George Foster
We do know something about how air-raid fire-watcher George Foster of number 69 was killed that night of a massive fire-bomb raid 10th-11th April 1941. He was standing in his front garden (or maybe ran from the adjacent alley into his front garden on seeing a fire) and was killed where he stood when a bomb landed feet away in the road.
He and his family owned a builders-yard which was up the alley by number 81 and some other properties along that part of the road. See the 1938 rate-payers list.
A resident at the time emails;
"In 1940 my future wife lived with parents at 65 Goosemoor Lane. This was adjacent to an alleyway which led up to garages and tennis courts."
(Still an alley there today of course)
"A nearby bomb shattered back windows of the house but in accordance with govt. instructions the glass was layered in sticky tape and no serious damage was done"
(Probably the bomb on Enstone Road on August 9th)
"On a later night when several people, out fire-watching in the road, were killed, number 65 suffered more damage - ceilings brought down, walls cracked, plaster dislodged and windows broken. The house was repairable but not habitable and they had to move in with a relative".
If you stand outside number 69 today (though the paving cracking is modern) you'll still see gouges in the pavement paving-stones from the bomb that killed George Foster.
For decades I've walked past that bit of pavement, as we all have, of course unaware of it's history, just one small reminder of one major Luftwaffe raid on the city.
Reminds me of the final line from the documentary `U-869 : Hitler's Lost Submarine' where for decades a U-boat believed sunk off Morocco is actually found to have been lying sunk off the coast of New Jersey, USA. The sister of one of the crew (born after the War) had later emigrated to the USA, for years unaware how close her dead brothers' submarine actually was;
"For most of us, World War Two exists only in photographs and moving pictures. Distant in time and place - but the cost of the war is still being paid today. By survivors, by relatives of those who lost their lives, by those who were only children at the time, and by some who were not even born when the storm was raging. Like U-869, the scars of the Second World War are still there, hidden beneath the surface, yet closer than we realise."
Goosemoor Lane WWII Casualty List