Interviewed by Jean Riddell (Purkis) (JR) Peter Ruffles (PR)
Date: 10/12/2002
Transcribed by Jean Riddell (Purkis)
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O 2002.32
Interviewees: Barbara Stevens (BS) and Terence Stevens (TS)
Venue: Palmer Close, Bengeo
Date: 10 December 2002
Interviewers: Jean Riddell (JR), Peter Ruffles (PR)
Transcribed by: Jean Riddell
Typed by Marilyn Taylor
************** = unclear recording
[discussion] = untranscribed material
This recording can seem a little misleading in places due to the frequent over talking
It starts without a proper introduction, the subject is the “Step houses” now demolished which stood on a green patch at the corner of Cross Lane and Hertingfordbury Road. Starts with looking at photos then the introduction comes at the beginning of the second page. There are a number of places where it is difficult to be sure who they are talking about.
Starts with general discussion of stained glass windows, etc.
BS: Do you remember Miss Barber that taught at the Ebenezer Chapel, there is he , it’s her and Mrs Cox. I showed that to Olive over the road and she was thrilled to bits.
PR: Yes Olive lived next door. Yes, next door and behind you came in from North Road and she had that funny wooden shopping trolley.
Overtalking while looking at photos
JR: You can tell by the caps, its probably turn of the century.
BS: You used to have to go out the house, along the road into the gate to the toilet
PR: She didn’t change much did she, your mother…
Overtalking checking the recorder is working talking about her mother only going out if her parents took her and going out on trips.
PR: Was that before Alf? Now what was the order of them dying, the three of them?
BS: Betty died first, then Aunt Edie, then Uncle Alf died last.
PR: Yes, but not long between them really?
BS: No, not really. Aunt Edie was always perfectly fit, she always seemed to be doing, but she had such a fight, I know one day the gas cooker wasn’t working properly and they came and looked at it and said you can’t use this any longer it’s worn out, she had such a fight with uncle Alf to buy her a new one and then he only had it on terms, then when he died he left money to some nieces outTewin way somewhere. But that’s how her life was you know. He was always out and he would come home and sit in the chair and go to sleep or lay on the sofa and go to sleep. Then in the end, after she died my mother was over in Campfield Road number 5 at the top there, it’s number 13 now.
PR: Just beyond the ring.
BS: So she used to go over and tend to him and see that he was alright and he died and never left her a penny. He used to say I will leave you something. She said you don’t have to worry you haven’t got anything. That’s how he was Uncle Alf, always used to call me young Will after me dad. Always called me young Will. He used to be fascinated by…
TS: He used to go right back to the First World War. He had a fantastic memory.
BS: He worked at Garratts Mill like all the Walkers did.
PR: Right are you going to start?
JR: Yes I will I don’t know if that bits going to register very well.
More confused over talking
JR: This is JR speaking and it’s the 10th of December 2002 and I’m at 33 Palmer Close which is the home of Barbara and Terence Stevens and we’ve come because the book on Hertingfordbury Road, which was written earlier this year, did include a very small section on the cottages in Hertingfordbury Road behind North Crescent but not very much because more detail had gone in to the North Crescent book which was published a couple of years ago. And Barbara felt she had some more to add to this small section in the Hertingfordbury book. Ok, so, what did you feel had been left out?
BS: The people’s names in there were their married names, which I don’t really know. I know all the maiden names because I went to school with so many of them, such as Rose Pocock, but I just feel I missed them when I got married 60 years ago and moved to Essendon. But then I came back again to Campfield Road and then stayed there until we got a bungalow at Essendon.
JR: So you were back and forward to Essendon. So you were born at …
BS: I was born at Cross Lane.
JR: When did you leave there?
BS: We left there when I was about 11 or 12 years old because I was going to Port Vale School and I grumbled at the time that I’d got that much farther to walk from Campfield Road down the town and up Port Vale you see. aAnd I said it’s a bit father than Cross Lane. We used to go down Cross Lane, along North Road, Beane Road that way.
PR: Oh you’d go that way rather than Old Cross?
BS: One day there was so much traffic at Old Cross my friend went to cross the road and a car went at her and that put us off going down that way for a time. So for a change we went North Road, it was a bit longer, but you weren’t held up so much along there. Going round Old Cross was a bit of a bind unless you were going to Hartham of course.
JR: So what do you remember about it when you were very young?
