Interviewed by Janet Holmes (JH)
Date: 12/09/2016
Transcribed by Geoff Cordingley
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O2016.7
Interviewee: Gwen Crosse (GC)
Date: 12th September 2016
Venue: 2, St. Leonard's Road, Hertford
Interviewer: Janet Holmes (JH)
Transcriber: Geoff Cordingley
Typed by: Geoff Cordingley
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
JH: This is a recording of Gwen Cross St. Leonard's Road, Hertford made on 12th September, 2016 by Janet Holmes, Hertford Oral History Group.
So Gwen thank you for agreeing to talk to Hertford Oral History Group, ahm, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about your early life in, in Hertford.
GC: Well I came here when I was two and lived in Nelson Street for a little while. I don't know how long. But then we went to live in St. Andrew's Street because my father was gonna be apprenticed to my great uncle who had a business of sign writing and graining, gilding, all that sort of thing.
And so we lived in this big house, ahm. It had about seven bedrooms because there was a,..there were two attics at the top. It was a very old house. It was about three, three hundred years old. And my sister and I had the attic rooms at the top and you could climb out of the little windows onto the parapet and look over the top and we used to get bits of moss off the roof and throw them down at people and then duck back. It was quite a laugh really.
Ahm, yes, so we lived there and my father's, er, the business, there were all work shops all the way down the garden, the garden went right down Brew House Lane to the bottom. There was a row of cottages at the bottom and a row up the side. So it was our personal garden and then the work shops and the the orchard and then some stables at the bottom. So it was a big place.
Well we had, during the war we had, ahm, lodgers, er, put on us, evacuees, and one of the ones we had was the manager of the Castle Cinema.
JH: Oh, yes.
GC: So we had, ah, free passes to go to the cinema and it changed twice a week so we…
(Laughter)
GC: All that lovely Hollywood time, you know. Yea. We had, used to cut the pictures, we had, we had a maid that used to buy Picturegoer, an old magazine, with all these lovely photographs of film stars and we had big, ahm, scrapbooks and we used to cut people out and stick them in, and I pinched them from her and she'd to pinch them from me. It was, yea, it was a good time.
We had another, ah, man billeted on us. He worked for some ministry thing. And he was with us for years actually. I became friendly with him. He used to help me with my homework when I went to grammar school. Anyway that's on a bit.
Ahm, early life, I went to Cowbridge School in Cowbridge Lane, Cowbridge Road, Cowbridge Lane. Ahm, well there was four classes. It was a nice school just round the corner from where I lived.
Ahm, I remember, er, a rag man used to come and stand outside the gate and, ahm, ask for rags for chickens, little chicks. I don't know how often he did it but this particular time I was going home for lunch, and er, he had some lovely little chicks and so I dashed home and asked my mum for some rags and went back and got this little black chicken. And he was the beginning of us having chickens during the war. And it was brilliant because we had loads of 'em. All the sheds that weren't being occupied in the, in the work shop area, they were all coops. And,er…
JH: There were lots of eggs.
(Laughter)
GC: Well, er, that was really good. But this little, black chicken lasted for ages. Ahm. We used to have a chap come in and do this, ring their necks when we gonna eat them, ahm, but this little black one we didn't, we didn't do that.
(Laughter)
JH: He was a pet.
GC: With, with all these chickens we got rats. Because we used to have a big barrel of food down in the cellar for, for the chickens and, er, so these rats used to get in. And Mum once went down the cellar to get and she went in there and it had been sitting in this barrel of grain, urgh
JH: So what did you do with them? Did you…
GC: Well dad, dad had an air rifle and he used to sit up in the bathroom and just sit there to catch them and he wouldn't move. And if anybody wanted to go to the toilet, tough. You know. Mum would stand outside the door, “Come on ducky this child wants to go in.” And he completely blanked her.
(Laughter)
GC: He had a big rat cage, a really big one and we had an old dog, ahm, and dad put kippers in it to encourage the rats and the dog wanted the kippers and completely wrecked it. (Laughs)
Oh dear, we had some laughs. Anyway, ahm. One awful thing happened when we were there during the war. Ahm. The, next door to us right the way down the lane it was envelope factory, Simson Pimm and there were all these series of buildings, mostly glass, you know, glass tops and so on and a fire started right at the furthest, bottom one. Whether it was the caretaker smoking or what it was. Of course it was all stacked, stacked solid with paper. And nobody noticed for a while until it really got hold. And then it started and it came the whole way up there. Now those work shops, 'cos Uncle Willy had died by this time and so Dad was in charge. Ahm, all the work shops were down that wall, against that wall. So you'd got creosote and turps, and all this inflammable stuff. It was so frightening. And on, on top of that, of course, was bombing because we were a landmark.
