Peter and Margaret Goffin

Peter Goffin born 1906 married Margaret Wallace Dale

Peter and Margaret had 2 daughters :-

Christabel Goffin born 1937 at Turnip End. See below article by Christabel published in Speen magazine.

Lucy Goffin born 1947.

1939 CENSUS (War Register). Dawn Cottage, Turnip End. Peter Goffin 33 designer of sets and costume for theatre. Margaret Goffin (wife) 33. 1 person absent. Bridget D’oyly Carte divorced 31 private means. Maurice Usher single 29 designer of sets and costume for theatre.

DAWN COTTAGE at TURNIP END   by Sandra Jenkins

About 1946 Dawn Cottage was lived in by Margaret and Peter Goffin.   At that time Peter was well known as a set and costume designer for the D’Oily Carte Opera Company.   He was often in London all week.   Presumably they had no car as they relied on buses or people giving them lifts.   The cottage had a water tank in the garden where they hung the butter and milk which they bought from the Parslows at Flowers Bottom Farm in order to keep it cool.   The privy was outside and there was no bathroom for many years.

Christabel Goffin, now Christabel Grimmer, recalls Life in Dawn Cottage,Turnip End for Speen magazine.

MY CHILDHOOD HOME. Before I married Mike Grimmer (who I met in The Plough in 1957 when he was working at Bomber Command) my name was Christabel Goffin.   I was born in 1937, and I lived all my childhood at Turnip End.    My father was Peter Goffin, my mother was Margaret.   My sister Lucy was born in that terrible winter of 1947 in the Shrubbery nursing home on the West Wycombe Road.

NO CAR. Arch Janes was always ferrying us about (we didn’t have a car) to Wycombe station if the bus didn’t run, when we were off on a summer holiday with too much luggage to carry, and I am sure he brought my mother and baby sister back from the nursing home in that terrible winter.   I was ten and well remember the snow was so deep at Turnip End that mother was unable to come home for some time. click Archie and Elsie Janes for more about Arch Janes

1947 WINTER. My father was a Theatre Designer and often had to stay in London during the week.   When mother was stuck in the nursing home I stayed with the Cheshire family who lived behind Rose Ellis’s pub (they had a chicken farm).  I went to school with Bella and Susan Cheshire.   I remember when my father came to collect me, we struggled through the snow from Speen to Turnip End and then had to dig our way through the snow to find our front door!   It certainly was a never to be forgotten winter.

LIFE IN THE HOUSE. As for Calor gas, outside toilet and a well (tank), we had all three and I was well into my teens before we had the luxury of a proper bathroom.   It was the tin bath in front of the copper fire for many years.   My little sister had her bath IN the copper, but of course only when the fire was well and truly out.    In hot weather mother used to hang a bucket down the tank to keep the butter and milk (from the Parslow's at Flowers Bottom Farm) nice and cool….. once or twice we lost the lot when the string came undone.

BLACKOUT FABRIC BECAME A HORSE. I remember Miss Emily Saunders and her lovely shop.    I so loved our trips to see her to get my sweet ration for the week;   Doctor Edwards who looked after us so well and was always kind and helpful;  and my mother making a pantomime horse costume from old faded wartime blackout fabric and we often entered the Fancy Dress parade at Speen Fete.