Interviewed by Jean Riddell (JR)
Date: 20/08/2004
Transcribed by Jean Riddell
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O 2004.11
Interviewees: Mrs Hazel Suckling
Date: 20 Aug 2004
Venue: 2 Elton Court, Bengeo
Interviewers: Jean Riddell (JR)
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
JR: 2 Elton Court, Bengeo with Mrs Hazel Suckling. I am going to ask her primarily about the war and her experiences being involved in the flying bomb attack on Mill Bridge. But there will be other things as well I think; we will see how we go any way. We hope that’s recording alright I am just going to test this just in case and then we will get going. Record and play, all right, yes good.
JR: So where did you live?
HS: I lived on the Bengeo estate; I lived at 12 Gosselin Road, Bengeo.
JR: Ok so right up on the hill then really, yes?
HS: Yes, just behind Bengeo Church.
JR: What year were you born?
HS: I was born in 1927, May the 10, 1927.
JR: So when the war started you were still only 13, is that right?
HS: Yes, yes because I went to Port Vale, well I went to the Bengeo schools, the infants, junior and then I went to Port Vale. And then I left there and I wanted to be a children's nurse actually. And I went to live, I went to work rather, in Bengeo Street. There was a big house Runton Lodge and there were two army officers, they shared the house and I used to go and see them for breakfast. My father would not let me live in, and that’s where I started there but later on, in the afternoons they used to entertain and I used to wear a uniform and I had to put another uniform on and open the door and my father did not like that. No, he said you are not to be that - he did not want me to be in service. I left, my mother had gone to work for Boots the Chemist, because people were being called up and they were getting older married women. I know I had to go; I went with her to the office at Wood Green, which was the territorial general manager's office, and they offered my mother a job. He came down the stairs would you like to come and work for me and I said oh no, by then I had gone to work with my sister at Ilott’s on Mill Bridge. Then she was called up. Different ones from there were all called up, but I stayed there until really the bomb. That is were I worked and after that I went to Boots the Chemist as it happened and I did 30 years there.
JR: Yes, well done.
HS: Yes, well that’s how I sort of started really and it was because then my husband, Mick he was called up in the army and he came home on leave and I had asked if I could have a half a day. With Ilott’s, there was two brothers, Ted and Percy Ilott and we used to have to call them Master Perce and Master Ted. And I went up and I can remember knocking on the door. Do you think I could have the afternoon off? No, and because we used to have to work until 6 o'clock on a Friday, 7 o'clock on a Saturday in those days. But he said, no and I was very upset about that. I can’t remember whether I took time off and I was stopped the money and then they wanted more people at Boots and I went again and had the interview and I stayed with Boots - left when I had my daughter, and then went back again when she went to Grammar school. So I remained there until I retired. So you know, Hertford is, I don't know anywhere else than Hertford. Moved from Gosselin Road to Fanshawe Street and I lived in there no. 13, for 49 years. Then after my husband had died I could not really cope with the garden and it was three storeys. This became available and I came over and I have been here for 5 years. But Hertford is, you know, I have never left it. I have always been, my two sisters both married and went away but I have always stayed put. I really met my husband through the…... He belonged to the Youth Club in Hertford Youth Club and I was in the Bengeo one and my sister was the secretary up there and she sent him an invitation to the Hertford Youth Club to come to Bengeo because one of our boys was joining the RAF and that’s really how I met him and I was with him all time and then we joined. He was in the cadets, I was in the GC Training Corps and then we joined this and we used to go on duties. Well, in a way I know it sounds awful but when there was a crowd of us we used to have some fun, you know, you lived on duties, we did not sort of enjoy, we were a nice crowd together and I mean nearly all these people we were either at school with, I mean my husband was at Cowper School. As I say we were sort of a young crowd together and they all sort of, went into the army. Some of them have passed on now but there are one or two of them still alive.
JR: So when did you actually meet him?
HS: I met Mick.
JR: Right at the beginning of the war ?
HS: Yes, yes it was.
JR: So you were only about 13 or 14 when you met him.
HS: Yes, because when they, when he was in the cadet force and they used to go to camp at Woodhall Park. Two or three of us, you know, we’d cycle and talk to them at the gate, so I mean I have known him since from …
JR: All the time really, yes. When did you get married after the war?
HS: 1950 we got married. He went to Colchester, Bury St Edmunds, where did he go up there. Well, he went to Egypt and then he was in Greece in the end he was in the British Military Mission and he was in the army catering Corp because he worked for Bridens the caterers. well, bread bakers in those days and, they were caterers afterwards. But he was in the British Military Mission, out in Greece and that’s when he came back and he went back to Bridens.
JR: I think the first I have heard of Mick Suckling was through Jim O'Smotherly.
HS: Oh, yes, well his father worked with him. Well, Mick worked with his father because he was an older person but he was, well Mick did bread baking, well he did the whole lot. I mean when we were first married he had to night baking, and he went all through it, he used to do the rounds if they wanted him he would do all of it well, He went as a Saturday boy which we would have called Saturday boys today but I mean he used to go with his brothers, help on the round. Then automatically worked, started in the bakery, bread baking, cake making and then later on he, when they started catering he used to go out and do the catering and then he sort of run it, later on in life, you know, because he would go round if you were going to have a wedding or a dinner party or a dance, he would go in and say well what do you want? and he was like the catering manager. Then when Mr Skinner died, out of the blue, they were going to keep the catering on but close the bakeries then out of the blue they said no, they were closing the lot. Because we thought that was the end of the world he had never been anywhere else. Some friends worked at McMullens and they said there was going to be a job going in the wine shop. I thought he had never been stuck in for so many years, and he ended his days at McMullens. I mean it was wonderful where he used to go and do food, then he went out doing the drinks because again they used to go and do bar and things for dances or parties so we used to then dish out the drink then, so he went from food to drink but he was, it was very, very good. They were very, very good indeed, McMullens and that’s, he retired, he had to retire. The day he was 65 was on a Monday and that’s when he had to retire. But unfortunately he developed this cancer so he only had a couple of years.
