Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Shaw, Gladys and Reginald (O1996.29) |
| Interviewee | Reginald Shaw (RS); Gladys Shaw (nee Wright) (GS) |
| Interviewer | Eve Sangster (ES) |
| Date | 04/12/1996 |
| Transcriber by | Eve Sangster |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O 1996.29
Interviewees: Reginald Shaw (RS); Gladys Shaw (nee Wright) (GS)
Date: 4th December 1996
Venue: 21 Manor Close, Bengeo
Interviewer: Eve Sangster
Transcriber: Eve Sangster.
Typed by: Eve Sangster.
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
ES: This is Eve Sangster on Wednesday 4th December 1996. I'm at 21 Manor Close, the home of Mr: and Mrs. Shaw. What's your first name?
RS: Reginald.
ES: Reginald Shaw.
RS: But all my life I've been called Billy.
ES: Billy? Why is that?
RS: Well, the time I was born, so my father told me, there was a film on at the local flea-pit cinema, 'Billy Sunday'. Billy Sunday was a notorious American gangster and I was born on the Sunday and somebody said, "Well, we've got our own Billy Sunday." Billy stuck with me all through my life.
ES: So what's your date of birth?
RS: The 8th of April 1923.
ES: Where were you born?
RS: The Angel pub.
ES: And have you got any brothers and sisters?
RS: No.
ES: Right, so you were an only child. And what did your father do?
RS: Well, all he did, and this is being facetious, was to make my mother pregnant and then
disappear.
ES: Hello, sounds a familiar story. Right, but why were you living in The Angel? Did he actually work for McMullen's at any time?
RS: Mrs. Collins was my aunt.
ES: Strange how this all ties up! We did a recording with Ernie Chambers, Ben Collins step-son, who had most unhappy memories of Ben Collins. Do you remember him?
RS: I've only got one sort of memory - of being taken upstairs to see him in his death-bed. You know, it stuck in my mind. I presume it must have been him because I was quite a tender age at the time. I think The Angel closed down soon after.
ES: Yes, I wonder, I was surprised, you see, I thought The Angel closed about 1921 and you weren't born until 1923. So how many years did you live there?
RS: I don't remember living there at all. I think it might well have been, my first living memory, shall I say, was of being in 18, Letty Green. But it was there, I've been told, that I learnt to first walk, at 18 Letty Green, took off up the garden
ES: So you might have actually just been born there and only lived there a few months?
RS: Quite possibly.
ES: I wonder when Ben Collins died?
RS: I don't know.
ES: No. Because after that I think his wife took over the management of the pub.
RS: That I couldn't say.
ES: No. Did you ever go back to The Angel afterwards?
RS: Only on odd occasions.
GS: Because you remember the secret passage.
RS: Yes, there used to be a sliding door that you could get in, into a passage went through the back of the pub.
ES: Oh, where was the entrance to the secret-door?
RS: Well, to the best of my memory, it was behind the bar on the right-hand side as you went in. But that might be a figment of the imagination.
ES: Yes, but it might not. I mean, it would be very useful if there was any after-hours drinking, I expect.
RS: Well, I remember it used to go the whole depth of the building to the alley at the back.
ES: I wonder how old that building was? Do you remember Ernie Chambers? You do.
RS: Oh yes, lived with him for a short while.
ES: Oh. How did that come about?
RS: Well! Mother and I were sort of itinerant and Ernie used to be a milkman, or the cowman they called him, at Dunkirk's Farm near Morgans Walk School, and I at that time was living with Mother and an Uncle at Letty Green. And Uncle used to have spasms. He was mentally affected. He got mixed up in the Irish troubles. (Cuckoo Clock chimes) He used to 'go with the moon', sort of thing. And at odd times he used to get a bit too much for Mother and she used to bob off somewhere for a while, a quietening period, I think. And it was one of those times that I lived with Ernie.
ES: You say your father was, gone, I suppose, more than he was with you. What was his occupation?
