Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Cunningham, Doll and Jock (O1994.19) |
| Interviewee | Doll Cunningham (DC) and Jock Cunningham (JC) |
| Interviewer | Peter Ruffles (PR) |
| Date | 19/02/1994 |
| Transcriber by | Susan Hitch |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O1994.19
Interviewee: Doll Cunningham (DC) and Jock Cunningham (JC)
Date: 19th of February, 1994
Venue: 32, Campfield Road, Hertford
Interviewer: Peter Ruffles (PR)
Transcriber: Susan Hitch
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
[The tape begins with a lot of chat and sounds made by the interviewer fixing the recording equipment.]
PR: Saturday afternoon, the 19th of February, and I’m at number 32, Campfield Road, that’s the home of Jimmy and Doll Cunningham. And I came here because Doll’s family is an old St.Andrew’s family, going back a long long time with the church and the school, and we’re interested in particular in the row of houses in Hertingfordbury Road, from number 38 round into Cross Lane, where Doll lived and Jimmy also – what number was that, 40…?
DC: 46
PR: And we’re just going to talk about, for a minute, how those houses were and who lived in them.
I’m now going to clip the microphone on Jimmy, known as Jock, for an obvious reason when he talks, {laughter) Now. Doll, when were – when did you move in to that block? Were you there…
DC: I was born there
PR: Oh! And that was in 19…
DC: 17
PR: A year or two ago {Doll laughs} Now lets - You weren’t the oldest of the Thomason girls…
[Both talking at once] Bessie, and then Doll, and then Grace
DC: Then Grace, yeah
PR: Right. And had the family been there some time before?
DC: Yeah, well, Dad came there out the war, in the war.
PR: Oh, right. And had he lived in Hertford before that, or had he…
DC: No, he come from Arlesey
PR: Where’s that?
DC: Bedfordshire.
PR: Bedfordshire. In the country. Yes. Why did he come here then Doll?
DC: It was the only place he could get a house. ‘Cos he was in the army, see. Come out of the army, he was in France, in the army.
PR: And was that the rent of Lord Salisbury or… there would be a lot of… He had that Water Lane One, where I was with Albie Geeves this morning
DC: Yeah, all that ground belonged to Lord Salisbury, round there
PR: Big houses though
DC: Er, four bedrooms, living room, kitchen, and two cellars.
PR: That’s what Rosie started saying last night about the two cellars, it was two rooms
DC: Yes, yes
PR: One flight of stairs, and then –
DC: Three flights of stairs, really. Flight of stairs down to the cellar, and two flights up to the bedrooms.
PR: Two storeys up above the ground floor. There was a copper in part of the cellar, wasn’t there?
DC: In the cellar, yes, in the corner, in the front cellar.
PR: Right. There was a window there from the street, you could look down and see…
DC: Yeah, I’ve got a photograph of that.
PR: Have you?
DC: Yeah. Told you, didn’t I?
JC: xxxx You never seemed to get the homes it was always a group of people standing in the rain or riding bikes or something – they never seem to take the building
DC: That’s the cellar
PR: Yes, I remember that now. I can remember some bars, but I’d forgotten they went that way. They went vertical and then horizontal.
DC: That’s level with the path.
PR: Yes. (Pause) That’s Grace isn’t it?
DC: Yeah.
PR: Yeah. (Pause) Did your Mum do the washing in that copper, down in the cellar?
DC: Well, she did for a while. And then they erm… they had erm, boilers on the gas. It was too much, running up them stairs.
PR: And in the other part of the cellar, did you use that for…
DC: That was for storing – well, if you like to store things, but they used to put the coal down there, coke and that down there. ‘Cos at the back – there’s the back of the house – at the back down there was another trap sort of thing, we used to shoot the coal down there.
PR: You went into Cross Lane, round by Robin Walker’s…
DC: That’s right, yeah
PR: (murmurs of wonderment) I’d love to get a copy of that. If one day I could borrow it that would be lovely.
Jock and Doll (Laughter - both speaking together) you can have it
PR: No, I’ll get a copy done. And I’m going to that shop - I’ll take it away today, if you don’t mind, and I’ll get it copied in the shop in Ware.
(Long pause)
PR: Who else Doll – tell me of some of the families living there.
DC: Well, there was Mrs Walker right on the corner.