JR: Oh, so he died quite young then really.
HS: Yes
JR: Before he was 70.
HS: But everybody knew Mick, I can always remember in our parish magazine. I suppose you don’t want all this in here.
JR: That’s alright carry on.
HS: The Parson wrote he had never seen so many men at a funeral because he used to deal with the farming industry, you know, all the farmers and all the different organisations like the Royal Naval Association, all that, they always asked for him, you know, and he was just one of them, I mean I never saw him on a Saturday night, you know, he was always working. But it was, I mean I used to go out sometimes catering with him at one time because just to be with him and those days to earn a few pennies. My parents would look after our daughter for a while, she would sleep the night but this was before I then went back, when she was older, I went back to Boots. We had been around in Hertfordshire and all the Law Society lunches, they did all that at Watford Town Hall. We went all over the place, used to do the ploughing matches. You would be in a marquee in the middle of a field, you would dish up steak and kidney puddings, hot meals, it was unbelievable when you think of all the fuss about, you know, being clean and we used to wash up in a big bath of hot water, one lot of hot water, we never killed anybody, I think sometime these days, it goes the other way of being a bit too clean really. They would never be allowed to do it today.
JR: Hardier folk lived then I think.
HS: Quite, quite. Anyway I am going right away from our…
JR: Anyway it is nice to know that, entire can I ask you on question about that. How did you if you were serving up hot steak and kidney puddings. What did you use?
HS: Calor gas and you had what they call hay boxes, like a great big hamper and it was all stuffed round and I mean, it was absolutely piping hot. But the other things you had calor gas rings.
JR: Calor gas rings principally to cook on.
HS: And then they would have apple tart and custard, that kind of thing.
JR: You have an oven attached to that did you?
HS: No, no they would cook stuff in the big bakery ovens, but the big puddings and that they would part (cut up) and they would bring them in these big baths and put them on calor gas that is what they did.
JR: I understand, ok right.
HS: So they, Mr Skinner rung up my husband’s commanding officer, where was it he was at ?, there was going to be the hunt ball and gave them quite a story and you know, his commanding officer gave the leave to come home so he did the hunt ball. He must have been a horsy type of person that!
JR: Perhaps he knew someone.
HS: Don’t know but he did it and he came home on leave to be able to do the hunt ball.
JR: Where is the hunt ball is held at.
HS: Well it used to be all over the different places, where ever the hunt, Brickendon, I mean, all around. Oh, yes it was only local, but you see Bridens had such a wonderful name, the catering was mostly done by them years ago, it really was. We always used to say we should have written a book about some of it really.
JR: You did, there is also going to be an exhibition on shopping fairly soon at the Museum they may want you to talk about Bridens. Anyway, we will see, let’s concentrate on the war now. …….. what I want to do it to have a picture of what your life was like a little bit, you know, where you lived and how you met your husband and so on. Now can you remember anything about the preparations for war in the town and then the actual declaration of war? Were you one of these people who sat round the radio and listen to Neville Chamberlin or not or.
HS: Well that morning, that war was declared, I am afraid we were on our way home from Great Yarmouth, my father's family lived in Great Yarmouth and we used to go on holiday and in fact my mother and that they had to go up to the local market and buy black up material and we came home in the morning that was declared. As it happened we were aware, I was listening in, you know, but we were away on holiday.
JR: So you missed the actual broadcast.
HS: Yes.
JR: Everybody when yout go home was full of it I suppose.
HS: Yes, yes absolutely, yes.
JR: What about the build up to that time in 1939, had there been certain preparations made in the town for the possibility of war? Or perhaps you cannot remember? Perhaps you were a bit too young to remember?
HS: I mean sand bags and things like that, and people were getting shelters, we were having shelters.
JR: Oh You were?
HS: Oh, yes, because our neighbours they had an Anderson shelter but my father didn’t. What we hadl, it used to be the table, and we had like a mattress or padding on the top and then and then if the siren came we were brought down and we laid under the table.
JR: That was made of iron was it, was it special?
HS: No, no it think it was like only a normal sort of a mattress it was not anything, and we just had laid under that.
JR: Just an ordinary table.
HS: Yes, just on an ordinary table that was all and I can always remember the first we heard the siren. You see my father was a guard on the railway so of course he had go on early turns late turns, all night turns, you know. And the first time we heard the siren and my mother obviously panicked, made us put our gas masks on and there we were sitting under the table in Gosselin Road and after a while we could hear Eric, the Harts next door I said they are outside there talking mummy …..any how she panicked she though we had got to put gas masks on straight away. But I mean, that lives in my memory of that and suddenly hearing I said there are people outside and I can hear them playing or talking, you know.
JR: How soon after the declaration of war was the first air raid warning, can you remember, pretty soon?
HS: It must have come quite soon, but there again is could have been early morning because my father could have go to work at four o'clock in the morning. He could have been in, I am sure it was early morning; I think it was an early morning one. He was not there, no, he had gone to work so she made us put our gas masks on.
JR: Probably if he had been there she’d have been a bit more calm …….
HS: Yes because father joined the Home Guard.
JR: So he knew things.
HS: So he knew things, I mean really and truly, I was still at school and there was a shelter at the school, that if the siren went we had to go and walk orderly down into the shelter in Port Vale. There was that, I remember that bit.
JR: Was that behind in the field was it or.
HS: No, no it was at the side where the new building where the kitchens and that was, there was a space and then there was our cookery centre and then behind that, that’s where it was built, because the field was not accessed to the school in those days.
JR: Was not it?
HS: No, no it wasn’t because they used that behind there,, it was piled up, there was all sorts of rubble and stuff in there, really, years ago.
JR: So in your house itself, how was that protected for the war did you have window tape on or, did you have, you didn’t have a cellar in there did you?
