Interviewed by
Date: 01/01/2012
Transcribed by Christopher Dent
NOTE: This is one of a number of self-recorded personal history transcripts. It is typed directly by the individual and, since it was not conducted by interview, is in a different format to that normally adopted by HOHG.
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O2012.4
Interviewee: Christopher Dent (CD)
Date: 2012
Hertfordian recollections (1954-1961)
Arrival (1954)
We [my parents, Arthur and Gwendoline Dent, and I] arrived in Hertford on a Thursday afternoon towards the end of August 1954. [Methodist ministers all begin in new appointments on 1 September.] We had travelled from Cowes in the Isle of Wight, where we had lived for the previous three years. We had only basic provisions with us and Thursday was early closing in Hertford. The town had a dead feeling. It was not an auspicious beginning! I seem to remember that even Christine’s café in Parliament Square was closed, so we couldn’t get a cup of tea. There were no other eating places in 1954.
The Methodist Manse was at 11 Queen’s Road, under the shadow of the Victoria tower of All Saints’ Church. I was just eight years old when we arrived and that early Edwardian house has, of all the many houses in which I have lived, always seemed to me most like home. Queen’s Road was a quiet and leafy road, leading down, past the Police Station, directly into Castle Street. The Manse had a very small garden at the front, but a long thin strip at the back, where, eventually, I cultivated flowers and vegetables in my own patch.
Our neighbours, at 9 Queen’s Road, were the Edwards family, mother and father, two boys and a girl, all under twelve. They were Roman Catholics and every Saturday morning the whole family would, as was the custom at that time, go to Confession at St Joseph’s in preparation for the Sunday Mass. It used to amuse us that the three children, who were quite boisterous, would confess their sins in the morning but be just as noisy and naughty on their return! After a year or two the Edwards family moved on and the Robinson family arrived from Lancashire. Barbara Robinson, a classics graduate, had been appointed headmistress of Ware Girls’ Grammar School at a very young age and was accompanied by her recently widowed mother and her disabled brother, Geoff. Barbara was a remarkable person who not only held down a very responsible job, but was also the devoted carer of her mother and brother. Later, when the demands of home became greater, as he mother aged, she resigned with regret from Ware and took an appointment at Broxbourne School where she was a colleague of Peter Ruffles. Barbara and Geoff later returned to Lancashire, where Barbara died, aged 90, in 2011.
Next door ‘up’ the road at no. 13 was Mrs Brettle Jollands, a widow from an old established Hertford family. Our first encounter was not encouraging, as she called to point out that our car was parked outside her house, but we later became good neighbours and I enjoyed visiting her, as her house contained many mementoes and pictures of old Hertford. She was one of the people who encouraged my growing interest in ancient monuments and historic buildings, lending me once, when I was ill in bed, the Hertfordshire volume of the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments. Mrs Jollands had a brother who was a Roman Catholic priest, Fr Evans. During our time there he died in his late eighties and, when his will was published, left £90,000, an unimaginable sum at that time.
Opposite no 11., on the corner of the road, was the large house, including the surgery, and garden of Dr Gregson Williams. He was our GP and by then, although well advanced in years, carried on his practice single-handed, as was often the custom. He was ‘on call’ day and night and once came across the road at night to visit me when I had an asthma attack. The house was a casualty of the inner relief road, and block of flats now occupies the site, but the gateposts remain, together with the fine copper beech in the garden. Dr Gregson Williams eventually retired and was succeeded in the practice by Dr Jory.
There was little traffic in Queen’s Road in the fifties. The milkman delivered daily, his ‘float’ being powered by a faithful horse. Shopping was all local in Parliament Square and Fore Street and at eight, I had complete freedom to roam where I wished at our end of the town. I was delighted when the ‘Bookworm’ opened in Parliament Square [there is an antiquarian bookseller there now] and spent all my pocket money on books, another indicator of my future interests. I learned to ride a bicycle in All Saints’ Churchyard, gingerly making my way down the road and around the corner, and returning in triumph the day that I had finally got my balance. There was little traffic, even in the main streets, although I can remember my parents’ frisson of anxiety when I reported that I had cycled down to my friend, Nick Bryant in Ware Road. What a major thoroughfare that seemed then!
