Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Stocks, Agnes (O1995.20) |
| Interviewee | Agnes Stocks (AS) |
| Interviewer | Peter Ruffles (PR) |
| Date | 16/08/1995 |
| Transcriber by | Jean Riddell (Purkis) |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O1995.20
Interviewee: Agnes Stocks (AS)
Date: 16th August, 1995
Venue: 2, Gwynn's Walk, Hertford
Interviewer: Peter Ruffles (PR)
Transcriber: Jean Purkis (Riddell)
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
PR: This is Peter Ruffles at number 2, Gwynn's Walk and it's a very hot August afternoon, Wednesday 16th, the home of Mrs. Agnes Stocks who this morning agreed that I could come and ask her some questions about her memories when she presided over a fascinating cul-de-sac at the foot of Port Hill when there were quite a lot of colourful residents suppose you would say, a little bit older than Agnes, who used Agnes as their great source of succour partly and guidance and even discipline, occasionally, I believe.
Now we're going to just go through one or two characters who normally with this Hertford Oral History Group's recordings. We're talking to people who've lived in Hertford all their lives and who are talking about their childhood memories of the town, but Agnes isn't quite like that because Agnes has come to Hertford as a member of an old Hertford family, the Stocks. But you actually came from north of the border. How do you happen to be here Agnes?PR: This is Peter Ruffles at number 2, Gwynn's Walk and it's a very hot August afternoon, Wednesday 16th, the home of Mrs. Agnes Stocks who this morning agreed that I could come and ask her some questions about her memories when she presided over a fascinating cul-de-sac at the foot of Port Hill when there were quite a lot of colourful residents suppose you would say, a little bit older than Agnes, who used Agnes as their great source of succour partly and guidance and even discipline, occasionally, I believe.
AS: Well I married a Hertford man didn’t I?
PR: Right, Well I know that and the listeners in 50 years time will now know because this tape will now go in to the museum with lots and lots of others, 60 or so at the moment, in future years long after we are gone some might and to go in and listen or read a transcript and may well say oh fancy those people living in that little row of cottages. So where did you meet Arthur? How did you come to meet?
AS: Arthur’s work was with the Ministry of Defence, well it was Air Ministry then, and he was a patient at an airport well aerodrome near my home town of McDuff. That’s how we met and I met him at my own home because my sister who was a teacher travelled to a village near the aerodrome had met him while we were travelling and being a stranger there she invited him one day to a meal at my home and I met him there. At that time I was training in Aberdeen and had come out for a day or two off and I met him there.
PR: Well, what year was that roughly?
AS: That was in 1943.
PR: And you married quite quickly after that?
AS: Towards the end of the year, yes right yes.
PR: Then immediately…
AS: Well then immediately after, well we had settled down more or less and of course my husband was transferred south, he was going to the er well what was in those days fighter command over at Bentley Priory which was very interesting but about which there was no talk of course.
PR: Yes.
AS: But there were RAF personnel and of course he had to look after them and make sure they were alright and from there he was posted to London Airport and he was actually at the opening of London Airport, I was invited too I still have all the invitation cards from the Queen.
PR: Ahh.
AS: Yes so we were down there for the presentation. Because of the work he had done, he was an engineer of all sorts.
PR: When did you actually move in to Hertford, to 29, Port Hill?
AS: 1944.
PR: That must have been quite an experience a bride to move in to what was a very well ordered household I suppose?
AS: No, well, I was… actually I had been down when we were engaged and I had been down in Hertford so I did know about it and the family.
PR: The Stocks family go back quite a while in the town don’t they?
AS: In this town yes they do go back quite a bit, actually they lived at 29 Port Hill for 70 years.
PR: Wow!! Well that in itself is worth recording. Now lets………what do I do?
AS: Put it off, that’s it.
PR: We can put it on for another blow as soon as we are ready, well that is excellent we have got the pace right and dials etc….. we are on for ever now……..so lets just list the household as you found it and as it had been.
AS: When I came in the household there was Arthur's mother and she had a brother hadn’t she. Mr. Lacey?
PR: Yes.
AS: Also…
PR: He wasn’t living….
AS: Also his father who had died previously was a coal merchant and barge and grain people who carried grain and coal to and from London on the river Lee. Well he was with that firm of I think it was Stokes and that’s where he was so as a boy my husband used to go on the barges and he loved it because I always remember Arthur saying it was lovely going to London because he got such lovely toffies and sweets and fruit, dates that sort of thing which you never saw in Hertford. Quite and experience for them.
PR: Yes yes… so Mrs Stocks was alive, Was her name Clara, there are two Clara Elizabeth Stocks associated with the place?