HS: No, no, we didn’t have any cellar.
JR: Any other precautions, you obviously had to have black out curtains ….
HS: Yes, yes, as I say my mother bought that and she had to, sort of made them, so we put black out material up but I don’t remember having, I don’t think she ever put tape on it, she never did, no, some people did but yes, no, she didn’t. The black was put up, you know, well I don’t know if it was ever taken down, just drawn back, I presume, or did she have it on a board? I think it was put on a board and it fixed into the window, I think that’s what it was.
JR: And did you every hear of, did the air raid wardens come round looking for lights showing or, you never had any of that problem or.
HS: No, I don’t think so because it think everybody really was very, very..
JR: Obedient?
HS: Yes, I mean, and let’s face it we, sort of, did not go out a lot really. I mean you went to the cinema or you went for a walk there wasn’t any sort of entertainment, there wasn’t restaurants, there wasn’t even a fish and chip shop, nothing of an evening. There was Pingy's fish and chip shop* which is by the cycle shop, behind there and that opened until perhaps 6 o'clock, it was only open a short time so I mean you could never get, so you never went out anywhere. I mean us as children, well youngsters, we went to our club at church at the parish hall. Apart from going to the cinema or you would go for a cycle ride, or you would walk to Ware. You know, you walked you just went for walks, as I say like, when I joined this, (The ARP) and you were out and the siren went you had to come back and get down to the report centre.
* Pingy Cormack, Dimsdale Street.
JR: So how old were you when you joined. What year was this, lets have a look does it say the date, 1942?
HS: That we I think. Mine was 43, yes, I think I was 43 on my thing it is 1943.
JR: So he joined in 42 when did he go away then to war?
HS: Oh there I was 3rd of the eleventh 43. He went in November, I think he went on November 44, he was called up.
JR: Fairly late.
HS: Oh, yes, yes, he wasn’t at the beginning of the war, no, no. He went when he was eighteen. You see he was here, when that bomb dropped, as…I say it was a three storey and our room over looked Mill Bridge, you know, we were on the front and of course when it went, of course the police were there and cordoned it off and because he came rushing up to come and because he had not got his card, so they sent him back and he went back to his mother and said she (Hazel) must be dead, because there is nothing there, the windows are all down it is all broken. Of course, by the time he got through to the report centre, we were transferring all the stuff round to the castle, and I think we used the mayor’s parlour to set up a headquarters that day. And then they were hoping to find out and we were going out, “right you go and get Mr So and so” and he lives at “so and so” and we just had to go, and so I was out looking or fetching men, out and he came in and he could not find me and he was convinced I was dead, actually, but then of course he came and then of course all the messengers, fetching in or clearing taking stuff round to the castle. Because that was the report centre was the headquarters for the APR you see.
JR: Yes, I understand, now can you go through again, you had been to the pictures the night before and tell me again for the tapes what exactly happened, if you can, in the right order and then we can... What you felt like when you heard the blast and so on, what happened, where it shook or fell down or.
HS: Well we went to the County pictures because there were two cinemas in the town.
JR: What exact date was that?
HS: July the first, Saturday night, went to the pictures with Mick, later went on duty with Eva, never dreaming we were going to be bombed out. Then Sunday morning Eva and I were bombed, because I did it all in pencil that was the trouble, (reaches for her diary) all day, is a day to remember Mill Bridge was hit, worked all day and then Mick thought I was dead and went to the pictures, we went in the evening after we had finished, how we had the energy to……..
JR: Take your mind off it.
HS: Yes, yes.
JR: So you went from the cinema in the night……..??
HS: I would have to come home, I would have had to have come home because we had to put uniform on. I don’t think. Unless I might have gone in my uniform but you see we had to carry a tin hat and all that so, I think I normally used to go home and then be down there. I think we had to be there by eleven, eleven thirty, I think it was, but I would have met Eva.
JR: What was her other name?
HS: Eva Hart, Eva Hart but I am afraid she died but she was my night duty mate, and we went and I as I say we laid on camp beds and we never, we took our jackets off, but we never took our trousers and all that off, you just laid in case you had to dive up in the morning and as I say there was this dreadful noise.
JR: Of it coming over?
HS: Yes, and there was this, and the thing is with them things they just cut out and then there was this just terrific, you know, explosion, and the place sort of shook and then everything was just coming down and all I can remember was pulling my blanket over my head and sort of, well I expect shaking and just lying there, and then after a while I said “Eva” and she said “Hazel” and we just wondered if either of us were alive. And we sort of waited for a little while, I don't know how long, and then we sort of pulled the things back because everything was dust.
JR: You were not hit by anything fortunately?
HS: No, no because I say we, it was just I should think it was the ceiling the window blow in you see it must shattered of glass but there was nothing heavy but how we climbed down, because we had to climb down.
JR: Down the stairs?
HS: We had to go down the stairs, yes.
JR: They were still intact?
HS: Well, whether they were broken, but we got down because these two ladies were down the ones that were down manning the phones. And I think by then by the time we tried to see to ourselves there was people then coming, racing, you know, whether it was the police, I all I could remember that the Salvation Army was there, the first person who come with any tea, they were there, they soon came. And then as I say some of the older people you know, I remember, Wilfred Brown, he was in charge of messengers and ARP, you know, they were there and then it was a case of “right you take this” and we were carting stuff back to the castle ground to mayors parlour to up a new sort of headquarters. That is what happened.
JR: So this thing came down in daylight.
HS: Oh, yes, it was the early hours of the morning.
JR: Was there a siren warning?
HS: No, there wasn’t a siren, that what's I said, if there had been a siren one of us would have to have gone up into that lookout tower, which was by the water, because if that bomb had not have dropped in the bed of the river Lea there I mean Hertford I think would have been really sort of flattened. It took the blast I think really from the water, you know, landing in the water really. Because it is where the waterfall was, you know, in there, that’s were it was.
