Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Foster, Les (O1996.17) |
| Interviewee | Les Foster (WLF) |
| Interviewer | Peter Ruffles (PR) |
| Date | 31/05/1996 |
| Transcriber by | Jean Riddell (Purkis) |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O1996.17
Interviewee: Les Foster (WLF)
Date: 31st May 1996
Venue: Hertford Club
Interviewer: Peter Ruffles (PR)
Transcriber: Jean Riddell (Purkis)
Typed by: Jean Riddell (Purkis)
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
PR: Right, now. Here we are in the Hertford Club. It is 31st of May 1996 and I'm in the company of Cath Medhurst and the last Alderman, Alderman Les Foster, who's been a councillor then an Alderman, then he was abolished, they abolished all Alderman
WLF: I wasn't abolished, Peter.
PR: And then he came back again as a councillor all over again. And we are in the corner of the Hertford Club not far from the gents' toilets and Les will say every now and again “mind my wires." And we may well come back and talk to Les at some other occasion but since this is comfortable and I've got a cigarette and a few glasses of scotch in front of me and all is well, the machine is now working I think we ought to just ask you a few personal questions about how you arrived in Hertford before we get on to bits of council stuff.
WLF: How I arrived in Hertford?
PR: Yes, when, Les?
WLF: March, I think it was 1934. I lived in North Mymms and I push-biked to Hertford every day to work at Abbiss's Garage, Railway Street.
PR: Oh, cycled in!
WLF: Cycled in, for a while.
PR: Downhill to start with?
WLF: Er no, depends which way you came. If you came via Essendon you ended up with quite a
steep hill up there but I was young enough to push-bike then. Eleven miles I think it was.
PR: Was that your home then properly before you started or was it just where you were living at the time? You were…?
WLF: I was born in Lincoln. My home town's Lincoln, the city of Lincoln. And my father moved to Bedford then he moved to Brookmans Park Wireless Station to put the engines in and he stayed on there as a maintenance engineer. Consequently we lived at Welham Green which is about two or three miles from the BBC station at Brookmans Park.
PR: And, how did you get this job here then?
WLF: Well, I saw it advertised and I applied for it and I began at 17 years old. I became Charlie
Abbiss's chief and only clerk and kept up his books.
PR: And you remained in Charlie Abbiss's business for how long?
WLF: Oh. I was there the day before the war started which was September 1st 1939. I was sitting
in his office and my father rang from Welham Green to say that there was a letter there - a telegram there, to report to Store Street RAF headquarters in London and I had to go there in uniform and report. And I didn't go back to Abbiss's until after the war.
PR: We'd better mention a bit about your war service, because that is quite important, isn't it?
WLF: Well, it was seven years. That would take a bit of time, that would
PR: Tell us roughly the sort of things you were doing.
WLF: Well, I joined the RFVI in February '39 as a pilot, suspended August 1939, had to re-muster
as air observer, which in those days was a navigator bomb aimer. And as such I was called up the day before war started and posted to a navigation school, then to Northern Ireland, Blenheim fighter squadron in coastal command. Most of our jobs were over Norway. And I was two years with that squadron as sergeant, then flight sergeant and ended up a warrant officer in that squadron. And at the end of '41 came off that and went as an instructor.
PR: And were you demobbed, do you call it demobbed in the RAF?
WLF: Yes, in 1945 but at the end of '41 I went to Bournemouth. I was commissioned at Bournemouth as a flying officer. In those days a warrant officer's pay was less than a commissioned pilot officer's pay, so had to make me up to flying officer straight away. I did a course of instructing and then I went to DTU coastal command, yes, coastal command for another few years. From there I went to Egypt, flying around the Middle East. My documents got to HQ and they found I'd done a navigator's course so they posted me to a task training pilots and converting single engine pilots to twin engines. I didn't like that job. After a couple of months I asked to be posted.
I was posted to Palestine as senior briefing officer. Eventually it got up to be one of the biggest aerodromes in the Middle East. I was made up to squadron leader then. From then on, beginning of '45, I was posted to Iraq as senior briefing officer and was demobbed the end of '45. Went back to Charlie Abbiss.
