became Lee Montague the actor.
I was in Frome with Coopers evacuees till we returned in 1945

If you want to see the pictures you will have to be a good boy and do it right. Perhaps Carole will help you.

Regards Bernd and Karin

May I intrude a little and ask about a boy in the school photograph that is shown at the begining,
— he is seated in the second row up, second from the left ,
If it is possible to identify him as a ‘ Browne ‘ or a ‘ Ferguson ‘ by name , then I see an ancester!

He is so like my brother , who passed away some years ago – and he has what
we call ‘ the Browne ‘ frown .

I am convinced my relatives are from the East End of London , then spread to Islington and other areas of North London, where I was brought up,

Please contact on ‘ janice.humpage @virginmedia.com ‘ if you can help, many thanks.

Are you the same Aubrey who worked with Malcom Meredith at PMA/Lebus in the 70’s?

I’m trying to track down some of those guys I worked with at that time and I recall some interesting times being ‘mentored’ with an A.G then.

Steve Parrott in Bristol