Interviewed by Frances Green (FGG), Trish Goldsmith (TG)
Date: 18/07/2023
Transcribed by Frances Green (using Otter.Ai for initial transcript)
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O2023.3
Interviewee: Jane Chaplin (JC)
Date: 18th July 2023
Venue: Hertford
Interviewer: Frances Green (FGG), Trish Goldsmith (TG)
Transcribed:Frances Green (using Otter.Ai for initial transcript)
Formatted by: Frances Green
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
FGG: Right. Okay, so it is Tuesday the 18th of July 2023. And Trish Goldsmith and I, Frances Green are here with Jane Chaplin. And we are at Jane's home Grove Cottage, which is at the bottom of Port Hill, leading up to Bengeo. And the idea of the recording today is twofold, really. First, we've got a fantastic recording from Jane’s mother, Peggy Melville, that's already in our archives. And that only goes so far, and then stops tantalisingly short of Jane appearing on the scene. So we would like to make good that deficit. But also Jane and Harold are very kindly hosting the 2023 garden party this year for Hertford Oral History Group, and so we'd like to learn a little bit about the house and the gardens and other houses in the area that Jane's family are linked with.
So we're going to start by introducing Jane and saying, Jane, if you could tell us a little bit about where we are sitting now, and your family history with the house and other houses in the locality, that will be great.
JC: Okay, well, we're at Grove Cottage, which is the bottom of the hill and used to be two cottages, which you can see in various parts of the house where the back to back staircases were. And we think it was a continuation of George Street down there, but we can't find any maps to prove it before the railway line came. So, it was built in about 1829. And it was converted into one house in 1840, so not long afterwards. And whoever did that made a way onto Port Hill by chopping the cottage, the end cottage, in half. If you look at the little cottages there, the end cottage is only half a cottage - very tiny - to make a driveway out. So there must have been a way down there. But it was made into one house in 1840, as I said, and bits added on gradually over the years. But the rooms here are much smaller than The Grove. They're quite cottagey. And we don't know anything about it as two cottages that we can find out.
When I was a child, my uncle lived here, my father… Well, going back, my grandparents moved to Whitacre at the top of the hill in 1929, I think, when my father was a teenager. And he always felt that there were certain people who said ‘you're not a Hertfordian because you weren't born here’, although he was passionate about Hertford and really felt very strongly that Hertford was his place. But no, he wasn't born here. He was born in Palmers Green, I think. Anyway, they moved to Whitacre in 1929. Now, I don't know how my grandfather acquired both these houses. I guess the price of houses was very different in those days. They were both lived in by single ladies who died. And my grandfather moved his office during the war out to The Grove, the house up there. So it's all been reinforced in the cellar to take all the filing cabinets and stuff that he had there. And he said he would give that house to his first son to get married. My father was an identical twin. And he got married six weeks before his brother Ron. So he got that house and then Ronald got this house, and we ended up as children with an amazing childhood because we lived there my cousins lived here. My grandparents lived at the top. We had the run of all this space. And my memories is just playing outside, building camps in the garden and living outside all the time, really.
FGG: And just for the record, so anybody who doesn't know the location… when you say up there, meaning The Grove, can you sort of place it for somebody who's new to the area.
JC: Did you walk up a drive? [we drove]. There are steps up to The Grove from Port Hill. But the driving access is in Port Vale and there is a drive, a gate, just opposite Millmead School, or just by the barrier, which says The Grove and that is a drive up to The Grove. And then there's a fork up to Whitacre, which also has an entrance at the top of Port Hill.
FGG: So does the land from the two houses abut each other?
JC: If you look out the window through the trees there see The Grove? Two minutes’ walk. And over the other side you can just see the top of my son's house which is built on the kitchen garden over there [in the garden of Jane and Harold’s house]. And then at the very top of the hill, I don't know if you have already interviewed Geoffrey and Faye Thornton, who live at Whitacre?
FG: Um…
TG: Not sure.
FG: We can't remember offhand.
JC: He was a member of the Civic Society and she was involved with things with my mother. I
TG: I don't think we have. They’re not on my lists.
JC: If you have, you will have all the details of these houses that I don't have in my head. But Jeffrey has in almost every brick, because yeah, they were built, there was a clay pit over the other side of this patch in which is now Archers Close. And all the bricks for the whole of Port Vale and these houses came from there, [Wow] so they're very similar yellow brick.
FGG: I wondered about that, the yellow brick.
JC: Yes, so this house and The Grove, and all the places in Port Vale came from that came from the clay bricks there. But Whitacre is completely different. We can't take people up there because it's not ours anymore. But it's like a house from the southern states of America - white with a big veranda. And, yes, my grandparents lived there until they moved away in, we think, the late 50s. It's vast. [laughter]. You know, all these sorts of servants’ quarters and things.
And so my uncle, who by then I think was Sir Ronald Melville, didn't want to live below his brother and moved up to the top. And my father bought this house off him in the hopes that one of us would live here one day. We did live here for 18 months in 1973. But then, you know, you don't when you're first married, you didn't really want to live next door to your parents. So Harold got a job the other side of London pretty quickly. And we moved to Kingston where we lived for 21 years.
We came back here in 1994 to look after my parents who were by then…well, actually, my father died just before we arrived. But I had seven years with my mother, which was lovely because I had been sent away to school and I'd been at university. I really had lost touch with her and had a very special time with her. And that was when she was interviewed by the Oral History Group.
FGG: That's a nice connection. Yes, that's lovely. Yes. So The Grove, who is there now in The Grove?