PR: The weatherboarding, yes
Doll and Peter speaking together. The dialogue is unintelligible.
DC: That board come into our back garden
PR: Yes
DC: That board at the back
PR: Yes, it shows that quite well, doesn’t it? You lost a bit of garden really, because the Walkers…
DC: Yes. Well, next door to our other side was Mrs Wareham,
PR: Right…
DC: And then there was Mrs Crane, and Mrs Race.
PR: All having families
DC: All had – both – Mrs Race had about five, or six; Mrs Crane had seven; Mrs Wareham had twelve…
PR: Oh! That was a big one
DC: (laughs) And my mother had five… well she had six but she lost one. Then there was the other Walkers, on the corner, and there was three, four boys there. Four boys in that one.
PR: Now, coming to more recent times , when I remember – I used to be up the railway thing up here, watching the railway, the eight o’clock goods train coming through, and you used to walk up with the dog and talk to us boys, just at the top of Campfield Road, and there always used to be on this train, coming through, a goods train, a named locomotive, used to be an A3 like Woolwinder, and I remember you coming up with the dog night after night after night, when Georgie was small – and at that time you – your door was in Cross Lane. You were living there – was there a separate entrance somehow, you used to go in the back, in the Cross Lane bit…
JC: We used to go to…
DC: No, that was the corner house, that was the house…
PR: And it fitted into…
DC: Yes, as you come round from Cross Lane it was there, and then Cross Lane comes out like that. There’s just a little bit there, because I learnt to drive up Cross Lane and I went straight into that wall
JC: There are two big steps, weren’t it? You came round the corner and it was sharp … Two big steps
PR: And then didn’t one of your rooms sort of go – sandwiched in between Robin Walker’s. Did you go in Robin’s front door…
DC: Yeah
PR: and up the stairs ahead of you. There was a bedroom on the left, and then one on the right. That must have gone into… (both speak at once)
DC: Erm.. as we went into our front door, there was the window to the kitchen there, and then there was another one above, but there was also a wall, down the side, that took Mrs Walker’s door, front door, and her window.
PR: Right
DC: A little alcove. But our wall backed on to her front door.
PR: Yes it’s tight - I mean, an architect wouldn’t have planned it like that (sounds of general agreement) - it was just “built”
DC: And of course, when our house, the one we was on the corner – when we was on the corner, that one had got nowhere to hang your washing. We had to come out of our house, go by Mrs Walker’s front door to go into our yard, as we used to call it, to hang our washing out. But she’d never let you in, she used to bolt the door, bolt the gate. So we had to go in to my Dad’s garden, the next one…
PR: Yes – had the front door on the main road. Yes, complicated living. Now – yes, that’s the picture I found that I took home, when I was a kid. That’s a longer distance – I mean, it’s a horrible picture but It shows what you’ve just been describing
DC: There, that’s the Walkers’, and there’s Amy Walker’s house at the back there.
PR: And that bit that looks like a lift shaft was –
DC: That’s the stairs
PR: That’s the stairs up
DC: Up to our bedroom.
PR: Up tp yours, yes I’ll show Jock in a minut (Jock laughs)
DC: And that took us to the back there to – that’s where North Road erm - what we call, well North Road
PR: Yes, North Crescent. So that was the staircase sticking out there. And then your – well, Bess’s, let’s say Bess’s front door would have had those windows. (All this punctuated by agreement from Doll)
DC: That’s right. Those windows give on to this house (whispered) I must put on me glasses (pause) getting old…That’s better…That’s our front door, those are our windows, that’s the living room window, with two bedrooms, and this window is Wareham’s, back there‘s the front door, this is Mrs Crane, and then Mrs Race, and at the back there, Mrs. Whittaker. (Laughs)
PR: Ah…but it was a lovely community, wasn’t it? (Hearty agreement from Doll and Jock)
DC: Like this one here, this photograph you could sit on your doorstep.
PR: Did Grace break her leg at one point? I’ve got a picture in my mind of Grace…
DC: When she was in the army
PR: ….sitting on the doorstep, with her leg in plaster.
DC: When she was in the army, yeah
PR: I can just picture that, you know how you keep little odd bits that don’t link up with anything else
DC: Yes, she was in the ATS. She fell off a lorry and broke her ankle. (laughs) That was Grace, that was…
PR: Yes, I can see her, sitting on that step… A lot of people used to sit on those steps
DC: Yes, they always did, they were always sitting on the steps. You didn’t have to be frightened of anybody in them days.
