Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Joan (O2014.5) |
| Interviewee | Joan (Joan) |
| Interviewer | Janet Holmes (JH) |
| Date | 03/09/2014 |
| Transcriber by | Geoff Cordingley |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no O 2014.5
Interviewee: Joan **** (Joan)
Date: 3rd September, 2014
Venue: 15, Mimram Place, Welwyn
Interviewers: Janet Holmes (JH)
Transcriber: Geoff Cordingley
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
Transcriber’s note: Joan did not want her surname mentioned
JH: This is a recording of Miss Joan **** of 15, Mimram Place, Welwyn made by Janet Holmes on the 3rd September 2014 at Miss **** home.
Joan: Are you comfortable there?
JH: Thank you for agreeing to talk with us this morning, Joan. Ahm, I think we've already, ahm, agreed that you will talk to us about your experience of being evacuated from London to Hertford during the Second World War.
Joan: Right, Ahm, I grew, I grew up in North London for the first the first 7, 11 years of my life and the first 5 I lived with my parents in Winchmore Hill. And then we moved down to my grandparents house in the Wood Green part, end of, of Tottenham near Turnpike Lane. Ahm. And eventually went to the school that my parents, my mother and all her siblings had gone to Belmont School. And, and I was in the Junior girls because I was seven by the time I went there. And that was in 1935. And you know you just went through the four, four, four classes. And, and when I was 11 which was at the end of the, ah, of July 1939, the grown-ups must have known that the war was going to start but we certainly didn't. Because nobody ever talked about it in those days. Ahm. But we had the holidays and then we were evacuated. And we didn't even know that we were going to be evacuated.
JH: Can you say a little bit about what happened that day?
Joan: Ahm, yes. I'd like to just go back one thing. As I said in my article, here, I'd been a Brownie and when the summer term ended I was looking forward to the end, to the end of the holidays and starting in the autumn term to be a Guide. And I was really looking forward to going up to the Guides, to be a Guide. So, this was all part of my, probably later on, being upset about it.
JH: Yes.
Joan: Anyway, ah, on September 1st I suppose we must have gone to school, my sister and I,
JH: Umm.
Joan: Ahm, in probably our best clothes - I can't really remember. And probably with something, with, probably with some sort of case to take things with us but I expect that had, they been packed for us because I don't remember anything about them at all. But I can't imagine we would have gone on a train and gone somewhere else, an, and arrived and, you know, been chosen by people to stay with them and not had some clothes, to you know, go to bed and get up and change into the next day, so I suppose that was all part of it. Anyway the journey, we, we must have gone from school because we had our teachers with us. And I, and the teacher that we, that was mostly with us was Miss O'Donnell who was really the first year Junior school teacher. And I don't, I, I can only imagine that we must have walked up Turnpike Lane to Hornsey, Hornsey Station and I don't know why, we, but we were put on a train and we ended up in Hertford. It must have been Hertford North.
JH: So how many of you were there, do you think, approximately, a class or more than a class?
Joan: There must have been more than that. There must have been, there probably was another teacher in fact with other girls but I don't really remember. You know your sort of living in little world your own when all this is happening and you’re not sure what's happening. You, you sort of don't really look about other people, do you? I just knew I was with my sister who was 18 months younger than me. And, and we eventually, I don't remember arriving at a station but I do remember being on Hartham Common.
(Laughter)
JH: So you must have walked from Hertford North in a crocodile.
Joan: I guess we must have done. Which is quite a walk when you think about it for little girls, isn't it? And, and then, ahm, from, from there we must have walked up the hill to Bengeo. I don't remember that either but I do remember being in the building which was, I, ahm, by the air raid siren
JH: The water tower.
Joan: Ahm, so what was that building called?
JH: That was
Joan: It was in Duncombe Road.
JH: The church hall in Duncombe Road.
Joan: It was the church hall because it's quite a way away from the church, actually then? Because there was Maidenhead Road in between, wasn't there? I think it's Maidenhead Road.
JH: Bengeo Street.
Joan: No. Well, then you've got to cross Bengeo Street to get to the church.
JH: Yes.
Joan: and the school.
JH: Yes.
Joan: Ahm. So we were there and I presume that the sister and brother who we eventually went to stay with in Duncombe Road a bit farther, a bit farther down Duncombe Road on the same side of the road though as the hall, ahm, must have chosen us, I suppose. I don't really know.