JC: Two of my sisters… my two sisters live there. And my younger sister’s partner. Not all the time, they both have a house in London. Yes, it was a pretty strange thing to do, I suppose. My mother died in 2003. And I think you'll see when you go around the place that is a rather a special place, which we find… You know, we should have moved away from here long ago. It's completely crazy. But it's got so many, so much nostalgia, so much history. And we know that when it is sold it will all be built all over, probably. And so between my sisters and my brother, we managed to hang on to The Grove, which I'm not part of any more, because this is our house. But my brother still has a share in The Grove as well. And so they manage to keep it up, partly by letting the Lodge, which was a gardener's cottage, down at Port Vale which sort of helps pay for the garden and the upkeep of things. That's another thing actually to mention - when my grandparents were… when I was a child, there was a lodge at Whitacre and a lodge down there owned by the family with two full time gardeners living there. And the days when I suppose you could do a certain amount of gardening instead of [paying] rent, maybe, I don't know. But the whole place was pretty immaculate. We can't manage that anymore.
FGG: No, but rewilding. It’s the thing?
JC: Exactly. We do a lot of rewilding, and I love it. [laughter]. But yes, I can remember gardens and then I think the Whitacre Lodge was probably sold by my uncle a long time ago. It's a large house, a private house now. But the lodge at the bottom of The Grove drive, which still belongs to The Grove, had the gardener living there to… well, until very recently. Actually the law changed; you can't do rent instead of gardening any more. Not surprisingly, really. But I can remember lovely gardeners - very much part of my childhood, [xxx unclear] down there. And then when I suppose probably when I was just coming back here with my own children, there were Spaniards, I don't know how many Spaniards have lived there. You know, lots of Spaniards and Italians came to work in the greenhouses.
FGG: Yes. All down the Lee Valley..
JC: And, I mean, there's are still some living here who I knew. And I mean, there was a caravan in the garden and countless people living there at one stage, I think, and making their own wine literally, with their feet. They would get massive amounts of grapes and then keep this pretty disgusting wine in the cellar, which they always, you know, gave us very freely. But it was that was part of my childhood,
FGG: I'm seeing Jane in the new light now!
JC: Yes, particularly Joe Hosé. He was completely illiterate. And probably his Spanish was probably fairly unintelligible. His English was not much good. But he and my father got on so well. And he was strong as a horse and everything he touched grew, and the vegetables were fantastic with Joe doing it…Sorry. I'm getting a bit off the point now. But so, that's probably enough on the houses at the moment. But it'll come up when I talk about my childhood I guess.
FGG: Yes. So. I'm just imagining what guests at the party will see. Oooh, look. Should we pause it?
[Jane’s son Sam appears outside the window].
JC: Yeah. Sam wants the car? Yes. Sorry.
FGG: I’ll just stop it. Yeah. Do you need to do anything?
[recording resumes]
FGG: Yes, carry on.
JC: Well, they will come up and they can. I mean, they my sisters are quite happy to be around as well. So they will show you The Grove. I think they will be around anyway. They know about it.
TG: Is that at the party?
JC: Sorry?
TG: When we have the party?
JC: Yes.
TG: That would be interesting.
JC: And I'll have to check with Sam whether… I'm sure he'll be happy for you to wander…
FGG: Wander over?
JC: Well, maybe not wander right through the garden. It rather depends what they're doing.
FGG: Sure.
JC: But to wander and see what’s there now.
FGG: Yes. And the names of your sisters for the record?
JC: My sisters. My eldest sister Katie. Katie Melville. [Yes]. And my younger sister Miranda Melville…
FGG: Fantastic.
JC: …will be there. Yes. And Nigel. Well, no, he'll probably be in hiding. [laughter].
TG: Yes, so there's a brother as well?
JC: Yes, I have a brother Antony. Yes. He was, you know, the longed-for son.
TG: And is he local?
JC: Well, no, he lives in Oxford, but he is married. Second marriage to Jane Crawley who lives in Hertingfordbury.
TG: Right.
JC: She's… they still have a house in Hertingfordbury which they're trying to sell but yeah. Yes. I wouldn't be surprised if her parents haven't been interviewed Peter and Joan Crawley. Joan Crawley was a doctor.
TG: Yes. I think so.
JC: So they will probably be interested to see beyond that little summer house because that was the railway line?
FGG: Yes. Yes.
JC: The railway went from Hertford North to Hertford East.
TG: Cowbridge. Cowbridge Station?
JC: Yes. And I can remember it as a child, the chuffer train going along. And I think I'm told that every Christmas list I put I wanted to be a boy. And I think the main reason was because my cousins - I had twin cousins who lived here - were allowed to go on the engine and the girls weren’t. [sighs]. The girls had to sit and watch while the boys went on the train. Yes. But it went along there. My mother was convinced that she was always woke up at three o'clock in the morning because that's when the train chuffed by. But when it stopped, I'm not sure. Do you know?
TG: I did look this up. I mean, the line closed in the…50s 60s. Something like that.
JC: Yes, yes.
TG: I mean, we moved here in [19]77. And Cowbridge station was still there. And there were a few trucks and things at the station. But it hadn't been operating for a long time. I think it sort of closed down in 60s.
JC: Yeah. So I was born in 1947. And so, yes, my memories as a child would have been...
TG: Yes, I mean, there would have been trains going by until probably the late 50s. Probably.
JC: It was just a goods line it think?
TG: It was. I think it was only ever a goods line. It was never a passenger line.
FGG: Oh, was it not?
TG: No. It just joined the two… Hertford East and Hertford North. The two different railways.
FGG: And so I understand that it went under your driveway?
JC: Well, it went under The Grove driveway.
