Interviewed by Jean Riddell (Purkis) (JR), Eve Sangster (ES)
Date: 19/11/1997
Transcribed by Jean Riddell (Purkis)
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O 1997.08
Interviewees: Win Parcell (WP) Doris Dedman(DD)
Date: 19th November 1997
Venue: 50 Bircherley Court
Interviewers: Jean Riddell Purkis (JR) Eve Sangster (ES)
Transcribed by: Jean Riddell Purkis
************** = unclear recording
[discussion] = untranscribed material
Win Parcell lived at 50, Bircherley Court
Doris Dedman lived at 5, Spencer Street
JR: This is Jean Riddell, this is November 19th and Eve Sangster and I are at the home of Mrs Wyn Parcell at 50 Bircherley Court, Hertford. We've come here this morning to record Wyn and her sister Doris.
Doris is now Mrs Doris Dedman of 5, Spencer Street and both these ladies were, the two Miss McGarrys and went to St Joseph's School.
I think, according to my notes, that Wyn started at the school in 1912, which was before the First World War.
WP: You know my age now, don't you.
ES: Well, you're going to have to tell us anyway for the records. When you were born?
JR: It's got down on the records that you were born on 15th October 1907. Is that right?
WP: NO! It would be the 12th 1906.
JR: I thought so.
WP: I made a mistake but when I sent for my birth certificate of course I got the right date. I always thought it was the 15th.
JR: Right, so it's the 12th October 1906. There were one or two more mistakes in this record but I'll tell you later about that.
Doris, who I've already mentioned, isn't here yet but I hope she'll join us shortly.
Wyn, can you start by telling us about when you started school or about your very early childhood, if you can remember that?
WP: What we used to do?
JR: Yes, had you any brothers or sisters at the school already?
WP: Oh yes, my eldest sister and I had two brothers.
JR: What were their names?
WP: Her name was Edith and there was Leslie and Thomas.
JR: Now I've got those two, Leslie and Edith, as coming from Parkhurst Road.
WP: Yes, we lived up there when we first moved here. I don't know why we moved here.
My dad was a tailor and we lived in West Wickham in Kent and there was Edith and must have been Leslie and me. Us three must have been born there. Yes, two were born here, Tom and Doris. And he came here and worked for Donavan's the tailors at the bottom of Port Hill. There was a butchers and Donavan's the tailors. The butchers was Earls. My dad worked for Donovan's but I've got no idea how he knew them or why we came here. I've got no idea.
ES: How old were you when you came?
WP: About three. In those days you never asked your parents any questions. Do you know, I can't remember my father. I can't remember anything about him at all, not what he looked like or anything.
ES: When did he die then?
WP: I was about 8 when he died. He was 54.
ES: What did he die of?
WP: He had cancer. He had half his tongue off and he'd never smoked. Well they couldn't afford to smoke or drink. My mother, died of the same, liver cancer and had never smoked or drank.
When they talk about all this cigarette business I don't believe that because they never smoked or drank in their lives, so I don't believe all that.
Yes, he was 54 when he died and all I remember is on Friday evening he and my mum used to go to the International Stores and get all the groceries for the week and those creams with the nut on top for all us children.
ES: Walnut whips.
WP: Yes, something like that. And I remember going over to Hartham with 6d. before I went to school, to Earls the butchers for 6 pennorth of pieces for my mum to make a pie or a pudding for 5 children, for our dinners. I can always remember that.
JR: Yes. So when you came to school you were actually living in Spencer Street by then, were you?
WP: Yes, probably. I must have been five then. You see my father was a tailor and he lost the sight of one eye so he couldn't work. We couldn't afford the rent in Parkhurst Road, Bengeo, so they got this house in Spencer Street which was cheap.
JR: And your sister still lives there?
WP: Oh yes, she's still there and she's had all work done and modernised. She would dearly love a flat but she has a cat. I mean the house is too much for her but she has a cat, Snoopy, and he's lovely.
