Interviewed by Peter Ruffles (PR) Trish Goldsmith (TG)
Date: 03/10/2001
Transcribed by Jane Page (tape one) Marilyn Taylor (tape two)
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O2001.15
Interviewees: Frank Vigus (FV) Doreen Vigus (DV)
Date: 3rd October 2001
Venue: Hertingfordbury
Interviewer: Peter Ruffles (PR) Trish Goldsmith (TG)
Typed by: Jane Page (tape one) Marilyn Taylor (tape two)
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
Tape one is transcript only as the recording is missing. Tape two recording is avaliable
PR: This is Peter Ruffles speaking at home on the afternoon of October 3rd, Wednesday, having just discovered I have the tape recorder, but unable to find the microphone.
FV: I'm not too bad.
PR: Yes, lovely.
FV: I'm 83 next week.
PR: Are you?
TG: Wow.
FV: So, well, you know, compared with some, old Arthur Knight. You've done old Arthur Knight, have you?
TG: Probably.
PR: Yes, yes.
FV: Arthur, he's nine years older than me. Frank Chappell. Arthur Knight's the oldest one in Rotary now.
DV: Where do you want to sit, Peter? Do you want to be next to him? Bring that chair over.
PR: No, I'll be alright anywhere.
FV: You sit there mate.
PR: Where are you going?
FV: You come here Vigus, keep me company, or there, come on Vigus, where you going to find a…
PR: Well, no, she might be needed for the nudge, and if you go to sleep, you're going to be no use to anybody.
FV: Come here.
DV: I don't go to sleep.
PR: Oh.
DV: I've got the, wind, keeping the door open. Tell me if it's cold.
FV: Come here, come here.
TG: Where am I going?
FV: Come here, come here, come here.
PR: Doreen go over there.
DV: I'm going there.
FV: Yes, come in here, come and sit by me.
TG: O.K. So, we have to start with he official bit, don't we?
FV: What's that?
TG: And say that this is Trish Goldsmith, and it's the 3rd of October, 2001, and I've come to talk to Frank Vigus, at your bungalow in Hertingfordbury, and you're here with Doreen. And it's a great privilege to be able to come and find out all about your life, because I don't know very much at all. I suspect Peter probably knows rather more, but you've got to bear in mind that people listening to the tape probably don't know anything. So, first of all Frank, where were you born?
FV: I was born at Standon, on October the 14th 1918, and we lived at a place called Hatchet's Farm at Standon.
TG: So your father was a farmer.
FV: My father was a farmer. He started farming Hatchet's Farm, because he left school when he was 11. His father was a gamekeeper at Hamel's Park. They always say the Viguses started farming out the rabbits Mope Vigus caught at Hamel's Park, which is now the golf course.
TG: Oh.
PR: Gosh, and then you've surrounded the area since.
FY: Then, when Doreen and I got married she was, I know, I think it was the vicar or somebody. said she was Mrs Vigus 21. She was the twenty-first Mrs Vigus, and then, since then, there's been a lot more.
DV: He remarked it would soon be Vigusshire.
FV: Yes, soon be Vigusshire, that is because we were farming. You could walk from Bengeo to Thundridge on all land that was fanned by Viguses. It wasn't owned. We were nearly all tenant fanners in those days. I don't think the Vigus family owned hardly any land at all. We all used to be tenants. In those days you were tenant fanners.
TG: So, it doesn't go back further. Your father being a gamekeeper, there weren't fanners in the family before that, that you know about. It started with your father?
FV: No, my mother's side was a farming family, from Priors at Youngsbury , Youngsbury Park. They were Youngsbury, and he was sort of, I would say he was better off than some. And he used to run steam engines and do thrashing.
PR: What was her family name then, Frank?
DV: Prior.
FV: Prior.
PR: Prior.
FV: My mother, she was a Prior from Youngsbury.
PR: Yes.
FV: They were at Youngsbury, and grandfather and Joe Prior, which lived up at Thundridge afterwards, they were , he used to run thrashing machines. And he always tells stories of carting faggots to London with horses. You know, back in those days, they used to cart the faggots to London. I'm afraid he'd got a reputation. My mother was very much anti-drink, because grandfather used to go to Hertford market with his buggy and cart, and they used to put him in the cart and the horse used to bring him home, and they used to have to get him out. I mean, in those days, some of them were heavy drinkers, you know.
PR: Yes, yes.
FV: Grandfather Prior, I think, did drink very heavily.
PR: Yes, he wouldn't have been unusual, would it?
FV: It wasn't unusual in those days, I mean, he did, you know, he drunk, but he was quite a thinking man, you know, for his, in his age group, you know. He was quite a good planner really.
PR: So where would he have taken the faggots, right into the city centre?
FV: I don't really know, but I remember him always talking about the faggots going into London, and the dairy herds being up there, and being fed on brewers grains, you know the grains like you make beer. They used to keep the cows into London, tied up by a chain. When they went in there, they were chained up, and they milked them out, and when they finished they just killed them in those days. They didn't even bull them or anything, you know, I remember him telling stories of that, you know. I mean, people talk about welfare of cattle but that used to happen in those days, cattle used to be bought in London, chained up and they were milked, so the milk was in London, you see.
PR: Yes.
FV: In those' days.
PR: Not bulled and then just…
FV: Just killed for meat, you know, I mean, in those days.
PR: It's another world, isn't it?
FV: Well, I mean, when you think, from my point of view, there's been a revolution in planning. I mean, when I got married, before I got married, I mean, at Revelscroft we had about forty cows, with four of us milking them. And I milked, Doreen'll tell you, I milked cows half past five in the morning, two o'clock in the afternoon, and eight o'clock at night. Used to get a half-day once in three weeks, you know. And even Doreen's tried to learn how to milk. I think she must have been keen in those days, so that we could get out a bit earlier in the evening, because I was milking cows at eight o'clock at night. I used to have to milk five or six to get the records high enough.
DV: It didn't work actually, because…
FV: It never worked.
DV: I used to sit under this one cow for about an hour. And the milk kept coming out, and it was all over my underwear, it was everywhere. In the end she kicked the bucket, and what little bit I'd got she kicked over. I thought "that's it".
FV: The only advantage I used to get is when I was milking at night, if Doreen was there, my father used to come and help me sometimes. But, there you are. We did, I mean, we worked, I think in fact we did work longer hours, but there wasn't the stress on work there is now. I mean, now, I was talking to my son the other day, they've got now 120 cows in one big purpose-built shed, down in Devon, all under one roof, lay on rubber mats, the slurry goes into a slurry pit, away into a slurry pit. And Anthony can go out in the morning half past five, come back in at quarter past eight and those cows have gone through the parlour and they're milked. You see that's the difference. But Tim said the other day, Tim, my son, he's 57 now, and he was saying that he's finding it's getting too much, the stress factor is getting too much for him. He said "the other day" he said "I just grabbed, all the machines were falling off, everything was going wrong, you know", he said, "even now", he said "I don't think", he said. He said, "I've told them I'm packing up milking when I'm sixty". You know, he said, the fact that the machine age is even getting at him, and he's been.
PR: In it for ever and built up gradually, it's still too much for him.
FV: I think this applies to most jobs, even your job, you were in, anything, it seems to apply the thing that's coming into life more than anything else, is stress. The way we live, and it's our fault. It's the world we made.
PR: Yes.
TG: So. when you were hand milking, I mean, how many cows would you have on the farm, in those days?
FV: Well, I tell you, there was about four of us with forty cows.
TG: Right.
FV: Now, now you could say well it isn't one man to 120. One man can milk 120. I would say it takes two to three men with the management, feeding and everything. They would do, three men would probably do 150 now. I mean they do down at Devon, my son and his two sons, they do that and they run sheep, and they do a certain amount of com. They farm 300 acres with three of them, and they've got time to do other things, you know.