JH: So you were lined up?
Joan: Two nice looking little girls, you see, ha, ha.
JH: So you were all sitting round or standing round in the hall as far as you know
Joan: I can only remember being in it. I can't remember whether we sat or stood or what. I can't remember any more than that
JH: Then you walked
Joan: I suppose we were living, I suppose we were in a sort of - ahm, switch off a minute, I can't think of the word…..So we ended up at, in, in this nice house with the sister and brother whose name, surname I can't remember now. And, ahm, I don't know what we did the next, the next day. I think they probably gave us paper, paper and pencil or crayons or something to draw with. ' Cos I do remember at some time I did some drawing there and I can't draw for nuts.
(Laughter)
And then on the Sunday (that was the Friday when we were evacuated) on the Sunday the 3rd we must have gone to Sunday school or something like that and we came back to the house and we found my mother and my two grandparents, who had a car had come down to see us. So obviously the, the school must have told, told them or told my mother that that's where we were, you see. I don't think we wrote anything.
JH: It wouldn't have got there in time, would it?
Joan: No it wouldn't. Because of, you know, it would have been the next day, Saturday, and then, so they must have, they must have had, had information given, given to them in some way. So that was nice. So they knew where we were.
JH: Yes.
Joan: But I can't, ahm
JH: And how were your, how was your mother and how were your grandparents when they saw you?
Joan: Well just the same as usual. (Laughs) I can't think of anything special.
JH: Yes.
Joan: I mean I don't think you take that sort of thing in when you're 11, really.
JH: No. No.
Joan: Ahm. So that's. It was good to see them.
JH: So they stayed for a while.
Joan: They must have done, yes. And I don't know what, what happened about food. I just don't remember anything about that.
JH: But you said earlier that you were told that it was just going to be for a short time.
Joan: Well, I, I think that parents and the adults probably all said, oh, told you this because they didn't want you to get alarmed and, and to make you think that you'd be home soon. Because after all my grandparents house was our home at that time, and very much so.
JH: And nobody knew what was happening. That was the day that war was declared, wasn't it?
Joan: Well when, you know, when they came, when they arrived, when we met them at, at the house, ahm, they did say that we've come and that at 11 o'clock this morning Mr Chamberlain, you know, announced war on the Germans. Something like that.
JH: But nobody knew how long it was going to be for.
Joan: No. Although I dare say that. You see, my parents were both, they were ten when the First World War started and so they went through the four years of that about the same as I did, ahm, at roughly the same age too.
JH: Yes yes.
Joan: I think they, personally, I think they had a better time after the First World War than we did after the Second Word War because rationing went on 'till into the 50s and everything was a bit gloomy and miserable because Mr…, I mean, looking back and thinking about it I think Attlee did a wonderful job. But at the time nobody really appreciated the fact, and we didn't really understand, for instance, as we do now, that the country was completely bankrupt. Did we?
JH: Absolutely.
Joan: Ahm.
JH: Anyway going back to in the house, in Duncombe Road. Your mother and grandparents left
Joan: They must have done.
JH: later that day, presumably, and then life continued.
Joan: Life continued and, you know, the, ah, I don't remember that, that I actually went to school straight away. I think all the junior ones did with their teachers and must have used the, the village school but I'm not sure about that. They might have met in the hall. Ah. Ahm.
JH: So your sister went to the juniors, then
Joan: So, so she must have.
JH: Yes. Yes. But you were among the oldest of the?
Joan: Yes there were about half a dozen of us who went like I did with our sisters or brothers who were still in the junior school when we should have been going to our brand new secondary school in London, you see. Whatever it should have, it would have been. Mine would have been the County School.
JH: So you went to the junior school out here for a bit?
Joan: What, after, when we went back, when we got to Hertford. I'm not sure that we did. I can't really remember what happened with those days at all. I just remember that eventually there were about half-a-dozen of us who went to Ware Grammar School and I think we were all in the same form which was the Upper third which was the first year, the equivalent, I don't know what they call it nowadays, but what for a long time was the first year of, of a secondary school or a grammar school or whatever you were at. And, ahm, because Ware Grammar at that time had a sort of, ahm, a junior school, you see, which were, which were form 1, form 2 and lower third.
JH: And that fed into the secondary school?
Joan: And they fed into the, ahm, into the senior part of school. Although we were juniors in the senior school if you understand what I'm saying. (Laughter.)