JR: So she stays there.
WP: Well, her son-in-law is trying to get her and I don't know where he's looking. He's
for somewhere where she can take her cat. everything you say, a flat somewhere, not council. Trying, 'cos he's a businessman. He's a lovely cat and he knows.
ES: We've always had cats although I'm not keen on them. I'm not keen on animals but they're like your own children. I like my own.
WP: Oh, I love all animals. My husband always had a dog because he liked dogs and I always had a cat. I went to work so you couldn't leave a dog but I always had cats in London.
ES: But Spencer Street hasn't changed has it? I mean it hasn't got pavements or anything.
WP: Now listen, when we were children, the pavement from Doris's house, (have you been down Spencer Street?) that pavement went right round the corner and up the hill and when that person bought that house on the corner she took that pavement all the way up to the back way. She's got all those bushes and three old cars there. And that was not right because nothing can be done because it's a private road. So if you go up there and you haven't got a car you have to walk in the road which is not right.
The other week my sister got a lift home from church and because there were so many cars there, the car had to stop. And do you know, they must have been looking out of the window because she came out of the door and said, "You don't stop that!”
She doesn't own the road. If it had been me with my Irish temper I would have gone mad. I'd have said, "You've taken the path." They've got no business to take that path. It's a right of way.
ES: (To JR) You know it don't you?
JR: Yes, vaguely.
WP: You see, people buy houses and they just take what they want. They do what they want and they take what they want. It's not right.
JR: What was it like living in Spenser Street, then, as a child?
WP: Oh well, you see, have you been down there lately?
ES: I went there last year.
WP: Since Reg's Coaches had it (it used to belong to the Northmet) well where those big gates are over there that used to be the green and those steps,going up, we never used that road. We used to go straight across there when we were children and up the steps. But you see when he sold that or let it to Reg, they put those gates up.
We used to play over the green rounders, hot stones, hoops and everything when we were children. It was lovely when we were children, but there are no children there now.
ES: Is this a green or The Green which we've come to think of as…
WP: Well we just called it the green because there was all grass growing up that fence along there.
ES: Quite countrified.
WP: Yes, and I remember coming home from dancing at one o'clock in the morning and we used to sit along there talking when we were about 17 or 18 in the summer.
JR: Who were your friends? I've got some names here, the ones who started school with you, Alfred Sweeney.
WP: Yes, I remember Alfred Sweeney, all the Sweeneys. I think they've all gone now. Yes I think they've all gone. I think Alf was the youngest.
DORIS ARRIVES
JR: Have they? Right.
WP: Perhaps Doris can remember their names more than me. Was Alf the youngest one?
DD: Sweeneys? Yes, I think he was.
WP: And was there Michael?
DD: Yes.
WP: And was there Kate and what was the other sister's name?
DD: I can't remember the other one's name.
WP: Have you got it down?
JR: I've got George Sweeney.
WP: Ah that's a different family. They used to live in one of these little houses where The Haig is.
DD: There used to be a row of little houses there.
ES: Do you mean a court?
DD: No, they were on the outside. There was a yard up there at the side of them.
WP: And then South Street, they were little cottages. You could sit on their windowsills. They were lovely those little cottages on South Street.
ES: Where the barbers is now.
WP: Yes, they were all little cottages. I was trying to think what was at the top. There was a shop at the top. But you're doing the school business.
JR: Yes, well I just thought we'd start with that because that's how I met you because you said you'd come
WP: Only there's so many things different because at the top of St John's Street there was a lovely thatched cottage, wasn't there.
DD: Yes, and all the garden at the bottom that went right down to that row of houses.
WP: Mrs Draper lived there and she was always standing at the gate with a white pinafore on.
And then opposite Powells. Then there was Mellish's.
DD: There was two bay-windowed houses, with downstairs steps.
WP: Oh yes, you're talking about there.