DV: We're talking about hand milking, and till at was eight, eight cows you used to milk each, about, didn't we?
FV: Well, we had round about twelve, dear. We used to milk up to ten, and two of them would be dry, you know what I mean, two of them would be in calf, you know. You milk cows, you see, a cow, you, we generally used to say, in the old days we perhaps used to say "you milk cows for 300 days, they have 65 days rest, then they have another calf, and you wanted 1000 gallons a year". Now you milk them for the same time and they want 2000 gallons of milk a year. That's just the difference, and that's just through genetics and feeding.
TG: Yes.
FV: I mean that's the difference in cows today, and I mean, we used to, in those days we did a milk round, and we used to keep a Guernsey cow, so we'd get a nice cream line on the bottle, to take round to people, new customers. I know it wasn't my exactly, but that's what we did In these days, nobody wants to see a cream line, mustn't be any cream on the milk. My father would have gone mad if they'd put blue on a milk bottle. Now, it's just absolutely changed, really.
TG: So, going back to your family, what about brothers and sisters?
FV: I had one sister, and, well one brother died when he was twenty-one, but I had Bob, who was a very keen farmer, known very well. He bred that bull up there.
DV: He was twin to Geoff at Ware.
FV: He was twin to Jeff. He won the Royal, he won the Royal, Royal Show with Shorthorns, Friesians and Simentals. He was a great showman, Bob was. That's one of his, there. I've still got semen from that bull. I've still got 5000 ampules of semen from him, and he's been dead five years.
TG: Right.
FV: My son is still using semen from him in Devon.
TG: Amazing, and what type is he?
FV: Simental. He was a great bull, he was. That's a painting done by an artist in Cambridge, and given to my brother, because he was Chairman of Cambridge RS Centre. That was, yes. Bob was a great showman.
TG: Yes.
FV: Geoff is at Westmill, Ware. He's now run, his sons now run Top Pots which is a.
DV: Nursery.
FV: Nursery. And they have now got planning permission, they run a fishing lake up there for trout and coarse fishing, they've now just got permit to alter the farm and to put a golf course in, a miniature golf course, and turning the farm, that part of the farm, into entertainment, because the farm has been dug for gravel, like so many round here, and a lot of the land literally is not suitable for farming any longer.
DV: Joe.
FV: Joe was at Brickendon. He died when he was seventy. The farm there, that Peter probably knows, I've just been up there today, actually. The farm there was built by Sir Edward Pearson, who was a great feature man in Hertford, I think he bought one of the first fire engines Hertford ever had, if you go back in history, and it used to be a fire engine kept up at Brickendon. And they were a marvellous lot of farm buildings, but they got to the stage they were uneconomical for farming, because of the shape of them. They've now, or just about finished building 24 houses up there. It's a marvellous set-up up there, really at Brickendon, I've been up there this morning, you know.
PR: It is, yes, I went up there the other day to see the end of, you know. What are… charging for those properties?
FV: £280,000 to £800,000 for the tower. And I took this girl up the tower, when I was courting her, before we were married, to the top of the tower to look out over Hertford. And she always said I took her up there, and then took her home to tea at Bengeo. That was in the early days of our courting days.
PR: Gosh.
TG: So, going back to sort of your childhood, I mean, any particular memories, before you were farming.
FV: I went to Bengeo School to start with.
DV: Revels Hall.
FV: What's that dear?
DV: Revels Hall.
FV: I lived at Revels Hall, near St Leonard's church. Lovely old house that is down there really. It's just been really all done up now again, it was you know, and we used to live against St Leonard's church there. And I lived from the time I was one. I moved from Standon when I was one, moved to Revels Hall when I was eleven, moved from there to Revelscroft, which is now pulled down and built on again. And I milked the cows at Revelscroft. My childhood, I went Bengeo School, then went to Hertford Grammar School. I wasn't a very good scholar, not really. I was quite good, I used to run cross country for the school, and I actually swam, in those days, for Hertfordshire, you know. So, with the Cannons, a family called, old Mr Cannon used to keep the, run the swimming bath at Hertford, old Mr Cannon did. And they had the swimming bath, and my grandfather's steam engine used to pump that out once a year, pump the water out of it. And rumour said they found a body in it one year when they pumped it out. Well, we used to do plate diving in there, you know, like they do nowadays, these teams, and you didn't look for the plates, you felt for them, because it was green. That's the absolute truth, and we, I mean, no doubt about it, I mean it was, the water was you know, there was green algae on the side of the baths.
TG: It obviously didn't do you any harm.
FV: Well, I'm still here now.
PR: Was that the pool, the pool that the river actually sort of ran through?
FV: Yes, that's the one, yes, came in one end and out the other.
PR: So, they stopped the, what would they do, dam it, I suppose, and then suck the water out.
FV: Well, at Grammar School we used to do the Grammar School's swimming sports used to be in there. I mean, we paid three pence I think, to go in there. No, that was in. Because Bill Cannon and young Cannon. Bill Cannon was a great swimmer, the son of the, he was at Grammar School with me.
PR: Were they, they weren't village?
FV: No they weren't village, they were, he was Bengeo. Bill Cannon was Bengeo, no they weren't village people.
PR: Because there were Cannons here in the village.
FV: You've. got to remember I was Bengeo then..
PR: Yes, yes.
FV: Yes, I was Bengeo, like in childhood, I said, I left school. I played Rugby, broke my wrist at Rugby. My father said it was time I left school, because he reckoned I was better at sport than I was at work, so I left school when I was fourteen, fifteen. And, as I said, I started then, and when war broke out, I was called up for the medical, and they gave me a medical, and said, "look I was supposed to be working 70 hours a week", and they put me on the reserve for the Royal Anny Veterinary Corps, and as far as I know, I'm still on it. That's the truth, I never, I was never dismissed, I never heard any more, and I've still got my medical card and my card, I think, now.
DV: Al.
FV: Al. I don't know if I'm Al now. I mean I don't think they worried about you too much those days. I mean, they knew I was at work. I mean, you know, I mean the main thing was, I mean we got to the stage during the war at one stage there, well that was in my later time, after I'd married. But I remember Williams coming down to talk to us, and he just told us "food at any price". Didn't matter what the, he said "don't tell me that land's not worth farming" he said "food at any price". And that was the state this country was in then.
DV: He was the Minister of Food.
FV: Minister of Food, Williams, Minister of Agriculture.
PR: Yes.
FV: I'm trying to think of his other name. A great man, it was Williams, wasn't it? Yes, I think so.
PR: We can check that.
TG: Yes.
PR: We'll either remember it, or we'll, we can look it up.
FV: Yes, check that. I'm sure it was in the war. It was Labour, you've got to remember we had a Labour government and it was, I'm sure. Cor, I can remember the man's face. You know.
TG: So, what are your other memories of tthose days? I mean sort of early days of the war, and early days of working, anything particularly that?
FV: Well, I mean, you've got to remember in farming in the early days out working, we were cutting sheaves, cutting corn with binders.
TG: Yes.
FV: And when they talk about now doing organic farming, I'm afraid I would, there used to be a lot of the sheaves used to have poppies in them, and a lot of them used to have thistles in, and if you were having to do the stooking, which we used to have to stook them up to dry in those days, and you had to find a thistle to press into your fingers, you didn't think a lot about that. You weren't provided with gloves to do anything in those days.
TG: So, what would your working day be like? I mean sort of starting with…
FV: Well, we used to start half past five, quarter to six in the morning.
TG: Yes.
FV: And then…
DV: Light the boiler, first thing.
FV: Oh, she's on about, she hated that. We'd light my boiler that used to provide steam, hot water, for steaming all the equipment.
TG: Oh, right, sterilising it.