JR: Between the side of the old Wickham's there, was Mill Bridge badly damaged or?
HS: Wickham's, that’s right, yes. Well all I can remember was the shop, because I tell you I worked there, at all one end, and the mill was down and where there used to have to wind and shut the gates for the mill. I think that was messed up because when they used to close and shut that, where the concrete steps are, we used to go, I have got a picture of myself and my sister and another friend sitting on that, you know, when it’s dry. Well the mill got going again so they must have had to repair it but there was a lot of damage there, and the shop, it was brought down. But I went back to work there for a while.
JR: Well I have got the 1943 street directory and I think the 1945 one which most of the people who were operating in 1943, are still there in 1945 except I think, there’s no mention of the Brewery Tap in 1945 I think that took the worst of the…and Nicholls.
HS: No, well I think that went because I said to the gentleman on the Mercury I said I know afterwards, long time afterwards, when it rained if I walked over Mill Bridge I could smell, because there was a chemist there and then there had been the Brewery. He said what kind of a smell? I don’t know but there was a smell and that I could always think, oh, that was of that morning.
JR: So it reminded you of that morning.
HS: It reminded me of it, that morning, yes, it did but I mean I was perfectly alright Eva, there was nothing wrong with us, you know but whether I had any shock, you know.
JR: Probably did not have time to be shocked …what about your parents, they must have been frantic.
HS: Until, no, later on. Well I mean my father, because my sister was bombed out, she went nursing, and she was at North Mid (North Middlesex Hospital?) and I tell you he was a guard on the railway and he was coming, I don’t know what station is was, Northumberland Park, I cant remember. But anyway, they said oh did you know that Northumberland Park, I mean North Mid been struck? And he said, "my daughters there", so he left the train, and he found her and she had lost all her, she was just on a barefoot and she had lost everything and she was coming across carrying something, you know, that she was bombed and she lost everything. I know she came home, and I think she was in shock, but they said she could not go back to North Mid, she would never settle, so she had to start training and she started all again at Hertford County. Then of course I was bombed, but I don’t think he was at work that day, I can’t remember, but they were all, they could not believe it, they all came rushing down, of course, you know it was not until later on that they sent messages that we were alright, because Mick had got so far, then he had to go back and then I think, you know, that his parents sort of went up to my mother and said that I was alright. Because well I had an idea Mummy, had to, was called out to go to Boots. Because even in Maidenhead Street was all glass it was all shattered.
JR: To sell first aid things or
HS: From when the bomb went, I mean so many of the windows were shattered and I don’t know whether she had to go in, she was one to be called in to sort out when she worked at Boots, in those days.
JR: So what state was, when you came out of the building eventually, what was in front of you, piles of bricks and rubble?
HS: Well, there was just, yes, there was load of rubble.
JR: Out in the street I mean.
HS: Yes, yes and because part of the bridge was, had been damaged, whether some of that went into the water as well, but I mean everything was sort of shattered and I mean like where Nicholls and all that, that was all so heavily damaged and was down.
JR: Did Nicholls ever start again?
HS: Yes, they went to opposite Gravesons, on that corner, which is now Oddbins, they went there and then afterwards Cooks bought them out, but that’s where they went to. I thought, it has just come to me now, Rush, it was Rush's, there was a shop called Rush on the bridge and he sold leather stuff and he went into the arcade. So you haven’t got a mention of Rush's have you?
JR: I have not got Rush here, in 1943 unless he came after this was printed, where are we, I wondered about him because I heard the story about the handbags going down the river to Folly Island. Who was the handbag seller?
HS: Yes, there was Rush. On the opposite side where the Woolpack it or New Bridge Inn it was, there used to be a curtain shop there. You know where the Travel agents is, there was a couple of shops there. Was it Bryant’s on the corner was the Grocers or was Bryant’s was opposite Gravesons? There was a grocer's shop there.
Transcriber note: It was Bryant’s on Old Cross/Mill Bridge corner.
JR: Where the Good Food, that sort of end.
HS: Yes, yes there was a couple of shops. I mean years and years ago there was like a pie shop there and pie and mash thing there. But I can remember, Bryant’s, yes it was Bryant’s.
JR: Bryant’s at Old Cross.
HS: Yes, you see it was Old Cross and then it is Mill Bridge. See I am trying to think, I mean when I was a girl it was Mill Bridge, or was it Old Cross years ago?
JR: Well here in 1943 it says, number 4, this is the south side, it says, which it seems strange, but we are talking about Old Cross coming down from Bengeo. It was numbered 4 was Bryant’s, number 6 was Beckwith, 8 another Beckwiths.
HS: That was Old Cross, the bit on the bridge was Mill Bridge, wasn’t it because Coleman’s was Mill Bridge, the shoe shop and the butchers.
JR: The Wash.
HS: Oh, why do they alter, we used to call it Mill Bridge, the Wash to us was where Young’s the bakers and that bit there in front of the Castle Cinema.
JR: I Have a feeling that Mill Bridge was from, I mean Bryant’s was on Old Cross, then the next little parade of shops to Mill Bridge were both sides and after the bridge is was The Wash, I think that’s how I have worked it out.
HS: Yes, because Scoley our friends father had the Scoley drapers shop there (Mens Outfitters). There was the Co-op on Maidenhead Street corner and then Bill and Mona . Yes, that was The Wash and there was Mrs Thomas, who had the wool shop. Mind you I don’t know it might have been somebody else. And then Young's the bakers was there, that’s where we used to go an get our buns, when I went to Boots, you had to be tea room girl and you had to round and ask them what they wanted for lunch, then you go round and you would butter the buns, you would go into Harry’s (Harry Young’s bakers) and he would say do what you want and you used to butter buns or scones or rolls and then go round, oh dear, they were the good old days.
JR: I think there is a slight discrepancy here because this Mill Bridge is Edmund Ilott Miller, it says here, he is definitely; his address is Mill Bridge even though it is the other side of the river Lea.