RS: I don't know. I never knew my father. I never saw fit to question him at all. I kept it quiet as far as possible because somebody born out of wedlock in 1923 was a lot different to somebody born out of wedlock in 1993.
ES: Well, yes, it's so strange the number of people we interview who say, "Oh, I didn't know my father." What with those who were illegitimate and those whose father died in the First World War and so on, there were a lot of one-parent families, weren't there? And what did your mother do? How did she support herself?
RS: She used to do housework.
ES: I wonder how you came to be living at The Angel, though. D'you think, you say your mother was Ben Collins…?
RS: My mother was Ben Collins' wife's sister. They were at both ends of the, they had about, my grandmother and grandfather had about twelve children, You know, one of these big families, and Mary Collins was one of the elder ones, if not the oldest, and my mother was the youngest but one.
ES: Perhaps Ben Collins' wife took your mother in out of sort of charity.
RS: That could possibly be it because, as I say, my first two memories are of Letty Green where, living there at the time, was my mother, myself, grandfather, an uncle and probably one or two aunts. It was only a little cowman's cottage and I remember both my aunts getting married and leaving home. So it would seem there could have been quite a bit of over-crowding there about the time I was coming along. It could have been they just sent me back there for a…
ES: So, what was your mother's name?
RS: Sally.
ES: Sally?
RS: Shaw.
ES: Sally Shaw. So where did you go to school?
RS: Mainly at Birch Green.
ES: Birch Green, yes. How long did you stay at Letty Green?
RS: Well, the period covered was from the time of going to school. I started school at Birch Green and I left school at Birch Green at the age of 14 and in between I'd had a spell in Essendon at another aunt we were living with for a while and then a spell at Longmore, when we were living at Morgans Walk.
ES: When you lived at Letty Green did you have to help in the house? Did you help to do errands and jobs?
RS: Oh yes. Fetching water from the well on the green, you know, that sort of thing. I used to come into Hertford on Saturday, given the grand sum of sixpence. Used to call in at another of my aunts at the Cross Road, near the County Hospital. She used to live on the corner - it's now been demolished.
ES: What, one of the sort of step-houses?
RS: As you go along the dual-carriageway leaving Hertford going towards Stevenage, there's now a roundabout where you. It was immediately on the right there. The corner houses. I used to call there and with any luck she would give me tuppence, which gave me sufficient for a tuppenny piece of fish and a pennyworth of chips at lunchtime and tuppence to go in to the pictures in the afternoon.
ES: Did you do any part-time work while you were still at school?
RS: Well, only so far as just before I was leaving school a local builder offered me a job in his office and I went there for a period after school and during holidays 'til I actually reached school-leaving age when I got a permanent job.
ES: What did you do?
RS: Clerical.
ES: So where did you meet your wife? What is your name?
RS: Gladys.
ES: What was your single, unmarried, name?
GS: Wright.
RS: (laughs) She was Wright, then she became Shaw.
ES: So where did you two meet?
RS: At Mrs CoIlins, by a sheer coincidence. She moved to Campfield Road, on the council estate and I used to go there quite often on Sundays. Walk into Hertford, go there. Spend the afternoon and evening there and walk home. And Gladys came in with my cousin Reg Collins, who is now dead, and I thought, "Well, that looks like the girl for me," and it worked out.
ES: And where did you live, Gladys?
GS: Bengeo.
ES: Bengeo, right. So you haven't got any photos of?
RS: No, nothing. I've got no proof of anything.
ES: Well, they weren't such days for taking photos, were they? So, you say that a first memory was of seeing Ben Collins on his death-bed, what did he die of, I wonder?
RS: I wouldn't know but tuberculosis was pretty rife at the time. One, if not two, of his daughters died with it. I couldn't tell you whether they were daughters of Ben or Chambers's, because the Chambers and Collins family were intermingled, weren't they?
ES: Yes. But you remember his artificial hand?
RS: No.