Ahm, and they couldn't find any, they couldn't find the fire hydrant. It was a complete panic. Eventually they found it and they plugged in their hoses. And an army convoy came through and, through everything, burst the pipe.
JH: Ow!
GC: I was so frightened. (Laughs). And, of course, at this time we had a shop as well. Part of the house had been changed into a shop, so, ahm, some paints, wall papers everything to do with decorating. Ahm, 'cos all the tins of paint were all there, you know. And, err, it was just terrifying.
JH: So what happened?
GC: Well, it, fortunately we didn't get any bombing, ahm, and it smouldered for days. But we survived. They, they were all on our roofs playing water on the roof trying cool it down, you know. And, em, I remember them lugging these great big barrels of creosote and stuff down the lane to the bottom to get it away from the heat.
JH: But it didn't damage your house or anything?
GC: No it didn't, fortunately.
JH: Not many envelopes left at the end.
GC: Pardon?
JH: Not many envelopes left at the end.
GC: I would not think so. (Laughs) It was a dreadful thing.
JH: So what do you remember about your father's shop?
GC: Well my mother worked in it, ahm, serving. It was a really good business because in those days there was just that one and there was a wallpaper shop in Fore Street, but there was no competition with big firms, anything. And, of course, he could give the information because he knew what he was talking about, you know. And, err, he had two or three people working for him in the workshops. And they used to go all around, 'cos it was a small business, you know, it was all hands.
JH: Yes.
GC: Pretty skilful.
JH: Yes.
GC: But we had the shop for years and years and then there was a shop along, number 8 in St. Andrew Street, which, ah, had been a fish shop. And Dad bought that, to extend the business, so we had two shops in St. Andrew's. And one across the road which, ahm, there used to be a little wool shop, opposite number 8, which is now the pharmacy.
JH: Yes.
GC: And they used to keep a load of, they didn't have anybody serving in there, they kept a load of stuff in there. So Mum was always popping across the road. Well, one, one day she ran across the road and a car hit her and completely smashed her leg. And she was in plaster for 13 weeks, ahm.
At that time I was, married? Yeh, I was married because I was working in Addis's on the box fitters to earn some money to buy a pram, ahm, because I was pregnant. And, ahm, so I left that work to come and help in the shop. Yeh, so we had those, those two shops.
JH: Did you help in the shop when you were younger, when you were at secondary school for example, at weekends or not?
GC: No, I didn't really.
(Laughter)
JH: And did your dad work in the shop at all.
GC: Yes, he shut up but most of the time he was down in the workshops where I worked.
JH: Yes. OK. So what, I mean what sort of things happened in, during your teenage years? What do you remember about?
GC: Well I got interested in riding. Ah, during the war some friends were evacuated from Lee-on-Sea down to Ilfracombe so I used to go down in the summer holidays for a month to stay with them. And got hooked on horse riding because they lived just on the tors up there.
JH: Yes.
GC: So I came back all full of enthusiasm wanting to ride. Mum said, “We can't afford that.” Anyway we did go, ahm. But the riding master, the owner of the business, wanted somewhere to live. So I thought, well he could come and live in our place and I'd be able to get down the stables all the time, you see. Which is, I had to square it with Mum. He was a, it was quite a big family, not big in terms of people but high up, and he was a bit of a black sheep of this family. And, ah, so he came to live with us. Ahm. And I was down the stables all the time. That was down in Mimram Road. Yeah?
JH: Right. Yeah.
GC: And during the war, he sent me up to… we used to have an arcade, you most probably know, before the shops were all altered in the centre. Go down Bull Plain and you could get through. There was an arcade going through to the bus station.
JH: Right.
GC: And in the middle of this arcade there was a leather shop and he was preparing this girth. So this master asked me to go up on the horse. So I swan into Hertford and got off, walked up half the arcade. (Laughter)
It's quite inconceivable now. It. it was just mad. So I got this girth and hopped back on and I was riding back round Parliament Square and, and a lorry backfired and this horse spooked and it galloped, right across, over the bridge, down St. Andrew Street, passed my house, hair flying. I couldn't stop it. You know, it was, it had bolted. And I clung on to the girth. And it galloped all the way home to Mimram Road.
(Laughter)
And I got severely told off for letting the horse canter on the road. (Laughter) But what can I do about it? (Laughter) It was very exhilarating. I wish Mum had been looking out when I went by. (Laughter)
JH: So they continued to let you ride after that?