HS: Yes, but you see the mill would have been, the shop was on the bridge and the mill was near to the water behind the, really where the Castle Cinema.
JR: But on the other side not on the brewery side, it looks as though The Wash starts earlier on this side of, the Woolpack side.
HS: There was the McMullen Seed, the seed merchants, McMullens are they The Wash?
JR: I am wondering, I think I will have a look in here in a minute, it could well that The Wash started at that little yard.
HS: Little bit there, now that was Maidenhead Yard, was not it, no.
JR: Lancaster Yard is the first one and Maidenhead Yard is the other one. The Wash is, yes let’s have a look. “ The Wash, the west side Hertford Working Mans Unionist Club, Hertford Castle, Corporation Offices,” does not give us a lot of information really. From Parliament Square to Mill Bridge it says on the other side so, yes McMullens is in The Wash according to this.
HS: It is the Wash, so that is the Seed, yes.
JR: So may be it that the cut off point.
HS: That little bit to where the pub is that the Mill Bridge. It is very difficult the way they sort it out isn’t it.
JR: That does not matter we can sort that out later on. Yes, so what other damage, I mean you have got I think across the road from there, what is now Wigginton's. You no I just can't think of the seed merchant’s name.
HS: Oh, Barbers, yes.
JR: Barbers, they were badly damaged I think weren’t they?
HS: Yes, they were, yes. But you see, I mean because, after we sort of got out, and then we were backwards and forwards, we were then sent out of town to fetch people in so I mean, some of clearing, you know, might have been that I didn’t take so much notice of. All I know is, we tried to get through. I don’t know that we would have gone over the bridge, I expect we would have gone up and round the by St Andrews church down that way to get into the castle.
JR: Yes, down the alley.
HS: Down the alley way.
JR: I mean the road was pretty well broken up to in the front there, was
HS: Well where it, well I think it would have been …well the water must have spurted up and have come over as well, you see really, because it went into like the bed of the river really.
JR: Yes, well can see some photographs have been published have not they with ….gone.
HS: Yes, I was going to say they must have got some of the photographs. See in those days I didn’t think about, you didn’t think about …perhaps they did not put them in, like the Mercury in those days. I mean I have got, I expect you have got Len Green's book. I expect there must be some picture in there isn’t there?
JR: I am sure they would not, except afterwards. Yes, that’s right.
HS: Because I have got one which he signed because Mick, my husband, he was his teacher, you know, so he give him one and one or two of them, they are old boys, he signed them for them. So I mean I have got that you know, so most probably some pictures in that. There must be some Mercury pictures; I should imagine Peter must have them unless he was not going round doing that kind of, no because he was so much younger wasn’t he.
JR: Yes, he was two I think
.
Transcribers note: Peter was 17 months old in July 1944.
HS: Of course, he was, this is it, I was going to say why has he not got them with his camera but I had forgotten he was two.
JR: He says, he remembers it but then he said afterwards, I don’t remember whether remembered or if somebody told me so. I think two is a bit young to remember.
HS: No, I can remember him now so but you see people like him, I know he is marvellous, where he has gone round and taken these things you know before and the afterwards, you know, it is wonderful to have that but whether I do think anybody did do anything like that in those days.
JR: I think there were people doing photography definitely. Because we do have a very good photographic archive at the museum. I mean the camera club also has one, yes so I think we are OK for that. I just wondered what it looked like in reality; it must have been a dreadful scene of devastation.
HS: I could not believe the dirt and dust, what we must have looked like really. I mean we were coughing…because old buildings you can imagine. I mean when you think there was most probably all this dust which is wrong, it should not, whatever they call it these days. That they worry about.
JR: What do you remember about after that, I mean, do you remember is getting slowly renovated and rebuilt or did it stay in that ruinous state for along time. Did they just take down the dangerous parts and or leave it all. Because I have never seen any photographs of it after the bombing. What happened to them?
HS: No, I think they just sort of cleared it because I mean we had Ginn's and Norris's.
I mean they were, you know builders and that. And a lot of the people like my friend's husbands and that worked for Ginn’s and that and I should imagine some of the local people that we had to go and fetch were people that really worked for Ginn's, so it might have been the local people, you know, Ginn's, Norris's, it could have been what is the one opposite McMullens, the other, Ekins. I should imagine it would have been their men that came to work to start shoring things up and as I say some of the shops then had to be….. I mean like Nicholl's……….
JR: Relocated.
HS: They had to be relocated. And like I can’t really remember when they went there because before Nicholl’s it used to be Rose the stationers on that corner, they never came back, not to Mill Bridge. I think they sort of stayed there; Nicholl’s and as I say the Rush's went into the arcade.
JR: So what happened then after that morning? Obviously you went home eventually.
HS: I went home had my meal later on and in the evening we went to the cinema, even though it was a Sunday, which was really would have been Ooh, that would have been dreadful.
JR: When were you next on duty and where did you have to go the next time.
HS: I think we had to report to the castle for a while until that was sorted. I don’t know where we went, just in my diary it said we went on duty to the report centre.
JR: Yes, but it does not say where, it must have been somewhere else though.
HS: Yes, I can’t think.
JR: Probably there, that was where all your equipment wasn’t it?
HS: I should think so, we had to take everything round there, until, is not it sill that I can’t remember. Because after all I went right up until on December the 30th. “Stopped in during the evening wrote to Mick went on duty with Eva all night” ( from the diary). So I was still doing it but to the report centre but I have not said where we were transferred to. I wonder if anybody else knew where it was, see all night.
JR: Did you have behind there somewhere, Durrant's had a hall didn’t they, was that there when you were doing your duties in the place that was bombed or not to start with.
HS: We just went into the report centre but I know when it said we had been to a meeting about the ARP. So I think we must have gone into Durrant Hall, there might have been about 20 of us you see which were messengers and if we had to go for a meeting I think we must have gone into the Durrant Hall.