FV: Sterilising it. We used to light that for that, and then we used to milk the cows in the morning. Then we used to have to clean out the sheds afterwards. after breakfast. And then carrying on doing anything there was to do, like getting the food in, cutting kale for the cows to eat, or getting mangolds in for the cows, generally keep them in there. But there was always, there was labour in those days, you know, you kept things, you could sweep up, the yard was kept swept, you know. There wasn't the concrete about.
TG: How many people would be working on the farm?
FV: Well, I said there was four with the cows. I mean, even when we came here and we had 120 acres we've got six men, and we've got six men and we've got about. And then before we went to Shameen's, what had we got, about 30 cows?
DV: 1947
FV: And that was 1947
DV: 1947 the machinery came
FV: Doreen would tell you the machinery, of course, didn't start until 1947. Because we came to Hertingfordbury, I came to Hertingfordbury in '42, and married Doreen in '43.
PR: So, how did, we went round to Clements Farm there, didn't we? And are you all in position now, the brothers, as it were, when we were going through our little list?
FV: Now, Doreen'll tell you. Who got married first? Joe?
DV: Joe.
FV: Joe got married first.
DV: And he went to Brickendon.
FV: He went to Brickendon.
DV: Well, you were farming Brickendon with Bengeo.
FV: We were fanning Brickendon then. He went to Brickendon . Geoff got.
DV: Geoff got married three weeks before us.
FV: Geoff got married next.
DV: He went to Westmill, Ware.
FV: He went to Westrnill, Ware.
PR: Right.
FV: I got married and went to Hertingfordbury. Bob was in the Air Force. Bob was the one that did go in the army. He was xxxx in the Air Force, and he didn't get married until some time later.
DV: Eighteen months later.
FV: Eighteen months later. And he went to a place at Ettridge Farm, Broxbourne.
PR: Oh, did he?
DV: That was his in-laws.
FV: Now Nichols's, that was his in-laws’ farm.
PR: Yes, Nichols there.
FV: He went there, and then, when Nicholses wanted to take over the farm, he obtained the farm at Cambridge, and he moved to Cambridge.
DV: Granchester actually.
FV: Granchester, he moved to Granchester.
TG: So you were well spread.
FV: And he did very well. Well, now, as I said, see, our two sons now, one's in Somerset and one's in Devon, see.
PR: What did you come to here? How did you get into the village then? What led you to land?
FV: The farm that was being farmed here was farmed by a man that wasn't farming up to the standard of wartime at all. A man that lived in Bengeo, named Mr Jones. He was a milkman. But the farm was in a terrible state. I mean it was full of what we call twitch and rubbish, and it belonged to the Desborough Estate, and my father knew the agent for Desborough Estate, which was a man named Mr Wheatley, and he said, he more or less came to my father and said "would he farm it". And we took the farm, I think we paid fifteen bob an acre for it, rent, in those days, you know, but it was a hell of a mess. I mean, I remember up Thieves Lane, where the houses are built now, dragging twitch off it and burning before we could do anything with farming it, you know. In those days you hadn't got the sprays and things you have now, and you.
TG: There was one field up there that was very, very hilly, used to be, when we first moved to Hertford, you used to keep a bull in there, and it was very very…
FV: Oh, yes on that side, well, that's now houses.
TG: I know it is, yes.
FV: Oh yes, well, that was where they dug out the gravels for the estate.
TG: Right.
FV: I even made silage in that pit there, yes, that was, oh yes. I remember a story about that field. In latter life, when I was, actually I served in my latter life on the Milk Board, in London, for Hertfordshire. And I had a dog. and when I was going round the farm I used to take the dog with me. A dog called Don. And there was a bull in the field, and I sat Don up the top of the field, because I wanted to walk across, I thought it might upset the bull, taking him in there, and I forgot, and went up the field the opposite way and came home. Four o'clock in the afternoon, I went to London, I think, about eleven or twelve o'clock that day, four o'clock in the afternoon, somebody came down and said to Doreen "is Frank all right, because his dog's still sitting up the field?" He was sitting, somebody had to go and get the dog home, because he was waiting for me. You know, it just shows you how an animal…
TG: Yes, yes.
PR: So, you moved into the farm. Was Jones in, no he was living in Bengeo.
FV: No, Jones was in the farm, he was never allowed the farmhouse. A man named Topham used to run the mill in Hertingfordbury. He was the miller. And the mill of Hertingfordbury was run by a man named Topham. The stones were still in the mill for grinding flour when I went in there, you know, the…
DV: The millstones.
FV: Millstones, one of the millstones is now in Somerset which she'll show you a photograph of, put on a stand by my son, as a coffee table. He took this stone, took this millstone, to Somerset. And, I took over the farm, the mill in those days during the war, the mill was run by the agricultural committee, for drying com. The first corn drier put up in Hertfordshire, that mill in Hertingfordbury was, but it had got a big output of two ton an hour. I actually, took it over from the agricultural committee in latter life, and one wet harvest I ran it 24 hours a day to keep the com going. We used to get from two pound upwards a ton for drying com. Then people used to grumble at you, because if you dried com, you could lose anything from, by the time you took the rubbish out that they'd brought in, and the drying, you lose five to ten percent they'd say "why we haven't got as much out as we sent in".
DV: This was a gas drying plant..
FV: It was a gas drying plant.
PR: Oh was it?
FV: And the village used to moan, because if I kept going on a Sunday, nobody could cook their Sunday dinner, I robbed the gas.
TG: Gas pressure would go down.
PR: So what's the, we mustn't lose the track of you coming to the farm.
FV: No, I'm sorry mate.
PR: No, no, no. Those two things that looked like ladies nylons with a knot in the bottom. hanging down?
FV: That was where they blew the rubbish out into.
PR: So, they caught the husky bits.
FV: Caught the husky bits, yes; you'd have to empty them every day. Yes, those husky bits, yes. Chap now, chap that was in there, marvellous chap, that really set that lot up, I can't think of his name, he was deaf, but he'd got a wonderful sense of machinery.
DV: He worked for the War Ag, Kemp (War Agricultural Committee)
FV: He worked for the War Ag.
DV: Kemp, his name was Kemp.
FV: His name was Kemp, and he was a wonderful man at setting up machinery. In those days, I mean, there wasn't so many people had got the, but the amount of blooming elevators in that mill would worry you to death. Com used to up here, down there and round there, you know.
DV: And if a belt slipped.
FV: And I've often said, it was really, I mean, people have said to me "weren't you sorry to see it go?" I said "no, my chest still suffers from it now". Because we had corn come in there, and we didn't use masks and things in those days. And I've had corn come in there, when we've took it out the sacks, it stood up, it's literally been mouldy, but it had to go through the mill during the war, it had to come out the other end. I mean, you know, it's amazing really when you see, I mean a lot of them were necessary, I'm not saying, we went through a lot of things that people wouldn't look at today, you know.
PR: Yes.
TG: Yes.
PR: So, Topham's in the house still.
FY: No, not when we got there.
PR: No.
FV: Topham was in the house when Jones was fanning. Jones used to be at Bengeo. He used to live just at the comer of Cross Road, he did.
DV: Duncombe Road.
FV: In Duncombe Road, Mr Jones did, and he was a milkman too, and he was supposed to be a highly religious man, but I won't say any more about that, you know.
PR: And then, when did you get into the house then, I mean?
FV: When we got married.
DV: It had been empty for six months.
FV: It had been empty for six months, and it made us laugh, because in the bedroom, one of the bedrooms there, whoever decorated the house. there was blooming great birds of paradise. Doreen said "I can't put up with that on the walls". The man called, another th:ing, a man named Brooks, used to live at Bengeo, used to be an undertaker on the comer of, opposite Pickerings at Bengeo, you know where Pickerings were at Bengeo.
PR: Oh, yes, Tower Street, yes.
TG: Oh, yes.
FV: He did the decorating in there, because we knew him at Bengeo, you see.
