Interviewed by Peter Ruffles (PR)
Date: 01/01/1999
Transcribed by Jean Riddell (Purkis)
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: 01999.14
Interviewee: Eddie Roche (ER)
Date: 1999
Venue: St Andrew Street, Hertford
Interviewer: Peter Ruffles (PR)
Transcriber: Jean Riddell (Purkis)
Typed by: John van Hagen
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
ER: You look around and you say, I haven’t seen Mrs. So and so for a while, she doesn’t come in any more, she’s changed her shoe patterns. She’d probably gone over to flat shoes instead of wearing court shoes, that wear out a bit quicker. Unfortunately, people die and they don’t come in any more and the new wave of younger people, they’re less inclined to go with a shoe repair shop. They did a survey a couple of years ago and people said oh yes, I go into rubber and whatever……
PR: And the shoes are throw-away?
ER: A lot of shoes now, I mean, I’ve taken in 2 or 3 pairs this morning and a woman came to me and said I’ve had these done 2 or 3 times and they don’t stay on and I said, unfortunately madam the same will apply again, they’re Clarks shoes and unfortunately the material doesn’t lend itself to bonding on.
PR: This is Peter Ruffles and I'm in the back of Eddie Roche' s shop, No. 56 St Andrew Street, and between customers I'm just going to ask him a little bit about the business and how it started. Was there a business before your Dad's then or did he start up from scratch? Are you going to sit down?
ER: I lean, I tend to lean.
PR: Whose business was this before your dad?
ER: Well, what happened I believe, and this is legend as much as truth, but my father started a business up at no, 70A St. Andrew St. together with his brother who was my Uncle Edmund. I believe the business opened in 1926 and the partnership didn’t really get together as it was meant to, my uncle had a great longing to stay in Ireland on holidays, longer than he should have done and my father got a bit fed up with it and the partnership broke up. My father started to trade on his own in the early 1930s.
We moved from no. 70A in the 1950s and we purchased 56 St. Andrew St where we lived for a short time and then when I returned from National Service in 1958, I suggested to my father that we abandoned no. 70A and moved lock, stock and barrel into no, 56 which we did and we’ve been here ever since. My father semi-retired from the business in the early ‘70s but he kept a watchful eye over what I was getting up to until his death in 1979, from when I carried on running the business on my own mostly for the great part.
We had a very good friend rather an an employee, Ray Moss who worked for the family business for over 30 years until a few years ago when he retired, and various other people, but now it’s just me running the business on my own, possibly for another 3 years ‘til I retire at the ripe old age of 65.
PR: And the nature of the business has changed even though it’s the same job, has it?
ER: Oh, very much so. I mean when my father started a lot of the work was done by hand, you delivered on foot and it was a great day when they purchased a trade cycle from the old firm across the road, Fred Wackett and of course in 1946 another friend of ours, Reg Hayden, who’d worked with my father before the war came back from the war and between them they purchased the shoe-repair business in the arcade, the arcade she repairs which traded as Roche & Hayden and of course the arcade wads quite a way from St. Andre St and work had to be transferred backwards and forwards and so young Edmund Roche at the ripe age of 8 years wads given a truck which twice a day he would trundle from St Andrew Street down to the arcade and back carrying the repaired work.
PR: So the work was done in one place?
ER: A lot of the work was done in the rear of the front shop where there were numerous people employed as shoe repairers and knew every facet of the trade, about 8 or 9 staff and when I joined the staff full time there when I was 16 I believe there was 8 of us. And we did a lot of business in the early days – I knew the business from the late ‘40s onwards and most of the work was basic Leather shoes with leather soles or rubber soles and it was a lot easier. You knew what you were working with. You could look at a pair of leather shoes and say: Yes, I can do that. I can do a leather sole or a heel or whatever the customer wanted. Or you could say: I'll do something else and you could do the work.