DD: And a little yard that went down and there was about four cottages there, with one up and one down I think.
WP: And going past where all those cars are, where her little cottage was there was Barkers. Do you remember Barkers. They had the horse and landau you know, carriage and horses. And the man that lived in,the first house. in Spencer Street, I'm talking now about the woman that's got everything, he used to drive that. the carriage with the two horses.
DD: He used to give us a little ride down the road in it. He used to come down at teatime and leave it outside.
JR: What was his name?
WP: Wicks. There was Barker's that he worked for where those cars are now. Where the thatched cottage was. There was Barker's with that yard and then there was Mellish's, the cake shop
DD: Then there was the pub.
WP: Well that's always been there. That was next to Mellish's.
JR: That's all Abbiss land now isn't it. Which pub is that?
WP: It's The Dolphin now. It used to be the Great Eastern. The Eastern's round the corner by the railway.
Transcribers Note: The Station Hotel the Great Eastern is in Railway place.
DD: The only traffic we had was the dustcart down our road then and they used to go down and burn all the rubbish and that, incinerate it, where Reg's Coaches is now which used to be Northmet. They used to make electricity I think because there used to be a great big pile of clinker that you know as they burned the rubbish the man used to come with the wheelbarrow and bring it all up and tip it like a mountain. It was of clinker. That's where the railings are where I go down to where I live and where Reg's Coaches are.
JR: I got slightly mixed up about where we were. We were by the Dolphin but we're now by the Great Eastern. I was thinking it was Abbiss's.
Transcribers Note: confusion on names see above
WP: So did you want to carry on about the school, where you finished?
JR: Yes, well what were your teachers' names because I want to get these nuns' names sorted out.
DD: We had Sister McTeale.
WP: Sister McTeale was the infants' teacher. Then we had Sister Saviour and Sister Birchment and Sister Stanislaus. She was the 6th Form teacher.
JR: And they were the only staff.
WP: When we were there. Of course when Pat - Sister Fabian? Not Sister Fabian, who was it?
DD: The one who had, all her bones went.
WP: No, there was another one there. I think Pat gave you that.
JR: Yes, Pat's done a tape already.
WP: See, there was different ones after we left because we had to retire, naturally.
ES: How large was the school then?
WP: It has always seemed that size and the room down the bottom where the infants were, the extra room.
DD: Yes, that was a little room on its own. Where we were having our lunch that was a room with a partition. And they were called Standard 1 and Standard 2 in those days, not classes.
JR: Well there were just over 100 in 1913. They were actually very squashed though. It keeps mentioning in the log book how squashed they were and in the end, before the 1940s, before the war, they took over the Methodist church hall, apparently.
DD: Before they took that over they had a classroom in the convent on the corner at the other side of the road. And then I think that got too much and then they had the thing in Ware Road.
JR: Yes, because they were having to cater for children from Hoddesdon weren't they, aad Ware and even Welwyn Garden City, before they got their own catholic school.
DD: Oh yes.
JR: Yes, that's why they were really quite crowded I think. Of course, Welwyn Garden City wasn't there in your time but I'm talking about slightly later. You still had friends coming from Ware I think, didn't 'you, at that time?
DD: Probably. Oh yes, because Timmons used to come from Ware.
JR: Who do you remember most in your childhood, which friends?
DD: A lot have passed on.
ES: Yes, but who was your best friend?
WP: I don't know about you but mine was Phyllis Hurley and Lily Murphy. You've got their names haven't you?
JR: Well I may have. I don't know if I've got them in here. Did you start with those or were they older or younger than you?
WP: We were all about the same age.
JR: I haven't actually got them down. I've got the Dempsey family. They started the same time as you, didn't they?
WP: Dempsey? They lived opposite us, didn't they?
DD: Mm.
JR: Oh right, so you know them.
WP: And you haven't got the others?
JR: No, I haven't, but I started slightly later so I just put down a few who started at the same time as you.