PR: And so, you were in the house. Tell us sort of field by field, what you farmed. What was the area that…
FV: The river end of the farm, the river going up towards, up the valley was all grass, all grass, all the lot. Yes, all the lot was grass when I went there.
TG: Did it used to flood at all?
FV: Yes, we had flood right round the house one year, and all round, right round the house.
DV: It didn't come into the house.
FV: It went sort of underneath the house, it smelt a bit, but we never got it in the house. Yes, and that was, I don't know what year it was, but I remember that was one very bad year of floods, but otherwise, not, you know.
TG: Not too bad.
FV: Not too bad. And the top land, up Thieves Lane was all arable, as I said there, but there was only, when I went there, there was only 110 acres through there. And then George Quimby, who lived, who took that other farm, he went bankrupt, and I took over that.
PR: I remember that, poor old George.
FV: Poor old George Quimby, he went bankrupt.
DV: He lived at Bury Farm.
FV: He lived at Bury Farm, so I took over all the land on that side of Bury Farm, and another man up the top end, who used to work for the War Ag, and he moved out, and I took over another lump of land there.
PR: Well, that's Cole Green way.
FV: Cole Green way, went towards Cole Green. Then, Cor, who were the people that used to farm the other side, where we took over that other, right hand side of the road, people who lived at, Cor, where Sele is now, what was the name of those people?
DV: Hawkins.
FV: Hawkins, yes, but Hawkins.
DV: Saddlers.
FV: Hawkins were there, yes, it was Hawkins, it was Jim Hawkins I took over from, but there was, there were some women there before that, before Hawkins, I can't think of their names. Jim Hawkins took it over, and Jim didn't farm it long at all. I took over where, I farmed where Sele School, where Sele is, there.
PR: Not Saddlers, Saddlers Farm.
FV: Saddlers Farm, there was old Saddlers Farm and all there next door, I farmed that at one time, but I remember years ago, I think when Bill Maxwell was at Sele School saying to them up there that…
End side one
FV: No, because I remember saying to them at Sele School on a parents' evening I didn't realise what farming had in common, because in general the children at Sele were a nuisance, but I says "I've come to the conclusion you breed them we feed them" I remember saying that years ago at Sele, you know, literally. Because I actually had a very good relationship with Sele School, in the farming days, if I went in there, Bill Maxwell was in there then, and well, Michael Mussell afterwards, but if ever I got trouble I could do it without going to the Police, you know, in those days. Bill and I built up, as a matter of fact, Bill Maxwell was the man that asked me to go into Hertford Rotary Club.
PR: Oh, was he?
FV: I had been asked before, but I wasn't in a position to go in, and Bill asked me.
PR: He's not at all…
FV: Bill's not at all well. I don't think, unfortunately, he ever will be, you know, unfortunately.
PR: He's been in hospital now.
TG: Six months.
FV: Bill did a lot of good work in his day.
TG: So, we've sort of, we've talked about the days sort of thing, what about on top of the working life, I mean did you ever time for sort of leisure and entertainment, or was that not heard of?
FV: Well, I must have done, I courted her.
DV: You didn't live far away, just across the field.
FV: I tell you what, I honestly before I retired, I always said there was never two Sundays in a week, and I was never away two weekends before I retired.
DV: A week of seven days.
FV: A week of seven days, and in actual fact, it wasn't easy, because Doreen sometimes in the early days took the children down to. Where did you used to go to with the children? You went to Bournemouth didn't you?
DV: Eastbourne, I used to go to. I used to go down on the train.
FV: Eastbourne. She went down on the train, and I used to go down.
DV: For the weekend.
FV: At weekends. I mean, you know, we were, things were I said labour was, and.
DV: We had students as well lived in.
FV: And I was a little bit of a workaholic in those days, I'm not now. And, but I learnt, I got, she'll tell you, I did have a rough time in my early thirties, when I was in that hospital for eighteen months with a tummy syndrome. I had a cow jump on me and I had lesions in my stomach. Then I had, then I had a gall thing, then I had a kidney due, and I learned I could delegate, after that. You know one of the things before I was one of these people inclined to…
TG: Do everything.
FV: Do everything, but after that, it taught me a lot, and I learnt. I think I learned more how to handle farming through being in hospital, than I did, you know, on it.
PR: But you'd, at the same time, been central to the village life.
FV: Oh, yes. Well, we, Doreen and I'd had time, we ran a, we ran...
DV: We used to run the Young Conservatives.
FV: We ran the Young Conservative Club in the village, well, it wasn't a Conservative Club altogether.
DV: What was it?
FV: It was a village club, wasn't it, because anybody could go.
DV: Yes, but.
FV: I mean it wasn't really.
DV: Not exactly political, I suppose. We used to have a, run a dance every month at the Mayflower.
FV: I ran a dance every time at the Mayflower. I've still got…
DV: Had a three-piece band, from Standon.
FV: Yes, from Standon, cost fiver.
DV: Cecil Lytton.
FY: One and six to go in, and we used to run it for the Barton Bell and something else, I don't know. We put another bell in the church.
DV: For the church.
FV: Yes. Quite a regular thing, we had dances at the Mayflower. I've gone to Working Men's Club. I was, in my time, in my latter time, I was president of the cricket club and captain of the cricket club. I wasn't much good at cricket, but I liked it, it was a break, always.
DV: You did the coronation.
FV: And I was chairman of the coronation.
DV: Yes, and that's when we started the fete, village fetes.
TG: Oh, right.
PR: Oh, you started that.
FV: I was the first person to run the village fete.
DV: That was all part of the celebrations.
FV: Part of the celebrations.
TG: And that was always on the rec., was it?
DV: Yes.
FV: Yes.
PR: And that's the biggest village event, isn't it, really, of all?
DV: Yes, it is, really.
FV: Well, I was the first one to run it. Doreen's got photographs of it.
DV: But one year it was so wet, it was wicked. It was lashed with rain, and because we used to set it up about two days in advance, didn't we, on the Thursday night, a lot of the scaffolding and stuff. But it was too impossible, so all our tractors and trailers took tile whole lot up to Birch Green School, and we had the fete up there. That was the year Barbara Cartland opened it, wasn't it?
FV: Yes, Barbara Cartland, she did things like ...
DV: Quite amazing, sorting out the fancy dress, de-de-de you know, dear, oh dear.
FV: Yes, Barbara Cartland.
TG: That's amazing.
FV: That was. of course, in my latter. How old would I_ ..
DV: It wasn't in your latter days, that was years ago.
FV: Yes, but how old would I have been then, forty?
DV: Well, William was that size, and he's fifty now.
FV: 'cause you and poor old Frank Crawley, used to own Gunners, you remember Frank.
PR: Yes.
FV: His wife, his first wife, and Doreen used to be great mates, but they were very competitive with their kids in the fancy dress, always make a competition with the kids.
DV: Who came first and who came second.
FV: Who came second, and they were very competitive with the kids in fancy dress. Doreen's always been a, yes, you 've always been a person likes to do things, haven't you?
DV: Mmm, well, creative things.
FV: Creative things. She's in W.I. and Inner Wheel now, you know.
DV: Tell them about Enid Crawley, talking about Frank, sitting in her front garden.
FV: Well, we used to move the cattle, you see, down the road from the Fobury, another field we had, up by the church, we always had that field.
PR: Oh.
FV: Yes.
DV: Gentleman's agreement with old Addis, wasn't it?
FV: It was a gentleman's agreement with old Mr Addis, and I shall never forget him. I got on very well with Mr Addis. He was a very man, he didn't talk to people a lot, you know, at times. I had this field for years, and he came to one day, and he said "Frank, I'm worried ". I said "what you worried about, then?". "Well" he said "they tell me, my solicitors tell me" he said "that you can claim the field as tenancy" He said "because you've had it for so many years for, you know, on this thing". I looked at him, I said "Mr Addis, we had a gentleman's agreement, didn't we?" He looked at me so stunned, "yes" he said. "Well, we still have as far as I'm concerned". You know, it's extraordinary how things work out, the family let my son carry on because, you know, there was never any...