Whereas you moved through the ' 50s into the ' 60s and things like stilettos were - I've got scars on my hands where a drill's gone through my hand instead of a stiletto heel. You moved through that and then you had the advent of things like Tuff shoes - moulded footwear - which was the death knell for a lot of the old traditional shoe repairers all over the country everywhere. We combated that by going into selling Tuff shoes. We started selling a few shoes and a few men' s work boots and a few Wellingtons, and that went quite well. That got us back on the rails again and gradually during that time people left and as they retired you didn't replace them. Because of the way the trade was, people didn't want to come into the trade then, because it was very difficult, and we were forever making mistakes ourselves trying to repair shoes that were made of different forms of plastics.
And then in the '60s my father became very ill and he tried to soldier on and we rallied round, and I ran the business for him in a sense, and then finally in the early ' 70s I took over and we tried to get it back on the rails even more. We were having a few problems and one or two more staff left, and we were left with a basic staff of three people, and that worked quite well. And then in 1979 the business in the arcade closed - Mr Hayden wanted to retire - he was suffering a great degree of ill health, so the whole business was operated... .. . .. . . .. .
PR: Where did Mr Hayden live?
ER: Mr Hayden lived in Hayden's Yard behind Pateman's and he married Miss Lawrence who' s still alive now - Joan Hayden - whose people had Lawrence' s grocers’ shop before it became Cross' s.
PR: Bob Harding married…
ER: Joyce, yes, that’s right. I saw Joyce when Rene Hayden had a 60th birthday party to which I was kindly invited. Just got to serve this nice gentleman here with his wife’s shoes. I think it’s his wife, or is it his girlfriend?
PR: You are on your way to the Museum.
ER: I shall be in the annals of time, if I can’t find the shoes won’t I? Sorry, Fowler, it’s a pair of ladies’ shoes I was looking for a pair of gents! There you go, £3.95. please. Thanks very much.
Customer: Can I leave my car in the yard at the back just while I…
ER: With pleasure. You’re welcome. Watch you don trip over all the wires, you know the way, don’t you?
PR: Ethel Dearman used to......
ER: Ethel Dearman worked for my Dad who lived in another yard. Victoria Place. She lived in the end house. Ethel worked for my Dad for lots of years. Very quiet but very rarely missed coming to work. She was counter lady. 'Cos in those days the counter was quite busy, and she was very good. Very reliable. I suppose we were lucky really with the people we had as counter ladies. I don' t know what happened to her in the end but - course we finished with counter ladies in the early ' 50s. My Dad did the counter at seventy. We had her and we had Mrs Morgan for a while. I don' t know what her Christian name was. She was a widow. John Morgan's mother. She worked for us for a little while. 'Cos she went on to become a receptionist for Doctor Mortis and Doctor Bevan, I believe. There were one or two. Not that many. I think Ethel was there quite a long while.
PR: Your Dad was well known for all sorts of reasons.
ER: All sorts of reasons is a very good way of putting it, isn't it? I think that was why he had me come into the business in 1954. I was at Grammar School and I wanted to stay on, and he'd concocted an agreement apparently with Mr Bunton, the Headmaster, that he wanted me here to look after the business - to be workshop foreman so that he could spend more time doing what he wanted to do.
He was a great fisherman, as a lot of people knew, and he used to like to spend weekends away down on the River Wye with his great friend, Harry Botsford. They were very great friends. I don't think I've known a greater friendship between two men in my lifetime anywhere. And of course, he also liked playing bowls. He was quite good at the fishing and he was quite good at the bowls. My mother would put up with the fishing but she didn't like the bowling very much.
But yes, his idea of holiday was to go on the Hertfordshire County Bowls Tour to perhaps Largs or Ireland or Tenby or Cornwall and we stayed at home. But that was just his way of life. He was probably a kinder person to people outside his family. Even today people say to me: Your Dad was a lovely feller. And I say: Well, he wasn't always really. He was a pig to me. I never really forgave him for making me leave school. I was heart set on whatever it was in those days - GCEs or whatever it was, and a career well away from this sort of thing.
I suppose really the best time for me was when I did National Service and I loved it. Okay, I wanted to go abroad but I was only at Stanmore and I was still too close. I could come home and do the odd day here. And of course he was ill while I was in the Air Force and I had to get leave and come home and run the business for a bit. But I suppose this has been my life, not by choice. People say sometimes: Why didn't you just walk away from it? My children sometimes say to me: Well, you know - and I say: Well, your Grandad - if ever I suggested I was going to leave the business, he suddenly became ill. And my mother would be down and she'd say: You can't leave. And I think really I should have done.