PR: And they’d nip over to the Oak, I think, the Warehams particularly, didn’t they, to the Jug and Bottle…
DC: Yes, and so did I, with my Dad. Used to take a jug over there for a pint of beer” My sister-in-law’s got a film of that, me crossing the road with a jug of beer. (laughter from Jock)
PR: The Warehams – are they still around in the town, the Wareham family?
DC: Yes, they ‘re living up erm…well, there’s one up Sele Road, Winnie, “Didders” we used to call her, and Flo, she’s my – well, she’s a bit older than me – she’s up Horns Mill (pause) Annie, is at Ware – she’s as old as Bess, Annie. And then Bobby, Bobby, remember him, do you?
PR: Well, yes, I lost track of that one…bit younger, you know…
DC: Bobby and Peter – Peter’s at Enfield, Bobby’s living with – well, he was, living with his sister up Sele Road
PR: What was his sister’s name, when she married?
DC: There was Win, she married Bates, a Bates. And then there was Louie, she married a Charles, and then she divorced and er…
PR: Her husband just died.
DC: Has he died? He was bad, I know. He was bad when you was bad.
PR: (simultaneously)xxxxx a crossing, was it a…a lollipop (general agreement) road crossing patrol
DC: Then there was Louie, she married a Charles, then she divorced and married a Clark. She lives up Hornsmill somewhere. But Annie, she married a Taylor at Ware, but he died, but as far as I know she’s still alive. Well we wondered, didn’t we, ‘cause he was took bad same time as you, wasn’t he?
JC: Just before
(Long pause)
PR: They were a bit…a rougher sort of family, weren’t they, really?
DC: But the mother was very kind-hearted. She was a bit rough, and she was very coarse, you know, she didn’t care what she said to you, but she used to help my mum out a lot
PR: That’s the community that you don’t get, with the big families… ( general agreement)
JC: They only kept the girls, didn’t they? And there was the outing in the summer time, Southend and such places, the whole lot (laughs) ‘Course they were out every Sunday the old couple
DC: Yes, my mum, Mrs Walker and all the family, used to get on the train at the Eastern Station and go down Clacton for the day.
JC: One and six return
PR: I don’t remember your mum – she must have died at what, during the war, did she?
DC: My mother died when she was sixty-two.
PR: I can remember your dad ever so clearly
DC: Big man ( looking at photos) There – there she is. There’s two of them. When she got older. Grace always said I’m my mum all over again.
PR: Yes, I was going to say, there’s the three of you… That looks as if it was taken in Cross Lane…
DC: Yes
PR: There’s the brick wall
DC: All our photographs were taken in Cross Lane. That’s taken in Cross Lane, look. There’s Grace in Mr – in Basil Whittakers garden – erm, garage
PR: Oh that, yes, that’s the way to your yard
DC: I’ve been sorting them out – I said to Father – there are two or three –
PR: Oh aren’t they treasures (long pause with rustling and murmurs) No chance of getting a copy I suppose is there? (Several people speak at once)
DC: No, I’ve got plenty – me and Grace
PR: I’ll get a copy done and bring back the…
DC: What about that one of Grace?(Laughs)
PR: Well that’s an unlikely one (more laughter) That erm – while I think of it – that tin of money, Scottish toffee tin, I’ve written a note on that and I’ll put it on the plate in church tomorrow morning, as it is, and I’ll put a note in with it, and in one of those envelopes she’s got the pound coins…
DC: Well it’s just as she left it, so if somebody comes or …ask them again to pop them in the church but friends do come and it’s safer that way…
PR: Yes that’s right, and on the envelope, the one with the coin in I’ll put a note to say it’s from Bessie and hand it over complete
DC: Yeah. She used to do that you know, save all her…well, he does, he saves all his 5p pieces, don’t yer? Practically, he’s got a jar full… (long pause)
PR: Now… where did I put that other one…now I’m not going to take them away because you’ll lose them and your family would… but I’ll get the copy done in that Ware shop I’m going to a bit later and then give you the original back
DC: That’s all right.