ES: Oh. Well, he did have. He came back from the war with a hook, apparently, and that's what he used to wallop Ernie with.
RS: Oh, I see. Well, it would seem I wasn't big enough to wallop, if I was there at all.
ES: Well, that's right! A lucky escape! I'll just show you the photos I've got of The Angel. If you're interested in any of them, I could - these are only copies - I could get better ones from the Museum.
RS: I'm very interested because I've got several books on Hertford, old Hertford, and there's never one of The Angel. I've not seen a picture of it all, yet. I remember it in my mind's eye.
ES: Well, let me just show you this map. This is Railway Street. That's The Angel, there O.K? And this actually is, I think, 1880 something.
RS: That used to be a walk-in passage.
ES: That's right. Now if you look, I think that this passage here is looking down there. This is Railway Street, all right? You look through there. Does that chime with what you remember? And what you can see through that alley is, it's actually this, a sort of barn on stilts, which is - that's the alley and that's the barn.
RS: That was another passageway, there, and someone used to - I think it was a milk dairy.
ES: There was, that's right. Was it Smith's?
RS: I couldn't say.
ES: No, quite likely.
GS: I used to live at the Duncombe, The Diamond.
ES: Did you?
GS: Yes, we lived over the top.
ES: Did you? Oh well, I must have a go at you in a minute, then. Back of The Angel (looking at the photo of the barn on stilts) Ernie Chambers said there was a billiard hall up on this first floor.
RS: Well that I don't remember.
GS: Well Ernie's that bit older than you.
ES: Oh yes. He's 90 next March. He's in fine form, though, isn't he? Mind you, a bit of a sour man.
GS: Oh, he always was, old Ernie. He was dour. You never got a laugh out of him.
RS: He couldn't read or write.
ES: No, I realise that. He's a very nice-looking man. Fine looking. You wouldn't guess he couldn't read or write [what was I talking about?!]
RS: He had quite a bit of tuition. A teacher, a chap named Pulham, gave him a few lessons to help him along. Gave him enough to work on. And he always had a good eye for the main chance.
ES: Yes, he seems a clever man with a lot of natural ability but he's very bitter about his childhood and with good reason.
GS: Well, I think they had a rough old time.
[there follows a discussion of the photographs discussing various places in Hertford but without the photographs not very helpful, probably the area around Railway Street. Some will be those featured in “Children of The Angel”]
ES: So did you live above (The Diamond)?
GS: Yes. We moved down from London. What, it must have been, I was 10. It must have been 1932. 1932 I moved down from London.
ES: Which bit of London?
GS: West Ham. And we lived over The Diamond pub and then we moved up to Gosselin Road in Bengeo.
ES: It must have been a bit of a noisy
GS: No. It was like, 'cos where I lived in West Ham, we used to have the old trolleys.
ES: Oh, so you were used to a bit of life.
GS: You know, the old trams, and that, going by and we were buried alive when we come down here 'cos it was quiet then. There was no traffic.
ES: No but it was reckoned to be a fairly rough pub.
GS: Oh my Gawd, yes. But, of course, we never got mixed up with it. We'd got all The Green behind us. That was a rough area. There was always fights there on a Saturday night, but otherwise it was all quiet, yes. Quiet to what we was used to.
ES: Right. So where did you go to school, Gladys?
GS: Well, I went to Cowbridge School when I first, Juniors, and then on to Longmore.
ES: Did either of you go to Sunday School?
GS: I went to the Salvation Army Hall.
ES: What the Ragged School?
GS: There 'cos my mum was a Salvationist.
ES: Oh, I see. Did she play in the band?
GS: No, she was just a member.
ES: So you were brought up to it, really, were you?
GS: Yes, more or less.
ES: Right, well I think that's probably about it. I am most particularly interested in The Angel. You don't remember, know of, any other families that lived there, do you? I mean, so far we've spoken to Jim Morris and Dolly, and Ernie Chambers.
GS: There's only Daisy, isn't there? But I don't know where she is.