JH: Yes. So somehow you got the, the uniform for Ware Grammar.
Joan: Well I had my, you see, I think my mother had taken me to, ahm, to, to order and to fit, be fitted for my uniform for the school I was going to,
JH: Yes.
Joan: you see, in, ahm, near where we lived. So I had that uniform all the time I was at Ware Grammar School. (Laughs)
JH: And was it very different from the ?
Joan: I, I did eventually expect have a panama hat that was a Ware Grammar School one. I know I had a Ware Grammar School blazer, for instance. And in the summer, at that time, I don't know what they wear now, but at that time you could wear any kind of green, summer dress, summer school dress, you see. So I obviously had sum, summer dresses. And I think we had special gym blouses, which, so I, at, at some point I must have had one or possibly two bought for me, but probably it would be only one.
JH: Um. Going, going back to the family, you stayed with them for a short while and moved on or what happened?
Joan: Ahm, I can't remember how long, but it would probably be nine months to a year or something like that, and then we were, and then Jean, Jean's my sister, and I went to another house in Fanshawe Street. And that was nice because my gran, my, my mother's mother came and stayed once or twice.
JH: Oh, yes.
Joan: They were lovely people because she loved cooking, and we had, and I thought we had lovely food there. (Laughs) I'm, I'm not a great one about food, ahm, in that, you know, as long I have food to eat, I'm O, I'm happy. But, ahm, my sister didn't like their porridge but I loved it.
(Laughter)
JH: And, and were there other children, did they have their own children?
Joan: They had one daughter who was six and very spoilt.
JH: Right.
(Laughter)
JH: And during all this were you..?
Joan: I didn't like her very much. (Laughs)
JH: Fine. Were you keeping in touch with your friends from North London?
Joan: Not really.
JH: Everyone who had come out. They were scattered around and you didn't see them?
Joan: No because you see the school I was going to go to, ahm, in North London for, for, as my, the County School, I hadn't yet, apart from one other girl who lived in our road and was the reason I wanted to go to the school, I didn't know anybody at the school. So, so when it came to the sixth form and the war ending in 1945, I didn't want to go back to that school bec, because I'd never known anybody there. So I, that's why I stayed on in Ware, stayed on in Hertford and Ware, at Ware School, Grammar, ahm, because I didn't, I just thought it was better to stay there with the people I knew.
JH: Yes absolutely. But moving out to Hertfordshire
Joan: Um.
JH: ahm, from North London must have been a really big change in terms of…
Joan: Well it was a big change
JH: the countryside…
Joan: I mean I had been to the countryside occasionally because my, my grandfather ****** had, ahm, had a little, ahm, piece of land down in, in Kent somewhere and he used to go nearly every weekend especially in the summer time. You know. And he'd bring back things, things he'd grown there and things like that. And we had one weekend when we actually went and stayed down there one. Anyway that's incidental really because it was pre-war.
(Laughter)
Ahm but, so we had been to the country. But occasionally with my other, the ***** grandparents, oh, I shouldn't be saying my name, should I? They, they had a car. So we sometimes used to have, er, Sunday's going to the seaside, either Southend or Clacton. Southend ???? not the other way round. (Laughs) But it was nice going. So I knew, knew a little bit about the country. But I actually found, and I never, before the war I didn't eat very much, at home. I was a very fussy one. My sister used to eat up what I didn't eat. Ahm, the minute I got evacuated and was in the country I liked, I liked my food and I ate.
JH: Right.
Joan: But I loved it actually, as you probably, in there. And, ahm, we did things like going, ah
JH: You went blackberrying.
Joan: Yes there was blackberrying which I didn't like quite so much because you got put in the brambles and scratched but (Laughs) Ahm. But, but there were lots of other, you know. And the top of Bengeo was very, very interesting in those days because there were, there were lots of open fields and pathways down to a lower level because it was on, a bit up on a hill, wasn't it?
JH: Yes, that's right.
Joan: And, and I remember there were, ah, oh. There were sand martins in the chalk cliff, ah, not really a cliff but, you know, side of the hill, as you walked down towards, ah, the Beane, the River Beane and the station.
JH: Yes.
Joan: Which, I loved all that and so I think really in, in, inside me there must have been a longing to be in the countryside because I've always wanted to come back to it.
JH: Yes, so you mean like the freedom. You were given more freedom to run around.
Joan: Yes, I did.