JR: And that’s not, that didn’t become a report centre.
HS: No, because I think it must have been damaged.
JR: Yes, might have been, we have a tape actually which tells us about that and I can’t remember if they said it was damaged or not. Anyway is does not matter we can put two and two together when I get home about then.
HS: But I mean that, I just don’t know.
JR: So the war…………
HS: No, but I continued going until it finished you know, until the did want it. I used to go, I was on call for the siren duty and an all night duty was mine, on a Saturday night and Sundays was the siren duty. You only went if the siren went, sometimes you would get down there and then the all clear and you would go off and you could be back and then you would go down again. And that is when they decided to have people all night because it was a bit much, you know, coming home.
I used to hate going past the churchyard.
JR: Did you, which one?
HS: Bengeo church because I lived in Gosselin Road, you see and I had to come and even if Mick was on an all night duty, I mean they were never all night it was only two, it was only girls, it was never mixed but if you were on call you could have only go with the boys. He used to live in Trinity Grove, and so by the time I got dressed and got out I used to run past the churchyard, I don’t know why, I hate that. I know running down one night I dropped my tin hat and you never know, the noise that made was horrendous and frightened the life out of me. I was something that you did; I often think I wonder what would happen today. Whether you know, whether the youngsters would go and do it.
JR: What age difference was there between you and Eva, were you the same age?
HS: Yes, we were the same age, we went to school together, Flory we all went to (Alice Abbey?). We were all friends a load of us from Bengeo, we had been to school. You know my husband came from Wareside he was born in Wareside but then moved to Hertford because so many of them worked for Bridens. They came and lived at the, it was called the cattle pens, what is it called today, you know at the bottom of Port Hill.
JR: Yes, I do know it’s got a …it is something to do with the pens, isn’t it?
HS : Yes, you see the north station that went round, did not it, that come a bridge at Port Hill, the north station and there was that’s where the cattle was put.
JR: I think it is called Sidings Court isn’t it now?
HS: Is it, because and I was thinking well I only ever knew it as the cattle pens. What is it today, because they have got a block of new flats and that,.
JR: I think it is Sidings Court or something, I know something to do with the Cattle pens was suggested, I don’t think it was taken up.
Side Two
JR: I think the cattle pens are now Sidings Court as we were saying. And then there was another year wasn’t there more or less before war was over, so you carried on with doing these duties.
HS: Yes, I carried on, I carried right on, but I never did another diary, never up anything more down.
JR What about other, there must other incidents that happened that you could tell up about I imagine, things, I mean were there any other,
HS: Well there was the stick of bombs that was dropped at lunch time you know that one from Golding’s.
JR: Yes, I do.
HS: And then it came across and it hit one, (houses) a Mrs Webb in Duncombe Road, that took theirs, there was that one and also and then it carried on, there was a stick they reckoned it was in a line and then the other one was in Gosselin Road in Parker Avenue. I was reading through that it said (in diary) “had gone out for a walk saw a flying bomb go by” and I can remember that was another time.
JR: Where did that land? Perhaps not round here.
HS: No, it went further because that when I can remember you saw this fire all coming out and until,
JR: Did you?
HS: Oh, yes there was like a red thing coming out, yes. Another time we were round at our youth club at the parish hall and I can remember my father coming round to fetch my sister and I and there was a land mine and that was the one that they had got it up in the searchlights and we saw it and landed in Ware Park in the trees. I know they, whoever comes round and they got it and they took it into the pit in Ware. They came round and everybody in Bengeo had to open their windows and they blew it up and when it exploded. There was another time when there was a bomb landed in a field in Sacombe Road, so there was one or two bombs that was dropped around here. Of course, there was that one in Tamworth Road, where those people were killed.
JR: You were younger then, you were not doing anything?
HS: I was younger then, no, no. But you see when that land mine, that was just before, that must have happened just as we were having that party to say goodbye to Bill Horsley, (actor) who was going to go in the RAF. So I must have been about 16, 17, that was before people were being called up. My sister then she wanted to go into nursing, she did not go into the forces, she wanted to do nursing so I think you went at 18 wasn’t it, when you were called up. Well Mick was 18, he was 18 on the 2nd October and he was called up on the 14th November that’s when he went, he went straight away.
JR: OK, 44.
HS: But by then they were not calling girls up so I mean I did not have to go and do anything. Unless it is because I worked at Ilott’s, which was the mill, I don’t know. They were still calling him up, he was called up where I would have been 18 the following May so perhaps it had finished then, so when my sister because she is two years older than me, she was called up. And of course, with Mick if he had said he was a bread maker he need not have gone. Because they kept, they need bread bakers they did not call them up but, you know he said he wanted to go and I think them perhaps some of older people then, perhaps they brought other people in to do bread baking. I don’t know but youngsters if they were desperate like his boss could have said, well I have not got anybody and then he would have been kept.
JR: What was life generally like during the war in the town, I mean we had the British Restaurant didn’t we?
HS: Oh, yes, had the BR we used to go there once a week, yes, we used to go up there.
JR: Could you go there as many times as you wanted to, or was there an allocated number of times you could go, because they did not have to give your ration points up did you.
HS: I think we only went once a week.
JR: Right, everybody could go once a week or,
HS: Yes, I think so but whether my mother could manage but we only really went once a week. I mean, we were rationed and that was it but you grew your vegetables in those days. Well I think everybody had their own gardens. Some people had their allotments but I think everybody had vegetables from their garden. I mean, right you did not get the fruit, the oranges and the bananas was a thing that you never saw. We always had enough to eat; my mother could make a dinner out of anything. Years ago you had a rabbit, I can remember having rabbit stew, baked rabbit. I don't think we starved or anything like that. You had your little bit of butter and sugar, it was rationed, it is like with clothes you made do, you knitted things made thing out of, you go material, we had good markets in those days. My mother used to go to the man in the market and the covered market in particular. You could buy the material and she made things for us.
