AS WITH so much in Reginald Goodall's life an air of mystery surrounds the date of his birth. According to his passport he was born in 1902, but the correct date is 13 July 1901. Goodall himself was to blame for the confusion. In the earlier part of his career he would adjust his age to suit the circumstances. When applying for conducting jobs, he might add a few years, to suggest greater maturity and experience than he possessed. Sometimes he took a few years off. Sometimes, it seems, he so confused himself that he could not remember how old he actually was. According to his marriage certificate he was 28 when he married in 1932. In fact he was 31 – just a few months younger than his wife, who was astonished to discover his real age when in 1940 she registered his application for deferment of military service.

Goodall's birthplace was a modest terraced house in Monks Road, Lincoln, a street of red-brick homes and shops that had grown eastwards from the centre of the city in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Then, as now, 78 Monks Road had a small garden at the front and a paved yard at the back. A brass plate on the gate announced that it was the home of A. E. Goodall, music teacher. Albert Edward Goodall, Reginald's father, taught the piano, and was organist and choirmaster at St Peter-at-Arches, a galleried church of 1724 by William Smith that stood on the north-east corner of the High Street and Silver Street. Music, however, was not Albert's main occupation. He was confidential clerk to E. E. Tweed, a leading Lincoln solicitor. Tweed was Clerk to both the city and county magistrates.

Albert's father, Thomas Goodall, was a leather-dresser by trade, though by the time he died his business activities had expanded in other directions. The Lincoln directory for 1894 describes him as a glue manufacturer, with premises at Bracebridge, then a separate parish to the south of Lincoln, but now part of the city itself. His entry for the following year reads, “Glue powder and size works and firewood merchant, asphalter and miller.”