DD: I didn't have any friends much at school.
WP: Well there was us five weren't there. There was Lily Murphy, Bertha Ward and Lily Wilkinson.
DD: And I had Win Phipps. Have you got her?
JR: Yes, I've got the Phipps family. For you I've got Elsie Donoghue, Lily Ilott, Agnes Hart, Ethel Gray and Winifred Phipps, Ethel Brown
DD: Yes, I know all those. Ethel Graves and Ethel Brown.
JR: Graves, yes that's it. You're right. Those are the ones I picked out.
DD: A lot of them are not around now. Ethel Graves died.
WP: And Win Phipps died, didn't she? She came here for a little while and when I came to Windsor. I used to pop in there but she couldn't get around and she went to the hospital up Gallows Hill. And she wasn't there long I don't think before she died.
JR: What sort of things did you find to do out of school, then? At school or out of school.
ES: Let me ask you, did you have slates at school? Someone we were speaking to had a tray of sand and used to have to make their letters in the sand. so they could shake it and start again if they made a mistake. Did you have slates?
WP: to DD: Did we have slates?
DD: In the Infants, yes.
JR: So when you got out of school in the evenings and at weekends what did you do?
WP: We used to play over there on the Green.
JR: Did you go anywhere else?
WP: When we were older, 16 or 17 we used to go dancing.
ES: Where did you go dancing?
WP: At St. Nicholas Hall - 1 shilling hop. And we used to go to the Corn Exchange with Jack Pole. Was it Jack Pole?
DD: Yes, I think so. And for a very high-class one we used to go to the Shire Hall and that was half a crown.
JR: That was quite a lot of money then, wasn't it.
ES: How did your mother manage?
WP: Oh, she worked so hard.
ES: Did she work outside the home?
WP: Did she work before dad died? He couldn't go to work. When he lost one eye he couldn't work.
DD: No. She worked at the laundry, didn't she.
WP: Yes; she worked at the steam laundry at Addis's because that's all she knew because she'd never been out to work. Her mother had a small private laundry.
DD: Her mother had a private laundry and she'd only done that sort of work. And she was a very timid person and we had a horrible neighbour who used to be nasty to her.
I tell you one thing she did. She used to work on a Saturday. And there used to be the A1 Tea Rooms in Fore Street where Sheffield's is now. And she'd work all day Saturday for half a crown, washing up. They used to have a dumb waiter. ' The tea rooms were at the top and all she did was to take the crocks and wash up, fill it up with clean ones and then it would go up.
WP: I can see her now walking over that Green. She didn't know how to walk because her feet were terrible. She never had her feet done.
DD: And her eldest brother (he's dead now) was ever so clever and he could have gone in for something really nice but
WP: In our school if you were clever you went to the school of art in the library. And my brother went to the school of art to do painting and that. But of course that's all finished with and that
was in the old days.
JR: Who were the people who owned that A1 teashop?
WP: Farrows. Thora and Eileen and there was a young one, Sylvia. She was the young one.
DD: Our brother Tom, in between us two, he used to work there out of school hours, you know, peeling potatoes and so forth for about a shilling I suppose
WP: When you think of those days and now, well, people wouldn't believe you if you told them that.
ES: No, they wouldn't believe how bard people worked.
DD: And you were allowed one pair of shoes a year and they had to be boots.
WP: When you think, all these single mothers today. They don't do anything. They get all this money free and flats free.
DD: Yet I'm sure that we're just as nice as some of these children who are spoilt and get this money thrown at them sort of thing.
JR: Yes, right - it was hard.
ES: And so you had to help in the home you two?
WP: I don't think we did anything. Did we ever do anything? I can't remember.
ES: Your poor mother couldn't walk around?
WP: Yes, were wicked because my mum when she went to the laundry used to say, “Now look, don't go near the barge river.” And the first thing we did was go to the barge river and jump on and off the barges until Tom fell in. Oh yes, we were wicked.