My father, the Reverend Arthur J. Dent
Arthur Dent was the least pompous or pretentious person you could hope to meet. Born in 1905 at Cinderford in the Forest of Dean, he was the eldest son of a stonemason and builder, leaving school at 13 to be apprenticed in the electrical workshop of the local pit. Many people in Hertford were grateful for his continuing practical skills, installing fireplaces, building a brick fireplace for Eric and Flo’ Beetham at Rickneys [I saw it still in place in 2004.], mending roofs, building walls, repairing the radiators at church after they had frozen and burst in a sharp frost and all manner of other DIY tasks. [All these skills have, alas, passed me by!] Receiving a call to the Wesleyan Methodist ministry as a teenager, he first had to make up the deficit in his secondary education and subsequently trained for the ministry at Handsworth College, Birmingham. Ordained in 1932, he served in circuit in Cornwall, Waltham Cross, Liverpool, during the blitz, Ipswich [where I was born in 1946] and Cowes, Isle of Wight before arriving as Superintendent of the Waltham Abbey and Hertford circuit in 1954. He had oversight of a circuit of nine churches stretching down the Lea Valley, including Hoddesdon and Cheshunt where he had served as a junior minister before the war. The circuit superintendent up to that time had always lived at Waltham Abbey; father was appointed to Hertford because it was deemed that for a church in the county town, Hertford Methodist was rather in the doldrums with a membership of fewer than fifty. Although many remember my father for his practical skills, he was also a diligent pastor, with a very down-to-earth style and a notable preacher, dignified yet always able to relate to the everyday world and concerns of his congregation. His sermon illustrations were very often derived from his very varied experience of life and ministry. He always retained distinct echoes of his Forest of Dean accent. My mother, Gwen, a secondary trained teacher, supported my father loyally in his work at the same time as holding down part-time teaching posts first at Bayford, then at Longmore School, which was becoming part of the new Hertford Secondary School.
The old church
Listening to the recorded impressions of the old Methodist Church in Ware Road on tape recently, reminds me of just how dowdy and depressing that building had become. It was nearly one hundred years old, and whilst the exterior blended well with the surrounding townscape (so well that you could easily miss it altogether!), the interior was uninspiring and most of the original fittings were worn out. I recall a large vertical crack in the east wall, above the communion table and electrics which failed from time to time and certainly would not have passed contemporary health and safety standards. The attached schoolroom at the back was Dickensian, heated by ‘tortoise stoves’ which could fill the room with an acrid smoke when not adequately regulated. The kitchen and toilet facilities were practically non-existent. There was, I believe, general agreement among the membership that the building needed to be demolished and replaced. I do not remember a rearguard action, such as there might be today in our heritage-driven society to preserve the past.
The new church
I do believe that my father was instrumental, together with others, particularly Eric Beetham, in pushing forward the plans for a new church as a way of revitalising the Methodist presence in the town. We were still building new churches in the 1950s and 1960s, some of them to replace those destroyed or damaged in the war and the Methodist Connexion had an enlightened scheme which allowed the transfer of war damage grants (presumably governmental) from one area to another. Hertford was thus the beneficiary of a substantial grant once the need for a new church had been laid before the authorities in the London North-East district.
Father was also deeply involved in the building of a new Methodist Church at Enfield Lock, opened in 1957, and a new Methodist manse at Hoddesdon. It was an expansive era, but, even so, the building appeal for the new Methodist church required much effort and sacrificial giving on the part of the relatively small membership. The annual bazaars in the Corn Exchange and the talent scheme, in which I took part, have already been described by other on tape. I certainly remember Barbara Cartland’s visit, with her unforgettable pink presence, although I had no idea why she was a celebrity. Father was involved in commissioning the architect and in the planning stages of the new church and it was a great disappointment to him and to me when we moved on in 1961, two years before the new church was opened.
I first saw the new building on a visit to Hertford in 1964. It is a fine building, practical yet imaginative and one of the few buildings of the 1960s which has stood the test of time. The recent open foyer at the front seems to me a considerable improvement, opening up what was a rather forbidding west wall and harmonising well with the original structure. I can remember the consternation expressed by choir members when it was realised that they would be accommodated in a gallery at the back and would reach this by a spiral stairway, housed in a glass turret and surmounted by a slender copper fleche. The glass turret has been enclosed in brick in the recent improvements!