PR: Trust.
FV: In those days you did have gentlemen's agreements with people, and I was brought up I'm not an angel, but I was brought up under those standards, you know.
PR: And in the Farmers' Union you had a lot to do.
FV: No, I was just going to tell you about Frank Crawley, next.
PR: Oh, right.
FV: Frank Crawley. You're taking me off the bleeding... Frank Crawley's wife....
PR: Oh, yes.
FV: She was sitting in the garden one day.
DV: Sitting on the corner, by the church.
FV: And I was bringing cattle down from the Fobury, and the gate, somehow the gate was open, and Enid was sitting in a deck chair. And this cow walked over to Enid and just coughed on her, coughed at her.
DV: Coughed in her face.
FV: And Enid said to me "Frank, I'm going to sue you". I said "well, I shall charge you for the dung she's left on the lawn". I always remember poor old Enid.
TV: So they lived in the village, right by where you go down from the Fobury.
DV: Right by the church.
FV: Frank Crawley was a real character in my life, I mean, we went to school together, and I knew him through He had dogs. He was very keen on shooting and he used to come picking up and tl1at sort of thing. Frank I knew, well, from the day William did a video of him. William even did a video of Frank.
PR: Did he?
FV: Yes, and I mean, he was a great, great character really, Frank was.
TG: And what else, if nowhere else in the village. I mean are there any other people from the village that you particularly remember? I mean, characters or?
FV: I remember Frank Crawley. I remember old Mr Shepherd, Harry Shepherd's father, a great character. You went down his way if there was anything wrong with a tractor. If you said to Mr Shepherd "so and so's wrong with it", he said "well, don't bring it here if you know what's wrong with it". You never told him what was wrong with anything, he said "it's my job to tell you". You know, but he was a great character.
TG: And still in the same place.
DV: He did me a favour. He came into our kitchen down the farm once, he said "you've got terrible poor lighting" he said "what you want is a strip light in the kitchen".
FV: And you went and bought one.
DV: I got one then, didn't I?
FV: Yes. yes.
DV: That was a primitive old house. you know,
FV: Well when we went in ...
DV: It was all gas, all gas. and a pump.
FV: A pump in the corner.
DV: Soft water tub, and the slugs used to walk up. It was disgusting.
FV: We used to pump the water upstairs, and then it had to go out of the window, didn't it?
DV: Yes.
TG: Well, how did that work, then?
FV: We used to work it out, used to work the water so it ran out down the back, didn't we? There wasn't proper drainage, was there?
DV: No, no.
FV: But, honestly, when we went to Mill Farm to start with, you came in, you put your coat on. The wind used to blow straight under the doors, you know.
DV: If there was a newspaper on the floor it would 'psst' blow straight across, you know, it was so draughty.
FV: We were brought up tough, but we're very comfortable here now.
TG: Yes.
PR: What about the Farmers' Union then Fred?
FV: Well, I joined the Farmers' Union and I eventually became chairman of Hertford Branch, chairman of Hertfordshire…
DV: County chairman.
FV: County chairman of Hertfordshire. I served on the Milk Board in London. I still think the Farmers' Union have a great job to do for farmers to speak as one body now. I think farmers are difficult people, but they are very individual people, and I had quite a lot in my time trying to organise co-operative selling and that sort of thing, in Eastern Counties Farmers and that, but it's a very difficult job. Farmers, a lot of farmers are on their farms themselves, and the other travellers from other places would be able to say "we'll give you more than" and so on, and we found it very difficult to keep farmers co-operating together in things. they are, I think they're better now, the younger generation, I think, has realised now, but the older generation was a generation of very individuals, and they were very individual people.
Well, I've often said "probably, you're out in the fields, you made all your own decisions" and this was one of the problems I did find in farming, very frustrating, actually. The same as people do in things that you've got something, you've organised things that you thought you were doing everything for people there. But one credit to myself I was on the Milk Board, you see, and up in Barnet area there is literally an influx of Welsh people.
DV: Welsh dairymen.
FV: Yes, dairymen, and they always used to say "Frank ", when anything happened on the Milk Board that the price is called, they said "you go up to Barnet, Frank, you're the only one that can talk to the Welshmen". Well, I used to find they were people, if you turned round and said to them "look, I've done better than you thought I could do, anyway" , if you were blunt enough will them, they accepted you. But they would try and bully you, well, not bully you, they would try and, you know, if you took it.
PR: Yes.
FV: I took rather a strong stance with them.
DV: What about this old Welshman who came out from the hill farm?
FV: Oh, that was years ago, that was.
DV: Well, that’s what you're talking about.
FV: That was one day, I was in London, and they asked me to take the chair.
DV: Chair the commitee.
FV: Chair the Hill Committee, and that was when the hill subsidies were on, I can't think of the hill subsidies were on, and there were one chap came up there, I was chairman, and he said "look, Mr Chairman, I've come here. My friends have had my suit altered, so I came". He'd got one of these suits that were about, you know, the real old thick tweed, and you could see it had been altered. He said "if I don't go back and tell them there's more subsidy" he said "they won't like having to pay for my suit to be altered". You know, those are the sort of things, they do stick in your mind.
PR: But Frank, modesty apart, having gone to the grammar school, left as soon as you could, then to be caught up with national fanning, in a country like ours which is so dependent on farming, quite an achievement.
FV: Well, I was very lucky. I say this, sticking up for this one. that Doreen, all those sort of things, Doreen, from the day I got married, always did the wages. The wages were always done, and even if I forgot to sign the cheque, she went to Hertford, and pushed tl1e pram to Hertford to get the cheque, and plead with the bank manager because I hadn't signed it, I'd sign it when I came in. She always did that side of it.
And as regards the clerical side of it. I was always very fussy from the time I started in knowing where I stood with the bank, and for years I had an ex-bank manager doing my accounts, and on the eighth of every month he would tell me where I my position was last year, and where it is this year. .and Doreen always said "damn it, I can't even get a pair of tights without him knowing". You know.
DV: Petty cash.
FV: I was always, though I was never a clever bloke with money, but I had a vision of what would work. I always used to work out in my own mind what the whole of my factory (didn't ought to call it that in these days) but. the whole of the factory was costing me. And if the cost of any money I borrowed and everything was below a certain sum, in my mind, I could handle it, and that was my way of vision. When I bought Sewers, I bought Sewers Farm and went on to buy land and so on, and I made more money in tl1e end out of buying and selling land than I ever did out of farming.
PR: Yes.
FV: And that is the truth. I mean, in farming, look, the biggest trouble is, even now, if a tenant is a tenant all his life, when he's finished, he keeps putting money back into machinery and things, honestly, he's barely got enough money to provide himself with a house when he's finished farming. There isn’t enough money still for the income when you work out I was only saying to my son, though he's done very well, down in Somerset, down in Devon, (went down there). I said "well, really", though now he's turned the farmhouse into two houses, so his two sons live in each end of the farmhouse. They've got a very nice place, done it, and he's got a house of his own, and he's got 120 cows, and other followers, and 300 acres of land. but it's having a damned job to find the living for 3 people. You look at the capital invested, we're damn bad handle to capital but it's a way of life everybody envies.
TG: Yes.
PR: Well, yes.
FV: I mean, really and honestly, the capital invested in farming, the returns on it are still bad. If you go into farming purely to earn money, it's not a good investment, mind you, a lot of other things aren't now. I mean, the world is in a funny shape, and I'd still rather have, I've only been saying this week, that I'd still rather have money in land and houses than I ever would in the bank, at the moment, you know, as things are, really, I mean. Yes, I'm very satisfied that we're very lucky, we started off as we did, Doreen and I, and we had two sons and we have four grandchildren, five grandchildren, sorry, put me right, and we've now got four great-grandchildren, and they're all sound. And I'm not like poor old Mr Smith used to say out there, one of the farmers out there, he had about six, five or six sons, didn't he?