And we set the coal cellar on fire, didn't we? We took a match looking for something and set the coal cellar on fire one day.
JR: The coal cellar?
WP: Yes, the coal cellar. It's a larder now that you put tinned stuff in but it was a coal cellar then that you had coal in the bottom. And I don't know what we were doing with the match but we set fire to it.
JR: So it didn't burn for ever and ever then?
WP: No, the neighbours came in and poured water on it.
JR: She had to leave you during the holidays, did she?
WP: Yes, she had to because she had to go to work. You didn't get any Social Security in those days. She got ten shillings at Christmas, I think, for our boots.
JR: Did you have any other relatives in the town?
WP: No, we didn't have relatives. Dad didn't have any and she only had a sister and brother and we never even saw them.
DD: No.
WP: They lived in Putney didn't they?
DD: Mm.
JR: So your family came here from West Wycombe and you did not really know anyone. Because McGarry is quite an unusual name, isn't it? Was it Irish originally?
WP: Yes, it is because my Dad came from Cork. That's why my Mum got insulted, because they knew by her name. One neighbour tried to throw the teapot over her one morning, when my Mum went to the bin.
JR: Because you were Irish. But there were a lot of Irish people in the town, weren't there?
WP: We had terrible neighbours. And yet when the war was one, the neighbour one side came and knocked at my Mum's door, when the bombs were over Cuffley, when the Zeppelins went over. And she knocked and begged and my Mum had them in and made a cup of tea, cause my Mum was that kind of person. She would not bear any grudges. She was such a timid, gentle person.
JR: Were they frightened of the bombs?
WP: Yes, they were frightened. She had them in. They were horrible to her.
ES: Was there a general sort of resentment against Irish people?
WP: We had horrible neighbours. There were only those two neighbours, one each side.
ES: And what about being Catholics?
WP: That's probably why, because knowing the name they automatically,..
ES: …would assume you were Catholic. And was there still sort of prejudice against Catholics?
WP: Probably.
ES: Of course it was a long while ago.
WP: Some people have a drink. Some people say , “I've seen them come straight out of church and go in and have a drink.”
DD: There's no law against having a drink. My Mum used to do the Nun's wimples, those white wimples.
ES: What, launder them?
DD: Yes. And when they used to come down to pick them up of course naturally the neighbours would know.
JR: So, Win do you actually remember the Zeppelin falling in Bull Plain? Not the Zeppelin, the bomb.
WP: No, I only remember the one at Cuffley, we were at the street door and we saw it coming.
JR: So you did not know anything about this local one, bombs that were dropped from the Zeppelin raid.
WP: No, I can't remember that one.
JR: That was, 1916 I think (1915)
WP: I may have been in London then, cause I was in London wasn't I. Do you remember we had those shelters. Oh, I couldn't stand those shelters, couldn't bear being cased in.
ES: Do you remember anything about the First World War? You were seven when it started.
DD: Not really.
ES: When were you born?
DD: 1912.
ES: Oh yes, well you wouldn't particularly, but you might.
JR: 1906, that's ten years when this was happening.
DD: I can only remember laying under the table, us laying under the table. That's all I can remember.
JR: It was a very long time ago. We don't often get people who actually remember the First World War, at all. It is usually they have just about become toddlers or were born about that time.
ES: Do you remember soldiers walking through the town? Were there regiments quartered here and so on?
DD: Yes, there were soldiers because they used to be on Hartham didn't they. Because one wanted to be friendly with Ede a bit.
WP: Could have been, could have been
JR: That was the First World War.
WP: Yes.
JR: Oh right. But Edith was born in1903, is that right? 1903? Edith?
DD: Yes, she could have been, 'cause she was 53, wasn't she when she died.
JR: So she would only have been a teenager in the First World War. What about people who lived around the town, local characters or places you remember?