GC: Yeah, yeah. You could just get on it, of course. In those days there were no helmets or didn't have to. Ahm. It was a bit precarious really. Anyway that was one thing I'll never forget.
(Janet laughs.)
GC: Ahm, what else do you want to hear?
JH: Was your sister involved in the riding at all?
GC; Yes, she, not so much as me. She, she rode, you know, but she didn't go on a regular basis. She wasn't that interested. But, ah.
We, we went our separate ways, because, ah, I went to the grammar school and she didn't. Ahm, which was a shame. It was, neither of us passed the Eleven-Plus, ahm, because the Jewish Orphanage was billeted on, on Cowbridge School so we only had half-day schooling. They were one half of the day and we were the other half. They come down from London. So we had Jewish Orphanage, Hastings Grammar School1 and the Battersea Grammar School Boys. They were all billeted and, ah, went to the local schools.
JH: Yes. So how long did that go, that went on through the war, then?
GC: Yes, yeah. The Battersea boys at the Grammar School were there. I can't remember what happened to the Hastings ones but certainly the Battersea boys were there. So we didn't, ahm, didn't stand a chance really. I don't know how many did pass, but, at that time there. But we, so we went to, Marion went to Ware Central, oh, Senior School and I went to Long, Longmore.
And we had, ahm, a relative who was a teacher and she said to my mother, “look you ought to let her go for the entrance exam to the grammar school,” which you could do then. It, it was still fee paying, not much, you know, compared with these today, but, ahm. So I, I went to Longmore and had a couple of private tutors, in English and French, or something.
And if, if, then, if this woman had said that at the time Marion was that age she could have gone because, you know, she wasn't stupid either.
JH: She was older than you?
GC: Yes! Three and a half years older. So she left school at 14 and was working the next day virtually. And, ah, so I took the entrance exam and got it, ahm, at twelve. And then, I think the next year they stopped the fees anyway.
JH: Right.
GC: I was so thankful I got there because it made such a difference.
JH: Yes yes.
GC: So Marion always felt that it wasn't fair, you know. She hadn't got so much push as me, either, you know. I used to really persevere doing things and she used to give up. So that wasn't my fault. (Laughs)
JH: Well none of it was your fault really, was it!
GC: Well, no, no. I mean it was just the timing was bad. And, ah…
JH: So how long did your parents keep the shop and business going for?
GC: Well he, I can't remember when Dad retired. Ah, he'd certainly still got the business when I got married, which was in '51. And the shop, 'cos Marion, by that time she, she went to be manageress in the shop after Mum did her knee in, her leg in. So she was there for the rest of the time when she was, before she married.
In those days you left work when you got married not when you had children. You know, so when I left work, ahm, well, when I got married I left work.
JH: So the shop went on for quite a while?
GC: Yes, and, and then, they kept the property and, ah, it was an antique shop for many years, lots of antiques. But the other, the other place, the first one, 32, ahm, they sold that beforehand, early, earlier than number 8. In fact we sold that, Marion and I, after Mum had died.
JH: Right.
GC: So we had that, not as a business but, ah, the property.
JH: So what did it become, the property?
GC: It's now the Old Tavern.
JH: Right. What the Old Cross?
GC: The Old Cross Tavern. Because we hit, hit recession. And, ah, there was somebody living in the top flat who wouldn't get out. So we were stuck with this sitting tenant. Ah, by the time we'd got anywhere with it, the recession had bitten and, you know, £100,000 down the drain, at least.
JH: So when did the shop stop being a shop?
GC: Um,
(Indecipherable)
GC: Well Mum died in '99. Ah, I can't really…
JH: Was it before, a way before that, or, when she died?
GC: It was, we kept it and let it for still quite a few years, because Mum was adamant that she didn't want to sell it. She said it would be income for us after we retired, you know. And so we did it all up and kept it for some years. Ahm, then Marion said, “Oh, come on, let's sell it.” But we shouldn't have done because we lost so much money on it and it would have been an income.
JH: Um.
GC: It's water under the bridge, really.
JH: So, it, when it stopped being the shop that you knew it had, did it become another shop or did it?
GC: The shop that we had was a hardware shop.
JH: Yes, yes.
GC: Oh, yes, it stopped long, long before. Ahm. Oh, I can't remember. When it was. But Botsford's had had it for years and years, ten at least.
JH: So it was a long time ago.
GC: Um?
JH: It was a long time ago?
GC: Yes, yes it was.
