The Blacksmiths

- First under the arches until Bob was 3 or 4 (1932)
- then moved to Douglas St (quite a big premises)
- Island dock area bombed 7/9/40 marking the start of the Blitz - first German raid
- Bob already in Banbury when Blitz started

Alfred "If you want anything, I will make it for you"
Lily "well how about a new shovel for the stove?"
And he did. It was very practical - perfect and efficient. You couldn't buy what he made!
Lost in the move from East Ham to Elm Park.

The Blacksmiths in our past were James William Griffin & Sons (there were 8 sons). James was Bob's Grandad, father of Alfred Ernest Griffin who of course married Lily Sarah Baker to start our present day dynasty. He would have been operating as a Smithy before the Twenties. Alfred was born in 1898. In 1914, Alfred was 16, and conscripted into the Army at 18. He was too young to be sent to the Western Front.

The first premises were located under these Arches in the twenties, Manchester Rd Poplar, just on the Thames River. They moved from here when Bob was 3 or 4 to Douglas St. in about 1932. He remembers this because he has a scar on the end of his finger from a cut he got helping Uncle Walter push a cart with stuff in the new premises. He remembers this happening before school years. That spoilt the moving day as he was taken off to hospital. Luckily the tip of his finger grew back. The building in the background is across the Thames, Greenwich Naval Facility

Here are the Arches today next to the Island Garden Station. Steve visited this spot in 1988 with sister-in-law Kylie.

Bob got these photos off a local historian in Poplar he tracked down. She had been given them all those years ago by Walter Griffin. Amazing!!