Interviewed by Eve Sangster (ES)
Date: 02/06/2002
Transcribed by Juliet Bending
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O 2002.20
Interviewee: Albert Chapman (AC)
Date: 2.6.2002
Venue: 135 Trinity Road, Hertford Heath
Interviewer: Eve Sangster (ES)
Transcriber: Juliet Bending
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
(italics) editor’s notes
ES: This is Eve Sangster on Tuesday June 2nd 2002 at 135 Trinity Road, Hertford Heath, the home of Albert Chapman. We’re talking about the Cold Bath pub in North Road, on the site of the present Ebenezer Strict Baptist Chapel (and, in 2012, ‘The Ebe’ – Ebenezer Court, North Road). When did you move there?
AC: I left there 47 years ago.
ES: And did you go there as a newly-wed?
AC: Yes.
ES: So which bit of the Cold Bath were you in? Did you have rooms there?
AC: Upstairs.
ES: Was it like a self-contained flat?
AC: Just a room upstairs. A couple of rooms.
ES: Did they take lodgers, then?
AC: No, I happened to know’em.
ES: Oh, I see, and who were they?
AC: Mr & Mrs Bunce.
ES: Was it operating as a pub still in those days.
AC: Yes.
ES: Who was the brewer?
AC: McMullens.
ES: And did it carry on, then, until the building of Gascoyne Way?
AC: I don’t know, cos when I left there it was still there then but I don’t think it was more than 2 or 3 years - it shut then.
ES: There was a yard attached to it, wasn’t there? Have you seen this book? It’s about North Crescent, so it’s about that end of North Road. And you see here - this is a map of 1881 - I don’t know whether you can see it? - That’s the Cold Bath, where it says public house. Now this is the yard. What was in the yard?
AC: People used to park cars there. Little garages.
ES: So just like a barn, that kind of thing?
AC: I had a fruit stall there.
ES: A fruit stall?
AC: I’ve got a photo of it there. I sold to people who used to go to the hospital on a Sunday.
ES: Oh, so that’s you? Can I take a copy of this? I could bring it in to the fish shop, couldn’t I? Oh, thank you. It’s lovely. So you used to -
AC: - be a barrow boy.
ES: So you used to sell fruit mostly to people visiting the hospital? Right. So it was a biggish yard?
AC: Oh, yes. Quite big.
ES: ... Why do you think it was called the Cold Bath?
AC: I don’t know.
ES: There was nothing you saw? No. So there were just sort-of outbuildings in the yard, and the actual building itself, how big was it? I mean, what did it compare with? Did it have a dance hall attached to it or anything like that?
AC: Oh, no. Just a bar downstairs.
ES: Just a small pub, really.
AC: They had three children.
ES: Was it a pub just in the sense that it dispensed alcohol, and so on, over the counter or was it like a hostelry with rooms?
AC: No, no. Just an ordinary pub.
ES: O.K. Did the yard go right back to the river?
AC: I don’t think so. It went back but not that far back. No, definitely not.
ES: Jean Riddell, who wrote this book, she’s given me these questions to ask you. During the 1915 zeppelin raid one wing of North Road House was badly damaged and she wondered if there was any of that damage still visible or how it had affected the Cold Bath.
AC: No. No.
ES: know this is long before your time. What was between the Cold Bath and those two cottages -
AC: Just past the Cold Bath was a shop.
ES: That was between the two cottages that are still there now, where Eddie Roche was -
AC: Yes.
ES: There was Eddie and another one and another one.
AC: A shop.
ES: You don’t remember what that was called? Do you remember the name of the shop? (‘Dan’s Cabin? – attached at east end to Cold Bath Pub).
AC: No. It sold bits and pieces.
ES: What, like a grocer’s shop, that kind of thing? Yeah, O.K. Do you remember what rent you paid?
AC: Oh, no. (Laughs)
ES: No, these seem silly questions and yet they can be quite illuminating.
AC: I used to serve behind the bar, sometimes.
ES: Oh, did you. Can I ask when you were born? I mean, how old were you [during the Cold Bath years]?
AC: I was born in 1928.
ES: Oh, I see. You’re older than I thought. O.K., 1928.
AC: I’m 74.
ES: Are you? You’re doing well. Are you a Hertford man?