JH: Yes, OK. Yes.
GC: That would have been. Oh never mind.
(Indecipherable)
(Laughter)
JH: Right. So lots of memories about Hertford before the war and just after the war.
GC: Yes, yes.
JH: About Hertford and St Andrew's Street.
GC: Yes, we, well, I was, we were in the Baptist Church so, we were in, most of our activities were in the church, you know, as young people,
JH: Yes.
GC: Ahm, youth club and all that sort of thing. So, I suppose we didn't mix all that much with things like operatic societies and things like that. Although I joined choirs afterwards but, ahm, I didn't, ahm, I always, I learned the piano from seven, ahm, and didn't really use it until I went to college, ah, Balls Park, when I was 31. And we needed an aid to study and the, the head there, ahm, asked what I did. And, of course I did, I was also organist at the Baptist Church
JH: What, when you were younger?
GC: Yes, I learnt, well when I first started learning I wasn't long enough to reach the pedals but I had to wait a little while. So I was quite young, in my teens.
JH: So most of your social life was around the church
GC: The social life was around the church. It changed later.
JH: Yes.
GC: Ahm, I joined the tennis club up at County Hall 'cos I worked up there.
JH: Yes, so was it a very active church, then, the Baptist Church?
GC: Yes but not as much as it is now, but it was. There wasn't, there weren't a great number of young people compared with them as there is now, so marital possibilities were limited.
(Laughter)
JH: So were your parents Baptist?
GC: Oh, yes. I'm not sure dad was originally but he became one. It wasn't a sect, in the sense, like Jehovah's Witness or anything. It was just a free church and then
JH: So did you make friends outside of the church at all?
GC: Well I did as I went to work, I made friends
JH: So you left the, what stage did you leave the grammar school? How old were you when you left?
GC: Well, when I was seventeen, I left the grammar school and I went to work at County Hall and did evening classes for shorthand and typing. And I worked at County Hall in the education department, then, when town planning, that started then. There hadn't been town planning before that.
JH: So this was in the late forties, then.
GC: It would have been in, ahm, yeh, it would have been the late forties, '47 something like that, forgotten.
And then I went to work for, ah, the local branch of, of Bibby's, ahm, cattle food, a Liverpool firm. And I, I run the business there. There was an area manager and I was the bunny office girl. at the time. And I was there until I married. So that was about, two or three years. I mean I left County Hall 'cos I was earning £2 something a week and Bibby's were going to give me £3:50. £2:10! Ahm, so it was big money.
JH: Yes, yes. So was your husband from the church or…
GC: Oh, yes, yes. Well he, he was in the Army, ahm, doing his two years national service. And there were two or three girls that ear marked him (laughs). I, I've always sort of been keen for a challenge so I (laughs) I joined in when he came back and we got married, ahm
JH: Then you say you had to give up work, when you married.
GC: Yeah, oh, yeah. When I got married. I got married and left work, yes. In fact he worked just across the road from Bibby's office. Ahm, for somebody in the church, the Keeble family. I don't know if you've heard of the Keebles. They are big in the church, they, church secretary, Sunday school leader and everything, you know, and this, one of them was the choir leader, so they were…
JH: Ahm! Very involved!
GC: Ran the church.
JH: Yes.
GC: And they had a tally business, you know, selling stuff round, it seems so weird now. Ahm, Tony, not Tony, Frank had a pony and trap
JH: Yes.
GC: And he used to go round selling [to] housewives sheets and anything.
JH: Yes.
GW: So he had to look after this pony. There was a stable opposite and he used to, when he got home from work he'd have to bed this pony down, And he used to go a long way, 'cos, he used to go up to Chesham, I think. He, he used, he told an old lady that that was when he had a van. They got rid of the pony and he had a van. And he used to go to Mason's Lane which was where Cliff Richards grew up. And I've never forgotten that. So I don't know how big his round was. But, ah, that's what he did.
And then subsequently he got a job, ah, with Charring, Charrington's oil, heating. And he was a marvellous salesman. He could sell anything. So he did really well but we didn't.
JH: So where were you living?
GC: At that time, I, I, we moved a lot. We, when we married we bought a little cottage in Elton Road up in Bengeo and then we went up to Fordwich Rise, which, the new Leach, a complete Leach development there. They were new houses then.
JH: So there were new families moving up there, then?
GC: Yes. And, ah, we were overrun with mice, field mice, absolutely overrun. And I was pregnant with Sue and I remember lying in bed and I felt something, you know, and I thought it was a spider and then I saw this little thing running off and I thought, “Oh aren't you wimpish. I'll just lie here, you know and pretend it's not happened.” And, ah, then I looked down and there was one sitting on the bed looking at me.