People
Two communities formed the basis of my circle of friends and acquaintances, school and church. Church and home were practically coterminous. The four participants on the tape – Roger Wood, Myrtle Pacey, Sally and Michael Searle were all well known to me as a boy. I attended Sally and Michael’s wedding, at which my father officiated, and the wedding breakfast following. Myrtle and Alf Pacey, Jack and Irene Francis, Mr and Mrs East, the Mannings, Mr A. Robinson (Christ’s Hospital bursar), Mrs Rush - all of whom are mentioned on the tape, were familiar faces to me as I was growing up.
Agnes Spencer, widow of the Revd Frank Spencer, former minister at Hertford, was, despite her meagre widow’s pension, very hospitable in her bungalow at Molewood. Eric Beetham of Rickneys, Chapmore End had married Flo’ shortly before our arrival and their daughter Hilary was born in our early years – my first experience, I think, as an only child, of encountering a new-born. Her arrival was greeted with great excitement in the church. Eric continued as a significant benefactor of the church throughout his life. His sister, Muriel lived in a flat in the Old London Road, was a very dear soul and deputised as church organist. Their other sister, Marjorie, was married to Leslie O’Connor, who was MD of the Coke Board, or some such, and was killed in an air crash at Panshanger in 1959, a great shock to the whole community when the news broke. They had two 2 children, Brendan and Caireen, and lived in a huge house, The Spinney, above the Ware Road, with magnificent gardens on the hillside, which they generously opened for a variety of church events. A small estate of houses now occupies the site.
Also prominent in the life of the church were the Taylor family: grandfather, Mr and Mrs Taylor and their three children, in their teens and twenties, Rosemary, Colin and ?Lorna. The Taylors had quite recently returned from some form of missionary work abroad. Rosemary and Colin [who lives now at Willington, outside Bedford] ran the Sunday School, to which I naturally belonged. Later, when they married and left home, Harry Headley took over as Sunday School Superintendent. He and his family were also pillars of the church. Their son, John, who died in 2011, was a Hertford town councillor for Sele ward and a railway enthusiast. He embraced many unpopular causes both as a schoolboy at Hertford Grammar School and as an adult.
In our earlier days, Charles Nield Adams and his wife, Grace, were also prominent members of the church. Mr (or Major) Adams was a representative for Phoenix glass. Their daughter, Cleone Gardner, married to Kenneth Gardner, Keeper of Japanese books and manuscripts at the British Museum, was until recently prominent in Hertford music. Two sisters, Frances Hobbs and Enid Watson, lived at the top of Queen’s Road, no 113, which I remember as a house of advanced modernity, with a copper roof. Enid was a teacher of English at Hertford Secondary School and Fran, originally a nurse, worked for Hertfordshire County Council social services, from which she was seconded for a year to work with the Save the Children fund, receiving Tibetan refugee children at Simla in North India. Both sisters were skilled at a variety of handicrafts and as early as 1954, they possessed a television, which did not arrive in our household for another decade.
Saturday evening visits to their house were a great treat. There were a number of families associated with Dr Barnardo’s at Goldings, the Easts, the Tordoffs and the Nunns. Among younger members of the church were Maurice and José Hedge. Maurice was a pharmacist, working for Smith and Nephew. One day Maurice suddenly appeared at our house in great distress. José had died in childbirth. This was probably my first encounter with the sudden death of a young person and was, as far as I was concerned, inconceivable. Maurice came to live with us for several months; one of many people to whom my parents offered hospitality over the years. Another young continent in the church during term time were the Methodist students from Balls Park Teacher Training College, who came for a social time and refreshments each Sunday evening following the evening service. They were sometimes joined by other young members of the church, but I was considered too young at that time to be part of the group. Like any church, Hertford Methodist had care of a number of needy people. I remember a family from Railway Street aptly and unfortunately surnamed the Wants, who were regular visitors at the Manse. ‘Little’ Miss White lived in the almshouses next to Abel Smith School and at Christmas and on other occasions I was despatched with a plated dinner for her from our kitchen.
