Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Scott, Alan (O1996.20) |
| Interviewee | Alan Scott (AS) |
| Interviewer | Jean Riddell (Purkis) (JR) |
| Date | 12/07/1996 |
| Transcriber by |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O 1996.20
Interviewee: Alan Scott (AS)
Date: 12 July 1996
Venue: 99, North Road, Hertford
Interviewer: Jean Riddell (Purkis) (JR)
Transcriber: Jean Riddell (Purkis)
Typed by: Jean Riddell (Purkis)
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
JR: This is Jean Riddell speaking from 99, North Road, Hertford which is the home of Mr Alan Scott who came to Hertford in 1948 to begin work at the newly formed Ministry of National Insurance at 71, St Andrew Street which was next to Gins Yard.
Perhaps you could start Alan by telling us where you came from before you came here?
AS: Well, I came from a little village called Silksworth, which in those days was about three or four miles south of Sunderland. It is now part of Sunderland itself. I was lucky in being brought up on a farm so that I always got plenty to do with the cattle and horses and everything. We were never short of food on the farm. I was brought up by my Grandfather. My father was killed in the shipyards before I was a year old so I never knew him and of course things were very hard then but we weren't so bad. He was head carman on Halthorne so we always had plenty of milk, plenty potatoes, plenty of swedes and a jolly good garden tree. All that provided everything for. And of course things were much cheaper then you know.
JR: Yes
AS: A chap used to come round with a horse and cart selling fresh herrings and I used to go out with a washing up bowl and get it full for sixpence.
JR: Marvellous, yes.
AS: Makes you think.
JR: Yes
AS: Then of course when I left school I started work first of all in the ship yards. Why I was jolly lucky in having a first-class school teacher rather marvellous old lady Miss Foster. She was a wonderful old girl really. She used to study her pupils very carefully, decide what was their aptitude, contact local employers and get jobs for them. And she got me a job in Docksford shipyard. And.it wasn't until I got into the RAF many, many years later did I realise that her judgment was correct.
JR: Good.
AS: But she was an honest little girl that one, very strict, very stem disciplinarian.
JR: Yes
AS: You slipped up you knew quickly. But she brought her own carving tools to the school and the selected pupils were allowed to use them as was when I first started learning to use tools. That's one of them there now. That fret saw I bought when I was 10 year old and it's still in use. So I brought it out last night to use it.
JR: Yes that's lovely.
AS: Ever since I were 10 year old.
JR: Did you have to save up to buy this?
AS: Oh Yes, Yes.
JR: How long did it take you to save up for this?
AS: Oh my goodness, too long to remember.
JR: A lot of money was it? How much was it do you know?
AS: No it wouldn't be a lot in those days.
JR: No, a lot for you?
AS: Oh it was a lot then yes, about five or six shillings or something like that.
JR: These two things here are they…?
AS: Oh no that's an ordinary pair of pliers.
JR: Right that's not an early pair you bought, and this one.
AS: That's the artwegen drill which came with fret work set which I brought before I had the frame. Or rather it was a present from my mother. One of the best presents I ever had, the old fret work set. Yes taught me how to use tools carefully. I can still use that saw without breaking blades. I wear the blades out I don't break them.
Then of course when my Grandparents died I moved over to Saxestone for a while. The cycling
from there to Silksworth hall to work, 12 miles each way.
JR: So you changed your job?
AS: No same job Silksworth Hall. After I left the shipyard it closed down. There was no work. It was dead so I went into private services as general dogsbody. I worked like hell there for 10 bob a week. I looked after two ponies, three cars, two downgrade boilers, a Wholesbury gas engine for the electric light plant and that was a real hard job. I didn't realise how hard it was, but the chauffeur on whom I worked he did practically all his time making and selling radio sets. So I used to do his work on the cars on his instruction but it did me a lot of good because I learnt a hell of a lot more then I would've done otherwise. It was then that I began to take an interest in the Labour party. My uncle Jack Scott, he was a really keen Labour man and he took me down to hear old Lloyd George addressing a meeting in Sunderland.
JR: Right.
AS: Now I've always regarded Lloyd George as the greatest Prime Minister this country ever had. I'm sure of that. His only education was in little village school. He had no money behind him. He was an orphan but he really did remarkably well. Anyway at this meeting he wasn't very popular. There had been a strike in Monkwearmouth colliery at the time just before that and Lloyd George sent the telegram to miners' leader & gave either 24 hours to get back to work or get into khaki so they got back to work. But he wasn't very popular anyway. He stood there, there was no microphone to help him out but he had a remarkable carrying voice and eventually he managed to pull somebody's leg and get them all laughing. And after he had talked about half an hour or more they start cheering him and they finished up carrying him shoulder high to the station.
JR: Really
AS: Most remarkable experience. So I never forgot that until this day. He remains my greatest hero. I've got a gadget here you might like to take a photo of it.
JR: yes, I could perhaps. I'll see what it is.
AS: This was when he introduced the National Insurance Act.
JR: it's a…?
AS: It's a stamp licker
JR: Oh is it?
AS: you fill it with water and use the turn for moistening stamps otherwise let him lick his own stamps.