JH: Oh!
GC: And then I screamed. (Laughter)
GC: It was really weird. They were everywhere.
And then, then I saw this house in Church Road which I fell in love with. It was three storeys, five bedrooms, on an acre, an acre plot. And they wanted three thousand something for it and we paid two eight up at Fordwich. So, this was about two or three years later. And, ah, I went to look at it. Yes I've got to have it. I mean it was all dark brown and nicotine, you know. It was horrible. But the potential was marvellous. It really was well built.
Frank was working that evening. It was Friday evening and he, he worked on a Friday night. So I went to look at it with my mother. So I'd got to have this. So, it was a fait-accompli then. (Laughter)
He didn't want it, because he liked modern things, you know.
JH: Right.
GC: Anyway I dragged him along to see it and, err, he agreed.
JH: It probably wasn't … impression though as it was very dark inside.
(Laughter)
GC: Yes, you can imagine the work involved but, ah, anyway we bought it. And then we went, first phase, we, ahm, we were always looking for money making, you know to balance our budget. And, there was, there was a craze on about Chinchillas, not rabbits but chinchillas. And you buy them a pair and they mate for life and, ahm, the fur is really valuable.
So we were going to do these breading pairs in the summer, you see. So, Doug came in on it as well and, and, we had a big garage and he's lined it all the way round with wire cages and we went out and bought these chinchillas and, ah. We didn't make any money.
(Laughter)
GC: But, ah!
JH: So what happened with them.
GC: Well, we did sell some.
JH: Yes.
GC: Well we sold all of them eventually. But, ahm, it was funny one pair mated and the whole lot went mad, you know. They were rushing round their cages.
(Laughter)
So we diversified, so we bought some chinchilla rabbits, handsome New Zealand whites, big white rabbits. So we filled this whole lot with chinchilla rabbits from New Zealand, and ah. And they used to go off to shows and they won loads of rosettes, you know, these lovely rabbits. And we had those for quite a while. And the manure built up down the front of the garden, right, right across. We grew some broccoli over it and golly this stuff grew, including, including the weeds, amazing.
So that was, we were calling ourselves East Herts Chinchilla Limited and dad made us a sign.
JH: That was all in Church Road.
GC: That was in Church Road, yes. And, and the people next door were a branch of the MacMullens, had a riding stables right next door to us. And when I went to college, that was when I was 31, we got a nanny from Ware College. And she came to look after the kids while I was at college and, ah, she spent all her time looking over the hedge at these horses and she became completely horse mad. I don't know how well the children were looked after. It was only after school time, really, you know.
JH: Yes.
So you, you told me a little bit about how you came to go to, ahm, Balls Park and something about School Certificates. Yes?
GC: Yes, ahm, yes, it was the obvious thing to do really. So we did a shortened course, a mature group. We were the second lot in, from the time they started it and ah, we did two years.
JH: Yes. So what led you to want to go to college?
GC: Well, I wanted, because the marriage was a bit rocky, I wanted to get my head into some studies, to try and make it alright, you know, so to think about something else. So that's why. I was gonna do a home course but, as I said, I couldn't do it because not having the A-levels. So, I did that instead. It, it was quite hard to run a family and everything else at the same time 'cos it was a full-time course.
JH: So what were you studying up there?
GC: Well I was studying teacher training. It was a teacher training course and studying music, ahm, as a main study. So I had to take another instrument so I took up the clarinet, and ah. a chap from Nether Hall came down and gave clarinet lessons.
Yes, so I got a main study distinction.
JH: That was good.
GC: A, a good overall, you know, result.
JH: So how long were you up there for?
GC: Two years. Subsequently I went back and did a degree. That was quite a while later. By that time I was working at Sele School.
Ahm, first of all, my first job, after the initial, first year you have to do to qualify, ahm. I did school music in, ahm, three different schools, a peripatetic job. I did some 9/10ths of a week, ahm. At Morgans Walk, Hollybush and Bayford.
JH: Yes, that was at the primary schools.
GW: Yes. And while I was there, ah, a couple of years, something like that, Max Walker from Sele School, he came to me and said would I go there. I said, “Well I'm not really qualified.” I think I was doing 7 to 13, or something, I don't know what the course technically was. So, he said, “Well, you know, you've got the music which is what I want you to do.” So I did.
