SECREThistory
Lives remembered The families of civilians killed by air raids in World War Two in Willesden have been remembering their loved ones after Brent Council opened a new memorial. On a terrible day in 1940 Sylvia Davis lost six members of her family in an air raid attack; now almost 70 years later there is a memorial inscribed with the names of them all. Sylvia (neé Edmonds) attended the recent opening of the new memorial in Willesden New Cemetery which lists the names of 230 civilians killed in the area in the war. It stands next to an older memorial put up by the old Willesden District Council to the 73 people killed in the raids and buried by the then council because they had no relatives to arrange funerals.
“The memorial is tremendous. We forget how many ordinary people died in factories, streets or in shelters. Now they have more recognition.” “They were killed in a direct hit on Granville Road in Kilburn,” explains Sylvia. “They were my mother’s side of the family – aunties, uncles and nieces called Cook. They wanted to go to the air raid shelters, but the raid started and I think they had no time. “Dad was in a shelter near Queen’s Park Station. They heard a tremendous bang; it was only later they realised what had happened. Luckily, my mother was in Harlesden.”
Willesden was one of the most heavily bombed areas of London: in 1940 during the Blitz and in 1944 during the Nazis’ V1 and V2 campaign. Five civilians, three of them ARP officers, won George medals for heroism including James Brennan, Dr John Beeston, RJ Nicholls and FTW Rogers. Bernard Ireland won his for rescuing four people trapped in the ruins of an air raid shelter in Willesden Technical College. “The memorial is tremendous. We forget how many ordinary people died in factories, streets or in shelters. Now they have more recognition,” added Sylvia. Shelia Gould attended the opening to remember her father Frederick who died when a bomb hit Ivy Road, Cricklewood, in 1940. “There is somewhere he belongs now. Seeing his name on the memorial was very powerful,” she said. Cliff Wadsworth lost his 16-year-old cousin Ivy Blackburn who was killed in Pember Road, Kensal Rise. He said: “There was an air raid. The family went down into the cellar, but she left to go upstairs to get something from her bedroom. There was a direct hit on the house and she was killed instantly. Ivy was at the start of her life.” For more on the bombing of Willesden see ‘Willesden at War’ by KJ Valentine in Brent Archives by emailing archives@brent.gov.uk or call 020 8937 3541. Cliff Wadsworth, left, Sheila Gould, right.
JANUARY 2010
THE BRENT MAGAZINE
27