Abel Smith School
When I arrived in Hertford, at the age of eight, I was at the transition between Infant and Junior school. Abel Smith School was a safe walk across the churchyard, which I made each day, morning and afternoon and lunchtimes on my own. I have no recollection of my beginnings there, but I was in Mr Ganderton’s class for one year and then two years in the ‘top’ class with Mr Eric Hall, because I was too young to take the 11+ after just one year. Mr Hall was an inspirational teacher, with an especial enthusiasm for geography and topography. I have a number of clear memories of the latter two years. One was of reading aloud around the classroom, which I enjoyed, because I could read well, but which was purgatory to some other members of the class who struggled. Bevis by Richard Jefferies was a particular favourite. Once a week there was class singing with Mr Reid, the Headmaster, with all the gusto of his Welsh roots. I also have various recollections of the playground, which sloped down towards the Ware Road. We were not admitted to the classrooms until the bell rang, and on winter mornings it could be bitterly cold and I can remember the pain of frozen fingers and toes. Two playground ‘crazes’ come to mind. One was the age old games of marbles and the other, racing our Maserati Dinky toy racing cars down the playground, until nearly all the paint had scraped off.
There were weekly trips down the hill to St John’s Hall for P.T. School dinners were also served there; but I went home at lunch time as it was only a five minute walk away. During my time there, a school uniform was introduced, a black blazer with the newly woven school blazer badge (the Abel Smith elephant head), which I still have.
We had a number of school visits. I well remember the visit to a small brickworks at Stony Hills, Stapleford; of seeing the clay being pressed into moulds and fired in the kiln. Bricks were still made by hand here until about 1960.
Foremost was the school journey, organised by Mr Hall in July 1956, from Tower Pier to Margate, by boat, the MV Royal Sovereign, through the London docks and the Pool of London, the day in Margate and the return journey by train through Kent. Mr Hall planned it meticulously and we had project books in which we noted the natural features of the landscape and all the vessels in the then fully operational London docks.
With about five of my contemporaries, I did well enough in the written 11+ examination in January 1957 to be called for interview at Hertford Grammar School. The day before the interview, our headmaster, Mr Reid, got the six of us together and informed us that he always liked to see his boys off to their interviews. I suppose it was a kind of ‘pep’ talk. The following morning, Nick Bryant, Neil Campbell and I, all of whom were to be at the Grammar School at 9.00 am prompt, met up in the playground at Abel Smith at 8.30 am. We waited around, couldn’t find Mr Reid anywhere and, eventually, at Neil’s suggestion, set out without seeing him, as we feared that we might be late. We arrived at the Grammar School, were duly ushered into what seemed the vast assembly hall, with portraits and silver cups on shelves and waited our turns for interview. We were still waiting when the next contingent from Abel Smith turned up. They brought dire tidings: that Mr Reid was absolutely livid that we hadn’t said goodbye to him, was breathing fire and fury around the school, and threatening to contact the grammar school and cancel our interviews. With this in the foreground of my mind, I went in for my interview with the Head, Mr Jack, and a senior master, Mr Palmer.
When all three of us had completed our interviews, Nick, Neil and I returned to Abel Smith in the greatest possible trepidation. Mr Reid was there at the front door waiting for us. His face was red with anger. He practically frog-marched the three of us to a small room at the back of the school, where he harangued us for what seemed ages about our despicable behaviour. We had let the school down, we didn’t deserve places at the grammar school, and, worst of all, we had insulted him. I think we were all pretty sure that we were going to get the cane, but Mr Reid relented when he saw how bewildered and contrite we were. What was almost worse was the way he treated us when we got back to the classroom, making it quite clear to all our classmates that we had committed a horrendous misdemeanour.
When I went home for lunch, I burst into tears and told my parents all that had happened. My father, who normally kept himself very much under control, was clearly very disturbed by my account of what sounded like intimidating behaviour by Mr Reid. Father never pulled rank, but this was an exception. Lifting the telephone, he insisted on seeing him as soon as possible. An interview at the end of the school day was arranged. I do not know what passed at that interview – in a later generation litigation might well have ensued – but at the end of the afternoon I caught sight of my father and Mr Reid, coming down the slope from the school across the churchyard deep in conversation. Father reported that it had all been settled and that I had nothing to be worried about. The next day, everything had returned to normal. Mr Reid smiled benevolently upon me, as he had done before, and a few weeks later I heard that I had been offered a place at the grammar school. I left Abel Smith that summer at the top of the class and with a prize, signed by Mr Reid, for excellent work.