DV: Something like that, yes.
FV: And I said to him one day, he was a proper dry old stick, I said to him "how many grandchildren you got now?", and he scratched his head for a little while, he said "eleven I knows about", you know.
DV: Of course that was another thing about having children, when we had ours, I was never allowed to have them on a Friday, because that was payday, and I was never allowed to have them any time between May and September, because of hay and harvest.
FV: Good planner, I was.
DV: He was lucky, like he says. Anyway, my daughter-in-law, my first daughter-in-law to have a baby, said "I'm expecting it in August". I was never allowed to have one in the middle of harvest, for goodness sake, and of course, two years later "I've done it again" she said.
FV: Actually, we get on very well with our daughters-in-law, and even our son, William.
DV: The Somerset one.
FV: He was on television the other day.
PR: Oh, was he?
FV: On only Ready, Steady, Cook, you know. And he still rings up and says "I want to talk to my Mummy", you know. She's been a very good mother and a very good wife, there you are, I'll put it that way.
PR: We ought to make sure we've got Doreen's start, hadn't we? Where she was living.
TG: That's true, yes, yes, we didn't mention that, did we?
PR: Well, we did, but let's tidy that.
FV: She started life at Stratford. No you didn't…
DV: Let me think, let me think. Yes my father was a train driver, Hertford East. They lived at Widford. He used to bike to Hertford every day. Rose Cottage, Widford, we lived in and his family had the Green Man pub. He used to bike to work every day, and one day, I remember him biking, and of course he had an oil lamp on the bicycle, and one day he was walking down past, riding down past Widford Hill, oh, three in the morning, or some goddamed hour. Of course, it was 8 hour shifts throughout the 24 our day, so it was obscure, you know, hours. He was coming down the hill by Widford church, and there was this bull sitting in the middle of the road. The beam of his little oil lamp shone on this gleaming ring, but anyway all was well, I mean, he biked on. It didn't move, as it happened. But, you know, that was a hard job, so anyway, and then we had to move, I don't know when that was, let me think, to Stratford for a while. So, I lived there just for one year. I hated it.
FV: You were very ill.
DV: Yes, I was ill the whole year I was there, between four and five, or five and six, I had whooping cough and measles. And it was a horrible place, right by the soap factory, so some days you got horrible smells, and another day it was all perfume because they were putting the flavour in the soap. But, that was a horrid one year I hated.
TG: Was that your father's job?
DV: And then we moved to Bengeo. that was at the time when the new housing estate was being built at Bengeo, you know, the council estate, the big red estate.
PR: Yes, Parker Avenue, Palmer Road
FV: Parker Avenue.
DV: That’s right, we moved into one of those, you see, so…
PR: Was he still at Hertford East, then?
DV: Yes.
TG: So the year you were at Stratford, was it his job that moved you there?
DV: Yes, but I was actually born in London, my mother, when we were at Widford, Rose Cottage, Widford, while we lived there, she went up to be with her mother. She had me there. She had me at granny's, Fulham.
FV: Yes. You were born in Fulham.
DV: I was six months on and off, in and out, to the Fulham babies' hospital. I don't know what was wrong with me but I've had nothing wrong since, so what it was, they sorted it out. So I was with my granny and my mother up there quite a lot of the time, for the first six months which I don't really remember of course, then back to Rose Cottage, Widford, and then a year in Stratford East. Urggh. And then Bengeo.
FV: That was when I got to know her, of course.
DV: I lived just across the field.
PR: What was your name then, family name.
DV: Stevenson, spelled with a "v", as my mother would say, mustn't get it wrong and think it's a "ph".
FV: She lived across the field from me, you see.
PR: Yes, well, Doreen said that a bit earlier, and I was trying to think which field, you know, how it was, but Parker Avenue.
FV: Well, I knew her father very well, he used to come across the farm. I used to go ferreting with him, but Doreen, being 5 years younger than me. Well, when you're twenty and a girl's fifteen, it doesn't work, does it? You know what I mean.
DV: It does work. It could.
FV: No, in these days it might do, dear. No, and then to tell you the truth, what happened was, you see, I knew her, and I always thought, you know, "nice girls, her and her sister". And I was at a do at Bengeo, which we used to have then, and the Anny was about at the time.
DV: The Parish hall, Duncombe Road, Duncombe Hall.
FV: In the parish hall there. And apparently, we were invited by a Mrs Little then to go to this do, and she used to invite some of the army, invite what boys there was of us that were available to go. And I went there, and this young lady, I knew her, she came and sat on my lap in a game called Hyde Park, they call it. Where you have to sit on a partner's lap and they shine a torch on you to move. And when it was all change, she came and sat on my lap and said "will you look after me, because some of the soldiers are getting a bit rough with me?" And I realised it was somebody with.. you know. And really after that I made a date with her some time.
DV: That was such a funny game, because it was all in the dark, and one person has to go round with a torch, and if he catches you kissing, then he has to swap places, you see. And it's such a menace, you've got to kiss the blighters to get rid of them, obviously, you know, and it was so revolting, so when the torch went out, I thought "that's Frank Vigus over there". Occasionally they said "right, all change" you see.
Doorbell rings
DV: Who's that this time?
FV: Somebody knows us, it's a double ring.
DV: Yes, so anyway.
FV: So anyway, that is really how we started going together.
DV: Well, tell them about Tim.
FV: What? She said finish the story. Well, rather a funny story, really, there, that Tim was at Shuttleworth. Because I was very keen that our sons should have a good agricultural education, and Tim went to Hadham Hall School, and then he went on. He got passed to go to Shuttleworth Agricultural College. And he went back to a reunion at Shuttleworth Agricultural College, and a girl he had known from Bedford PE College, came and said to him "Tim, will you look after me, there's a chap I don't like, trying to get off with me". Tim said "sorry, lass, my old father got caught like that". There you are, Tim always tells that story, he says "you know, funny thing how often true stories are the best in some ways".
TG: That's right.
FV: No, both my, Tim went to Shuttleworth, he got his NDA actually, and he had a chance to go with BOCM, one thing. He said "I can never settle down to washing the car on Sundays". Because he didn't want to go away from farming, and he still, I mean, he has gone through farming and really, his son, my grandson, Anthony, is a very good stock man. I'm glad that he's still. I was talking to him on the 'phone last night, and telling me all about what standard he is and what food he's bringing in, up the barns through his silage. I mean, the feeding of cattle nowadays is very, very good, really you know, and the genes in them. As I said, I was sweating to get a thousand gallons, if he doesn't get two thousand gallons (I still talk in gallons, he talks in litres now) but that's the difference. Farming as, and it will do, I'm afraid now, farming as me and you have known it round here, you see, farms are being taken over or being joined together, so, like the farm. next door to me, it's just been all in wheat, well ne;,,.1 year the whole of the 200 acres will be in one crop.
PR: Yes.
FV: You see, none of the... it's run in blocks of land now, and it's going to be. My son says that chickens are in millions, pigs are in thousands, and, he said, though he's got 120, 150 cows, he said, if we're not careful, we shall have to have cows in two to three hundreds, and run in units. He said "and the biggest trouble is then, it’ll have to be in the bigger areas, because one of the problems they' re getting up against now, even with 120 cows, is getting rid of the slurry". You see, you have to be careful now not to get slurry into the water stream.
PR: Yes.
FV: You see, milk is the worst thing of all to get into the water. Milk·will deoxidise water quicker than anything else. These sort of things, milk is a bugger, and silage at the moment is deadly, though it comes from grass.