PR: You' re the oldest in the family?
ER: No, I've got an older sister, Sheila who's eighteen months older.
PR: Did she work at County Hall or somewhere?
ER: She did, after she left the Convent. She had what they' d call now a Gap Year. She was down for a place to become a nurse at the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth in London. My Dad was very friendly with Alec Wright who ran Motor Taxation at County Hall and Alec very kindly found a position for her in the Motor Taxation office for about a year while she was waiting to go to London.
PR: One morning about a quarter to 9, a frost, icy morning, she was going along Castle St, turned what would be a very sharp right-hand corner at the bottom of Pegs Lane on the corner and she came off.
ER: Well, well, well, you’ve got a very good memory, Mr. Ruffles, haven’t you.
PR: So - Sheila, and then you…
ER: And then Graham who was killed on Old Cross. He was coming home from school from the Convent School. I believe my uncle who was in business then on Bull Plain - he was the last person to see Graham alive. He used to sometimes pop in and see Uncle Edmund. People knew him as Sarse, Ned- I used to get quite confused with my Uncle Edmund, as he really was. He was a lovely man but a very weak - he was too soft. I loved him from the time I - I didn't know him until after my grandparents died because he was a bit of a black sheep of the family. He lost his business before the war.
But when we lived here he used to come up and sit here and he would play crib with me and you could hear his chest wheezing, 'cos he'd been gassed in the First War. And I've got the letters that they sent to my grandparents when he was taken to the military hospital in France and unfortunately, I did see his medals once but they disappeared. I don't know where they are now, but he had quite a severe war in the First War and........ He died about a year after Graham was killed. He died of cancer unfortunately. But I think the fact that he' d been the last person to see Graham alive affected him quite deeply. In the same way it affected my father. My father never recovered from the fact that Graham was taken. I was always very sorry for him in that respect. My mother - 'cos women are tougher than men - and she bore the brunt of everything. It was sad. He was only a little lad and it still hurts now.
PR: About ten, wasn't he?
ER: Ten. And - there we are. And then there was Terrance........
PR: Yes, and then Andrew. Um, on Bull Plain - was he living there?
ER: No. My Uncle Edmund or Sarse or Cocker or whatever you'd like to call him he had a shop on Bull Plain where Canvas Holidays offices were. It's now part of the Prince Regent set-up. Where that complex what was Canvas Holidays was - there were four shops. There was Bumpy Harwoods, the hairdressers. There's Jock Allen's cafe or Mrs Allen's cafe. And then my uncle had this shoe repairer's shops. And then next to that was a Building Society office, I believe.
PR: Graham's accident was on the comer of Bryants?
ER: I believe - on the pedestrian crossing as it was in them days. I mean, people often say to me about Old Cross and the various things that have been there and I say: Well, you know, I know a bit more about Old Cross than a lot of people. They've tried every system down there. Okay, in those days there weren't so much traffic but it was quite considerable. It was a problem in the '50s. They had traffic lights. They had pedestrian crossings.
PR: I think there was a Belisha beacon that failed(?)?
ER: Yes, that's right. It was a Thursday afternoon. I was in the workshop and I heard this ambulance go whizzing along. That was in the days when they had them low Daimler ambulances. And there was a guy who lived in this locality and he always tore along with the bell ringing regardless.
And I was working in the workshop and we heard this ambulance go whizzing along and then soon after my Dad came into the workshop, obviously in a great state of distress and said: You'd better come down into the kitchen - 'cos we were using the workshop and we were living here. And there was a policeman there and he told us. I had to go with my Mum. My Dad couldn't go. My Mum and I went up to the County Hospital and there he was.
PR: So how much older were you?
ER: He was ten then. I was sixteen. He was born in ' 43. I was born in ' 37.
PR: Now he and you were both at St Andrew's Church?
ER: Well, my father was a lapsed Catholic and my mother had been brought up - her father was church organist in Wayford(?) village - they went to church, and of course my father didn't bother so my mother put us all to Sunday School. I mean, when I was christened the late Reverend Harry Evans baptised me and he was also my Godfather because there was no-one to stand.