FGG: Under The Grove driveway. Right. Got you. Yeah, okay. Yes. Yeah.
JC: And that still has a bridge roadway. [Yes, OK]. So there's the Byde Street [Balfour Street?] bridge and then The Grove. Yes. Which has a two ton limit on it, which makes… made it pretty difficult for my son to build the house. [Yes]. That was thanks to the person who owns it at the moment. I don’t know how much I'm allowed to say?
FGG: No. Well, we'll probably move on then. [laughing]. So the decision to build the new build, which people will see when they come to the party… can you talk us through, you know, maybe the children that you have and how the decision was made to build?
JC: Yes, we have two children. Fiona is about 50, who is an artist and lives in London. Walthamstow. Loves Hertford, but definitely doesn't want to live here. She's a Londoner. Sam, he’s a musician who's two years younger. That was him you saw just then. He also married to a musician. He's a jazz musician. She's a Baroque oboe player. And they lived in Barnes. And we didn't even know …I mean, Sam and Fiona used to spend a lot of their summers here when we lived in Kingston, so they knew the place pretty well as children, and have always been backwards and forwards.
Ah that's Clara. I'm probably just..
FGG: Well, no, don't worry. [pause in recording]
JC: You can be thinking what you would like to ask.
[pausing of recording]
FGG: Right. So we're just resuming and Jane is telling us about her own children and the new build on the land around Grove cottage.
JC: Yeah, well, at one stage, I think they were looking at one of the houses on Port Hill, that backs onto our garden. And because they looked, they were living in Barnes, and they'd looked around south London and there was nowhere that they could possibly afford to live. And so the idea came up here, which we were thrilled about. I'm not quite sure why we didn't go with us building something small somewhere else, and them living here, but that's history.
And so it was a much bigger job than anyone planned, partly because of the problems with the railway bridge, partly because of COVID in the middle of it. And it took much longer and got much more complicated than we had thought, but actually, it's been a huge success now. Drained everyone's coffers, but it's lovely for us to have them here and it works pretty well both ways as you can see. We get a lot of childminding, but we love it. Yes.
TG: So access to that house is from Port Vale?
JC: yes, from The Grove drive as well. Yeah. Yes. So two houses going up there. And, yes, it's interesting, it's very interesting architecturally as well.
FGG: And when you say it's interesting, was that part of the plan when you built?
JC: Well, my younger sister Katie was an architect. And she, but then she became a landscape architect, because she was not brilliant at heights. That's what she says. But so she has a lot of architectural connections. So the architect for that house was somebody she had done landscape with a lot. And the people who did the landscape were actually the firm that she used to work with. So there was sort of quite a lot of things in the family already to do something. And obviously, it took a couple of goes before planning permission… before it was actually agreed that you could put something that wasn’t like a Georgian house on there. And I think Peter [Ruffles] came to see the plans and things at one stage. And yes, no, it's been… yes, obviously, there's been teething problems, but we had to put special things over the bridge and all the rest of it. But it's a big success all the way around. So we love it.
FGG: Fantastic.
JC: Because they're both musicians, they can sort of work from anywhere. And that's, yeah. The children are happy in local schools.
FGG: Very good. No, it seems to have worked extremely well.
JC: Yes, yes. Yes. Obviously, no one knows what the long term future of this place is. We keep … at the moment [laughter].
TG: So looking at my crib sheet, I mean, you were actually born in Hertford? So you’re a Hertfordshire hedgehog?
JC: I was born at Hertford County Hospital…
TG: So you’re a Hertford hedgehog, yes?
JC: I think we were all born in Hertford County Hospital. So was my daughter, Fiona. She was one of the last babies to be born there.
TG: Yeah, so um, so that would have been about [19]81 that she was born? ‘82?
JC: No, she was [19]73. So she wasn't one of the last then?
TG: No, because my son was born there. And he was born in ‘81.
JC: OH right. Okay.
TG: So.. but it closed about a year later, I think about [19]82.
JC: Okay, right no, she was born in ‘73. So, no, definitely not the last.
FGG: I think one just before we leave the environment of the house, we just wanted to ask about the Quaker burial ground, didn’t we?
TG: Oh, yes.
FGG: Yes. So Peter, Peter rather tantalisingly said, ‘Ask about the Quaker burial ground’.
TG: It's not across the road?
JC: It's as you go down, well… as you come up the drive. It's on your right.
TG: Okay.
JC: That wall … the wall of the drive is the wall of the Quaker burial ground.
TG: Right.
FGG: And there’s little steps up?
JC: The steps go up to The Grove.
FGG: Oh, yes.
JC: So, so it's the next …There's a wooden gate. Well, there's all the rubbish before people's bins. And they're all the wall of a Quaker burial ground. And between us and what was the vets or was the pub is the burial ground. which is one of … we've got a very old map on the wall outside there, and you can just want to ….
[moment of overtalking]
FGG: Yes. We'll photograph it on the way out, but it sounds very good.
JC: But you can have that sort of thing for people on show.
TG: Yes, yes, that would be good. Perfect.
TG: So the Quakers were not allowed to bury their dead in the town. It was outside the town at the time. And it they were in the 60s, I think there was… the Quakers were selling burial grounds up and down the country, which I think they probably will regret now. But and so my father bought it in the 60s sometime. I think probably to prevent it being built on or something. Then the plan was that they would build a little retirement house there. But they tried making it into an orchard initially and realised that it was a frost pocket and nothing would grow there. So they didn't think they really want to live there either. And so it's rewilding.
FGG: Brilliant.