JR: Did you have to give up clothing coupons for the market stuff or,
HS: Not that I know, it’s only if you went into the shop and they sort of took your coupons.
JR: For already made, I see.
HS: It might be what they called ends, you know, and that kind of thing, remnants. It is like when we were younger that like you make things really and you had things handed down because my sister she have some things and they would be handed down to me. I don’t remember being hard done by, not really, you did not have very much in the way of sweets or anything. But my mum would make toffee apples, she would do that and friends would come in and when there was some. Some people would give her sugar and she would make some, so we would have a toffee apple for something like that.
JR: A luxury wasn’t it?
HS: Yes, because my mother did a lot of cooking and she would cook for people and that. She could pluck a chicken and draw a chicken and do a rabbit my father could not do it but she could do that so she would have people come and say will you do this, so you got by with that kind of thing. Whether we had, I don’t expect we ever had steak or anything like that but you had things that you could get from the country. Farms, you could get, well I don’t know about pheasants but you got a cockerel or a chicken or a pullet you know. Used to have own eggs and dad had chickens.
JR: You kept chickens.
HS: Yes, he had a few chickens, so that kept us going and my mother used to put the egg down in isinglass so that when they would go off laying, we had got the eggs and she would make, and we would go blackberrying. We would get up in the morning and go mushrooming, we used to up the field up the Sacombe Road which is now all houses. But we would go up before we went to school getting mushrooms so that eked out. We had our vegetables, runner beans, unless you were a good gardener, I don’t think we had celery I remember mother would have to buy that. Dad was not an exceptional gardener we had fruit trees in the garden. It was the luxury things like oranges, bananas and peaches you know things like that but every day things were alright really.
JR: How did you get on, there were a lot of Americans stationed around here weren’t there? Did you ever come into contact with them at dances?
HS: you see we used to go to Ware Drill hall and we would go to the Corn Exchange but there was some Americans. When I was at Boots in fact a couple of the girls they married them, that went with them. We just kept to our own crowd really because we would go together and we would all be together, we would dance with this one, dance with that one. I went eventually with Mick, I mean we were a crowd. When we were at Ware Drill hall I remember having a Gin and Orange. My mother would have been horrified because you had a Port and Lemon at Christmas time and I had go to be careful because no matter where I went there would be somebody that knew or knew my mother. And as I say she was from a Hertford family. They would say "oh I saw your Hazel”. I might as well I went so and so and had a Gin and Orange.
JR: Get it over with.
HS: There would be Americans there but I never went with them, I met one or two because as I say, a couple of the girls, and one girl from the Folly she married and he was a very nice young man. I think there was more of them that went into Ware because it was out towards Old Hall Green, wasn't it. That’s where their camp was along there.
JR: What about the camp, was it the Cameron Highlanders?
HS: Yes, and again a couple of people that worked with me at Boots, that both married them as well. Nora McKechnie (No1 New Road until 2011), she was Nora King years ago, she worked at Boots and her friend, they both married Scottish people. And another girl I went to school with married one, Joyce Bent (Joyce Craig still lives 31 New Road in 2014). I only remember them really because went I was at school always their Christian names; I can't always remember their married names. But Joyce still lives opposite the church in Bengeo and her husband has not been, well she has not been very well either. He was a bit older that Joyce, see this is it.
JR: So these Scottish chaps stayed here did they?
HS: Oh, yes they did. Although Rene Warren, (the potential husband) he was nice and as I say they worked at Boots. When I first started at Boots, I was only a youngster and they were older and then they got married and used to come and they were all very, very nice because I knew them afterwards. So, that was three people that I knew that where they stayed in Hertford, they did not go bask to Scotland. There was another girl that worked at Illotts and she married, there must have been a Welsh Regiment, she married Fred who was in a Welsh Regiment. Because we were a garrison town years and years ago when my mother was a girl and it was a garrison town. I think there was always certain military stationed here, so different companies came at a time and they drafted abroad and that happened I think.
JR: Well the barracks were still here aren't they?
HS: Yes, there was the barracks, yes and of course when I was in the Girls Training Corp we were at the drill hall which is now all these houses, the girls were taught how to shoot, yes, we were taught how to shoot, down there I don't know whether we would have ever been needed to shoot later on. But yes, we did because there was the (army?) cadets and the Girl Training Corp and then the RAF the air cadets as well.
There was all those and each one they either went into the Navy or Air Force or the Army through being in the cadets. Mick he was the Sergeant Major before he went into the cadets and each of his brothers followed on and they all became Company Sergeant Majors in the cadet force. We used to go on parade, I have got picture of them on the war memorial on Armistices Day. We did all that, it was like that you just did that it was our duty really. But you wanted to it really and you knew everybody, on the estate you knew all the people and where much more friendly, I can remember my mother and their neighbours, they helped one another. Oh, have you got this, right and you can have this and they shared things. There again we left our doors undone, never locked up. You know your bike is out there, look I have just suddenly realised ………(JR’s bike!)
HS: So is there anything else that I should be recording, that is very important at that time. Do you feel you have said enough about the flying bomb?
(pause)
HS: Work.
JR: You had to go to work the next day.
HS: I presume I had to help clear up in Illotts; this was only sort of voluntary you only went like Saturday. Or if they wanted you during the week, I mean sometime if you had got a friend that, oh I am going somewhere, will you do my siren duty. They were my two registered days I used to do. During the day time I worked, I was not involved in any of outside clearing up to the town. That had to be done by the builders, each firm, shop, who owned the building had to get themselves sorted out.
We only did what we did on that Sunday really, and then I went to Ilott’s to clear up.
JR: How long was Ilott’s out of action, for some time. It seemed to be going still in 45?
HS: Oh, yes, it does go until, I think one of the partners died.
JR: Did they get back, they cleared as much as they could I suppose and got back to work as soon as they could.