The Grammar School
Hertford Grammar School (Richard Hale since 1967) was only just around the corner from our home in Queen’s Road. It was scarcely further to walk than the easy stroll through the churchyard to my junior school, Abel Smith. A short way along Castle Street, opposite the back entrance to the castle, a fine long driveway (now bisected by the inner relief road) gave access to the school, through gate piers and a lodge, at the top of a steady slope. The buildings seemed massive and impressive. There was a grand front entrance up a flight of steps in the centre of the main elevation of the building, which only prefects and masters were allowed to use. For juniors there were playgrounds at each end of the main building with entrances at each end.
The first year classes were named “second forms”, and I never discovered what the school imagined was the ‘first form’. The intake consisted of boys from Hertford and district, from Ware, Hoddesdon and Broxbourne and from as far distant as Sawbridgeworth, Bishops Stortford and Buntingford. The second forms of which there were three were divided alphabetically; in subsequent years there was streaming. I was in form 2i with boys whose surnames began with the letters A – F. Happily, my closest friends from Abel Smith were Nicholas Bryant and Neil Campbell, so all three of us were in the same class of about 35. Our form master was Mr R. R. (Bob) Young, who also taught us for English. He was then, I suppose, in his late twenties. I liked him; he seemed to be very fair, he was respected, kept order easily and had a real interest in his subject. He stayed at the school throughout his teaching career, only retiring in the 1990s. I also enjoyed being taught geography by Mr Martin, who despite his nickname “Masher” always seemed to me most benign and encouraging, although that was not everybody’s experience.
Among other masters from the early years, I recall the P.E. master, Mr Whitehead, another young man, who later became well known as an Olympic runner and finished his career directing the foundation for sport for the disabled. I think he must always have had a sympathy for those who were not physically robust. At that time, my health was not always good; I suffered frequently from asthma and from bronchitis in the winter. I never learned to swim, despite Nick Whitehead’s efforts; the water in the outdoor pool was freezing even in the midsummer and I was convinced that I would not float In winter, those who were not good at team sports were often sent on cross-country runs, so I seldom played rugby on the top field. I sometimes clocked up quite a good time around the course, and was never last, despite the fact that my lungs sometimes felt us if they were going to burst! In the summer, similarly, I was always sent off to play rounders, since my cricketing skills both with bat and ball were nil.
My real favourite was Mr Ronald Burrow (inevitably nicknamed “Bunny”), the music master. He was a recent graduate from Durham (I admired the furry hood!) and had only joined the school a year before I did. He was a huge enthusiast and enabler, who intended that every boy in the school should appreciate music. Playing recorded music in assembly, he introduced me to composers as diverse as Schubert, Stravinsky and Beethoven. When the new hall was built and an organ installed there (paid for by the Old Boys) he initiated my lasting delight in organ music and I can still recall his playing of Bach and of Samuel Wesley, there and on the fine Father Willis organ in All Saints’ Church. He made sure that as many boys as wished could learn to play instruments. I had already been having piano lessons for about five years and could read music. I began the cello and after a while played in the junior orchestra. I also found great pleasure in singing before my treble voice broke. I joined the school choir with Nick Bryant in my first year and Mr Burrow selected me for the Special Choir and the Founder’s Day choir, which sang at the annual service in All Saints, attired in their choristers’ robes. (Perhaps my romance with the Anglican tradition began here.) We sang Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, Brahms’ Song of Destiny, Parry’s Blest Pair of Sirens and works from the church repertoire, such as Wood’s O thou the central orb, Ernest Bullock’s Give me the wings of faith and Vaughan Williams’ Let us now praise famous men. All these works remain fresh in my memory and undoubtedly laid the foundation for a love of choral music.