Yes, we were all christened at St Andrew' s and we went to the Sunday School and later I was in the choir when they reformed with Mr Smith. But they were happy days. We went to Sunday School. That was the first time I ever saw the sea. We went on a coach to Clacton and before that we used to have McMullen' s dray to take us to Goldings or up to what was Danesbury in those days. That was the Sunday School outing.
PR: Who was running the Sunday School when you were there?
ER: Well, the matriarch was Miss Wackett. There were quite a lot of people. I think Miss Stocks did a bit. ' Cos Norman Smith was the Rector. Nat Gardiner had gone by then. I think his wife used to do a little bit, Mrs Norman Smith. I can never remember what her name was. I think Gladys Wackett was Graham' s Godmother. It might have been him or it might have been Terrance. But we had happy days at St Andrew' s. I think it's my spiritual home in a sense. I've always remained on good terms with various Rectors who've been there.
Reverend Gill was a great family friend, particularly with my Dad. I think it was the Reverend Gill who was here when Graham was killed. 1954. He was very kind. And then of course we had that great upheaval when we lost two Rectors in a short time. And then we had Duncan Dormer who was a great much-loved person. We always had a great deal of time for each other. He was succeeded by our current friend, Graham Edwards - and Audrey. I get on with him all right, I don’t know what he thinks of me – everybody I talk to, and Audrey… I suppose by rights I should have been a socialite, everybody doesn’t get on with everybody. When I see the Kemp brothers from the bell-ringing brigade over there, we have a little tete a tete now and again, the odd word. Mater David and Ringing Master John, and they’ve got 1 or 2 two others who ring over there, who go to the same church as me and he comes in here and says is your wife here, I’m frightened of her!
So I thank god sometimes I’ve been lucky. OK I’ve never made any money, but I’ve been lucky that a lot of the customers, they’ve been more than customers and you should treat them with the due respect and friendship that they deserve,, I mean not only the customers, but there’s a lot of people like your good self, who I’ve known but if I’d need advice and that I’d go up and speak to but he’s a busy man .that I don’t see too often.
[Break in Recording]
PR: We haven't quite finished the family. We were running through. We got to Graham.
ER: Graham was born in ' 43. Terrance was born in '46. Andrew was born in '48 and Kate in ‘49. A legend in the family was that really my father and mother wanted two girls and I popped out and they tried again, and Graham popped out so they tried again. God knows what would have happened if Kate had been another boy. They could have gone on forever.
PR: Were you all born in Hertford then?
ER: Yes. I know from what the family say I was born in the County Hospital. My grandfather was scared to go up to the hospital ward and he sat in the bus shelter in the bottom of the hospital drive until somebody came down and said: You’ve got a grandson. And I think my father produced the first R_oche son. My Uncle Edmund had no children. He married a war widow with two daughters. My Uncle Tom who went to Purleigh and had a very successful business there. He had two daughters. Then there was an aunt who had a daughter who I keep in contact with. I was the first boy to succeed the family line and apparently, he did cartwheels up the drive to the hospital.
PR: Whose father was he?
ER: He was Fred, my father' s father.
PR: So going back then - your name is not an Englishy kind of name?
ER: No. Well, you see, I used to go to France quite a lot with my children on holiday - to Brittany and areas like that, and there was a lot of Roche, as they say, in France - Rochefort, Rochelle in Brittany. And I was talking to somebody one day in the shop and they said: Oh, you' re a Huguenot. I said: Well, via Ireland. ' Cos my grandfather came over from Clonmel in Ireland before the turn of the century obviously. He' d got a job in Swindon. He' d been a military boot maker in the military barracks in Clonmel. Must have been a long time ago 'cos he came to Hertford before the turn of the century.
And he was offered a position at Grattan' s Blue Boot Store in Maidenhead Street. And. it offered also accommodation on Folly Island - No. 22 The Folly. And that's how he came to Hertford. And my Dad was born in Hertford definitely. And I believe my Uncle Edmund was born in Hertford too. Whether my aunt and my eldest uncle were born in Swindon I don' t know. But my father was born at The Folly.