Joan: I really enjoyed being, being an evacuee. No, I really enjoyed being an evacuee for that sort of thing but I didn't like it very much for the people.
JH: So in what way was that then?
Joan: Well, I mean, I had several billets,
JH: Um
Joan: ahm, for various reasons which I won't go into. But, ahm, there were people who, I mean, I remember one of my, my, the last one actually that was really a bit, so by that time I was about 14, 15 and I really do not like. She'd come home, she told me once when I got home, she had met so and so down the road, a couple of people that she knew, and they had said how miserable I looked. I thought it was none of their business. Blow that for a lark. It made me feel I wanted to be more miserable actually. How, you know, if they'd shown a bit if interest that would have been another thing but to just to say, to make a statement like that was quite unnecessary, even in my youth.
JH: Yes. Well it showed a lack of understanding, didn't it?
Joan: Well exactly.
JH: Yes. Yes. So some of the people weren't so friendly.
Joan: Well, I didn't really know these people. I don't, don't even know who they were, you know. The people I stayed with on the whole were very nice, you know, and, but they weren't intellectually very, ahm, able, I'm not sure. They were nice, genuinely nice people, but for me, I didn't get the stimulus in those places, in most of those billets, that I should have had. I suppose I must have done my homework alright but I can't really remember.
JH: Um.
Joan: Ahm, because I was, I was a bright child. Ahm, but I, I don't think I ever achieved my potential at school as I should have done because I wasn't all that happy, really
JH: Did you, were you, you might not remember this, but were you thinking all the time, “Well, when am I going to go home? This isn't going to last”
Joan: No I don't think I was thinking that all the time. But, you know, we didn't have holidays. That was partly the war, but. So by the, so by the time I became a Sea Ranger and we went to camp, that was a holiday as well. I, and I really enjoyed being, being in the rangers and going guiding again.
JH: Because that was an important part of your life, wasn't it?
Joan: Yes.
JH: You said you were looking forward to joining the guides back down in London.
Joan: Well, I was really looking forward at, at the end of the summer term in 1939, in to flying up into guides because I'd got my Brownie, Brownie first, first class, ah, what was it called, golden hand, and, and, and I would have, if you see, what was called flying up into Guides, and that I missed.
And it was about half way through the war, I suppose, two or three years into it anyway when I suddenly realised one day that I'd never had the chance to be a Guide be, you know, we were. No, first of all I thought, “Oh, well we're having to stay here much longer than had been, than had been implied initially.” And, ah, and I thought, well I can't really ask mummy for the uni, if I want to be a guide. I can't really be one now because (a) clothes were rationed, and (b) I knew, I always knew, because I was the eldest, that money was a bit short and I didn't feel I could ask my mother for, you know, a Guide uniform. And, of course, in those days we'd never had second hand clothes so I didn't know anything about that sort of thing, to think about even. So, so I just got used to the idea that I wasn't going to be a Guide. I, I don't suppose I even knew that there were Guides around, Guide units around in Hertford even.
When I was in the fifth form, ah, a friend, a girl came to our, joined our class, because they'd moved into Hertford so she came to our, our school. And she, she was very keen to be a Sea Ranger and she persuaded some of us that we'd like to be Sea Rangers too. So she wrote to the, the local district commissioner of Guiding and it turned out that, that lady was running a Ranger um, a Land Ranger unit up in Hertford Heath where she lived and, ah, that they were willing to come down to Hertford and, ahm, restart a Sea Ranger group that had actually been running up until some, early in the war, ahm, and had been closed down because they, all the members at that time were over twenty-one and the Guide association had brought the age limit down to twenty-one.
And, of course, ah, when I heard, at some point after that I realised that I had seen people, older people in a uniform of some sort walking around, you know, they were obviously, you know, doing things to do, to do with the war, collecting whatever. And, and one of them became our Assistant Guider, number one she was called by us and we met, ………and, she, she actually worked at Addis, the brush people, and we were able, when we first started to meet, have a meeting there once a week. Later on, ahm, it, I think the, I think we had a Guide hut in the grounds of the boys' school, the boys' grammar school, right up the top of that hill, nearly opposite County Hall. Ahm so we, so later on, it must have de-requisitioned or something, we were able to go and meet there. And that was quite nice because there was lots of playing fields all around and we could play games as well as doing our, what ever else we did. (Laughs)
Ahm, but I loved being a Sea Ranger and, of course, that introduced me to camping which I found was something I absolutely loved from the first moment I was ever in a camp, a tent. And at that time I was still with this, these particular people, ah, and the husband said to me, “Oh you won't like it because there are great big spiders and they all hang down from every branch of the tree.” (Laughter) And I was absolutely petrified because I, I really didn't, I still don't like spiders but I didn't, I didn't get, I really was frightened of them at that time. Anyway I went to this camp site. In fear and trembling I was. I never saw a spider the whole weekend.