And I was there for many years, not always full time. Ahm, and sometime it was just, err, yeh, I started class work, yes. They had, ahm, small groups, 30. There were 30 in, in each set.
JH: Yes.
GC: I had to go right through the school but they, he divided them boys and girls. I had sort of 15 boys in a class or 15 girls. But they wanted lessons twice a week, so it was quite, ahm..
JH: Yes, hard work.
GC: And, so, first of all I was there for a couple of years and then I got secondment to Trinity College, in London, ahm, to do a licenceship in class music, right. So it was the first year of a degree course.
JH: So you were travelling up to London, then?
GC: Yeah. I was going up to London. So that was pretty hectic.
Anyway I've got two licenceships. I got class music and I got a piano. So that was quite, good.
But, ahm, when I went, came back I didn't go straight back to Sele. I went to a school in, ahm, Welwyn Garden, Applecroft which was a really musical school. It was a junior school but all the children had two lessons a week, really, really good teachers in there. And, ah, it was a good follow on 'cos all the tradition was there. So I worked there.
And then there was a family trauma and I had to leave, ahm, which, after about a year.
JH: Ahm.
GC: So, I left and I went to work with the mentally handicapped adults.
JH: Right.
GC: A friend of mine worked there. It was based on Hertford and Ware. Ahm, I don't know, I think they've still got one down at Geddings Park, ahm, in Hoddesdon, but it used to be in in Hertford and Ware.
JH: Was it a day centre?
GC: A day centre, yes. And they were separated, the girls and boys. Ah, which was really quite a departure doing that. Ahm, I never thought I could do it, you know. When I looked at the kids, I don't know. In fact you get really attached to them and we had quite a laugh.
I remember taking them. Now were they mixed? I think they were. We took them camping.
JH: Right.
GC: ToMersey or somewhere, gosh, in, under canvas, you know really, it was a proper camping thing. One of the girls set fire to the loo tent.
JH: Oh!
GC: She was a schizophrenic, or something. They had every condition.
JH: You had a mixture of people.
GC: But, ah, it was, ah, valuable.
JH: Yes. How long were you there for?
GC: Ahm?
JH: How long did you work there?
GC: I must have done three or four years, probably. That was in the 70s.
JH: So you enjoyed it more than you?
GC: Yes, I, yes, I got quite into that, you know.
And then, ahm, Sele asked me if I could go back and do something. I think that's how it happened. To do some piano teaching and help with the choir and stuff, and I gradually got back again. And I was head of music there for quite a while, ahm. I can't remember which order that was. It might have been before: it might have been afterwards. Anyway…
JH: So you worked at Sele for a long time?
GC: Yes, I regarded that as my home, really.
And then, ahm, I married again and I felt we need to live somewhere different. So, he worked at Writtle in Essex. So I thought to myself, half-way, well we went to Widford.
JH: Yes.
GC: And bought a house there and I was there until I retired.
JH: Yes.
GC: Ahm, it was first teaching piano and then gradually got class music, which is what I did, mainly, ahm. And I was there for thirty years.
JH: Gosh.
GC: I, I retired at 83.
JH: Gosh!
GC: Ah, I thought I can't keep on doing this. (Laughs)
JH: So how much were you working latterly?
GC: I was only doing one day, at the end, you know. But, ahm, it was just that, you've got to plan and gotta cope with your kids and all that. I thought, “I think I've done my stint.” (Laughs)
JH: You certainly had. Were you doing any private music? Did you teach?
GC: I did do a bit, but not very much. There was too much else going on, 'cos I was, ahm, when I left college I went to a concert, a Hertford Symphony Concert and, “Oh, I'd like join that!” I was playing clarinet then. So I, I joined the orchestra, but there were already two clarinet players and so I was the third. Well you only normally have two. But anyway that was alright. The first dropped dead.
(Laughter)
GC: And then there were two of us. And, ah, so, I, I ended up playing first, which, I wasn't really good enough to play first but then the orchestra was pretty ropey. I mean it's really, really good now. It's a fantastic orchestra.
JH: So this is when you joined in the…
GC: Yes, That's in '63, '4 something like that.
JH: A long time ago, yes.
GC: And, so I played clarinet there, for a long time, ahm.
JH: So that involved…?
GC: That would have been from, '60, '64, until, my daughter died. Ahm, is that right? No, no it was when I got married again, '79. Yeh, I got married in '79 and by that time, I'm, my blood pressure was rising a bit and playing long phrases on a wind instrument, I was getting a bit like this, you know. And also, we had got two excellent clarinetists by that time, really good, so I was falling off the end again.