PR: Another little – I get sort of nosy on these things – I like to have…
DC: Well you wouldn’t get anywhere (laughter and everyone talking at once)
PR: Well, your Dad I can remember very well – I remember Bess going across to the gardens to get stuff when she was a lot younger –
JC: The allotment was over the road
DC: The allotment, yeah
PR: But – Riley Clark, now he…
DC: My mum’s brother
PR: Ah, right. I never knew where he fitted in. I knew he was part of the family, living there…
DC: Yeah, my Mum’s brother.
PR: Had he lived there for a long time?
DC: From the war. He was shell-shocked. He’d got a big dent in his head from where he had the shell. If you looked long enough you could see his brains working. He used to work for Mr. Walls. Remember Mr. Walls, lived up the Villas?
PR: Yes
DC: Yes, helping them, yes
PR: Sometimes he used to do Miss Turnbull’s garden a bit… and I didn’t quite – well, you’re not so interested when you’re a kid, are you (some confused conversation) Well, that’s all I actually need to know, the ins and out of the families and the way the houses were organised, and the community. You went to St. Andrew’s school I suppose…
DC: Yes, I left there, I left at fourteen. I went there when I was five and left at fourteen, Miss Rutter - cor, dear –old Polly Rutter we called her
PR: Yes, old Polly
DC: Old Polly. Miss Turnbull
PR: What was she like, really, Miss Turnbull? I never…
DC: Well, she could be all right sometimes. I think you’d got to be a favourite to get on with her. ‘Cause I never done a lot of schooling really. All I seemed to do was to wash slates, and when they had games and that I used to be one that had to clean up. I was the cleaner…(laughter)
PR: Yes, you were probably good at it
DC: Ain’t much good!
JC: That happens anywhere, if you’re good at it you’ll fall for it.
PR: You’ve got it.
JC: There was no work at home & in Scotland. There’s a home there for working boys. They say they’ll find you a job. I got a job walking a dog xxxx that was good, but then I did peeling potatoes every day and as I peeled I made sure there were no eyes in & I used to be outside in the cold, in the wash house & I got to scrubbing the rooms – Just boards. He never took me to the shipyards to get a job – I was too handy.
PR: Yes,yes,yes . That was probably the same as you were – if you can do it…(general agreement). My mum used to say that about, you know, Miss Turnbull, being next door, it was awkward for her really. I think she - unless she was naughty, you know, and things got over the garden fence at home so she got xxxx
DC: Yeah. I used to get the job when they used to have little tea parties at the school or Christmas parties – I don’t know if you knew her, Miss Hattam
PR: Oh yes
DC: She used to make all little cakes, those sponge cakes with little – er, what do you call them – little bits on the top, you know, coloured bits, I forget what you call them now – and I used to go down that shop down near St Andrews Church and carry trays about like that, up and down, up and down nearly all the morning, and I got one, I got one cake. (laughs) One that nobody else wanted! Oh dear…
PR: Did Bess go to St. Andrew’s then? Was she…
DC: I think she went to All Saints for a little while, ‘cause I’ve never found out where she was actually born, but I think she was born at Bull Plain, because they got bombed out in Bull Plain, my mum, Bess and my brother. Because they took one to a cousin’s up Fore Street, and the other one they took round erm, Cowbridge. Well then my mum finished up living in Cowbridge for a little while, and then she started walking to Watton-at-Stone every day, my aunt at Watton – she’d got nowhere to live then, but then they give her this house at St.Andrew’s, at the er… oh dear
PR: Bess probably started down in
DC: Down Bull Plain xxxxxyes, Bess and Sam cause Sam was the eldest, but er (sighs)
PR: Wonderful , Hertford’s history
DC: Yes ‘cause Bess always did – Bess could tell you a lot better than I can. She said how they got bombed out, well I think it fell near Graveson’s, because there was a woman got killed, and a soldier, and the woman’s name was Sally – didn’t know what her other name was, but er…
JC: Because Bess’s rag doll was in the museum, wasn’t it?
DC: Bess’s rag doll was in the museum, but I don’t … (Doll and Jock both speak at once) there now
JC: The house was bombed 1917 was it?
Transcribers Note: Actually 1915 - the bomb fell outside Lombard House now the Hertford Club.
DC: Yeah, later than that
PR: So it was recovered from the…?
JC: Yeah, finished up in the museum
PR: .Where were they at the time the bomb came down then?