PR: I mean. they did take the gravel out of the land on what they call the Old Coach Road, once, didn't they, and then fill it in and resurface.
DV: Nether Street, Nether Street, was it, opposite Cole Green garage are you talking about?
PR: Opposite the Stanes Green, yes, yes. Isn't that land all excavated and then had infill and stuff on it?
FV: Oh, yes, up at the back of Benyons, what I call Benyon's Cottage, off that road there by the aerodrome, that's all been dug and been filled, but it's... .
PR: it doesn't do anything, does it?
FV: Oh, yes, he's got grass on it, but it's some horrible stuff comes out of it.
PR: Oh.
FV: You've got to remember the trouble is, with this land, when you infill it. Look, when lorries come out of London, you don't know what goes in lorries, do you, not really, I mean, people, you put genuine stuff in your dustbin. Some people put anything in their dustbin. It all goes into infill, and when you see the liquid that comes out of some of these dumps, it's not nice.
PR: Yes.
FV: It's not nice. I mean, I had trouble up at, even at Cole Green, I had to pipe the water off to try and push it down, we absolutely, you know and the other thing of course, the other thing that beats you, of all, is plastic because it doesn't rot.
PR: No, it's there for ever.
FV: You see can't get, you can never get natural drainage back into land when you've mucked up the strata. Whatever you do, you can't, people talk about these boffins, not boffins, people that want you to think their way, talk about how you take some soil from the top, put on the top of this land, make it better than it was before. I'm afraid nobody can make it better than the Almighty made it. That's what I'll say to you. You know, it's either good land or not, and you've got a heck of a job to improve it. As you know, with the modem technique you can, yes, you can grow three, four ton of corn on an acre on the best land, on still the bad land, you'll grow two and a half. You know, with modem sprays, I mean. Land, the pace of land is still, like Cambridge land, some of the Cambridge land, marvellous land, these gravel lands, 10 days dry weather.
PR: Well, that's going to be enough, Trish, isn't it?
TG: I would have thought so.
FV: That's it. You've got enough.
DV: Far too much. I should think.
FV: I hope it's interesting to you.
TG: Brilliant, very interesting.
PR: Wonderful.
DV: Can I make you a cup of tea, now, people?
FV: Yes, make them a cup of tea, dear. No, it's been, you know, I've had interesting life, really. I mean, oh yes, I worked hard in my younger days, but I'm satisfied now. Well, one of my sons, he was lucky enough, last year, William, he let his farm. He doesn't like cattle farming down there. He let his farm well. He's got a house in Southwold. He let that, and I think he's living I don't know how he's going to get on now with some of the money investments, as you know, investment money is not very good, but he reckons it's better to invest his money than it was to do it.
PR: But the amazing thing is, while you 've been so committed to the land and to farming politics in a way as well, it's always been other people you've had time for.
FV: I've never been a person I don't like hotels, I don't like London.
Tape one side two ends
Tape two side one
FV: You have done a hell of a lot right, I tell you what as I said to you about farming if you work in public life you don’t win them all.
PR: No, no
FV: You have to try to be yourself
PR: well we have agreed on lots of things
FV: Oh yes I think I have agreed with you a lot more than I have disagreed with you.
PR: Yes yes.
FV: I will still tell you we want a bigger North Station car park, that’s about the one thing I ever disagreed with you on.
PR: The Prince of Wales we weren’t entirely agreed on that, I tried to from The Prince of Wales once, yes, and yes saw the need for it. The whole village was worried about car parking all over the place
FV: Yes, well I think the Prince of Wales worked out very well. Now I see the Prince of Wales that worked out quite well. Tidied it up and the Trust Houses serve a purpose but you want something other than Trust Houses for local people that’s what I would say, I am not against Trust Houses but when we did go on holiday we very often used to make a beeline for a Trust House because you knew it was a certain standard.
PR: The village is lucky to have two isn’t it
FV: Oh the village, in actual fact you see, the Cricket Club meet at the Prince but I don’t think the Prince is doing quite as well as it was now. I think its going through a bit of a ….. at the moment. All these things….
PR: Yes at Widford where you have got the Green Man look what’s happened to that now.
FV: Oh yes, she has got a photograph of her grandfather outside the Green Man, we had it printed McMullens have got it, cause I used to be very friendly with old Jake Collins, you remember Jake Collins. We were only saying the other day.
PR: I had forgotten Jake but yes.
FV: I am afraid I get now you see, there was my cousin in hospital not long ago and a person came home and said old Alan Johnson, he was a Johnson married one of the Vigus’s and he had got a big photograph and said Frank you are I it and I went over to see him in hospital and he said “Well there’s only you and me in that photograph that are licensed laughs while talking it was a photograph taken at Sacombe Park there was another of the Vigus family farmed Sacombe Park, we still farm was quite a big acreage there, but you see the Vigus generation, the next generation go away from farming. Inevitably because, now….. 500 acres at least, one man, 500 acres, the risk, the accidents in farming will increase because of people working on their own, you sit on a tractor, eight hours, you know your concentration, its not very good. I know tractors are made a lot safer now, you’ve got wireless and things in them but it’s a lonely old job in a field on your own.
DV: Yes its lonelier than I thought.
FV: That of course is the other risk, trouble is the cost of machinery is getting so high. A lot of these firms now are driving with two drivers so good practice, one gets off, one gets on.
PR: That’s a point about working alone because of labour being reduced.
FV: Oh I agree I still take the “farmers weekly” regular only so I can find fault with my son, ring him up and say “ so and so” cause Tim is now the director of Express Dairies so its gone on, I leave my son to it.
DV: Are you sugar Peter?
PR: No sugar thanks, I was going to ask you if Trish had let me , about “The Archers” I mean do you listen to “The Archers”
FV: No, I did I was very keen on “The Archers” , nothing against them now actually, “The Archers” during my days in the NFU we fed them with a lot of material we fed them and I was always interested to see whether they would give it the stuff we wanted them to but I haven’t followed them for years now. Used to follow “The Archers” a tremendous lot.
DV: Especially when “Foot and Mouth” was about.
FV: Trouble is…. Especially with Foot and Mouth and those sort of things. I was chairman of Hertfordshire during the last outbreak of foot and mouth in the 60’s, yes I was chairman of Hertfordshire in the outbreak I spent a lot of my time on three way phone calls.
The phone connected up and talking to the Ministry and through to the Director of the NFU so we would arrange try and arrange movements of some cattle in that way we didn't get an outbreak here, down here. We would not let anything move in, we move in a way all the time. We kept the strict rule of you know not moving inwards. We were doing a lot of movement in those days. Tremendous lot of people used to run cell units and the fattening units, pigs used to be moved to that, it was a very difficult job to keep these fattening units going. We did manage to do it a lot through the county.
PR: How did you meet my Auntie Nancy?
FV: Ask this one… We met Nancy because the kids go to Birch Green School is that right? These two are great pals..
DV: I am trying to think her younger children are exactly the same age as my two…
PR: Yes yes.
DV: and he was a little curly headed baby in a pram (laughs)
PR: Yes cause she’s a friend of Mums at the school I think but ….they were always a pair together wherever…
DV: Yes well you would know here..
FV: Nancy’s one of the family..
PR: When I last came here to see if I could catch you at home, some years ago, you were away, Nancy was feeding the cat or something.
FV: The dog.
Talk together
PR: That was two or three years ago and we have finally got round to it.
FV: Well you could nearly do on Nancy, Doreen, Sylvia Norman and Margaret Lock I should think they could give you a guide on the best pubs in Hertfordshire. They go out, once a month they go out together when I am at Rotary and they go out and have a meal together what else they do I don’t know.
PR: I have been told that Sylvia put two requests in and I’ve not been able to meet either, on Millbridge, she wants a bus shelter.
FV: Millbridge?