PR: Your Dad was an auxiliary fireman, wasn't he?
ER: He was on the Fire Service and I think Mr Ruffles has got the famous picture showing the back of my Dad at Botsford's fire. I don' t know when that fire occurred. I don' t know how true it was but someone said Old Mrs Webb brought round trays of tea to the firemen. I can remember - I don' t know if it was at the end of the war or a bit further on, but my Dad was still retained and they had a big fire at Simpson Pimms and I can remember him come dashing home for his kit on the trade bike and then flying down Seale Road and my mother said: Be careful, Fred, at the bottom - because it was a steep hill onto North Road and they had a big fire there..
PR: So you were living at the time you were born in Sele Road?
ER: No, our family house then, when I was born, was where Walter' s Garage is now. It was Session' s Garage in those days and Session's family lived on the south end of the building. And then there was the showroom, and then there was another house which has now been incorporated into the business of Walter' s.
And then adjacent to that were three double-gated places where they kept vehicles. And that's where we lived. And then at the outbreak of war, that part of the building was requisitioned by the Fire Service and it was a fire depot. Had the fire engine and a pump and another vehicle there - I can' t remember what it was. And so we were moved and then for a short while we went into a temporary Council house in Bayford Close. We weren't there very long and we went to 69 Seale Road. It was a centre terrace on the other part of that sort of - there were two wings. Mrs Brooks, Mrs Tibbet, Roches, Boltwoods, and then there was a half-moon on the end, and then there was George Fedwell, Wrangles, Taylor and a family named Partridge.
And some time during the war we exchanged houses from 69 to 79 with Partridge. It was a slightly bigger house and of course we' d got lots of kids. And I've got a scar on my leg to this day where I was up the top of the garden watching the trains and I slipped off an old bit of wood and gouged my leg out. We were going off to Lancashire the next day with my mother for a little break from the war, and all hell was let loose ' cos the silly little beggar slipped off the thing, got taken to hospital and they stitched him up. But we had happy days in Sele Road. I liked Sele Road. And everybody on the estate was very friendly. They all helped each other. The war was on. I was at St Andrew' s School. Sheila was at the Convent for reasons best known to everyone else.
PR: Did your Dad spend the rest of his life there then?
ER: No, he moved from 79 to here in about 1950. And then after Graham was killed - because it affected him being here so much - they moved to 68 Windsor Drive. And they stayed there till the family grew up. And they had a big house and they suggested to the Council that somebody else ought to have the chance of the bigger house, and they moved to No. 64 which was an end two-bedroom, ' cos Andrew was at home still then. And that' s where he finished - at 64 Windsor Drive.
PR: What about your Mum? Where did she come from?
ER: Now, my Mum - I never really appreciated my mother really, I suppose, until after my father died. And I used to go up to see her every weekend to pay her the rent that I was paying on the property. She came down from Lancashire to escape from her mother. Her mother took retirement, as she put it, when my mother was old enough to do the housework.
So, my mother followed her elder sister Doris to the Hertford County Hospital as a nurse. And there' s lots of tales about my Dad asking Auntie Doris out, and she couldn't make up her mind. She used to stand there pointing her toe, saying: I'll think about it, Fred. I'll think about it. The legend is that he said: Well, you have got a good looking sister. I'll ask her. And he did and they eventually married in 1935 - at three o'clock in the afternoon at Hertford Registry Office, and my mother was back on duty at four o' clock. No honeymoon. They got married and then in 1936 Sheila was born and then I followed in ' 37.
She had a hard life. My father was not an easy man to live with, because he pursued the things he wanted to do himself. I remember as a little lad, Harry Botsford calling across the railway line - he lived in Fordwich Hill in a house that was opposite ours - and my Dad would stand at the top of the garden and shout: Harry! And he' d say: Five minutes, Fred! And the dog would bark- he had a dog, Lindy - an old spaniel. And my Dad would say: We're going down Pateman's fishing. Come on. And I remember one evening my Mum - we were going down the Twitchell(?) from Seale Road which ran down to Seale Road (sic) - that came down and over the railway bridge - and my mother opened the front bedroom window and called out: Fred! Fred! Come back! I want to talk to you about something! And my Dad patted me on the shoulder and said: Keep walking, son. It' s always bad luck to turn back. And we went off fishing. And he was difficult. Not being unkind but he was for Fred Roche first, second, third and fourth.