WP: Oh, we can remember whatshisname from Port Hill. He used to come round Sunday afternoons with the
ES: The Muffin Man.
WP: The Muffin Man - remember him.
ES: And were they good?
WP: Oh, lovely, they were lovely. Any, also the Salvation Army they used to come round every Sunday afternoon, outside, didn't they and sing hymns, every Sunday afternoon about 3 o'clock. That stopped.
DD: They always used to come down and stand in that little corner there, where my road is and where the Reg's coaches go in. They used to play carols and that. But they have not done that for years now. They always used to do that.
WP: Didn't they used to sing outside The Dolphin, Christmas night, Christmas Eve, when we went to midnight mass. They used to be singing there, the Salvation Army.
DD: Probably
ES: They used to come into West Street when we first came here. But is there still a branch of them?
JR: I think officially there is, because there is a place in Baker Street.
DD: I never see them now.
JR: They do not come out like they used to with their instruments.
DD: They used to come down here. I think they have been down here once on a Christmas time, singing carols. That was when I first came here.
WP: They used to play in the town on Christmas Eve.
DD: Round the White Hart somewhere, but you never hear of them now. I don't know if there is a unit now, is there?
ES: Well, Jean seems to think there is.
JR: I think there is but…
DD: I know their headquarters were at Baker Street
JR: And they still have a meeting place there, but how…
DD: Yes, but they used to be here didn't they, in the Ragged School?
JR: I've had some contact. There was a Captain, I think he was, in rank, who was obviously the representative for Hertford. He used to come to the 'Christmas Alone' meetings. But we have not had any contact with anyone for quite a long time to do with the Salvation Army, because we would have expected them to join us in that venture. But they did not do it for very long. I think it was because they had not got a permanent resident.
DD: You used to have one on the end of your house.
JR: I think now they have to share somebody with Ware, so it is a bit more difficult.
DD: Kate Barbrook, have you got her name. She was a right one. She done it so long and she was getting old and they thought it was time for somebody a bit younger to do it and she just finished with the Army. I didn't realise, only I had a friend that lived next door. But I didn't realise she finished with the Army then. But she was getting old, she was older than I am.
JR: Yes, I've interviewed her half-brother Les Sullivan. His mother was Mrs. Barbrook and had a family and then she married again and had another family. And he told me about his sister being Kate Barbrook. But 1 have not had any dealings with Kate herself. I would have liked to have got an interview with her because I think she would have had a lot to have told us.
WP: She would have done.
ES: Did you have friends in the Bircherley Green area or were all your friends from…
DD: Well, the school children that lived in one of those places.
WP: Mrs Wolf.
DD: She's died a long time ago.
JR: I've seen that name somewhere - Wolf. May be in one of the log books. Where did she live?
DD: In one of those cottages that were…
JR: Bircherley, yes. What about business and shops in the town. You went to the International, did you, for your groceries?
WP: Home and Colonial.
DD: Bon Marche was where this new what's it called.
ES: The Caffe Uno.
DD: That's it, yes, that was the Bon Marche. And they used to have a penny dip at Christmas outside, good old days. We used to get check gingham, six and three farthings a yard, or something like that.
WP: And then Fore Street, there was Sneesby's the photographers. Have you got that down, Sneesby's? What was that we used to go buy the tea, the tea dust. What was the name of that shop?
DD: I know where you mean, but I can't think of the name of the shop.
WP: I'm trying to think of all those shops that used to be along there.
DD: Bates' used to be opposite near the bank, the Midland Bank, along there, cause I worked there for ages - a high class grocers
ES: Yes that was still going.
DD: Then do you remember the top end of Market Street, that used to be that cake shop, tea rooms what was it called?
ES: Thisteldoo.
DD: Thistledoo, yes
ES: Was there still a cattle market when you came, in Fore Street?
DD: Yes, because a boy got killed up there, didn't he?
WP: In Fore Street?
DD: Yes, up by The Ram.