BS: When I was very young all we had to do when we played, the turning you asked me about, which I said went up to the Whitaker’s house, if you went through there, there’s a back gate, it went into a place at the back of Orly (that’s what she says!), what do they call her in the book, the big houses, there was a yard at the back and we used to play ball in there.
PR: Could you get in to the Whitakers from the back as well as the front?
BS: Yes unless it was just a private little place, the others all had entrances at the back there, we went through all sorts of scandals with the Warehams. The eldest daughter, she was always creeping out the back without her parents knowing, things like that. Apart from that we just used to go, my mother was a real walker. Walker by name, walker by nature and she walked us miles, all up Bramfield Road, went to see lovely gardens and things like that. Then used to walk up here to Bengeo. My brother, his godmother lived in Duncombe Road Mrs Eckworth (49 Duncombe Road)… Her son ran one of the buildings about to come down by the library, he run that and he used to come up to see her. We walked to Goldings because some of the staff up there were friends of my parents and we knew a man up there. I think he was a keep fit freak, with the boys.
PR: Shall we get the family tree? How far can you trace people back in Hertford?
BS: What do you mean the Walkers?
PR: Yes.
BS: We used to go there because they had a deep cellar and Aunt Edie used to make wine and on a Saturday night after the market was finished she’d go up to the stalls and buy all the fruit which wasn’t really good and take it back and down in this cellar she had great deep vats, fruit on top and it was all rotting and I used to say “do you drink that?” “Oh its lovely wine” she said and she loved making her wine and of course after she moved she couldn’t do it.
PR: No cellar?
BS: That’s just an office now (17 Bull Plain)
PR: So he was…
BS: That was my mother’s brother
PR: Older than your mother?
BS: I couldn’t tell you that.
PR: How did they get to be in Hertford in the first place?
BS: I don’t really know, because mother had three sisters, Nell who we saw some years ago, she was down in Stoke Avebury, in Devon. She was housekeeper companion to a lady down there. There was Aunt Alice, Aunt Doll who I never even met., the family just fell apart. Then of course there were the boys, you knew John Walker, he’s a cousin of mine.
PR: And so his father…
BS: His dad Greg, was my mother’s brother and Uncle Alf was another one and I don’t think there was another brother, not that I know of, there was several youngsters coming along, there was young Fred, George….
PR: So Alf moved from Bull Plain to Campfield Road and who lived at that time at 48 Hertingfordbury Road? Walker?
BS: Amy Walker. Oh what was her husband’s name? She had two children Georgina and ……
TS: George Walker wasn’t it?
PR: He was a really big man, died 1952.
BS: I think Uncle Alf was about the fittest one because of walking so much.
JR: Can you remember how old you were when Alf moved from Bull Plain?
Overtalking discussion about when the last part of Campfield Road was built.
PR: 1930s and over the road was Thurgood’s and Pettit’s
BS: Then there was Abbie Parcell, the first house on that side of the road going up was Mrs Mansfield’s. I went to school with Elsie Mansfield. She married the man Monk who does the furniture, then there was Abbie Parcell next door then next door to that, or the next one was (where) a relation of Auntie Edie lived. She’s dead and gone now. I knew them all as a little girl. I knew the Turnballs, I knew the Hardings, Bob Harding used to come and read our meter.
PR: He’s made a tape.
BS: Has he? He’s a bit older than me. He’s probably the same age as my brother, I’m 81 now and he’s ..
JR: 84 isn’t he? (yes)
BS: Tubberts. My mother used to help her with spring cleaning. One year May 24th we had the day off because in those days we had a day off for Empire day.
JR: I remember that clearly, yes.
BS: And this day in particular came on a Sunday so we had the Friday off and I went up there and mother was helping Mrs Tubbert with some curtains. The sat me outside in a deck chair with this book and I sat there reading this book and I wasn’t very comfortable in the deckchair, it was the old wooden one (something about the back lifting it) and it took the tip of that finger off, this one grew back, but this one didn’t. That’s how I remember the Tubbert’s! When you think along there when were those house built? Before we went to Cross Lane.
PR: Yes 1900-1910. Can you remember the inside of number 48? You went in the front door…
BS: Yes. In the front door, stairs straight up, then in to the living room, through there the kitchen went round, then there was a back door out to the toilet. And then upstairs we just had 2 bedrooms, my brother and I shared a bedroom until I was 11 years old, these days you wouldn’t be allowed. And John Walker, you see we call him John now, but we always called him Reg, because his name was Reginald John and when Kath came along she turned it to John and ever since we’ve called him John. He was in the next bedroom to me and Phil and we were digging a hole in the wall to try to get through to him.