DC: Bull Plain
PR: I mean, was the family in the house…
DC: Yes, because Uncle Will - Riley as you call him – he’d come out of the army, and he slept under the window. And when it fell it threw him out of the window. But my best part really, my mum, whether she picked my uncle up or what, but she was in her nightdress, and she got the mark of her nightdress – she’d put on her nightdress – of blood off her hand. But we done don’t know quite how that come about. Perhaps someone got hold of her that was hurt, but er…
PR: Oh, what a story (Doll laughs) Yes, but Bess, I should have asked her, but she might have worried though about the machine of things(?) you never – it’s easier if its two people and you know it’s going into the museum, but it might have worried her, she was a more sort of private person
DC: Was to herself, she really was. Don’t half miss her, I tell you
PR: I bet you do
DC: ‘cause sometimes she’d come home xxxx, or I’d come in, tell her that I’d go up there and see about…I haven’t been up there for a long while. To think that should happen that day, the day we came home from a holiday, terrible
PR: Yes, it was…but in a way…there are – there’s always a side to (Peter and Doll speak together) there’s a reason, and, I mean, doing what she was doing, for somebody else, and she was finding it harder and harder, wasn’t she? I bet she wouldn’t have wished it in a different way.
DC: And I said, probably if she’d been at home, she might have laid there for two or three days
PR: How did she get down here then
DC: Well she was looking after our cat, while we was on holiday, and she was looking after our cat. Well it appears that Douglas come down that day, he used to come and see Bess every Saturday, well, he used to come for a loaf of bread or something, bring Bess a loaf of bread, and it appears that he couldn’t get the door open. And he went next door and called the police and they had to force the door open, and they found her laid down ‘ere. But she wasn’t actually dead then, but my sister-in law said she was cold.
END OF FIRST SIDE
PR: I thought, I mean, it was sad but she got more and more difficulty moving about…
DC: ‘cause, she got that she wasn’t eating so well – she was eating, but not so well – but I don’t know, we left her heating on like it is now, we left the hot water on for her, ‘cause she continued like that, and food in the fridge (loud crackling) bread, biscuits, anything she wanted we put out, And yet when we come home, we didn’t notice till next day, the heating was all off, the water was cold, we had to make it up to what they call “constant” to get the water hot. She’d turned it all off!
PR: Yes, saving…
(technical discussion improves the crackling)
PR: Yes, well, I don’t think we need do any more, need we…
DC: Well it’s up to you, you can run dry (laughs)
PR: No. no, I’ve still got the tape we’ve done St. Andrew’s, school, touched on Miss Turnbull, dear old Bess – trouper she was…
DC: Yes, she wouldn’t let that, she’d see everybody that went by, she’d note their doors xxxxx cars – no cars (two people speaking at once - probably mean she knew where people lived and what car they had)
JC: She loved being down here, she could see more. The cat, I used to take the cat up on a Sunday morning when I took her groceries, if I’d have left the cat it’d still walked home (laughs) . She did like to come down here, and be here till we come back, and stay a couple of days…
DC: Yes, she never used to go straight home
JC: and get her a present, she used to tell us what she’d like you know, what we’d bring back and she always looked forward to that
DC: Yeah, I bought her this cup, I bought this cup for her, because she’d broken two before we went away. I said “Well, I’ll keep it for myself”. And I’d bought her some powdered milk – she didn’t want it – she liked powdered milk, she wouldn’t use the ordinary milk, she always used powdered milk. (sighs) Yeah. Poor old Bess.
PR: In the town proper, you know, the town centre as it were, any families – people, characters? Who was around when you were younger, that people used to talk about? You don’t remember anyone wearing, um , not wearing shoes, but wearing…
DC: Yeah, old Miss Palmer
Transcribers Note: Actually Miss Hoad who worked in Palmers sweet shop
PR: Where was she?
DC: St. Andrew’s Street. She had a sweet shop in St. Andrew’s Street. Erm, how can I describe it… There’s an antique – do you remember Mr Levy, the paper shop?
PR: No…
DC: Right opposite Simpson’s
PR: That was Glenister’s when I was…
DC: No, that was the paper shop, old Mr.Levy
PR: I don’t remember Mr.Levy, no. You’re forgetting how young I am, Dot (much laughter) So, opposite Simpson’s
DC: Yeah, there used to be a paper shop there, next to, what did you say…. Then there’s an alleyway, then there’s a big house
PR: Yes, the CAWG Hall (Christian association for women and girls), we used to go there for our school dinners.