ES: There was one behind The Ram, but I wondered if there was still one outside The Shire Hall, that end of Fore Street.
WP: I don't remember that because it went from there to somewhere up by The Plough. Somewhere up that way.
JR: Up Caxton Hill. I think they used to drive the animals through, from Parliament Square end of Fore Street. We heard that one cow got into to Fordham's one day, actually got inside the shop. So that was quite funny.
ES: So, did you have lots of boyfriends, when you were young, you two.
WP: No, we used to walk up and down Fore Street with our friends.
DD: Well we did have friends walk us home, or something like that.
WP: Well, probably, but I know we used to walk up and down Fore Street.
ES: What, for the boys to look at you.
DD: Yes, stand in little groups talking.
ES: Yes, somebody else said that that was a place to meet people of the opposite sex. They would walk up and down. Was it something like on a Whit Monday or a so on, to parade.
JR: It seemed to be on a Sunday, when they had their best clothes on, they would do it.
So, you eventually married and went to live in London and Doris, you stayed here is that right, all the time. So where did you live when you got married then, did you stay?
DD: Where I am now.
ES: Your husband came to your house.
DD: It is rented, my house.
ES: Oh, I see.
JR: But your Mum lived there, didn't she? When did she die? Did she die fairly young?
DD: My Mum was 68 when she died.
JR: So she stayed in that house, and you got married, and lived with her.
DD: Well, my brother and sister were there as well.
ES: So where did you meet your husband?
DD: I think someone introduced me to him, a friend introduced me to him.
ES: And was he local. I know you say he lived outside of Hertford, but where did he come from?
DD: Finsbury Park.
JR: He came from there. The name Parsell is a local name. There are quite a number of them, or there were in my directory.
DD: Some are 'c' and some are 's'. Mine is's', 'sell', double '11'. There are some of those I've noticed in the directory.
WP: There was a Parsell on the allotment, some of them are a 'c'
JR: It is actually pronounced Par-sell and not parcel.
WP: No, Parsell.
JR: I put it down with a 'c', I will say
WP: Most people do.
JR: I've seen it with both.
WP: I mean if you are doing anything like the Doctor or anything like that, special, you have to add the initial.
JR: So where did you meet your husband?
DD: A dance I should think. I can't remember when I first met him.
ES: Is he local?
DD: Well yes he was local.
JR: Perhaps you knew him a long time did you before you were teenagers?
WP: Not really
JR: He didn't go to St Joseph's?
WP: No!
JR: What did he do for a living?
DD: Well he came with Addis. Their father came from Axminster and when Addis moved to, I think they came to London first cause they came from Hackney to here, but I think Addis had some link up there, some place up there, before they moved to Hertford.
JR: Yes, they did. They did start up in London.
DD: Cause when I've been on the train I've seen his street, because it was Mare Street,
Hackney where he was.
ES: Oh yes. And where did your husband live in Hertford?
DD: Well first he lived in Bengeo, I think, and then they got a council house up the Gallows Hill.
JR: So you left the town when you were about 20 did you, Win? And you went to live in Finsbury Park and stayed there for 40 years.
WP: Yes and I've been back here 20.
JR: So tell us again now the tape is on, when did first go when you came back? Where did you go to live first of all?
WP: I lived at the flats at the Convent. They were flats then. After they bought the one at Hertingfordbury they had that changed into flats then. So I lived there seven years.
JR: And then you went up to…
WP: Sele Farm. Yes, which I hated.
JR: So you used to come down here quite often?
WP: Every day, nearly every day I came, didn't I.
DD: She used to stay at our place at weekends.
WP: Every weekend stayed with them.
JR: Was your husband with you at that time?
WP: No, my husband had died by then. I lived eight years on my own.
JR: In London
WP: In London and it was getting a bit, you know when the immigrants first started, the nonsense. And Doris said to me, “If I got you a flat would you come and live here?” And I said yes. So she got me that flat and I moved 'cause it was not very nice where I lived. Well it was a nice district when I first went there.