PR: The bedroom on the right at the top of the stairs, that was somebody else’s room?
BS: Yes it was part of the sitting room, the stairs and the top there and my mothers room looked out of the front of the house.
PR: You had no room at the bottom of the stairs on the right but you did at the top?
BS: We had a lovely cupboard under the stairs where we used to go and do our homework. My dad was on night duty at the telephone exchange, do you remember him?
PR: Oh ever so well, yes and your Mum. Didn’t he work at the Saturday morning cinema for a bit? For a retirement? We used to go to distract his attention he was sort of a commissionaire for the children’s pictures. Some would trip in the back through the toilet door and then if you got too rowdy he would come down to the front and quieten everybody like school assembly.
BS: Oh he was in everything, he was in the Police force and we’ve got photographs of him. My brother was in the 1st Herts through the war and he was still in the army then and he got sent down to Dorset and he done some medical work because at camp he used to do all the aches and pains. When we used to go down he used to have me rolling the bandages up and things like that.
PR: So where did he come from (her father)?
BS: His parents lived in George Street right opposite where I went to school. I went to school at Cowbridge first then I went to Port Vale and Granny lived at 7 George Street. Still there today, don’t know if it’s the same, that was only front bedroom, kitchen and another little kitchenette, Grandad Jones was there.
PR: Ah, I thought he might have come from Wales, Jones.
BS: No he had an uncle, Uncle Will as we called him he lived up in Townsend Street somewhere along the Ware Road, he was also deaf, mother used to shout at him, still didn’t answer her, you know she put up with him coming, he always liked a piece of fish, Dad loved fish, this is why I like fish, apart from that I don’t think there were many on dad’s Jones’ side.
PR: Was he always, what name did he trade by as it were (her dad)?
BS: Bill or Will. His name was John William.
PR: We used to call him Jack, it may have been a nickname from the kids because he was in his Uniform.
TS: He had a uniform for every day of the week.
PR: Yes there are people like that aren’t there?
TS: Old comrades, police, red cross, all voluntary work, you know.
BS: Kept him happy. Doing night shift, home after half past eight when he finished, have his breakfast, go to bed, then he’d come down and do something, go down the Drill Hall, it’s so sad for me to see that Drill Hall go, he taught me to dance in there. We used to go down to the TA things, you know, then when I was at Port Vale school we had it for wet play time.
PR: How old was he when he died?
BS: 74, he had two strokes, one after the other, you know…
PR: Your mother lived on…
BS: Mum lived on, she gave up in the end, after she lived there on her own she was alright, she got very friendly with one of the Hart family, she lived up Sele Farm, she got mother going on holiday, she used to say to me she wants me to go on holiday and I said why don’t you go? She said I can’t really afford it and I said don’t worry about it, I’ll give you some money and I’ll get on to Phil, my brother, because his wife used to hand on to all his money he couldn’t do what he liked. I used to get on to him “Mum wants to go on holiday” and he used to cough up and used to send her off and that kept her happy.
Then she fell over in the house and broke her hip, rang me up, this was when I was living at Essendon and they said she should really go home but she must have someone to look to her you see. I knew very well my brother’s wife would say she couldn’t do it because she had children, so of course she struggled on and then she had another fall and she went back in to hospital and she gave up eating. Kath and I used to go and see her every afternoon and she used to say to me……. And the little nurse came out to me one day crying. I used to say “what’s the matter” she said “I can’t get your mother to eat, I wish she would eat” *********** just saw the top of her head and that was all. They rang me up one morning and said she’d gone, I think she was ….
TS: Eighty something wasn’t she?
PR: She always looked…a country…an outdoor…and a good pair of feet she had. (Overtalking makes what he is saying impossible to hear)
BS: Walker’s feet which I’ve got, size 7 I take. They were born at Bramfield and they lived at Birch Green next door to the cottage where Kath lived. We all connect somewhere with all the villages you see. They came from Bramfield up there and then further in to tow. She loved walking, my mother did. She was a real country woman, really, I don’t think the town really suited her much.
PR: What about the Watts family on that side of the road? Ruby, do you remember old Mrs Watts and Ruby Henry?
BS: Is she still alive?
PR: No, 99 when she died 2 or 3 years ago
TS: One of the sons lived down Gosselin House.