ES: Is Daisy the one who pushes the pram around with the dog in it?
GS: Oh no.
ES: What's her name? It's not Lil. is it?
GS: The one that lives at Hornsmill?
ES: I live in West Street and all the time we've lived there, which is about 30 years, I've seen this woman pushing an old pram along with a dog in it. I wonder who she is?
GS: Ain't she Dolly's sister? Something to do with Dolly, ain't she? Used to live round the back of a pub on Cowbridge, didn't they?
RS: Yes I think so there were two families in the same house somewhere
ES: Well of course most of them seem to …Jim Morris he didn’t know his father and they came from Stevenage in about 1940 his mother and him and then she married when Jim was about 7. Of course Dolly her mother was married twice so on top of quite a lot of things happening anyway they all seemed to have had a second marriage. And brutal stepfathers feature rather largely.
GS: They did in those days
ES: Yes yes
(Warden comes on intercom checking on them)
ES: I am sure there are other things I ought to ask you. I will have to come and see you again and bring copies of those photographs. We were talking about the other families. As far as I can see, it was just yourselves, the Chambers and the Morrises.
RS: As I said, there used to be the milkman, up the yard
ES: You got to him through the alleyway, did you?
RS: (looking at a photo again discussing where it was) the picture you've got of the doorway there, and there was an archway there
GS: And the milkman, he was underneath, wasn't he?
ES: I know Jim had I think it must have been a step sister, she had twins by that milkman, he was obviously quite a …………
RS: I was trying to remember who used to keep the Welcome.
GS: There was The Welcome sweetshop, wasn't there? That was a lady on her own, wasn't it?
RS: I remember the nice hot drinks they used to do
ES: But when you look back to your childhood, do you see it as a happy time? Or was it always a struggle?
RS: It was a hell of a struggle all the while. I can remember riding round the various Greens, I on the back of a bicycle Mother used to have, touting for work. It was eventually sort of 9 to 6 or 7 at night for 10 bob a week.
ES: This was her cleaning work?
GS: Yes. I spent quite a lot of time floating around various aunts. I would contest anybody who said they were the 'good old days'. They were anything but. If you had it, they were all right but those who hadn't, were really without.
ES: Yes, I mean Ernie said he didn't have shoes.
GS: None of us did.
RS: You used to have a bit of cardboard in the sole of the shoe to cover the hole. And I often used to walk into Hertford with a note from Mother to approach one of my Aunt Mary's sons, to see if their boys had got any cast-offs. My first pair of long trousers, of which I was very proud, they were wafer-thin on the knees and in a short time they'd gone through but I still wore them.
GS: But you never had anything, did you?
ES: Was it shaming…?
GS: In those days, there was so much of it that no one took any notice. I mean, our family was the same. My father was in the building trade and most of the winter he didn't work. So we used to go up to Mrs Blackett-Ord ( Rep for food distribution) for tickets for food and stuff. So, I mean, there was no shame on it in those days. And you never got anything unless you knew somebody. I mean, as I say, we never had shoes. If they were, they were somebody's cast-offs. That's why I say we're lucky we're so fit and well as we are. Must have got some good old stamina.
ES: It was a harsh upbringing but you survived it
GS: If you survived the first five years, you were all right.
ES: Did you have brothers and sisters?
GS: Yes, I had a brother and a sister. My brother lives up in Manor Close. I'm the eldest. My sister lives at Walton-on-the-Naze. My mother lost two children.
ES: In their childhood?
GS: When they were small, babies, I think. Most people were in the same position.
ES: Ok I will come up at some stage when I have got those photos alright? Shall I bring you one of this passage and one of the pub?
GS: Yes
ES: Have you got children?
GS: Yes
ES: Well they will be interested to…
GS: Grandson as well and he has got all his books on Hertfordshire hasn’t he?
ES: Oh he is interested then?
GS: He goes to ware College … he loves anything like that
ES: Right
GS: Yes we know Hertfordshire as it was.
End of tape