JC: It is. It's a wonderful wildlife haven. You know, there are badgers and foxes and squirrels and…
FGG: Fantastic
JC: …everything. But we do have to look after the walls. The Quakers have got all the…
FGG: The headstones? I was going to ask about the headstones
JC: Yes. The headstones are all in the Quaker garden. And actually, I tell you what happened to my parents. They hit the buffers because of… it's so difficult to build on a burial ground without all sorts of removal of the bodies obviously. My father had a lot of correspondence with.. I think it was called The Necrophiliac Society… something rare anyway. Anyway, it was proved too complicated. I mean, I'm sure they must have been built on all up and down the country actually. But it's complicated. So it's, you know, that's not to say something won't be done with it one day. I mean, I know all the neighbours would love to just park their cars there which might solve some of the problems on Port Hill, but it’s a lovely wild space.
FGG: I know you're very… sort of, you don’t want to see any of those spaces disappear really, do you?
JC: No. At the moment, no, it does belong to us still. We're not doing anything with it.
TG: Sell it to somebody like the National Trust as a green space?
JC: Well, yes. And the beautiful walls, and we've got a map of all the burials. The last burial was a Graveson in 1939, I think.
FGG: A Graveson, right.
JC: But that's not to say, you know, the people who have looked at it and said, you might find that there's a plague pit there as well. But a lot of these places have got lots of bodies that are not actually written down. So but well, nobody has ever looked. So…
FGG: No, no. Right. How interesting.
JC: Exactly. [laughter] It does grow wonderful blackberries.
FGG: Well, very fertile soil I would think?! [laughter]
JC: Yes, there are some very beautiful cherry trees which are self-sown there I think.
FGG: Yes. Well, with global warming, it may be less of a frost pocket.
JC: Yeah, yes. It might be.
FGG: Well, we'll look forward to the orange tree orchard.
JC: Yes, well nothing’s happening at the moment.. I didn't know what he wants to know?
FGG: I think it's more sort of because it's a little piece of land and people [at the party] might think ‘Well, what's that?’
JC: Yes. People. Every now and then they come and say, ‘can we have it?’.
FGG: So can… is it still, although it's owned by you, can members of the public access it? Or is it all walled off?
JC: It’s all walled off.
FGG: Yes. So it is secluded.
JC: Yeah, yeah. You'd have to ask. Yes.. I mean, the gate did blow down in a storm this year. But it's back.
FGG: She said firmly! Right. So Trish, do you want to…
TG: Yes. I’ll take over and say: Where did you go to school?
JC: Where did I go to school? Well, my first school was Miss Button’s, which was an outhouse of the Mayflower Hotel, which was opposite the North Station.
TG: Ah right.
JC: And it was a tiny little school run by Miss Button. And Madame Long, who was French, she taught us French from a very early age. And my memories mainly are of being absolutely frozen. And having little bottles of frozen milk and trying to get near a big boiler, which was the only warm place, um, writing in chalk on slate. And we went there till I was nine I think and then I went to Duncombe School. And ran through the Whitacre garden and came home to lunch. I always came home to lunch.
TG: Yes, you did in those days. I did too. Yes,
JC: Yes,. And I've still got friends from…
[mobile telephone rings]
FGG: Do you want to catch that Jane?
JC: Can you pause it. Sorry about that?
FGG: No worries.
[recording paused and resumed]
FGG: Yeah, yes, we have the frozen bottle of milk and then yeah, you were….
JC: ..at the school with Miss [Norah] Bees and Miss {Lily] Taylor, Mrs Ledingham…and I’ve still got friends from both schools. But we were very self-contained. Because my cousins lived here, we didn't really need anybody else. Then I was sent away to boarding school at 11, a place called Downe House near Newbury in Berkshire and so I had nothing much to do with Hertford. It's quite strange, but that's what my family did in those days. My brother was sent away at eight. And actually, I mean, I have quite fond memories. I didn't hate it. I wasn't sporty, but there was a very… it was very… my parents chose it because it was very good for music. There was a lot of music and it was in the countryside and we were allowed to have bikes and go wherever we liked on our bikes. Ascension Day holiday - you could go… as long as we didn't quite go down to the A4 and cross the Bath road. It was wonderful actually. Yeah. And so I have and I think it was fair that I had a wonderful French teacher which started me off on languages and she was an absolute dragon but she was obviously a very good teacher and we learnt in a strange way. We loved her also because she was also an astronomer. So although officially after dark we weren’t allowed out of our bedrooms but she got special dispensation if we'd been good at French to take us out if we wanted to look at the stars. So I learned my constellations. Great, quite special.
TG: How did you get to Newbury? Did you go by car or did you have to go by train?
JC: We went by train with our trunks – passenger’s luggage in advance. PLA.
TG: That’s right. Yes, yes.
JC: By train, but then I suppose my parents visited, I think twice a term or something. But they wrote letters. My father…my father wrote letters in quadruplicate because there were four of us. So he had carbon paper and you took it in turns to get the bottom copy. My brother got it. We all got that separately, but he wrote every week. Lots of people parents didn't write them really at all. So it was quite special. But I still got some of them - almost illegible things. Um, yes, so that wasn't…
TG: So that was until what age?
JC: ‘Til A levels, um, 17, 18.
TG: And then?
JC: And then I did a year out. But then I’d decided I wanted to do languages. But they didn't do German A level at my school. So I went to Germany to stay with a family and did German A level by correspondence course from Germany.
TG: Fascinating.
JC: It's funny because I've just recently connected up with the daughter who is my age. And we are… having been, you know, just Christmas and birthdays for years, we went to stay with them and are What'sApp-ing the whole time. It's lovely.
TG: Whereabouts in Germany?