DC: That’s right, yeah. Then there was Doris’s(?) the hairdressers, and then next to her was old Miss Palmer. She used to make her shoes out of rope.
PR: Oh! Oh, it was rope – someone else mentioned…I thought it was erm woollen…
DC: Rope or string, and she’d also got a couple of houses I think it was Villiers Street.
PR: Did she move to Townsend Street after herself, or did she die… because I remember someone who lived down the Ware Road with these things down there, she might, when she gave up the shop possibly have gone to live down Ware Road, or lived there anyway.
DC: I think they found her dead in one of the houses, I think they did, ‘cause she had two up there
PR: And then Rosie was saying, but we ran out of space, that there was someone with a tricycle somewhere in St. Andrew’s Street…
DC: Oh, that’s old Harry, oh, that’s old Harry (Jock joins in and the conversation becomes rather confused)
JC: Yeah, I knew them pair well
DC: Yeah, he used to take his wife to London to get his stuff for his hairdressing.
PR: I knew there was a barber’s shop there but I… just next to St.Nicholas’ Hall, or nearly next to it. He had a trike…
DC: She used to sit on the back
PR: Facing the same way as him, or…
DC: No, she used to face – whenever he got on that bike he was facing that way and she was facing the other way
JC: Used to take someone didn’t she, to Ware, and they would both get off and push, where it gets to that hill. He used to have his bowler hat, and his old dicky bow what a tidy man he was
PR: Well I am glad I asked that!
JC: I used to… every hair cut he’d say ”What will you give me?” I says “a shilling” he says “Do you mind if I nip across the road?” I says “no, I don’t” And he’d nip across the road and have a ½ pint before cutting it…But he’d done awful well when the Yanks were here. He never shaved them. He gave them a razor & get on with it. He was a case, old Harry…
PR: Now the other thing I need you to fill us in on odd bits – I can remember the Bell pub opposite the church, and then the Three Tuns, and then where Simon’s the grocers was, or Matilda’s it became…
DC: Matilda’s
PR: There was a pub there
DC: Ah, that was years ago
(Several people talk at once)
PR: …King’s Head…
JC: The smallest pub in Hertford years ago
PR: Was it?
Doll and Jock agree
PR: Who kept that then? I can’t…
DC: Ellis. You ought to know that!
PR: I did – I should have done. I’ve been turning it over in my mind all night
DC: (laughing) You didn’t sleep much then!
PR: Mrs Ellis was the one I could remember, I don’t remember a Mr.
DC: Yeah, he worked up London a lot, didn’t he? John, wasn’t it? John …
PR: Mrs Miles used to do a bit of cleaning
DC: That’s right, yes.
PR: I’ve talked to her, Mrs Miles.
DC: Oh, is she still alive?
PR: Yes, she’s ninety.
DC: I was going to say, she… and Mrs Johnson, she must be getting on now
PR: She’s 92
DC: And there’s Mrs Henry
PR: We’ve talked to her. You’ve joined very good company here
DC: (laughing) Oh, those were the days
PR: Oh yes, we’ve got Ruby Henry on the tape, I mean, I didn’t think she’d want to say anything, but she’s come back, she’s done another talk
DC: Oh yeah
PR: She ran a fish-and-chip shop in Railway Street
DC: That’s right
PR: No.38. Now do you – if I give you a pen, could you possibly start filling in a bit of stuff. All it is…. well, it needs a signature really, but if you could put
DC: …me glasses…
PR: Now, what it’s – I’ll tell you what – full name and address, well I can do that – dates of birth, that’s what I can’t do… you can lean on here if you like…
DC: That’s all his gardening books under there
(Form-filling proceeds)
PR: It’s only a scribble, it’s not absolutely vital. Yes, Mrs Johnson’s all right, but she’s very deaf
DC: Yes, somebody else told me that. But perhaps It’s my nurse I don’t know.
PR: But Mrs Henry, that’s different again. She had her sixteen cans of lager turned up while I was there. Mrs Popham buys them now, because Georgie her son’s died. And she has a lager and a fag for lunch, and two bananas in the evening.
DC: Yeah?