HS: They did the Mill, because you see corn and all that was brought there in from the local farmers. They used to come in and it was all done there. Then of course, in the shop, you sold, like all dog biscuits, and you sold oats, all the different seed for birds and cattle, all that kind of thing. You could buy flour; you could buy the flour and that in there. It was not a particularly busy shop but it was people that had got like some of the big houses. Years and years ago Cecily Courtnedge, do you remember, heard of Cecily Courtnedge and the actor Jack Hulbert. I think they lived at Essendon, well they came in and ordered all their, see they had horses all that kind of thing. You would do up…..they would buy 14 lbs or 28 lbs of , you would sort of do that up and sell to those sort of people and there was Lord and Lady Auckland (Ackland?), they limed at Welwyn Garden City and that’s a big gentry, you know, and those sort of people. You would get people come in and buy few, for the local people that come and get their dog biscuits and what ever they wanted then. The mill kept going; I think eventually the shop was just closed down. I have an idea that somebody bought it out and it was a different name then but I don’t think it was in the same way as it was as Ilott’s. After Mick came home he went to Stratford on Avon, that’s were he went to, the last time, and then he went form Stratford on Avon to Egypt from there. But it was when he came home and I reckon that might have been about 1946.
JR: That’s when they refused to give you the day off.
HS : He said no I could not have it, it was either the Good Friday or something, I said could I have half a day and he said no they could not do that, and I believe I took it and so he stopped my money.
JR: That was it for you.
HS: Well, I mean it was wrong, I thought he was mean; he was going to go abroad.
JR: Well you stuck with them all through that trauma did not you.
HS: Yes see my father, he had funny ideas. When I said oh I have got to change when I was back at the Davies and Stevenson's. I said I have got to change. What are you changing in the afternoon for? I said I have got to put my other uniform on because I have to answer the door to their friends and serve afternoon tea. You are not being a skivvy to anybody, you can pack that up. But that’s was really what I wanted to do and that’s when Jill was going she said well there was one had gone already into the Air Force. So they were short so she said well come and work here, which I did, because before I could not have been 16 then because I was not allowed to work either 7 or 8 o'clock because I was not older. You still had to be governed by how many hours you did at a certain age. Any how, then my mother said they want people at Boots, you can come to Boots. We used to have to go up to this general office at Wood Green. I think it was the same man, he said “ I told you, you would come to work here” and I stayed with them, then I went back, very happy I was there, different than what it is today. We cared for our customers in those days, we served customers in those days, it is all so different isn’t it?
JR: I suppose it is, yes. Well that is excellent, I am just wondering if I need to ask you anything else here. I made a few notes just to see if I could ask you.
HS: See I don’t know if there was anybody, see Oscar I called him Oscar, I mean Arthur he was on duty, he was just to come, Jack Taylor, because he died.
JR: Arthur?
HS: Arthur Hansel, who lives in Parkhurst Road. Because Jack Taylor* and his mother they lived opposite where the museum is along there. There was some little houses there was not there, where Jack lived and he open the, I don’t know if you remember, the Pike and Taylor at the bottom of the hill.
*17 Bull Plain, next to Johnsons 17 and then Wrights 21
JR: I just remember that yes.
HS: Well Jack, he was a messenger but he died quite young and see they were all mates together and so we were sort of a crowd and we sort of joined the messenger and that how we were all as a little crowd. Sometimes we used to have a nice evening and have some fun, though it was a horrible time. We enjoyed ourselves.
JR: That was your youth really, you hardly knew anything else.
HS: We did not, no, and when I was reading up. (from diary) “We went to the pictures”, we went to Castle pictures we went there. We went to the dance, we went to Ware, we perhaps walk home from the dance, we might get the train if it was not too late and then we would have to walk from Hertford East up to Bengeo. But you walked or we would walk to Chapmore End, we would go to the Halfmile Lane and there is the pub there we would stop in and have a drink. We would walk under the park, I mean you went for a walk, you went perhaps for a bike ride, you went to the pictures. There was anything, apart from the youth clubs, they sort of died away then. Because so many of them were joining up and then they did not, because of war and the bombing, there was not any evening youth clubs then. And it seemed as though they died away then, we had lovely times in our youth club. Our parson Reverend Oliver in those days he taught us how to dance, yes he was a wonderful dancer. That’s where they had the old Rectory where Boundary Drive and that. That was the Rectory you walked half a mile to get to the Rectory. Had a huge hall there and he would teach us to dance, we had our own tennis court, we were taught how to play tennis. We had good time really, we had quizzes, we would have little parties and silly games, passing the orange, but that was our fun really. With my husband, he wanted to go and do his City and Guilds, I mean his brother went through City and Guild for the cakes and the icing and all that, when it was time for Mick to go it was stopped so he never got any qualifications. He learnt as he went along, he went into the army and he learnt perhaps a bit more, it wasn’t like expensive buffets and thing like that. He learnt things as he went along. And I can always remember when he was up in Stratford on Avon he was in cooking, then and they had some German prisoners of war helping and there was one and he taught Mick a lot and how to carve and in some of the meat so he did learn from other people even in his army days. Was not perhaps his instructors always, no.
JR: It was just as good, learning on the job.
HS: Yes, it was, because when he was doing the Law Society once over at Watford Town Hall and they had two sides of beef because it would be two hundred or more, three hundred and Mr Skinner, he would have hired this chef huge man he was Scmitter he was called. And there was Mick on side and him the other side. Mick he waited and he said in the end, well I am going to start the man said afterwards I was waiting to see how you started because he did not even know and there Mick thinking he was the qualified man. This was what happened really, I used to go out catering with him at times hard work, it was hard work. Because you would go out after work then you go and serve dinner and the you would have to go and lay it up then you would clear, you would serve it clear it up and then wash it up and put it on the van before you would come home for 1/6 an hour, 1/3 an hour. We worked but we enjoyed it, we had some fun but that was our life really, you did not do anything else really.
End