ES: But it was very colonised really wasn't it?
WP: It gradually got down and now I should imagine it is all coloured. I should not think there's many white people there at all now.
DD: Didn't used to be bad where I am, but now since they're nearly all, there is only one or two rented houses down there and what with the cars and wheelie bins it is just a mess at times.
JR: It was not designed for that, was it? It wasn't designed for cars, let alone wheelie bins.
DD: 'Cause when I say about it being a slum a friend of ours said, “Oh, I remember when it used to be quite nice cause I had friends down there. That was when there used to be a nice house down the bottom that belonged to the gas and coke people.
WP: Oh, the gas works, right down there.
DD: You know, the double fronted house. They were friends of Mary Olliss and she said it used to be quite nice.
WP: I said you would not think so now 'cause
DD: Do you mean the Montfords, the thatched cottage, near there? That was lovely, lovely gardens, old world gardens.
WP: It is a slum now, really.
DD: Do you think so? It does look, "you talk about Finsbury Park. It's got a slight look of Finsbury Park about it, with all those abandoned cars, sinking lower and lower.
ES: I went round, I know John Dixon, who is a young man. They were a married couple living in one of those houses.
WP: They are all new people down there.
ES: Oh, that's right and I expect it's rented, perhaps a rented house. I was going to ask you, did you see much of your grandparents when you were young.
WP: Never had any.
ES: Well, you had some, but just didn't know about them.
WP: We did not have any relations, not to meet or call on.
ES: Strange, isn't it?
WP: Well, Dad he was an orphan, so we never had. And Mum, there was only her brother and sister, Auntie Gertie and Uncle Tom. They were in Kent and we never saw them. But she did go and visit him when he came back from the war, didn't she?
DD: I think so yes.
ES: So your mother must have been very lonely when your father died and she was bringing you all up. A hard life for her. But was it a happy life at home?
WP: Oh yes, they were happy my Mum and Dad, weren't they?
DD: Well I don't really know, do I? I was too young. I don't even remember my Dad. I never had a picture of him, you see.
JR: That's hard isn't it.
DD: There is a picture of you three.
WP: Yes at Parkhurst Road.
JR: But no Dad in it.
WP: No, only us three, Edie, Leslie and me.
DD: Show them if you have got it.
WP: If I can find it.
DD: Kept quite nicely dressed, just the three of them.
JR: It sounds as though you were not that poor generally, were you, from what you said about the
WP: Well, we weren't poor to other people. One or two girls I was friendly with they would all have a pennies or tuppences to go and get a pennyworth of chips, you know, to go up to the town to get a pennyworth of chips. Well Mum used to have a few things up at the little shop on the corner and pay at the end of the week. So I used to go up and borrow a penny for the gas so that I could go and have a pennyworth of chips with the children, the other girls, because otherwise.
DD: That's Parkhurst Road where we lived. We were quite respectable, not tattily dressed, or anything.
JR: Now, whose who in this photograph?
DD: That's me, that's my elder sister and that's my elder brother, Leslie.
JR: Oh right, those three, yes. You ought to just write it in pencil on the back. It's a nice photograph isn't it?
WP: Lovely. I don't know who took it or paid for it. I don't know.
ES: But this is the strange thing in a way. Even people who were having a struggle, they did look respectable, didn't they?
WP: Yes, I remember my Mum when we were going to processions, how she washed our dresses, plaited our hair and ironed it, to dry it on the ironing board, do you remember?
DD: Well, no I don't remember that.
WP: When we were going to processions, I remember that. Oh we were always…
JR: Yes. And then you had two more, did you have two more?
WP: Yes, Thomas, Doris and Thomas.
JR: I've got your name down as spelled Dorress, that was the nuns writing it down. It is just Doris, isn't it? Yes, I thought so. OK we are nearly at the end of this side, let me just check.
END