(laughter)
Joan: And I absolutely loved, I had the most, I think I probably had the best night's sleep at camp ever, even after that, that first night. We were in, in the round tents and, ah, because there, that's all there were at that time. And, ah, I absolutely loved it.
JH: So that was a really good introduction despite..
Joan: It was, it really was.
JH: what the man said
Joan: And, of course, that's really why I, I enjoyed guides, running guides so much later on, because we, we went to camp, you see. And I was telling them, teaching them how to camp and how to enjoy things despite there being nothing apparently there and things like that.
JH: Going back to the evacuation and your experiences there. You, you stayed on, I think you mentioned, once the war ended
Joan: Yes.
JH: you decided to
Joan: Yes, well the war ended in what '45 wasn't it, eventually, I think. D-Day was '44 wasn't it and it was a year later.
JH: The war ended in '45, yes.
Joan: And, ahm, I could have gone home to go to the school I should have gone to but I, I didn't feel that I would know anybody there having had five, five years nearly six years at Ware Grammar School so I, I said I would like to stay on at Ware Grammar until I finished my, ah, Higher School Certificate.
JH: So how did your mother respond to that?
Joan: Oh, I don't think she minded at all.
JH: Yes, yes. And did you stay with the people
Joan: No. When I
JH: you went to stay with before?
Joan: First of all I left these, the people I was last billeted with. And my friend Sheila, who, who started us all in the Sea Rangers, her parents, well her mother said that I could stay there so I could finish, mainly so I could finish, my, ahm, exams, you know and everything. So that was nice. I shared a room with Sheila and we went to Sea Rangers and we actually helped, ahm, with one of the Guide companies at one point too, when we could.
And ahm, and then for the last term because I hadn't been doing very well in my exams. And I think a lot of this was emotional. I, ahm, I went to, to stay with my Sea Rangers' skipper up in Hertford Heath as long as I went home every weekend. Because by then her, her husband was home from the Royal Navy. And pretty shattered by all, he'd been mine-sweeping and I think it really upset him very much, you know, to have to do that sort of job. So, it was nice for them to be together and not have me around at the weekends.
So I used to go home every weekend which was quite nice really.
JH: Yes, yes. So, how was, what were your memories of Hertford during the war?
Joan: Hertford. I, I thought it was a very nice place, really. But it was very, very quiet in those days, not a bit like now. And there were many, you know, where the, where the big, ahm, by-pass road, not, well it's not a by-pass road, the road that goes straight through, that wasn't there in those days. And, ahm, there were lots of little roads with quite old houses in them. I can't remember them in very, in great detail but I do remember them a bit, simply because the last people I was billeted with were florists and I used to sometimes go and deliver their wreaths or whatever, it was mainly wreaths, actually. And sometimes also for them, I, before I went to school I'd go up to the cemetery past Herford North Station and bring back old wreaths for them because they had to re-use them to make, to make the new ones because that, you know, you couldn't get the materials
JH: There weren't enough flowers!
Joan: during the war.
JH: Right.
Joan: He, he was a very, very skilful florist. And he taught his wife, actually who was quite a bit younger than him, I believe. But he, he learnt in London, at some, some florists in London. And (laughing) I must just tell you this because I know it's nothing to do with the war but he told me that, ahm, when the Metropolitan Line was, was opened he used to get on it and, ah, go all round the circle of it, just, just for the fun of it (Laughs). He must have been quite, you know, I think he started when he probably was an early, early to mid-teenager, going up to London and working before he set up his own van? in Hertford.
JH: So he was a local man?
Joan: Yes, he was a local man.
JH: Who enjoyed going on the Metropolitan Line.
Joan: Yes. Yes. But it was interesting. I'll always remember that because sometimes when I go on, on the, ahm, Metropolitan line now, or Circle Line
JH: Yes. Yes.