So I think, “I'm gonna take up something else.” Well there was an old cello, ah, up at Sele, doing nothing. So, we didn't have any strings going at that time. So I borrowed it, for about four years (laughter) and then by the time I'd left, well, I'd sort of left, I mean there was another head of department. So I said, “Could I buy this?” So, he said, “Yeh.” So I. “What do you want to give me for it?” So I said “£100!” “Yeh, alright!” he says. So I bought it.
And, ah, I've just subsequently, ah, I've just started lessons again with an amazing cello player who lives in Nelson Street, full circle. Ahm, she plays for the LSO and her husband also plays violin for the LSO, and she's amazingly talented. And when I went to a concert she was doing, I, up at St. Leonard's, I said, “Well, I could do with some lessons from you, you know”. “Well come along,” she said,
So I've had one and I've got a second one tomorrow. She said these strings must have been on here for ten years. I said, well I should think they probably have. She said, “You want some good strings.” So, sent me off to Heals at Welwyn and I got this set of strings, I mean, ended up costing over £300. Anyway, got these strings. So while I was there, I said to the guy, “Perhaps you could give me a rough valuation.”
So when, when I collected it, he said, “Well, it's been knocked about.” he said, “But, in its present state it's worth about 3,000.”
JH: Goodness!
GC: If you have it restored it will be 5.
JH: I wonder where, where it came from?
GC: It was a German, a German cello built around 1900. I think they were donated originally. When, they, when Sele started I think everybody was full of enthusiasm and, they, you know, donated these instruments. I don't know. I was quite shocked about that. So, I was enthusiastically playing away. (Laughs) I might get better. Well, I can wait, I had a lesson a month ago and I shall see what she says. (Laughter)
JH: So you played in the Hertford Symphony Orchestra, until about 19, the mid-70s or something?
GC: Oh, I'm still in it.
JH: Oh, you're still in it.
GC: Yeah, yeah, As soon as, I mean, when I left from playing the clarinet, I practised this thing for a couple of years and I, I put myself as Grade 5 and, I don't want to go back. And so I've been in the back, the rest of the cellos ever since. (Laughter) I'm not a brilliant player but it's worth doing it.
JH: Yes, yes. So you've seen some changes in the orchestra?
GC: Oh enormously. Yes, I mean you get professional, ahm, conductors and such like, so there's. We've got a lot more young players now. There are so many good players these days, aren't there? And so, it's a big orchestra and very talented and all the conductors love working with us because they don't expect an amateur orchestra to be so good.
JH: Yes! So it's quite a commitment 'cos there's the regular series of…
GC: Oh, yes, every week.
JH: …of performances
GC: And some of the work is impossible to play.
JH: Hmm.
GC: But, ah, this, this conductor we've got now is lovely. And he, he said. We were playing something really fast. Well when, when I've got stuff really fast, if you've got lots of semi-quavers, I play the first one in each block. Just couldn't possibly play them all, my fingers wouldn't do it and my brain I don't think would do it. But, it's much better to be, to keep the time right than to play the right notes by the score. And he said, exactly the same. He said, you're, you're never gonna play all these notes, not for me but for, generally. You, don't worry. Just get them in the right place. So I don't usually make a clanger, you know. I mean, I don't play a note in the wrong place, more likely I don't play it. But nobody can tell. Blimey, it goes on. (Laugher) And I know I'm not the only one. It sounds, it all sounds good.
JH: Yes. Where do you practice?
GC: Oh, at Mill Mead.
JH: Yes, yes. So are you involved in any other music?
GC: Yes, in U3A. Oh, yeah, a lot of time taken up with U3A. Ah, I run two choirs there, a barbers' shop and a, and a choir.
JH: Yes.
GC: And I'm in the piano group. And, if there's a concert, I'm in charge of it usually. Organising it. So it's quite a lot of work.
JH: Yes, And you mentioned the ukulele.
GC: Oh, yes, just started that. (Laughter)
Well, the older you get, I'm 86 now, and the older you get you haven't got that much time. And I'm, really the last try this. And of course the trouble is, you do so many things you don't have time to do any of them properly, because there's not the time, enough days in the week. And the place is getting such a tip 'cos that's right down the bottom of my list.
JH: Yes quite.
GC: You know, somewhere to live.
JH: So are you having lessons, then, with the ukulele?
GC: Pardon?
JH: Are you having ukulele lessons?
GC: No, no. It's just, with U3A you've got someone who's interested and has got some expertise and they run it. Ahm, it's the same with me, you know, I run the choir because I know how to do it. So there's no money changes hands. So we meet most weeks with Shelagh Delaney. We've done quite a few gigs. Ahm!