JC: Near Heidelberg. Her father was the pastor of a tiny little village church. And yes, I had I had a very good time there. And I went back to take my A level German. And then I went to Edinburgh University to study French and German. And that's where I met Harold…
TG: That was going to be the next question!
JC: … who was from St Albans. And we met, I was organising a Rag Week concert. And I tried to sell him a ticket and he said ‘Oh, I'm singing in that concert’. He was singing with the Edinburgh University Singers. And we met at the party afterwards. And the rest is history. I discovered that his aunt - his mother's sister - was a friend of my mother's. And his father's brother was a friend of my father's and, I mean, extraordinary. He was the missing link because his sister lived in Bengeo, Bengeo Old House by St. Leonard's. And the Chaplins, his father's family, were in Little Berkhamstead.
FGG: But you'd never met before?
JC: No, we'd never met before, he was the missing link between the families.
TG: Incredible.
JC: So it sounded rather meant at the time [laughing]. Then, yeah, then we had…we were married as students, which my parents were a bit shocked about but Harold’s mother had then.. had waited for 15 years for her husband to propose. And then he had a stroke when Harold was four, and so she looked after an invalid husband for years and years and years. She said ‘Go for it!’ [laughing].
So we married and we had our first year as students when I was at teacher training college up there. And Harold was studying French and History at the time [at Edinburgh] having done French and music at Glasgow and hated it. And then we had a flat at the top of Harold's mother's house in St. Albans, which is where I learned how to cook because my mother was not a great cook I don’t think. But Harold’s mother was a fantastic cook. And we always thought she should have been Delia Smith because she could tell you what she was doing while she was doing it. And I just listened.
FGG: Enviable.
JC: Yes. And then we came here for, for eighteen months. My parents were really keen that we should come here. I mean, this house had been let initially to lovely families that my children sort of grew up with in the garden. And then it had to be short term lets and I think lots of dubious things went on here. And I keep meeting people who said, ‘Oh, I went to parties at Grove Cottage!’ [laughing] So, yeah, I mean, we… the cellar was full of weird things. And we actually decided to exorcise the place before we moved in.
FGG: So when you say weird things?
JC: Well, I don't know. There were there were students and social workers. And I think it was probably the drug centre of Hertford.
FGG: Oh, wow.
JC: My parents were both deaf, so… [Yes]. … were not aware of what was going on as long as the rent was paid.
FGG: Yes, yes.
JC: They used to go to The Greyhound. Still, the Greyhound pub at the time, I think. It had a lovely log fire and they all used to go and congregate around the fire there because I think this house was freezing. [Okay]. I'm not sure how good my parents were as landlords…
FGG: Ooooh. Well, with the Hertford Oral History Group party, we'll try and rejuvenate that reputation! [laughing]
JC: Anyway, so we, yes, so we lived here for a bit.
TG: And were you both working at the time when you came back here?
JC: I was… I was my first job. I was teaching French and German at Queenswood. [Oh right] And I had… Yeah, that was.. yes, because initially I was going there from St. Albans. Harold was working for Thermos in Brentwood selling. His mother had persuaded him to do an export marketing course. And he's sold thermos flasks all over the world. Very interesting stamp collection I’ve got as a result. I was a passionate stamp collector as a child. Partly because my father's office was next door to someone who dealt in essential oils and gave us stamps, which we put in the bath to soak and the most wonderful smells came out.
FGG: What a fantastic memory. That's lovely. Lovely.
JC: Sorry, that was just about stamp collecting. Yeah… So I was at Kingswood. We had a wonderful Head of German who taught me how to teach. Yes, I’ve never forgotten that. And then Fiona came along. So I stopped teaching. And Fiona was born here. She was born in, yes, I said, in Hertford County Hospital.
And then we moved to Kingston because Harold got a job with Boots. And the head office was in South London somewhere. And so we were 21 years, I think in Kingston. So our children were in school in Kingston. And I was teaching in Kingston, what was then Kingston College of Further Education and is now part of the university I think.
TG: Teaching languages presumably?
JC: Teaching languages, yes. Not full time. No, I mean I had some time off when the children were small.
FGG: It's going back a bit in your history. But I remember a conversation with you once in which you just told me briefly about a time you'd spent in France. With Madame you mentioned. Now, I just like to.. It's stuck in my mind for a while and now I've slightly forgotten the details.
JC: Yes, when I was an au pair in France.
FGG: Yes. Just for the record...
JC: Yes, OK. Yes. I did have an extraordinary time. My mother somehow managed to find I don't know some of links of hers.. family a family in Brittany who lived in the most amazing… the grandmothers had chateaux in Brittany, the family lived there for the summer. And my job was to keep the children out of the parents’ hair. And they had five children under 11, and I was supposed to be learning French and the cook was Breton and only spoke Breton. So I wasn't learning much French there. So mostly my French was with a two year old because I could understand it because she spoke slowly. So I ended up with … I went then to stay with friends of my parents with two year old French, and they roared with laughter because I sounded, you know. It remember having a wonderful…[..] out in the woods, building things all the time.
And then I went to stay with this this family near Chartres. And that's probably when I told you about my Madame Du Pasquier. And they were a Protestant family who had sent their son who had failed his baccalaureate to a Jesuit school near Paris, which was quite an unusual thing to do. And I had to go and collect him from school and take him to take retake his baccalaureate. And I was 18. And I had only just passed my driving test in this country. And I … she said ‘take the deux cheveaux (2CV). Just, just drive around the park a bit first’. So I drove around the park first in the deux cheveaux. I don’t know, have you seen those things? [yes]. And I'm driving on the other side of the road. Off I went on the motorway to Paris to collect him from school, and back, and then their home was Le Havre, which was another good distance, you know, we're in the middle of Normandy, and had to drive him back to the house in le Havre where I was left in charge of the household really, never having really cooked much in my life. Yes, it's just my first year as a student. And the other son came back with a brace of ducks and asked me to deal with it.