Joan: rather I should say, ahm, I think about it. (Laughing) I think, Oh, that's what he told me he did. I've never been right the way round. I don't think you can now. I think there's a break somewhere.
JH: Right.
Joan: You must, must have been able to then. And of course, a lot of it was over, ah, overground rather than underground at that time. You know.
JH: So was there anything else happening during the war in Hertford that, that you remember?
Joan: Oh, yes. Ah. In the sixth form, I don't think …….. In the sixth form, ah, I thought of doing, I was only doing minor English, but the, we went up to London to see John Gielgud in Hamlet and I've never wanted to see anybody else since, because he had the most wonderful voice. Ahm. And when we were coming back, a V2, ones that came out of the air, hit, fell just, just ahead of our train as we were coming into Palmers Green Station. And actually everybody else ducked and I like a fool sat still (laughs) on my seat. And I had a piece of glass in my head which I didn't know about. And it, and I used to fiddle with my hair like this and several months later it, ah, it came out of my head. And it was quite a little piece of glass about like that, you see. And I think maybe I went up to the hospital after that just to check I was OK. (Laughing) But nobody had bothered before then. And I didn't know.
JH: So that was down, further down the, the railway line, that the bomb fell?
Joan: Well it was just coming into Palmers Green Station as we were coming home.
JH: Yes. Yes.
Joan: And then once, which would have been a bit earlier probably but I was still in the same place with these same, the florist people. I was lying in bed one Sunday morning and you know how flies around, fly around you making patterns, in the early summer. I, suddenly there was this enormous bang. And it was the flying bomb that went into the, ahm, down by the Mill
JH: Umm. Mill Bridge.
Joan: You know - on what'sit bridge?
JH: Mill Bridge.
Joan: Mill Bridge.
JH: Yes
.
Joan: Mmm. I didn't know what it was at the time but later I learnt that it had.
JH: So where, where was the, the house that you were staying in?
Joan: In Hertingfordbury Road, Lane
JH: Right.
Joan: Hertingfordbury Road or Lane. Which, and I think, most, I think that little, a group of little, of about four or five houses and they were set back from the road a bit. And I think they are still there behind one of the bits that, ahm, ahm, something or other. Ah, you have to, you have to stop you can't get out and go down a little lane just a little, tiny bit and they are along there.
JH: Tucked behind.
Joan: Parallel with the, the new road.
JH: The 414. Yes.
Joan: You see.
JH: Yes. So from there you could hear, you were away, quite a way away from the bomb but it still…
Joan: Yes but it would be a very, big bang. I do remember that.
JH: And did you go?
Joan: I could see these flies going, I was looking at all these flies doing their pretty patterns and I loath flies really. (Laughs)
JH: And did you see the damage afterwards, did you go into town?
Joan: Well I suppose I must have, because I would have gone by the bridge to go to school although I was cycling by then, probably going to school.
JH: Yes. And did you make a group of friends then outside of Sea Scouts or was that the thing, would that be?
Joan: Pardon.
JH: Did you make a group of friends?
Joan: In Guiding?
JH: in, in Hertford outside of Guiding or was the Guiding?
Joan: Well not really because, um, I usually, I made friends at school
JH: Umm.
Joan: but really the ones that I, I stayed friendly with for a time after, after I went home were the ones who had been Sea Rangers because we'd done things together. You know I didn't, apart from Saturday mornings when I was in the, the school netball team I didn't really see people from school after school. Because as we were then, I don't know what it's like now but as we were then the girls came into, into Ware from all sorts of places. I mean some came on the train from Cuffley to Hertford North and then must have got on a bus to come to school.
JH: So you were all quite scattered around.
Joan: And I think there were girls from all round the villages and coming from, I think, Broxbourne and, even nearly, not quite Cheshunt, but, you know, all round that way as well. All coming into Ware. There weren't all that many, ahm, Grammar Schools at that time, actually. (Laughing) Well there wouldn't be now either, they all became secondary modern or whatever they're called nowadays, you know
JH: Yes.
Joan: But you see the boys' school was what is now Richard Hale School, but it was the boys', Hertford Boys' Grammar School then and the girls' school was Ware Grammar School for Girls. And they both took in, had an input from all around. Other girls, other children went to, ahm, ah, secondary schools. I don't know what they were, senior schools they were called, either senior or central schools.
JH: Yes.