AC: No. Cockney.
ES: A Cockney, oh. It’s a bit difficult to tell a Cockney accent from a Hertford one.
AC: I came from Limehouse, London.
ES: Oh, a real Cockney. So, what brought you out here?
AC: Well, we were bombed and I got evacuated ...[incomprehensible bit of dialogue follows]
It’s so many years ago. Then we came back. Then I went to school, you know. And we were bombed out twice.
ES: When you say you came back’, you went back to Limehouse?
AC: Back to where my mother and father lived.
ES: And you were bombed out twice there, and then what?
AC: Then we came out here and got rooms in Hertford with Mum and Dad.
ES: And which bit of Hertford?
AC: Townsend Street; just down there.
ES: So, how big was your family?
AC: Only me and my C Just us three; Mum and Dad and me.
ES: I see. What was your father?
AC: Boilermaker.
ES: A boilermaker and could he get work when he came to Hertford?
AC: [incomprehensible] ... work on the boats, repair boats ... He still went back to London every morning. He never worked in Hertford.
ES: So then what happened? Did you stay in Townshend Street until you got married?
AC: Oh, no. No. We moved. We went to Railway Street.
ES: Of course, rooms were very short, very difficult to get hold of. And what happened eventually? Did your parents go back to London but you stayed out here?
AC: Me Mum died. We lived down ... for good then.
ES: Oh, you moved into Hertford for good, yes. What was your mother? Did she have an occupation?
AC: She used to be a waitress. ...
ES: And did she work in Hertford at that?
AC: Yes.
ES: Where did she work?
AC: Some restaurant near the War Memorial.
ES: Oh, what, Christine’s?
AC: Yes ...
ES: So then you met your wife.
AC: I was working at the fish shop then. And she came by the shop and we used to put a bit of fish by - fish was so scarce - and she come by and asked for smoked haddock and we said, Sorry, we hadn’t got any and she come by again and we put some on and she said, No, keep it. So, I found out where she lived - Hertford Heath - so I took some up there ... and we went out a couple of times, then I found that she was engaged. So I said, "I can’t come here no more," and she said, "O.K", and [then] she come round the shop and said, "Want to go with me?" and I said, "Yes", and she said "I’ve packed my engagement in to go with you" She lived about, oh, ten minutes away from me in London and I never knew it.
ES: Really? And had she been evacuated as well?
AC: No, no.
ES: Oh, so that was quite a nice story, really ... What school did you go to? Did you go to one in Hertford?
AC: Yes. The big one up by the fire station. Stalley was the headmaster.
ES: Yes, the Cowper School. Everyone remembers Mr Stalley. Did you enjoy it?
AC: Yes, all right.
ES: So you were 15, I assume, when you left?
AC: No, I started work when I was 14.
ES: And where did you work?
AC: I first started as Simson Shand ... Then I had a job offered me at Claydon’s, a trade boy. I went there. I went to Donoghue’s at Ware. Then I went from Donoghue’s at Ware to a factory for a year. Then - ? - come after me. I was there 16 years. Then Donoghue’s come after me and I went back there.
ES: Why is that called Claydon’s? Is that after an original owner?
AC: Yes, years ago that used to be called Claydon’s. I think Donoghue worked for Claydon’s and ... kept the trade name.
ES: [pointing to the photo of Albert with his barrow] So this was just a bit of enterprise on the side, was it?
AC: Yes. Thursdays I used to supply the Three Tuns with a bit of ... veg. I sold flowers sometimes
ES: Did you go up to the markets to get the veg?
AC: No, I used to get them off Taylor’s, the greengrocers, you know.
ES: Did you have a cry’ for the stall? Were you one of those chaps, you know, "Two pounds for -
AC: "Come and get it!" Yes, sometimes.
ES: It’s quite nice to hear those old cries now, don’t you think?
AC: Yes, yes. I did well there for a couple of years.
ES: So you’ve really always been in fish?
AC: Near enough, yes.
ES: Now is there anything else about the Cold Bath? I mean, how do you remember it?
AC: Just an ordinary pub, you know. Mr. Abbotsford used to come in there ... I sold a bit of fruit in there, as well, if I had some left over, sold it cheap.