JH: Is it popular now, the ukulele?
GC: It is, yes. In fact, we're going, Tony and I are going to a weekend in Benflight, [Benslow?] Hitchin. It's a ukulele weekend. So we'll be playing for more than two nights. (Laughs) . So we should improve.
JH: So having gone to, ahm, teacher training college and specialised in music, it's really become your life.
GC: Oh, it's my life, yes.
JH: Was there any music in the family, at all?
GC: Ahm, you know, David is, is really musical and Pam, my eldest, she's, she was learning the oboe, at school, but they, she went to boarding school and I wasn't there to keep an eye on her oboe practice, you know, so it didn't come to anything.
JH: I was wondering further back, if your parents were musical, or anything in the family earlier?
GC: Oh, well, my mother was, was keen. She, when she got married, ahm, Dad bought her a piano. I mean she'd never had such a thing before and she loved the piano and she had lessons when she first got married. And she was really supportive when I started. Well Marion did but she dropped off. But, ahm, she would sit there and put up with me practising, you know.
JH: So you were encouraged?
GC: Oh yes very much so, my parents were really keen, ahm. Yes, so it has, and I joined Ware Choral and that was lovely, you know, singing in a big choir.
JH: Yes.
GC: But I just conduct 'em now, I don't sing any more, 'cos my voice has gone really. It's catarrhi, you know. And also, my hearing, ahm, not only I can't hear very well but I hear out of tune. It's a real pain. You go, like, an octave above middle 'C' and it starts distorting. And so you play a note and it's not the note that you're playing, you know, in your ear. But half a tone out now and if you play fast it's right at the top and you, it, it's chance, whether you, if you don't hit the right note you wouldn't know. And it's the same in the orchestra. I'm alright with the cello 'cos it's low, so I've no problem. But the flutes are painful. I mean, they're so out of tune to me.
JH: It's a problem isn't it?
GC: And the high violin. And, and there's just nothing they can do about that. The hearing aid just can't address that at all.
JH: Can I just ask, when, when did you move back to Hertford from Widford?
GC: Well I was only there 'til Sue became ill. Ahm, I went there in '79 and she, oh, we went to America for six months with Les's work. That was in '84. And when we came back, Sue developed cancer. And ah, she'd got a daughter of 12 and so, she was going to Simon Balle School and I was at Widford and I was gonna be looking after her. So we, we sold up and came here, no, we came to Queen's Road. And, ah, so that would have been '78, I think, well if not earlier. And there, that was at five levels, five half-levels, you know, and a garden like this. And after Les died there was no way, really, I could keep it up.
So my sister who lived in Broad, ah, Watermill Lane, said, “Oh, there's a bungalow going round the corner.” It was the one next door and ah, I negotiated, ahm. I didn't get it, somebody, they wanted the last ord…, the last offer on a certain day and I hadn't even started to get it in the Mercury, you know. So I lost it. And it would have been perfect. I was really fed up with it. But, ahm, six months later this one came up, which is much better.
I mean, I've extended, I've extended this. And it's got a conservatory, it's a quart, a quarter of an acre plot and much, much bigger. A big development, that extension, loads of extensions on. Ahm, so that was really good.
JH: Right.
GC: So…
JH: So you've been here quite a long time?
GC: Yes, my daughter lives in the other half. Well what, what I did was extend, what I wanted to do was put another bungalow on the side because there was room, ahm, but at that time they were, they didn't, didn't approve of doing that. Now they'd bite your hand off to do it, you know.
So they said, “Well why don't you extend it?” I said, “Well it's already had two extensions.”
“Well as long as we approve,” you know.
So I drew the plans myself. I thought they're gonna turn it down. I did, did an outline, like a drawing, you know, the floor area. And I took it up there and she said, “Well, can't you do the elevation?” So I said, “No, I'm not an architect. How could I know how tall it is?” “Well count the bricks.” So I came back and I drew the plans up and got it through.
JH: Right. (Laughing)
GC: First time. So now she's got a two-bedroom bungalow, detatched. So I thought right well this bit that used to be here. I'll push it down. I won't have a conservatory, I'll just have a big room. It's really good for U3A groups. It's good for meetings. I have the, the barber's shop up here and committee meetings. All sorts of things you know. A very interesting life, really. I don't stop.
JH: Well, thank you very much Gwen. That was really, really interesting, some good times.
GC: Yes. Life, ah. Yes.
End of recording