JR: it's a little, well, it's about I should think about nine inches high model of Lloyd George with, um, made of plaster, painted and coming out of his mouth is a piece of cloth of some kind. And you fill the model up with water like a bottle would be and then the water obviously creeps up the piece of cloth and comes out of his mouth, makes it damp. And then you press your stamp against the…?
AS: Moisten it on his tongue.
JR: Yes that's supposed to be his square tongue and it says, “Let him lick his own stamps on the bottom.”
AS: That was one of the things that always produced to try and upset him.
JR: Right
AS: I think it probably did him more good than anything.
JR: Yes, well, a lot of these were sold?
AS: I wouldn't know
JR: Where did you get this one from then?
AS: Well it was given to me by somebody who picked it up in an old second hand shop.
JR: oh I see
AS: Who knew I was interested
JR: Yes, yes
AS: I've got another one upstairs, a good one, that was bought when he was given the freedom of the city at Silksworth Hall.
JR: I will take a photograph of him now. So what were the politics of the chauffeur that you worked for?
AS: He hadn't got any.
JR: You hadn't really or were influenced by him at all?
AS: No. no. My uncle Jack influenced me most of all.
JR: Yes, Yes
AS: We had, Ramsey Mcdonald was one of our local MP's and I've been a keen labour supporter ever since.
JR: Did you actually join the party.
AS: Back then no. I joined at when I was at Linton later on.
JR: So you were working at Silksworth Hall. Were there many staff there? What kind of place was it?
AS: It was a big place, 12 gardens. I forget how many maids there were, no end of them. It's now a hotel and I had the pleasure of dining there not so long ago. It hadn't altered much at all. The only real difference in the house was they'd moved the lovely old oak staircase and flogged it.
But that was where I learnt to drive there when I was only 15. I used to take the car round from the garage, was quite a little distance through a difficult route up to the front door for the chauffeur to take old man Burleson to town every morning. And he used to be waiting on the door step with his
watch in his hand. I got up one morning the chauffeur hadn't arrived. He was behind. And it was eight o'clock so Mr Burleson said can you drive me to town, Alan? Yes certainly. So I drove him down and I was only 15 then. Cause the police wouldn't stop the car with a crest on the door.
JR: No
AS: One experience I had there put the wind up me for a while. I was coming back from Sunderland one day, up the Durham Road and I had one of the gardeners with me. They were getting a lift and I looked there was a wheel running way down the road in front of me. I suddenly realised it was mine! The stub axel had broken. The wheel was tumbling off down in front of me. But I got the other bloke to sit close to the side and I got on as far as I could and she didn't drop until I practically stopped. So we were all right.
JR: So you were on three wheels then?
AS: Three yes.
JR: Yes
AS: I forget where it was, I think Talbot. I learned on a damn great big Lanchester which is a beautiful old car that one. Anyway when my grandparents died I moved in with my mother at Sacrestan. That is the other side of Chester-Le-Street, Durham. But biking 12 miles to work and back to start work at seven and finish sometime after six at night and of course I wanted to get on so I applied for a job at Ottington Hall. Lady Stephen Furness who was the widow of Sir Stephen Furness who had been a liberal MP under Lloyd George as cabinet. Anyway when I arrived for an interview, I had a very good interview, very nice, a jolly good meal there and everything but I didn't
think I'd got the job because I realised she considered I wasn't old enough. But when she asked me how much she owed me for train fare, I said. “Well you don't owe me anything.”
She looked and said, “How did you get here?”
“Cycled.”
“You cycled all the way from Durham.” She said, “It's over 50 miles.”
I don't mind that so I got the job. I got on very well there. They were very nice people.
I was Miss Furness, Mary Furness, first second horseman when I was only seventeen. Now recently a photograph of her appeared in the Telegraph when she had died. She'd been lost over the Hurworth Hunt for years. I've still got that photo I cut it out of the Telegraph. I used to ride on a pad on top of a side saddle on top of a 17 hands horse so I was right up in the air.
JR: A big one.
AS: On one occasion, of course they were also very fit those horses, on one occasion they picked up a fox after the meet and off we went and I couldn't hold Pat at all. He just went straight through everything. I finished up in front of the whole field. In the process he jumped right over the River Wiske leaving me hanging on.
JR: So that started off your interest off in horses.
AS: No, I had been interested in it years. I was born on them.
JR: You had them on the farm did you?
AS: Yes. They were all horses in those days. Tractors hadn't come in. Thinking to improve myself I took a job with the Hampshire Hunt, as second whip. Well that was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life. A Master called George Evans, he was an absolute swine. He couldn't speak to anybody without swearing at them. And I wasn't long there before I decided I was going. So I kept reading the Horse and Hound every week and I found this advert for somebody in Rochaddam wanting a stable hand. So I applied for that by telephone and applied for it by telephone and got it straight away. I went out and told George Evans exactly what I thought of him and he told me I wouldn't get a reference from him. I told him I didn't want one and he knew what to do with it and I left the next morning.
JR: And where was that place?
AS: RopIey in Hampshire.
JR: And you came from there to Much Hadham?
AS: When I arrived at Much Haddam I was really impressed, as an old man who’s porter there, he said, “Don't worry about your case. You can leave that. I'll look after it for you. I'll send it up on the carrier tomorrow.” He showed me where to go. Incidentally that man is the great grandfather of my granddaughter's husband. Still a connection.