PR: On Millbridge the planners are not keen to put one there, there might be a bus stop but the shrubs are too high and Sylvia can’t see the river.
FV: I don’t always agree with Sylvia so, don’t worry I get on very well with Sylvia, I don’t go out of my way to give way to her.
DV: Not good for her is it
FV: No not the way you go on.
DV: Is this machine wanting to be switched off now, its not doing anything.
FV: It is, its still as we are talking its picking up what you are saying
PR: Yes that right it takes one to spot the other.
TG: Yes I have to get all the details I am afraid, it’s like the Spanish Inquisition
FV: I am Frank Vigus and Doreen May if you want her name. I was born on October 14th 1918 (talk together) Doreen was born on September 15th 19…
DV: What!
FV: September 5th 1923
DV: I always remember my mother in law saying “I don’t understand how he can always remember your birthday” I said “I keep telling him for 11 months of the year by the time it comes round he’s got it!”
FV: Got brainwashed mate!
TG: Date of birth, that’s Standon yes?
FV: Born at Standon.
TG: and you lived at Standon to begin with
FV: Until I was a year old
TG: and then you went to..
FV: Revels Hall, Bengeo. Near St Leonard’s Church
PR: Potter’s were there?
FV: Potter’s were there at one time yes, the girl Potter died there.
PR: Did she?
FV: Because Peter Potter was in our Rotary club. He’s dead I think Peter.
TG: Occupations with dates it says, you started farming ….
FV: I started farming on my own in 1942 on my own but I was just. I started working on a farm when I was 15.
TG: That would be 1933.
FV: Your maths are about right.
TG: 1933 …you were born in 1918 and in 1943 you had your own farm.
FV: Round about that time.
TG: or 1942
Indistinct
FV: Two children, two sons, five grandchildren.
TG: Wife’s occupation I think is obvious with you being a farmer!
FV: Farmers wife, unemployed .. ha ha
TG: Religion it says
FV: Church of England
TG: Parents’ occupation …you said JP didn’t you?
FV: No farmer, my grandfather……..
TG: Oh that’s right ..
PR: Stevensons
TG: I only bought one form so I will have to do another form when I get home or can it go on the same one?
FV: I don’t mind
Discussion
FV: September 19 .. 1923
TG: 1923.. you were born..
DV: Well I was born in Fulham
FV: Proper old Londoner.
TG: For a time you lived in.
DV: In Bengeo.
FV: Do you ever watch Eastenders?
TG: Yes we tried to explain Eastenders to some German people, we said do they have programmes like that in Germany? But they are not that typical real life Eastenders is really not that typical.
Cups rattle and discussion on Eastenders
TG: What school did you go to?
DV: That one behind us in London, went to a school nearby you know, and then of course Bengeo I went to Bengeo school.
FV: She was a scholarship girl.
DV: Came to Bengeo when I was five, there were the two Miss, whatever where their names, Miss Williams, they used to have the juniors the girls. There were two Miss Williams? And then I passed the scholarship and went to Ware Grammar, I stayed there till I was fourteen I think, then I got engaged to him when I was 18 got married when I was 19.
Transcribers Note: Miss Truss was the headmistrees of Bengeo Girls School at this date and Miss Williams was a teacher at the boys school so we think Doreen got the names mixed up.
TG: There you go
DV: There you go
TG: You’re your maiden name was Stevenson [discussion] may we use your contribution
FV: Yes I don’t think I have said anything that’s committed me.
[discussion]
FV: I don't know how much of it is history information.
[discussion]
FV: No we had in those days we had, we were farmers so you would go round the village, we collected for the Coronation you know and we had…. I think you paid so much a week, I remember going to a WI meeting and they had got it all out, they were going to give the kids a bun or something and I said for goodness sake double everything, they have paid the money I don't want any money left when this is over and Doris was quite alarmed I went to the WI and told them what I wanted.
We collected this and the people subscribed and we actually had a do at the mayflower afterwards dancing and fireworks down here, and the Mayflower finished up and I know I was absolutely knackered. We even had television up in the Village Hall, people hadn’t got television sets, there weren’t many around then. We paid for two televisions up in the school for the Coronation. We put in a lot of work in those days. Doreen went round I think to all the people that couldn’t go out. I think I still feel that’s what Rotary is if we can keep contact with people that need us. I have always said, I remember when I was president I said as far as I am concerned if 30 or 40 of us meet here we enjoy each others company and we get to know each other and half of us are in the Rotary Club I am not out to out do anything. I mean we do do things for catastrophes and things like that but we do do things like transport for blind people and those sort of things in Hertford, well you know, we have got old Henry Sargent now in…
PR: Oh have you got him?
FV: Yes, I mean look as regards politics and I have always said Henry was never political in my opinion he was a genuine man, I mean same as you, you might say you are Conservative but you do what you think is right for people.
PR: Just doing the job for the local people…..
FV: I am not political but I am very much, I think I am Labour at the moment. I think Blair’s doing a hell of a good job, but I am non political he has got a hell of a difficult job at the moment.
PR: Yes especially as how things are…
FV: With America, America is a little bit hot headed I am afraid but we have got to trust.
PR: Yes.
FV: But there you are, you saw those photographs there did you?
PR: Yes.
FV: They are some that have been taken recently they are. Couple of old biddies there.
[discussion]
FV: William is keen on bell ringing at the moment you see, he is a proper PRO he is.
Interference and tea cups rattling etc.
FV: Our little dog is 17 years old, I would say at the moment she is no credit to us at all, she’s really got a…. she eats well, she can’t bark, she’s very poorly but her stomach hasn’t been working, but I spent this morning forty-one quid on her.
On the food I go to the vet so I get pills and food which is special food for her, forty one quid, but I can’t grumble because I go across to the chemist and I am a diabetic actually and I get mine for nothing. [discussion] well I hope its been useful to you Peter.
PR: Super
FV: Someone has got a hell of a job of …
[discussion]
DV: You did get…
FV: ****
DV: No I was going to say you did get (the lady from Letty Green) didn’t you?
PR: Yes, yes.
[discussion about another recording]
FV: I mean you take old Arthur Knights, he’s 92.
PR: Yes.
FV: He still keeps coming to Rotary, he’s ninety two, it’s the only thing I wish he wouldn’t do now but we can’t persuade him not to. To try and give a talk, but he does get muddled up, I think it can happen to any of us now, I wouldn’t do it now, because you have got to… unless you wright it all down, I think as you get older you have got to…. I can answer your questions like that, if I was going to try and give a story I wouldn’t do very well. I mean I used to…I always said I would… even when I was with the Milk Board I could swot up things and I knew what I wanted.
PR: Yes.
DV: We’re good at that!
FV: I was good at that actually, though I say it I was good at that. One time the put a question out the gestation period of sort of a chicken to a donkey and I went through them like that, amazed myself with the education I had.
PR: Yes, he was impressed was he?
FV: Yes amazed what an old farmer could do I could actually..I think I have got, I think we all have, you know of what we are interested in. I have always said, even with kids, for goodness sake, find something to give them, you can make a kid good at something, it's worth something. I was much good there, but I was quite good at running guite good at sport. Old Gerry Motsam was the master, you remember him probably do you?
PR: Yes.
FV: He was a top head master, he would bring the best out of you. Caught me smoking one day and he made me feel like that (small)
DV: Didn’t give up though did you.
FV: I did then dear but I started again, but then I gave up smoking when I was 60, I haven’t smoked since I was 60. They kept me in bed for three days and said to Doreen ******* and he will give up. She would have two cigars before breakfast, Doreen would, we worked under that amount of pressure but you know, we have come through it.
PR: Cigars!
TG: Well they are not cigarettes after all are they?
DV: Used to enjoy them, Castellas I used to enjoy them, I would never smoke out socially …
[discussion about dentist]
FV: Thank you very much
PR: Thank you very much.
End of recording