And then I had to get the son… and make sure he didn't oversleep. But he did oversleep …to get him to take these exams. It was a bit of a nightmare. [laughing]
FGG: I thought it was a great story. After that sort of experience you’re ready for anything in life.
JC: Yes, my parents didn’t know anything. I didn't have time to be in touch with them to tell them what was going on.
FGG: Fantastic.
JC: How on earth was I telling you about that?
FGG: Ah.. it was one of those moments, Jane, when you know…
JC: It must have been when we were in Evron*. I did learn a lot of French in the process! Probably where my French came from…
[*2022 Hertford Choral Society trip to Hertford’s twin town of Evron]
FGG: Indeed. Hmmmm. Now, I’m just looking to see what should we talk about next. Um…
JC: What did I put down here. I don’t know actually whether you want to know more about my parents or not?
FGG: Well, can you tell us a bit about Alan I think? Because Peggy spoke, you know, in some detail about her life, which is very interesting. And so…
JC: my mother … I mean, I don't know if you're after the period, I think it [Peggy Melville’s recording] was up to her marriage with my father. But you know, after we'd left home and things she was very involved in WRVS Meals on Wheels and…and I was still driving her for Meals on Wheels when she was in her 80s and to people who were quite a lot younger. And she started the… I think it was called the HAD at the time. I think it's now the Disability Support Group.
FGG/TG: Oh, yes.
FGG: Because they were one of Hertford Choral Society’s charities weren’t they?
JC: Yes. Yes.
FGG: At Christmas. Yes.
JC: and that's still going on. She got Fay Thornton up the hill [at Whitacre] involved in that. And she got in the Soroptomists and I took her to get her ‘Cheery service award’.
TG: She was a name around Hertford when we moved here. Peggy Melville was sort of definitely around.
JC: Yes. But yeah, my father was a solicitor, and I think he must have retired then, [19]77 or something like that. But he and David Kirby had started the Civic Society in [19]69/70, when Hertford was threatened to be completely flattened, and they were horrified at what had happened to Hoddesdon. And that's what it was feared it was going to be like, and you know, we would have lost the museum, we would have lost much of Bull plain [….]. They founded the Civic Society. And I couldn't remember lots of but they always met in the dining room at The Grove. All Civic Society meetings with Andrew Sangster and Dick Threlfall, particularly David Kirby. And that's all documented somewhere, I'm sure. And then of course, the controversial fountain. Um, my father was passionate about water always and fountains - he and my mother used to go on holiday to France and he always took pictures of village fountains. And he persuaded … and I can't remember her name, lived in North Road House.
TG: and I know it and I can't remember either. The lady that put the money …the money up for the fountain.
JC: Yes.
TG: It’ll come back to me, but probably in the middle of night.
JC: Me too.
FGG: Don't worry, we can insert it. Yes. In square brackets!
JC: Yes, yes. Yeah. Because the other thing that he was, I can remember him spending hours on there was a paddling pool on Hartham. Do you remember the paddling pool? It went… water that went into… it's the end of the football pitches now, there's a dip and the river comes in a tiny bit where the… before you go round to the Monet bridge.
TG: No, I don’t remember that.
JC: There was a paddling pool there … which was a sort of concrete area where any children could go and paddle. And he was passionate that that should not be closed, used to go and make sure that it was a real water was flowing …so that we could all go and paddle there. I’m trying to think. Peter will know when it was closed. Funny but when I was thinking back to it, I thought.. paddling pool? But water, you know, whenever we went on holiday, we had to have a picnic by a river somewhere. So I think maybe that was the background of the fountain. We had all sorts of mock-ups of different fountains in The Grove. They’ve probably still got them somewhere. You know, there were swans, there were deer, and all sorts of things. And then William Pye came up with this one, which… pretty controversial, I think.
FGG: Is this the one in the centre of Hertford? Yes?
TG: Yes, in Salisbury Square.
FGG: Okay, yeah.
JC: Yes I mean William Pye is a very well-known water sculptor. And he's done some beautiful things, the font in Salisbury Cathedral is absolutely stunning.
TG: Ah, that is amazing. Same person? Unbelievably, the same person?
JC: Yes. And he's done some very beautiful things. And I think this was a bit of a trial effort.
TG: But it's got the four rivers of Hertford, I can see that, but it's not what you would call beautiful.
JC: No, no.
FGG: I must look at it next time.
JC: Ah, yes. It’s got my father’s name on it.
TG: I think people got excited about it. And then were a little disappointed at what appeared. Because it was a bit…
JC: I think my father was probably a bit disappointed at what appeared as well, and it's never really worked properly, either. So that's a bit of a diversion.
Yeah, I mean, he [Alan Melville] was known at one time, because he used, in the days when you went into the city with a bowler hat. And then when he had to, he always went on his pop pop motor bike, which was probably a Honda 90 or something, to the station. And then you had to wear a crash helmet. So he got one that looked like a bowler hat. He was quite famous for popping through Hertford with this... [laughing]
FGG: With a strap underneath!
JC: Yes, with the strap underneath, yes.
TG: Lovely!
FGG: So if you Google Alan Melville, what comes up are his translations. So what's the background to that?