Ronald Burrow and other staff members organised a number of school trips in which I look part. A party of us went the Royal Festival Hall in October 1958 to hear Pierre Cochereau, the organist of Notre Dame in Paris. One Saturday morning, we marvelled at the night sky at the newly opened Planetarium, next to Madame Tussauds in Baker Street. In 1960, a more ambitious outing took a coach load of us up the newly opened M1 motorway to Coventry. At the new cathedral, with its walls standing at roof height and to be opened two years later, we were met by the Provost, the Very Revd H.C.N. Williams, given a tour of the ruins, including the small crypt chapel which survived the blitz and the provisional Chapel of the Cross in the undercroft of the new cathedral. [I was disappointed to find it was now a chair store on a more recent visit!) We had time to visit the new shopping centre. It all felt like a brave new world, full of promise.
Other events
For the most part, my life, growing up in Hertford, was punctuated by regular activities and special events. Tuesday afternoons were ‘Church tea’ in the old schoolroom, Friday evenings, my piano lesson with Miss Sheila Metcalf, LRAM in Ware Road, followed by a visit to my friend, Nick Bryant and his family a little further down the Ware Road. We attended the annual Christmas pantomime in the Corn Exchange, in which Bill Reid, Headmaster of Abel Smith, was normally ‘The Dame’ and other productions of the H.D. & O.S. Occasionally, I went train spotting with other friends, either at Welwyn Garden City, or at Hatfield, both on the Great Northern Line. There we saw then last of the generation of steam passenger express locomotives, the new diesels and Deltic. My interest in ancient monuments and historic buildings was growing and I made frequent visits to Verulamium Museum and the excavations of a Roman shopping street. The Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban awakened my spiritual imagination and nothing has given me greater pleasure in the past decade than to be an Honorary Canon of St Albans. Two special musical events remain fresh in my memory. On a summer’s evening in c. 1960, in the Castle Grounds beside the River Lea, a group called The Elizabethans, performed Elizabethan and Jacobean jigs, 16th and 17th century music, Morris and Court Dances. On Midsummer Day 1961, shortly before we left Hertford, we drove out to Great Amwell, where a group of singers performed madrigals, including Silver Swan on the island by the New River springs. Our neighbour, Mrs Jollands, had encouraged us to attend and informed us that one of the singers was Roger Kirk, son of the Bishop of Oxford, a Haileybury master and shortly to move to Pocklington School, where I was to meet up with him a few months later.
Leaving (1961)
I had come to regard Hertford as our permanent home, and it was a terrible wrench to leave in August 1961. Father had stayed the then maximum of seven years and had been invited to a new appointment at Farnham in Surrey. I had secured a place at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford. One Sunday evening in June 1961, father received a telephone call requesting him to go to different appointment in the East Riding of Yorkshire, where the minister had been taken ill. We looked for Pocklington on the map and apprehensively, I perused the prospectus from Pocklington School, which had offered me a place. It felt like another country.
When not occupied with his ministerial activities, my father liked nothing more than tinkering with things mechanical, from clocks to the internal combustion engine. In the late 1950s, he obtained a pre-war Austin 7, which he kept on the church car park in Ware Road. He made valiant efforts to restore it to working order, but had to abandon it because he could not obtain the spare parts. Shortly after this he bought an ancient caravan, which also resided on the car park. Throughout the springs and summers 1960 and 1961, father stripped the caravan down to its chassis, carefully keeping all the fixtures and fittings. He then reconstructed the bodywork, but having insufficient aluminium sheeting, used hardboard for the sides, a grave mistake as it turned out. By the beginning of July 1961, the caravan was completed and a replacement car had been purchased, powerful enough, so it was thought, to pull it.
Following our sorrowful farewells at Hertford we set out for the previously unexplored north in the caravan. We spent the first night in the station car park at Matlock Bath, where passing mail trains throughout the night rocked the caravan from side to side. The next morning we began the ascent of Matlock Hill but, given the hardboard caravan’s great weight, the car proved lacking in sufficient power to pull it. Father and I jumped out and placing great boulders under the wheels to prevent it sliding back down the hill, made our way back down to a local garage where a pick-up truck was despatched to haul us to the top of the hill. We finally arrived in the East Riding of Yorkshire and spent a week on a caravan site at Bridlington before making our way to Pocklington. The caravan met its ignominious end as a chicken coup on a Yorkshire farm!
Christopher Dent
January 2012