PR: Not sure how the sound is coming. I think Les, probably I think it’s coming through all right
but you can probably hold that. Let's unclip it and
WLF: D'you want to try it or not?
PR: No, no. I think if you just talk into that little top bit and fiddle with it too much probably. I think it may have been all right anyway, but that, I'll give you an extra bit of power. So, Hertford knows you because of Borough Council how did all that start?
WLF: From, maybe about 19, 96, now 50, 52, yes, it would be about '52 I suppose, 1951,'52, l'd
got to know people in, a lot of people in Hertford by then and er, especially people on the Conservative side. So I heard there was a vacancy in All Saints' Ward
PR: All Saints' you started?
WLF: I started in All Saints', yes. And of course before then, the year before, two Socialists got on, Beatty and MiIler. Then the Council members, you'd got eighteen independents and two Labour but Frank Herniman and myself. He stood next year and we both got on and the Council was sixteen, no eighteen Conservatives and three Labour. And then I stood three years later and another three years later and Eddie Bennett who was on the Council got knocked off in one ward and I, Milkman Sparks
PR: Oh, yes, Sparks
WLF: Yes, so, em
PR: But did you stand?
WLF: I stood down then from All Saints' and stood for St. Andrew's. I stayed there for a few years
until Peter Ruffles. That's about thirty years. Anyway it was good fun and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
PR: Did you always stand, in years back when you first were a member they were Independent, a lot of them, weren't they? Or…?
WLF: I made a mistake. There were eighteen Independents and two Labour, sorry, when I joined.
PR: When did the Conservative label come in then? Almost straight away then for most people?
WLF: Yes, well as soon as, as I say I wrongly stated in the first place, but now I remember it was
eighteen independents, two Labour. The next year it was sixteen Independents, two Labour and two Conservatives and then the Conservatives started getting in until it was eighteen Conservatives and two Labour.
PR: Yes, it moved
WLF: And of course. 1958 I was Mayor and 1966 I was Mayor. I was Deputy Mayor to John Forrester a couple of times. Well I really enjoyed it. l hope I did a bit of good for the community.
PR: Cor, I'd say so! Yes. So, when you first arrived, who was the Town Clerk?
WLF: Harry Bentley. And I remember going to interview Arthur Clough. Well, of course in those
days when Harold Bentley was Town Clerk. all the legal work was done bv Longmores. because Harry Bentley was not a qualified solicitor.
PR: Oh, I see.
WLF: And we appointed Arthur Clough as Town Clerk, and he was a qualified solicitor. I think he
came from Southend.
PR: So, he'd applied for the job
WLF: He applied for the job and got it. And of course George Neal who'd been deputy before, a
Hertford man, was made deputy to Arthur Clough.
PR: Yes, and he was the Hertford bloke, wasn't he, George Neal. He helped me quite a lot. So it
couldn't have taken you all that long to become Mayor, really?
WLF: I can't remember. 1951 I think and I was Mayor first in '58. Then eight years later.
PR: And by that time you were living in Hertford?
WLF: Oh, I came to live in Hertford. I left the forces in December 1945 and came to live in Hertford in '46 and lived locally ever since and am now nearly retired.
PR: But you did become an Alderman, which is a thing
WLF: Oh, well, Alderman. I understand I'm the last one left. Mayors? The next one after me was
either Don Graves or George Stoten, about eight years after me.
PR: Yes, yes. Now the more senior wear the Aldermen's robes.
WLF: Aldermen were elected by the Councillors, in those days. Now, well you can't call them Aldermen.
PR: So, was that a surprise to you when you were made Alderman or is there a bit of canvassing, or do you put yourself forward?
WLF: In those days you didn't canvass. It was just a matter of, if I remember rightly, I took over
from George Mansfield and he sold me his ex-robe for £5.
PR: Did he
WLF: He told me
PR: Yes, I think people did buy theirs. I'm not quite sure what, I don't want you to get too preoccupied with the light – perhaps.
WLF: Would you like another cigarette?
PR: No, I've had my ration for the time being. So. George Mansfield sold you the gear.
WLF: He said he bought it when he was made Alderman. I suppose in those days an Alderman had to buy his own robes. I went to his house in Bengeo there
PR: Yes, in Tower Street
WLF: 'Course, he was about my size, a lot older. It fitted me a treat.