PR: Yes.
TS: His wife’s still there.
PR: Nellie Roberts.
BS: Oh, Nellie Henry they lived down Chelmsford Road.
PR: Yes but one generation up lived on Campfield Road by the ring.
TS: By the post box.
PR: Yes, just in one of the two houses along the side and Mrs Howard lived next door. You can remember my Mum can you?
BS: I don’t know.
PR: She worked at the exchange, Gwynnie George.
BS: Oh she was your Mum was she? I remember Gwynnie. I remember walking up one day from the town with my Dad and Gwynnie just coming out and we stopped by your wall and talked to her. Gwynnie George and Kath Dye could do no wrong to him. They were wonderful at the telephones and that’s it, there were one or two more beside I think.
PR: Yes there was quite a team of them I think. Miss Mardell was the supervisor.
BS: I used to go down there every Sunday tea time, take his tea and sit up there with him and he wanted me to go on the telephones. He used to tell me the lists he’d got to ring everybody up first thing in the morning, Bert Addis all those, all those people who had businesses in the town.
PR: Yes early morning.
BS: He loved that job really, he began to get a bit more involved, then he retired, but he couldn’t sit still so he got involved in so many things. I remember when we were up at Essendon a police car pulled up one night, dad got out, he was on patrol with the police and he was happy doing it and then he was past retirement.
PR: What about the mill? Garratt’s Mill.
BS: All the Walkers worked there.
PR: Did it damage their health in any way, breathing in the …
BS: A lot had a cough I think.
TS: I was out on the transport side but inside, sometimes it was terrible, they had women there, cleaning sacks, as soon as the sacks came back empty they all had to be cleaned, patched up and there were women there and great big sewing machines for patching up. They had to suck all the dust out of them first, with machines, the extractor, but it didn’t do the job. They couldn’t care less as long as they got them done. A place like that you can’t keep it clean, with all that dust, it was clean dust, it was flour but it was no good to you.
PR: No, breathing that in.
TS: Some had been there all their life.
BS: Really the town was only Addis’s and Garratts.
PR: Simson’s?
BS: Simson’s, I worked at Simson’s. I was called up from there and sent to Baldock to work. That’s why I have got Winnie’s photograph, she gave me that, she said I’m sorry to see you go, do you have to? Mr Shand told me you’ve had 6 months extension my dear, I can’t get you any more. So I had to go to Baldock to work and where I worked in Baldock on munitions is now Tesco.
PR: What were you doing at Simson’s?
BS: I made envelops by hand, the hand ones.
PR: So what would the operation be?
BS: You had to curt out card and fold them up, then pile them up. Do you remember Wallace Race, he was a relation to Dot Stokes?
PR: Oh the Stokes and Race, I don’t remember a Wallace.
BS: He had a factory in Ware. Dot Stokes, you knew Dot Stokes?
PR: Yes she died quite a bit back. Joan?
BS: I used to see Joan I haven’t seen her for ages.
PR: She’s not very well but she goes out doesn’t she?
BS: She was always bigger than Dot.
PR: Yes.
BS: Which I thought was probably not in her favour, but Dot, she was expecting a baby when I was expecting my daughter, my daughter’s now 56, I had her at home because she couldn’t get in the hospital and they showed me around and it was Alice Davey, she was a sister up there.
“I’ll show you around” she said “ But your mother has got room at home” because she was living at Campfield Road . I didn’t get in there so I had her at Campfield Road and Dot came up to see me two days later. “Dot are you still around?” she said “I wish I was in there with June” and a couple of days later she had Richard. But then we lost touch, don’t know whether it was because, she moved away or what, we didn’t really know her husband very much, I’ve spoken to him.
PR: She had three sons (her married name seems to be Sherratt).
BS: Did she?
PR: Richard was the first.
BS: That would be 56 same as my Joy, she’ll be 57 in April.
PR: So who looked after you at the birth at home?
BS: My mother and next door neighbour Mrs Wrangles, who at the moment is 93. I’m in touch with her youngest daughter who was bridesmaid to me, she’s now in the home in Ware by Tesco’s. Her brothers in Nightingale House in Ware. His wife’s still in Manor Close.
TS: When she was bought up it was Sister Page and Nurse Arnold, lovely she was.
PR: She was very friendly with Bob Harding, they struck up a good friendship.
TS: Sister Page came in one night and said you’ve got a good bed, put it up on blocks I can’t bend down there and I had to have wooden blocks made and the night she was born…
BS: Sister Page went to a whist drive.