ES: You said you moved out 47 years ago. How long were you there, you reckon?
AC: About 3 or 4 years.
ES: I suppose, as it is now, that was still quite a posh part of town?
AC: Well, half and half, I think.
ES: Yes, I mean, North Road Crescent now, the other side of the road, is quite posh. But it wasn’t so then?
AC: No, not really, Big houses -
ES: - but divided up.
AC: But we had some good times, good laughs.
ES: Did you? You said your mother was a waitress. What did your wife do?
AC: She worked at Addis’s ... That’s my wife there, when she was younger (points to photo).
ES: Yes, very good looking.
AC: Isn’t she lovely? ... That’s another one there.
ES: What was her name?
AC: Kit. Catherine.
ES: Yes, she was beautiful.
AC: She was a darling.
ES: Was she? How long have you been on your own?
AC: 16 years now. I keep it nice, don’t I? (referring to the house)
ES: Yes, you do. ... Did you come here straight from the Cold Bath?
AC: No, not here. I got a flat in ... and then we moved here.
ES: And have you still got a lot of relatives up in London?
AC: I haven’t seen or heard of them at all...
ES: Cos, I mean, Limehouse has changed, hasn’t it? Which road used you to live in?
AC: No.35 Locksley Street.
[some chat about the roughness of the East End and the subsequent gentrification]
ES: When you came out to Hertford, did it seem very different? Was it like being in the country almost?
AC: Yes, to what it was up there, yes.
ES: Can you remember your first impressions of Hertford?
AC: Strange, everything seemed strange to what it was up there.
ES: Of course, Railway Street had been cleared by then, hadn’t it? All those slum dwellings, and so on, that was cleared in the 30s.
AC: They had a workhouse, didn’t they. Near the blacksmith’s? Up the yard there, one up the yard there. I think so ... Where the fried fish shop was. (A lodging house/hostel – Fishers).
ES: Yes, going up towards Warren Place.
AC: There was one there.
[Eve says her bit about the Union Workhouse being where the Police Station now is]
ES: Did you have any children?
AC: Yes, one daughter and a boy.
ES: Do they live locally?
AC: My daughter’s round the corner and my son lives at Harlow.
ES: Oh, well, that’s not too bad.
[Albert tells of his daughter’s hospital appointment]
ES: I feel you must have loads to tell me if only I knew what questions to ask you. [silence] So how long have you worked in the fish shop, this one
AC: I’ve been back ... I got a gold watch on my retirement.
ES: Oh, but you still go in. Trying to get another one!
AC: I do half past six to one on a Thursday and Friday. Quarter to five Saturday morning. Get picked up by taxi at quarter to five. Work to one o’clock.
ES: I suppose you’re a bit of a draw at the shop, aren’t you? Has it always been so flourishing? I mean, it’s going through a very good period at the moment, isn’t it?
AC: It always has its ups and downs; you can never tell, you know. The road works didn’t help a little while back, did they?
ES: No, I’m sure they didn’t. And partly, I suppose, it’s the fashion in food, isn’t it?
AC: Yes, a lot of people eating fish now.
ES: What’s it like at the back.
AC: ... Just a little yard, really.
ES: Well [forlornly], is there anything else you want to say for posterity? When you looked out of your bedroom window, you two, what were you looking at? ... You looked out over the yard, yes.
[some indistinct chat about Mrs Bunce, the landlady, and then the photo in Jean’s book of the Cold Bath and the size, dampness and age of the inn is discussed]
AC: ... cos when I had my fruit stall he used to have pear trees in his garden and he said to me, "Would you like some for your stall?" and I got them sold and then he came and said how much he wanted for them and he wanted more than I’d got for them. Was it Evans? (Harry Evans)
ES: Oh, you’re talking about the vicar. There was a chap called Evans there [is this 4 North Rd?], you’re right. Yes, yes, I don’t think he was a practising vicar - doesn’t sound as though he was.
AC: You used to see him up the hospital a lot.
ES: Perhaps he was sort-of the padre for the hospital.
AC: They said he used to go up there and eat some of the fruit when he was talking to them.
ES: What a hoot! ... Yes, Evans, that was the name. He was interested in buildings, architecture.
[another look at the photo of Albert as a barrow boy ends the interview]