Joan: Ahm. And they weren't quite so bright as us. That sounds a bit snobby doesn't it, (laughing) but they weren't. My sister went to a sen, senior school down in the town. Ahm. Now Faudell-Phillips was one and then there was another one. One, one was a junior school and one. It was two, two of the well-known names in, in the Hertford area, one was Faudell-Phillips and I can't remember what the other one was. One was junior school and one was senior school. And they were like?, round the back, probably the east end of the main church. What's it called? You know where
JH: Yes, yes, All Saints?
Joan: Umm?
JH: All Saints.
Joan: Ahm.
Joan: Yes, so, so, yes. Sort of right round the back of All Saints because there were quite a lot of little roads there that, that linked up with the road that went up to Hertford Heath.
JH: Yes, yes, so did
Joan: Did I say Hertingfordbury for my, my Sea Rangers Skipper?
JH: No, Hertford Heath.
Joan: Oh, that's alright then!
JH: Yes, yes. And did your sister go back down to London
Joan: She must have gone back
JH: when the war finished?
Joan: She must have gone back when she was fourteen.
JH: So she split
Joan: Which probably was about the time the war finished anyway.
JH: So she split, she'd been living with you throughout the war.
Joan: Not all the time, no.
JH: Oh.
Joan: We split up after about the third or, third, I think it was the third billet. (Laughs) And she stayed with the same. I actually. The vets billet, I was with the daughter and she, my sister, went to the daughter’s mother which was farther up the same road.
JH: Right.
Joan: Ahm. I don't know what was I saying????? What was the road I said I was in?
JH: Fanshawe.
Joan: Yes, Fanshawe Street
JH: Street.
JH: So you were both in Fanshawe Street but in different houses.
Joan: At that point, yes. She stayed on until the end, until she finally went home which I presume was the end of the war and I moved on again two or three times. So that I was, I had been at Gallow's Hill for a time and I once went to another road just for a short time while, while the people in the Gallow's Hill area were going on holiday. Ahm. The road began with C. It was parallel with the East, the line to Hertford East.
JH: Cromwell Road.
Joan: Cromwell Road, That's it. Yes.
JH: So you had a lot of moves.
Joan: Altogether including the two lots of friends I had nine.
JH: That's an awful lot of moves.
Joan: Too many. You can understand why I hated being an evacuee.
JH: OK, so the experience of evacuation for you was not particularly happy because of the number of moves you had but you, some other things were quite good about living in Hertford
Joan: Yes.
JH: by the sounds of it.
Joan: Well, I mean, being an evacuee, I was at school and, as, I really felt, or, so, if not then later, looking back, it was the one stable thing in my life whilst I was an evacuee, really. Ahm. And so I wasn't a hundred percent happy with being an evacuee but I went to school there and I did some of the things that I enjoyed doing. So from that point of view I was reasonably happy but not as happy as I might have been.
JH: But then you came back?
Joan: But
JH: after the war?
Joan: Ahm. When I left school I went to work in Bayford for a family as a mother's help for a few weeks. Then I went home and then I got the oppor…, while I was there I had the opportunity to apply for the new college which was being opened at Balls Park which is not quite Hertford but it is Hertford in a way because we walked everywhere into Hertford, you know, (laughing) and never thought anything about it. Now to me it's a real old grind to go (laughing) up and down those hills. But at that time you just did it as, without thinking
JH: So you…?
Joan: You were strong and healthy.
JH: So you came back to Hertford.
Joan: So I came back to Hertford in, February 1947, to, to train as a teacher at Balls Park. And that was an, another, I mean, It was post war but at that time we still had Italian prisoners in, of war in the, around and they did work in the can, in the college grounds and things like that. We had lights going off because the electricity went, you know, whatever it's called
JH: Power cuts.
Joan: (Laughing) We had to take candles and torches with us. And it was a very, very cold winter that year. The snow started falling, on I think, about the day I that I left London, on 11th February. And we never saw the college, college grounds until we went back after Easter because it was full of, thick with snow.
JH: Yes.
Joan: It was fascinating really when you look back at it.
JH: Yes, yes.
Joan: And, of course, I made lovely, some very good friends while I was at college there. And it was nice being back in Hertford, it was home in a way. (Laughing) And I was able to go back to Sea Rangers while I was at college which was nice.
JH: Yes, yes.
Joan: So that's probably a good ending
.
JH: Yes. Thanks ever so much Joan that was really interesting.
Joan: I'm sorry …...
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