TS: Went somewhere, she was all dressed and all tarted up and off she went, she said “I’ll be back later” She came back about half past eleven, she said “I’ll go home and get changed and I’ll be back” She walked in to the bedroom and said “You can go for a start, we’ve had enough damage from you” so that was it! She was straight to the point.
BS: Everybody grumbled about her but they all liked her.
End of side one
Side two
TS: She was very nice but she ought to have been called Sergeant Major not Sister . She was very strict.
BS: And old Teddy Bugg.
PR: Yes, changed his name. he and nurse Arnold were like chalk and cheese.
BS: She died didn’t she, her daughter, before she moved down to Suffolk where she is now, she lived round Warren Terrace.
PR: Yes that’s right, she wasn’t there all that long was she, nurse Arnold, Elton Road.
Transcribers note: There is some confusion here about who they are discussing at various times but it seems to be their daughter’s husband from this point
BS: A few years before that she was at Datchworth when she got married and then they divorced. She had a husband, charming man, but nothing came in the way of his work and he couldn’t tend to a sick wife and new house. He was one of the directors of Fairview, don’t know if she’s still there.
TS: Before he married our daughter he hadn’t had a holiday in eleven years, all he did was work, he used to buy land. You went over there and he’d got maps all over the floor, the land that was up for sale. He bought the land opposite your place behind the garden wall.
PR: Oh did he?
TS: He came down and said “I had a good day today, I bought some land in Hertingfordbury Road” I said “There’s no land down there” “Yes” he said “Behind the big wall” I said “For God’s sake go and sell it” I said “That’s full of water!” I said “Go down there with some chaps tomorrow, dig a hole 2 feet deep and water will come up and meet you” he came in the next night and said “There’s water everywhere.” Anyway he sold it, Fairclough’s wasn’t it?
JR: No it wasn’t Fairclough’s but it was a building firm, I can’t remember the name now. (Possibly Rialto)
TS: One of our mates, he moved opposite Campfield Road and I said to him “You shouldn’t have done that” and he said “Why not?” I said “Because of the damp: it seemed to be alright, about six months later he said “You’ll never believe it, you want to see the green coming up my walls”
JR: Which estate was that?
PR: Willowmead.
TS: Bottom of Campfield Road, turn towards Hertingfordbury and it’s a turning on the left.
JR: Becketts.
PR: Rialto did Becketts and Willowmead was the first one.
TS: Anyway he moved after that over to opposite the nursery on the Stevenage Road where you go down to the golf course. He bought two cottages, knocked them in to one, lovely old place it was, beautiful. His wife couldn’t settle anywhere. The lovely house up Gallows Hill, top of the hill, when you went out of his back door his garden went down like that. You couldn’t see his garden. You had to walk down the bottom and look up. She didn’t like it after a time so they moved to Hertingfordbury Road then they went over there and I haven’t seen them since.
PR: What was your son-in-law’s name?
TS: John Cousins
PR: He bought and then moved on did he?
BS: Oh yes, he sold it on. I think that’s what they do when they buy land, if it doesn't suit one it suits another. All those places down Welwyn Garden City, down Cole Green Lane, all on top of one another. I say as we go by, anybody looks out the windows they could shake hands with the neighbours, they’re so close.
TS: They’re so small too.
BS: Those opposite Sainsbury’s at Stevenage, not the big one, I see a lot of those being sold again.
TS: They buy them for the first time, somewhere to go.. (Starter homes)
PR: Anything else you want to ask about?
JR: Well I think if I leave this book for you, you’ll probably think there’s quite a lot more here…. You’ve got this one?
TS: No.
JR: I think if you read chapter 10, I’ll leave it open, there’s a lot more about these houses. (Three Acre Triangle book) I didn’t include it in this one (Tales of Hertingfordbury Road) because I had already done it in this one.
TS: That one you go from early start, there’s a lot of names there even I don’t know, never heard of them, but as you went on the names came to light sort of thing. I think the name was McOmish
Transcribers Note: Mr Robert McOmish had the nursery in the 1920s and 1930s and lived in “???Cottage” North Road in 1939
PR: No I don’t remember that, no.
BS: The daughter often used to be in the shop , she married one of the Johnsons, the butchers, Thelma her name was.