JC: Yes, well that was quite extraordinary. I mean, he and his brother both got firsts in Classics at Cambridge. And I suppose it was in his head, sort of, and my younger sister Miranda is a theatre designer. And she was …it was in the early days.. probably the first thing she'd done. She was asked to help design for Acis and Galatea for Holland Park Theatre out of doors. And my father said, ‘Well you know, I'd just like to see what the word…what the words look like. What’s the translation?’ Because it's Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
And he took one look at it and said, ‘I can do better than that,’ And that started him off … started him off translating. So he had retired. And he was I mean, he had an iron discipline. He used to get up at five o'clock every morning. And we'll show you. There's a summer house up there is in terrible condition now, but he would sit there, so away from the phone, away from anybody, and do two hours translation before breakfast every day. And because I was the only one, other than my brother, who did Latin A level. So I was thought to be good enough at Latin to be able to help. So I was given all the things to look at. Always crossings out, yeah, always on carbon paper as well. He loved his carbon paper!
And eventually, you know, he'd done all the bits that he liked. And somebody said to him ‘Well, you know, you ought to get some of this published really’. So he got in touch with Oxford University Press. And they were obviously quite pleased with it, and said, ‘you know, we can't publish it unless you do everything’. And there are lots of bits of Metamorphoses which are pretty nasty, lots of stories that are pretty nasty. But anyway, he set to and did everything. And it was all in hexameters, some of them rhyming, and he's kept very much to the same metre as Ovid. And I mean, he had always been very good with words. I can remember him turning.. Did you ever read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring?
FGG: Silent Spring. Yes.
JC: Yes, Silent Spring. That's what started me on my environmental stuff which you might not have heard about. She also wrote a book called The Sea Around Us, which was absolutely beautiful. She was such a wordsmith, and he turned that into a poem, long… ages ago. And he we've got a whole book actually, I'll show you of his poems he wrote for us as children, which might… Sam has set to music, and we've got recordings of it now. Anyway. So he loved his words. And so he did the whole of the Ovid Metamorphoses and Oxford University Press took it on. And then he ended up translating the whole of Ovid, everything else. And it's the standard University text...
FGG: Yes, I saw, yes.
JC: We still get our royalties, a little bit every year. Divided out. And then it's and then I mean, gave a lot of kudos for Sam because Rachel his…his wife's father was a classics man. And when Rachel brought Alan Melville’s grandson home [Wooo! Laughing] so yes, so the whole of his retirement was really, yes, …
FGG: …yes, permanent residence in the summer house?
JC: Mmmm. But I mean he did do lots of other things as well. I mean, I don't remember him…anything to do with Latin in my childhood… but he was really keen botanist and taught me every kind of… I think I was… and also paintings, he did a lot of watercolour painting, which started me off painting and both my sisters are very artistic. And so we would spend hours hunting for wildflowers. And the Collins Book of Wildflowers - they're graded by one star, two star, three star. We never found a three star but so exciting to find a two star. Even locally you know. We’d go to Stockings Lane and there are Hellebores and things, you know..
FGG: Fantastic.
TG: Referring back to the fountain was it something like Mortlock the lady's name? It was something like that, wasn't it? It’s the closest I can get.
JC: Um…
FGG: Yes? We'll we'll all furiously Google it when we get home.
JC: Yes, it will come to me.
FGG: Yeah, I'm just thinking that we've sort of got to our hour, and I just… we're very near the end. And I just wondered, the Lovely Grub Garden, if you can just… because that doesn't really come up in any recordings. And yet I keep seeing a lot about it on social media. So yes, it's…
JC: Yes, it has got its got its own Facebook page. Yes. Community Garden. Crazy. As if I didn't have enough gardening to do really. Yeah
FGG: Yes, So how did it start?
TG: Where is it? Where is it?
JC: [unclear] Where is it? If you go… if you look at the hospital [Hertford North] , there’s a little road going up to the right. Which you can't drive up.
TG: Oh, I know. [to Sele Road] Yes. I know it, then. I was wondering if it was that one. I walk past it when I come back from the station. Yes.
JC: Yep. Yes, I think there's another one up on Sele Farm now. Some kind of community orchard or something? Well, it sort of goes back to Rachel Carson actually, I think. I have always been passionate about the environment and the mess that we're making things. And that the only way you can do something about it is to do it as a community somehow. And in Kingston, I was involved in a thing called LETS which is a local exchange trading system where you need to share things. When we came back to Hertford I thought, oh, I’ll get it going in Hertford. And we tried and nothing happened. You know, people would do babysitting in [return for a mowing?], or something like that. And in Bristol, it I think it still they have a Bristol Pound. So all the money is kept locally.
FGG: Yes, I've read about that. Yes.
JC: The mayor is paid in Bristol Pounds.
FGG: local currency.
JC: Yeah, I think it's brilliant. And I went through the thing called Transition Towns started in Totness… oh, what was his name…And a few of us went on Transition Town training in 2007, I think including Ben Crystall, who I think is going to be interviewed sometime soon. [Yes, he is]. And we spent a weekend learning about all the things we could do as a community to make a difference to the climate. And it was absolutely wonderful. So we had Transition Hertford, which sort of morphed into HEN? Hertford Energy Now, which put solar panels on Millmead School roof and Morgan's School roof. And I tried to get them on St Andrew’s Church roof. But thanks to the council... Well, it was I think because the office is in the castle, you can actually see the roof of St Andrew’s Church that side. It's a no brainer. Every church, Anglican Church, in the country has a high south-facing roof…
FGG: yes, of course.
JC: …which could be generating electricity, but might not look terribly nice. It can do there are great, Grade 1 listed churches that have done it. But it takes a lot of …I didn't fight hard enough. I mean, they were even redoing the roof. [Oooh. Right.] I do regret that one. But anyway, out of that came a community garden. [Right?] Because they were digging up this patch of land it was high with brambles and…
TG: It’s a sort of triangle, isn't it, a triangle shape? It’s a funny sort of …
JC: Yes, a triangle. I don’t know whoever owned it, because it's much too big for the house on the edge.