PR: Where were you going then - Pateman' s?
ER: Pateman' s. You went down Wareham' s Lane where my Dad had permission from George Pateman to fish in the Lea. We had that until Pateman’s finished down there. Sometimes we' d take a picnic down there.
PR: What sort of thing would you catch down there?
ER: Anything. Very often we' d catch a trout down there for Good Friday dinner. And very often there was an old chap sat on the other side named George Barbrook who had a big family - well known in the fishing world even today. And George would be over the other side - on the West Street side - and he' d chat to us across and he'd say to my Dad: I walked down early this morning, Fred, and I saw a rise. One of us' ll have him. And most times we were lucky. And we fished down there for years and years. And an old lady who lived down in St Andrew Street - she had the rights of two of the fields there - Mrs Baxter. She passed on the fishing rights of that to my Dad.
PR: Her husband was a poulterer. Dicken's sisters lived at No. 7 and Lynn Baxter lived at No. 9. The front door was in under the archway.
ER: And the Colton Brothers ran cattle down there. They still do. And then later on my Dad got the fishing rights to Seale Deeps. That was the Beane River from the old railway bridge on Beane Road - from there to where the river went under the railway bridge at Molewood. We used to go fishing there as well. Catch all sorts of things there.
I remember one night I caught a big eel there and it took the landing net underneath the bank and snapped the landing net. And I took it in to Ted Birchley cos I knew he liked eels and I took it round the back of the kitchen and this thing was still slithering about. I chucked it in his sink. Ted said: Ooh, lovely! What do I owe you? And there was this squeal from the kitchen. Someone went in the kitchen and this thing was still slithering about in the sink. I said: Oh, I'll have a quick pint before I go home, Ted. I took my daughter down there and she caught a little perch. She was thrilled to bits.
PR: We' d better tell the listeners where Ted Birchley is at Sele.
ER: Yes, that was after I was married, that was. He was still there then. Poor Ted. He moved away and he died. He was a great lover of sea fish and I think he used to go down to Deal and places like that fishing. Ran a magnificent pub. The Seale Arms was the prince of pubs in those days. Him and his wife, his sister and Bob Shilling.
PR: Didn't he live in the Molewood Road?
ER: I think so. I think he was Ted' s wife' s sister's boyfriend or partner. They were friends. And they ran the pub magnificently. Ted ran a very smart clean pub. He always kept mostly to his side of the bar.
PR: You didn't get in the Cold Bath then?
ER: Oh, the Cold Bath was where I learnt my drinking. My father and Harry Botsford would go in there after they' d been fishing and I'd be left in the back of the car with perhaps a lemonade and they'd stay in there till Fred Bunce threw them out, and then perhaps after that they' d go down to Old Cross Club and open that up and have a drink in there.
'Cos when I started work, sometimes when we worked late, we'd go in the Cold Bath and my Dad' d buy me half a pint of AK - in the ' 50s. It was a Mac' s pub. A legend has it that Mac' s called it the Cold Bath because the people from the Ebenezer objected to a pub being there, and when you' re baptised into the Ebenezer Baptist Church you're immersed in a cold bath. So whatever McMullen was at the reins of the business in those days got his own back to this objection by calling the pub the Cold Bath. How true that is I don' t know. There again I can remember my Dad telling me some time - I don' t know if it was during the war - the Verger at the chapel had upset somebody and he came out the next morning and someone had hung a jerry pot on the spike of the roof of the chapel.
Do you remember when that steamroller ran into the - when we were at school in St Andrew's? That was a great day. Scales' steamroller ran into the wall of the chapel and snapped the rod(?). Blocked the road for the rest of the day. Scales had two steamrollers - a black one and a green one. They were builders. Knapp Harms- a great man, Knapp Harms.