JC: I talked to somebody about smoking, and I thought, well, I’ll try and give it up, and if I give up and it doesn’t do any good, I’ve still given up, in’t it? I said that to somebody and she said “Well Mrs Henry smokes sixty –five a day” I said “Sixty-five ! “ she did smoke heaviest
PR: Heaviest of all of you, yes. I don’t know whether the pen still works for you.…
Doll and Jock: Oh yes…
PR: Yes, you’ve joined a very good company. Dr. Mortis is on as well…
DC: Oh yes – oh…
PR: Rigor Mortis, dear me, in the book. Did you have your two boys at home, then?
DC: No, they were born in Glasgow.
PR: Oh, up there. Yes, that must have been – I mean – I keep jumping generations, but Mrs Wareham, for example, that wouldn’t have been a hospital birth, would it?
DC: No, no, she had all hers at home. My Mum used to help her out and they used to have a District Nurse there. I don’t know who… whether it was Nurse erm… Nurse Arnold I think
PR: Yes, in Bengeo it could have been, or Major…
DC: Major, more likely Major than anybody, yeah.
PR: Yes, that’s all different, isn’t it now, completely
DC: Yes, it’s like the young lady next door. They hadn’t been there very long, but they was very good to us last – when you was bad the other week. He come and took him to the hospital and – ‘cause you see he was sitting there gasping for breath, couldn’t get his breath – and he asked what was the matter, and tried to get in touch with the doctor, couldn’t get the doctor, they had put the answering machine on, so he come round and said “Come on, Jock, put your coat on, I’ll take you over to QE” and they kept him in, he was kept in for ten days. They was ever so good, they come in, Bert said “Do you want any shopping?” I said “Don’t worry, he’ll be home in a couple of hours”, but he was there ten days.
PR: Yes, it was a big job. What set it off, this thing of Jock’s then, was it…
DC: He couldn’t breathe and he’d got this phlegm or something, and he couldn’t move it and it was stopping him from breathing. And they said he’d got an infection on the chest.
PR: So he was up and away again.
DC: Yes. They put him on antibiotics. When the youngest - when George found out, he come over every day and took me every night regular, only thing is getting in the back of the car – ain’t a lot of room and it pulls my leg, it’s been a bit sore but its better now
PR: Well no, you take a little bit of extra disadvantage, but it is a hell of a haul for you
DC: We wrote to James and told him but we haven’t heard nothing. James is a…I mustn’t talk about it. We see him once a year, if we’re lucky. But he’s got troubles of his own, he got a daughter, 20, who’ got leukaemia.
PR: Oh dear.
DC: But at the moment she’s at Birmingham University, and she’s got – you know, doing well.
PR: Yes, that’s a worry for him. But some people do, get away from the nest, don’t they, it often happens in families
DC: Yes. Sometimes we’ve been, sometimes more than a year before we’ve seen him. He keeps saying “You should go on the phone Mum” but after all these years I don’t want it, not now. Can’t be bothered with it.
PR: I tell you one who was, I always thought, very good at keeping in touch with the family when he might have, you know, gone away was Tony Kingham
DC: Oh yes
PR: That was – because it wasn’t his – well Dot was his Mum, but it wasn’t his Dad, yet he used to phone up here in Ashley Road every weekend from…
DC: ‘cause she died, didn’t she, his Mum
PR: Yes Dot died first – well Phil’s died now, and his second wife has died, Joan. They phoned me up at – I knew Phil had died because they moved to Welwyn Garden City, and that was about four or five years ago
DC: Phil, that’s not the boy?
PR: No, the father.
DC: The father, that’s it, yes
PR: And Phil the son lives in Hoddesdon. He’s got digs over there
DC: was ever so sorry for him you know. He used to run by - “Newcastle, Newcastle!” he was football mad…
PR: Yes, just not quite…
DC: No…
PR: Bright enough to…
DC: It’s funny, the older one like that, and the other one…
(They talk over each other in agreement)
PR: Didn’t they look after Tony, made sure he got…
DC: Oh yes, yes
PR: And then Joan died, and they found – that was the second wife, big fat one – they found a list had got my name on it in the house in Welwyn Garden City after she died and they thought I was a relation of some kind. I wasn’t, but they asked me if I could find anybody, and I managed to track down young Phil somewhere in Hoddesdon, but he didn’t want to know, because he thought she might have left debts.