TG: I don't remember what it was there before.
JC: Yes, well, apparently…. I don't know. Because I don't remember going there before. And the council asked all the people on the estate what they'd like to do with it. And I think two people answered and said ‘I'd like to have an allotment there’. And there are already allotments the other side. And they said, Well, we're going to turn it into a community garden. And I thought this is brilliant idea. We’ll get everybody gardening together. And Groundwork Trust did the basic clearing and I think Glaxo had some working parties which built the raised beds and things, and there's a water harvester and things. But it's never taken off the way that it should have done. I mean, there are two community gardens in St. Albans now they've got veg boxes that give people things…huge. I don't know why, I just I can't understand. I mean Sele Road houses have all got their own gardens that they're struggling with I think they don't want to come to it. We've had lots of people come through who sort of feel they don't know enough to have their own allotment, they want to learn [yes]. That’s part of the point. We’ve leafletted all of the flats around. We haven't really, we’ve really struggled, not got far with the doctors. [Yeah].
[pause in recording]
JC:… can you speak?
TG: Medlock?
FGG: Ooohh, let me turn the recording on again..
JC: I knew it was ‘Lock’…
FGG: Medlock?
TG: The Medlock fountain. This is the Medlock fountain. Right. That's referring back to an earlier conversation. Just for the transcriber. ‘What they going on about now!’
JC: Yes, that's probably enough.
FGG: Yes. No, no, very interesting. So one of my artist friends Stephanie Edwards is always going up to your Lovely Grub garden.
JC: Ah, yes, you know her?
FGG: Well, I know her as a fellow artist, but also she has an allotment on West Street, which is where I've got an allotment. Yes. So yes. Sorry.
JC: You know, she and I are very passionate about it.
FGG: Yes, she is.
JC: But, you know, we have open days and lots of people come see open days and you ask them what they'd like to do… ‘Oh, we like to come to open days?’ Yeah. They don’t want to garden.
FGG: It's finding the time isn't it? Yes.
JC: Yes, but there are a few people. And we've got we've now got the shed for a composting toilet, which… We've done some after school clubs there. [Yeah.] But now a lot of schools have got their own garden stuff going. And, you know, people do it for about six weeks, and then they’ve been there done that.
FGG: Well, I can I commend Trish Goldsmith as an excellent vegetable grower.
JC: Yeah. If you've got your own allotment. Yeah.
TGG: No, well my son’s got his own allotment which he doesn't have time to do either. You know, I mean, I know it's a [overtalking]
JC: it’s full of people who are commuting and exhausted, and just hard to get going somehow.
TG: People said to me when Iain died, you know, what are you going to do about the garden? I said, Well, the same as I've always done because Iain just wasn't interested bless him. So you know, and I've got quite a lot of land really… [Yeah. Overtalking]… for one person.
JC: You have. And it's difficult land.
TG: It's not easy. You need one leg longer than the other? Yeah. [laughing]
FGG: Yes, you're hefted to your garden, are you?
TG: Absolutely. Yes. Yes, yes.
JC: You know, I do think there's value in doing things together.
TG: Lovely. It's great for a community and you see a lot of them on [BBC] Countryfile and Gardeners World, and all these… setting up these gardens.
JC: A lot of these places have really, really worked and got people you know that are struggling on their own. I mean, we probably ought to do more with doctor's surgeries and social prescribing, but then you may need to have someone who's actually experienced in helping people in that way.
TG: You need a good leader who's up there pretty well every day to sort of coordinate it.
JC: Exactly.
TG: And probably not many people have got that much time available.
JC: No. I mean, I need to get out of it. No, I do love it when I'm there. I mean I love it just being out of doors all the time. But I have got more than enough to do here really.
FGG: Yeah, I would say so. Yes.
JC: I’ve got my little vegetable patch up at The Grove, which used… the [xxx] patch was a huge vegetable garden, which I struggled with for years, but now…[this garden]
FGG: It's manageable. No, it's absolutely beautiful. And it will still be beautiful in September when we come back.
JC: Well, I don’t know what it will be like but it is very wild.
FGG: No, it's lovely.
TG: It’s very fashionable and it’s very commendable.
FGG: Yeah. I just I feel overjoyed to see a single butterfly.
JC: Yes, I did keep bees for a long time, haven’t at the moment, but they [party visitors] can look and see ...
FGG: All right.
JC: I think that’s probably enough?
FGG: I think that's fantastic. Thank you very much. Yeah. All right from your point of view?
TG: Yes. Fine.
FGG: All good?
JC: Yes, we haven’t got much.. oh, ummm
FGG: NO, go on. Go on.
JC: I was going to talk about my parents being the founders of the Hertford Orchestra and all the music side, but we haven't got time.
TG: Maybe we could do that at another occasion?
JC: Okay.
FGG: Yes, I think we've got ,,,because Peggy talks a bit about the orchestra.
JC: Ah, she does?
FGG: She does. Yeah. So in fact, when we were writing the choir history [Hertford Choral Society], I was trying to tease out a lot of elements of how things started. And your mother's recording was absolutely brilliant for that because it just answered so many questions. So it's just one of the many ways in which Hertford Oral History Group is, you know, playing its role. So I think having these recordings is super, because you never know what angle people will come at things from and just to put a bit of flesh on local understanding bones is really useful sometimes.
So. brilliant. Right. Thank you very much.
[End of recording]