Transcribers Note: Thelma was actually surname Tarr, she was Mrs McOmish’s daughter by her first husband she was born in 1920 and her father died in 1924. She didn’t marry a Johnson but married Geoffrey Vigus of Westmill farm so became Thelma Vigus.
PR: Ah well we can ask Bruce.
JR: It was opposite the end of Cross Lane?
BS: You go down Cross Lane and just round like that and it was there, houses now.
JR: On the opposite side of the road, that in the past was a nursery.
PR: I can’t really picture where it would be at all. You walk out of 48, walk through to North Road, turn right and a little bit. Yes used to be Frances’ nursery.
BS: We used to go down there and get all the greengrocery. I used to love going down there, took a vinegar bottle and filled it up out of the barrel.
JR: How far did you go into the nursery from the road, was it…
BS: It wasn’t very big, I don’t know if they lived anywhere near it, or what, the shop was always there as I remember.
PR: We’ll check up with Bruce Johnson on that because all I remember, I remember a derelict house being there and they pulled that down and put up the nurses’ training school but it was set quite a way back from the road.
JR: Yes. So can you remember anything about that side of North Road, apart from the nursery if you went down towards the mill. What was between the nursery and the mill?
BS: Houses that are still there today. Ones a big old house and did the other used to be a house for the nurses?
PR: Yes Rockleigh.
BS: Does it still?
PR: No they’re separate houses. Do you remember a thatched cottage opposite the hospital? As you came down the hospital drive straight ahead of you, behind the bus shelter. There used to be another one set back a bit from the road, squarer house, where Miss Bullock lived.
TS: Can you remember these?
PR: No.
TS: I took them down when the war started.
PR: No. Where are they now in the museum?
JR: No they were, but they’ve just got lost I think.
TS: One of the council chaps one day, when they was doing all the double glazing, they was coming round checking, you see…
PR: We’d better say we’re talking about the Corn Exchange in Fore Street
TS: By the way I said “There used to be two eagles either side and a statue on the top of the Corn Exchange.” He looked at me and he didn’t know what to say. I said “Surely you must have them stored somewhere” he said " To be quite honest they are probably in somebody’s garden”
JR: I think Ceres went in to the Museum, that’s the Goddess of plenty or whatever she is called, she went in to the Museum garden for a bit but I think it didn’t weather very well.
TS: I mean it looks different altogether with them up there, you look up there now and there’s nothing…
JR: It’s a bit of a danger isn’t it…
BS: He isn’t a Hertford fella, he was born in London and at a month old they bought him down here but he’s more interested in it than I am.
TS: I was in Fore Street one day opposite the bank, Westminster bank, I saw this date and I was looking all around and somebody came and said what are you looking at, Oh I said nothing, only the walls! But its interesting when you see things like that, all this work they do on these shops (Looks for something)
BS: We lend them all to Olive, we say no hurry to bring them back, she bought them back and said she was thrilled. But I think since then she’s got some more. Cause he worked at Gravesons, in the latter part, the last few years.
PR: Was Clifford North there when you were there?
TS: Yes everybody knew Cliff you could hear him a mile away.
BS: We went down there last week and bought a new duvet. You cannot move downstairs, there’s all china and saucepans and things.
TS: Tomlin was always like that, he crammed everything in…where did I see that?
JR: What are you looking for? There’s an index on the back.
TS: No the other side of the Town Hall, east Herts Electric, those shops along there I forget the name they call it now, they’ve got all..
PR: Oh the mullioned., pargetting…
TS: Yes but when you stand and look at them, the work that’s gone in to them is fantastic really.
PR: Yes we are lucky living in a town like Hertford where things have built up and not been destroyed.
TS: It’s old and dilapidated, some of it, but when you look at this book its brand new compared with some of them.
PR: You didn’t know my grandmother’s family, Childs, in Essendon? He lived in Sunnyside at the top of the hill.
TS: Yes that’s right. What was his name?
PR: Tom Childs and he had a son.
TS: Bert Childs, Sam Childs, Bob Childs, Rene Childs, they’re all dead now. Bob Child’s son is still alive, he lives in the town. Chipsey.
BS: Bit of a fellow, he likes a drink and he goes and we see him sometimes.
PR: Bert was the one that stayed at home .
TS: He never did get married. He was mad on a girl, she was serving at Essendon Close and it all fell through. But after she got married she came down every weekend to see him. She wasn’t daft because he used to grow a last of vegetables and she went back loaded. Yes they had allotments the other side of the road.
PR: His parents, do you remember them?