PR: But it didn't stop you doing all the normal council work, did it? I mean you could do committee chairman presumably as an Alderman?
WLF: Yes, we had the same rights or whatever you like to call them as a councillor. Just the fact
that you were all Alderman and as such you were a little bit more respected possibly than the
councillors.
PR: So, was Arthur Clough a success? I mean, having a legal person in that job, was that, did
that make…?
WLF: I thought he made a good job of it. I must say to my mind Harry Bentley did a bloody good
job, but of course anything legal really had to be delegated to Longmores. And once we had a solicitor as Town Clerk all the legal work was done by him.
PR: You stuck with St. Andrew's Ward for…?
WLF: For some time, until I say, I stood with Peter Ruffles. He got on, I got knocked off, both on
the East Herts District Council and the Town Council.
(PR's later note: "I don't think that was the case. We both got on." )
PR: Yes, that's, I was trying to remember when all that happened. But you were on a long time
with me, though.
WLF: Oh yes. It must have been nine years in a three and four year stretch, wasn't it?
PR: Yes, yes and the Tories wanted you to be the Vice Chairman of the East Herts District Council at one point, yes, because not very many Borough people stood for East Herts, did they and I mean nearly all had finished?
WLF: I think I only stood for the Council one term. Four years is it?
PR: Yes, and then you did the Town Council, the new little
WLF: I did the Town Council, yes.
PR: Parish council thing for another four years.
WLF: I did it for thirty years of my life and I enjoyed it and so did my wife when she was still alive.
My wife was a very good Mayoress, she helped me no end.
PR: Oh, I remember. You know how you have these little snippets, snapshots, memories. I can remember coming, I was a kid, I think at the time, outside the Shire Hall the count was going on inside the Shire Hall and you stuck your head out at the top and then your wife and a few other ladies came out from the count. I think they were going across to the Salisbury for a break
WLF: I think that place was put there purposely to celebrate elections at the Shire Hail!
PR: And I remember her saying, "I don't know what Les'll do if he doesn't get back." Someone said, "How's it going?" and all that sort of thing and, "I don't know what he'll do if...." but you did. And I can just hear that snippet of conversation that she was having with somebody else and I was eavesdropping, I suppose at the time. What about the people you were working with, then? You've mentioned Arthur Clough and Harry Bentley but the other members, who were the Alderman?
WLF: Well, there was Percy Brooks, Win Brooks, lovely people. They did a lot for the town. The
old station master, Proctor
PR: Proctor, yes
WLF: Darned good 'down to earth' sort of chap.
PR: I don't think he was ever made Alderman, though, was he?
WLF: I have a feeling he may have been. He should have been. I can't remember. I've got a photograph at home of the Council when John Forrester was on the Council. I look quite young then. It must have been thirty-five years ago, when Win Brooks was there. So that was two or three years before I was Mayor, I should think. I'm not sure I didn't take over from her. I can't remember now. But John Forrester was alive then. He was very good for the town.
I must put in this little bit. I was posted to, 1945, to RAF Shambrook as senior briefing officer and I took over a building from somebody I'd never met. I had to sign the Inventory for it and the chap previous who signed it was John Forrester and he used it for parachute packing.
When I took it over it was for an air crew briefing room, but I never met him until he came on the Council. I can't remember him when I first came to Hertford but it must have been ten years after I joined, I suppose and we were talking one evening and we realised that we were both at the same station. I followed him at the station. And he remained a very great friend of mine until he died, That's some years ago, isn't it?
PR: Yes, a few years back now. And Dan Dye?
WLF: Dan Dye, yes. I always remember Dan. I remember a lot of stories he used to, how he used to shove boys up the chimney and things like that.
PR: Yes, yes.
WLF: But he was a good old boy. He was driving his big old Humber about, well not long before he died, anyway. Dan Dye, a good old boy.
PR: Yes, I think what we'll do having got a snippet, I'll have to run away quite quickly, we've got
the markers down. Some things we can talk about. I'll nip off and another time I can come round to your place and see some pictures. We've got the markers down. It may be that we don't come out very well because of the noise.