DC: Didn’t want the responsibility
PR: But she hadn’t – and I can understand that, yes. (Pause) Now, let’s see, did we get that form done? Well that’s a very posh middle name you’ve got, you’ve never let on before about that
JC: What?
PR: Your middle name.
DC: What, Hird?
PR: Yes
DC: That’s his Grandma’s. In’t it?
JC: My Grandfather’s…
DC: Yeah, Grandfather’s. He takes it through his grandparents. (Pause)
PR: Now what…1st March 19..?
JC: Fifteen
PR: Glasgow?
JC: Yeah
PR: Yeah
DC: It you can read his writing you’ll be lucky
PR: Now – ah yes, occupation.
JC: British Rail
PR: That’s all your life. Yes, that’s the bit I couldn’t be quite sure of. Where were you based then when you were on British Rail? Where did you…?
JC: Well I was… at the St. Rollox repairs workshops in Glasgow, xxxxx you know.
PR: Yes, yes. I’ll write that down because that’s a nice bit of extra. And then when you were down here it was Hertford East, wasn’t it? You’ve got some stories to tell about Hertford East! (Laughter) Now that’s it when this is printed out – now what does that say under there? Oh, children yes, that’s two boys…
DC: I thought it you couldn’t read it!
JC: No, it’s not Jock’s…there’s a gap on the printer here, I was trying to think what number 8 and number 9 is – yes, number and sex – James, George. What would you put for wife’s occupation?
DC: Housewife.
PR: Yes, I do choose that…
DC: Well I used to work – I worked at Addis’s, I worked at cleaning the bank, I worked at packing at the flour mill…
PR: What Garratt’s?
DC: Yeah
PR: Now… Garratt’s mill… might as well put it…
DC: I worked at Addis’s for thirteen years
PR: I think on the same form I’ll er… Now – Doll. Is that short for Dorothy?
DC: No, it’s Doris
PR: Have you got a middle name at all?
DC: Yeah, Winifred (laughs) Don’t like it (laughs)
PR: And your date of birth?
DC: 1917 –Oh, August the 31st 1917
PR: And that would be Hertingfordbury
DC: Road
PR: Road. Glad you moved away from that, you don’t have to keep writing out a great long word all the time
DC: Ah, that’s true. Nearly as bad now Campfield Road. Not quite so long.
JC: Hertingfordbury is a lot longer
PR: St.Andrew’s School…done that… Your father’s occupation was the army…
DC: He was a stoker at the gas works before he went into the army.
PR: Did Sam work at the gasworks?
Doll and Jock : Yeah
PR: And when he came out (The recording becomes very crackly) And what was he after the army, your Dad? Back to the gasworks?
DC: Yes, yeah
PR: They’re going to be ever so pleased with me getting all this information. Now the other thing… is there anyone you don’t want to listen to this – I wouldn’t think there is… (general agreement) “public reference or research”, well, students can look at it in fifty years’ time
DC: Well, that won’t worry me (laughs)
PR: No. So I’ll put…ticks…done that…and we’ve got to date it the 19th of February, 94, and then it just needs a signature. Jock on this anywhere down there, on the bottom bit (some muttering and rustling)
This is the bit Doll’s looking forward to… Do you want to sign that one Doll?
DC: It don’t really matter
PR: Jock made the pen work, but most people can’t
DC: Where do you want me to sign?
PR: Just anywhere down here
DC: Anywhere…
PR: I think you’ll find it’s quite hard to get it started
DC: I had a pen like this, that my old nurse sent me for Christmas. Yes, been coming to me for nine years, then she retired, went to live down Norwich and still writes to us, and sends us a little present, and birthday cards, she was ever such a good nurse…
JC: Yeah
PR: You pick up a good one sometimes. Now, erm, it’s Alfie Mansfield I’m going to next. You’ll be making a cup of tea while I’m there (laughs). I’ll be needing a few extra tapes I think for Alfie…
JC: Blimey, yes
DC: Can you take this off me?
PR: Yes, he’ll talk about the -
JC: Neighbours (laughter) He never can get on with neighbours. (much crackling obscures dialogue)
PR: Yes… I think she’s been very good, hasn’t she? Patient with him, but he always thinks someone is going to get the better of him… Oh, yes, that’s just a little top thing. Now, let’s put that there….
End of tape.