[Some general chat at this point about a visitor who has just left. Then:]
ER: Doctor Mortis - he was a nice kindly man. He was our family doctor. I've got a scar there where he burst carbuncle and I just fell over in a heap on the floor of his surgery, and my mother shouted at him: What have you done to my little lad! He said: It was the only way it was going to do it. It had this kaolin poultice on it for about a week and hadn't shifted it. But he was a man who, if you were ill, he would fight tooth and nail for you, but if you weren't ill, he'd throw you out the door with0ut opening it. He was a very kindly man to those who knew him better.
PR: Still driving a motor when he was ninety, wasn't he?
ER: One of his sons used to come over from Canada and always called in to see us, and sometimes brought a pair of Tuff shoes. They were a good strong family, the Mortises. And they were succeeded by Doctor Bevan who was taken quite early in life really. Very nice man. And Doctor Bench. There were a lot of good character doctors about in those days. I mean, the bloke at Queen's Road - Doctor Vawser. I remember going to a dinner with my Dad over at a hotel at Ware - it was the time of the scandal over Christine Keeler - a chap who I was reading about in a book the other day, Mark Chapman Walker who worked on the News of the World in those days - it was said had got these two girls holed up at Westrnill somewhere, and he came to this dinner and the speaker was Sir Percy Rug who at that time was GLC leader in London. And this Chapman Walker quite upset Doctor Vawser.
We had dinner and there was a few questions. Percy Rug spoke and then this Chapman Walker started having a go, and old Vawser got up and said: I've had enough of this rudeness, he said. We don't have to tolerate people like this in our community, he said. I'm off. And he went. Then there was Doctor Fowler who went into partnership with Doctor Vawser after the war - when Doctor Fowler come back from the war. And he was a great man socially. He used to do this party trick on a bed of nails - something he learnt in the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. We used to have functions at Rot Lea(?). The nurses' dance and all that. ......... .
PR: And he'd put down the bed of nails?
ER: I think so and she'd walk on it. And he'd ride a bike round the ballroom. We used to have some very sociable occasions at Rockleigh - under Matron Baker. Sometimes we'd get honoured with an invite to the Matron's Ball at the Shire Hall. She married a chap named Newbury. She was a very nice woman when matrons were matrons.
PR: Where was Rockleigh?
ER: Rockleigh has now been converted into four houses opposite the Rectory. Yes, Rockleigh and there were two houses at the back - Fair Isle and Rockall, weren't they? Next to them was Ernie Barker's, the ambulance place - who my sister still keeps in touch with Tessa, his daughter. On the other side was Sele Cottage where Miss Bullock lived. Her brother came to live there - Colonel Bullock or Major Bullock or Private Bullock, and he used to use that as the Conservative Committee Rooms. She was housekeeper to a Miss Morrison and I think by the time she died it was in such a state that they knocked it down and built three houses there. And next to that was another pair of cottages. A chap lived there with one arm and next to that was the Walford family. And next to that was Garretts, the famous bus shelter where things occurred during the war.
PR: What about next door here?
ER: Next door here - I can remember when I was at St Andrew's School in No. 60 and there was a family named Dynes and Gerald Dynes was in my year at St Andrew's. I believe he had a sister younger - Norma Dynes. And in the next house was Fred Medcalf who worked for Ginns. I think he was a widower. And he lived there with his son. And then there was the space between there and the Archers where old Mrs Archer lived and where we had our other shop. She was our landlady. But she was a second wife of old Fred Archer so really she didn’t have anything to do with it al all. It was his children, but I think it was left in trust to her while she was alive and then it reverted back to his family.
PR: What did he make the money from?
ER: He sold second hand furniture in our second shop, when we moved from the little shop in to the bigger shop. Fred had that as a second-hand furniture shop.
(At this point they get up to look at a picture. After some general chat)
PR: And then Sparky bought these two didn’t he?
ER: Sparky had these and Mrs Saunders who worked for Sparks, she came to live there after Dynes. We never had a lot to do with them. He was a gardener at The Castle, old Mr Saunders. He was a bit gruff. I like old Mrs Saunders. They are both still alive and they’re both in very poor health. We knew Medcalfs and we knew Dynes and the end one seemed to change hands a lot. Tenants came and went. One of the hart girls, Selchers? Had it and the yard adjacent.
Tape ends.