TS: Yes old Mrs Childs, Jessie.
PR: She was my aunt Jessie.
TS: A lovely old lady she was.
BS: He (Terence) was bought up by the Venables family which was another big family. That’s his Mum and Dad up there.
PR: Was there not a Childs/Venables marriage at some point?
TS: No I don’t think so.
PR: Glebe Cottages.
TS: Pallets…
PR: Pallets and Childs, yes.
BS: In Essendon you realise everybody’s related to everybody else but in recent years I’ve realised that Hertingfordbury Road is. The base of the story was when Grandad Wlaker lived in 48 Hertingfordbury Road, Granny died and they buried her.
Grandad was left on his own. My Mum and Dad and my brother, he was still a baby, moved in to look after him, that’s how we came to Hertingfordbury Road because my brother was born somewhere up by the East Station. So it seemed to go all through the Walker family. Amy was the last one in there.
PR: She moved to Watton.
BS: Georgina lived in Watton, the daughter.
PR: With her little Dachshund dog.
BS: Before that she lived up Church Street opposite the Salisbury. We used to go in there to see her. Pat and I keep in touch, poor old Pat’s got problems, he’s got cancer, he’s still having tests, so she’s a bit down. I was Godmother to her at Hertingfordbury Church when she was christened, but now she’s Baptist so I don’t think there is any connection or is there?
PR: Well, all good friends.
BS: I don’t see much of Beryl. Young Jim Walker, he died. He married a girl from Germany. He was Fred Walkers son.
PR: Who owned number 48?
BS: I don’t know, I remember my Mum paying rent.
PR: Well virtually everywhere was rented.
TS: You couldn’t afford to buy in those days.
BS: All those houses paid rent. Trust you to be in a posh place, the Villas!
PR: But some of those were rented, Mrs Harding rented hers. The Thornes I think owned theirs, on the corner opposite you.
BS: Olive was the eldest one Grace was the youngest one.
PR: I think Olive is still living.
BS: She used to work at the North Met.
PR: Yes then the Tysers, remember Mr Tyser the baker.
BS: Yes I didn’t know him very well.
PR: No, he had a garden, they nearly all had gardens opposite, Hardings did, Creaseys, then Mrs Cousins, the Dyes then the Turnbulls.
BS: The Tubberts was a biggish house. Mrs Tubberts said she couldn’t manage. She only had sons, she didn’t have a daughter did she?
PR: Yes she did.
BS: It said in the Mercury about the new hospital, they’re building back. How can they build back without coming in to your…
PR: Well, no they are coming right up to our gardens.
BS: I’ve never really been round the back as such but on thinking about it, having been in the Tubberts…
PR: The hospital does come up quite close to the gardens anyway and a lot of that will be taken down, so it won’t be very different except you will have people living there instead of patient.
BS: I remember at 48 we’d lay in bed in the summer with the window open and could smell the ether coming over, old Bedford’s at it again, you know. My brother had a mastoid operation in there and I was too young to go in the ward and he lay there with a big bag each side of his head and he couldn’t look either way and they lifted me up and let me look over. We’d always been very close, a real brother and sister.
PR: Well we’ve had a lovely lot of names.
BS: wEell its one of those things. People move away but as a family we’ve more or less stayed close. We are hoping to go to Suffolk.
PR: Oh are you?
BS: We need to be near our daughter. If anything happens to us she can’t keep coming down, backwards and forwards, refugees come first which I think is a bit much for people of our age.
PR: How long have you been on the transfer list?
BS: Transfer list with Waveney District council and I had a letter from them the other day to say we had got on the list for next year. Had it been a few years ago we could have bought a place up there but the prices have gone up so much, everybody’s buying these small places to let. We’d got a fellow working up here in that flat that was empty and he’s got some places up there.
TS: Two bungalows, similar to there. He bought the two rented one out, he rented to tourists to start with then somebody moved out, weekends and all that, his family, the other one he’s still got rented.
BS: After all we were born too soon.
TS: Our daughter had a brand new bungalow, three bedroomed bungalow and it was £110,000. The living room come dining room was a massive room then she’s got a small bedroom on the right, a bathroom, airing cupboard, hallway, she had an extra door put in there, bedroom over there, that leads to a shower room. She had wider doors put in. The garden, its ridiculous, they’ve all got these great big gardens.
The conversations then splits in to two parts at the same time talking over one another, then discussion over borrowing photographs, filling in forms.
Tape ends