AS: Yes well her mother was you see and a little lady wasn’t she a very tiny lady and went to church at Christ Church (Port Vale) at that time they attended there.
PR: So you came to live in Arthur’s home and then Doris…
AS: Doris and Clara, but Clara wasn’t there a great deal because Clara had… she came for two years to Abel Smith to teach but Doris of course was always at Port Vale. Teaching there.
PR: Yes.
AS: And then when they were you know hard put to it for time to do things to the house, Bertha whose uncle and aunt had died she came to live and help and be a companion to Arthur's mother. But also there was another sister there when I first went, Gert but she was with the…….she worked for Income Tax and unfortunately she developed a brain tumour and had to go to the hospital for nervous diseases in London. It was benign but she died as a result of it.
PR: Yes, your own professional training was in nursing?
AS: Yes I trained in, strangely enough I trained in Aberdeen’s Sick Children for my first training strangely enough a fortnight ago my nephew he and his two children were in the north for the annual holiday there and my great niece fell off a horse while riding, the horse rolled over her, but fortunately she wasn’t hurt a great deal and she was taken to the Sick Children’s Hospital, Aberdeen. That bought back memories, then after that I did my general training in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and after that I went to Aberdeen to do my maternity training. So that was then.
PR: I know your skills had been called upon quite often in Hertford over the years. People have been very reassured that Agnes was at hand as it were.
AS: Well that was really funny because people used to say I ran a clinic at Port Hill (laughs)
PR: Yes?
AS: Always somebody coming for me wanting help of some sort and especially Dora Edwards because she couldn’t accept the responsibility. She would come and ring the door bell anytime, you know the doorbell at Port Hill
PR: Oh yes you pulled it out…
AS: I suppose the very old age of the house perhaps 1840…
PR: Was…
AS: Dora would be there 7 o'clock in the morning:: "Come quickly, come quickly, aunt's dying on the stairs!". Aunt being Betty Moody .
PR: Betty Moody, yes.
AS: Who was in the next cottage to Dora, Dora was in the first cottage, that small one which had previously been occupied by Rene Williams.
PR: Now we ought to go through a little list of the dramatis personae of the cul-de-sac, it is the little dead end which leads from the Reindeer down towards what…?
AS: The old railway
PR: The other side of the railway line is the cattle pens?
AS: That’s right, yes
PR: Your number 29 was right beside the railway line?
AS: That’s right ,over the wall, that huge wall.
PR: Next door at 31 still were Mr. and Mrs. Charles. The have lived there quite a long time.
AS: Yes they have, well they would be, let me think, that was after the war because he was, unfortunately with the Japanese. He was a prisoner of war at that time and that was after he came home, well that must be getting on for about...they have lived here about 40 years because the children have grown up here.
PR: Well VJ day celebrations are current at the moment and we know he has suffered considerable health problems.
AS: He suffered greatly especially with ulcers and he had no treatment for them. The only treatment he did have, he was on a ship of course, was sea water, that was the only thing, well the saline was quite good, the salt in the sea water, but he did suffer a great deal.
PR: But pressures caused him to be a missing person for some time.
AS: Ah but that was his father who was the Japanese prisoner of war .
PR: Right.
AS: That was the son George, he wasn’t a prisoner.
PR: Oh, right.
AS: No, No…
PR: Oh I thought George was the right age to have been…
AS: No no, that was his father, he was in the Navy.
PR: So the father was living there, I didn’t realise that, yes, he is a mystery figure, I only knew the next generation Mr and Mrs and Francis …
AS: Well you would know the boys at school Francis and Ian.
PR: Yes and Ian. Now when their father was missing there was great concern?
AS: When George was missing yes, he was just I think he was stressed.
PR: Yes he was found after some days and returned to the family
AS: Yes oh yes I remember that only too well. Because I was involved there in that. Trying to help comfort Jean and help out generally. It took some time to recover from that but he did.
PR: A good ending.
AS: It was very sad for all of them that this should have happened but one had to be very sympathetic towards all of them.
PR: Yes supportive. So running from 29 towards the Reindeer that’s a landmark towards Bengeo. Next door is the Francis’. Then the next cottage was the one that Rene Williams occupied at the time of her death.
AS: At the time of her death….
PR: Beyond that would be were the two..
AS: Ladies were, yes.
PR: One was called Miss Betty Moody and her sister, Mrs. Dyer, I need a Christian name for Mrs Dyer I don’t think I ever knew.
AS: Well we didn’t have a clue, she was always Mrs Dyer or Freddy, that’s right.
PR: Freddy! I would never dared to use such a name! Mrs Dyer and Miss Moody as far as I can remember.
AS: She was referred to as Mrs Dyer, always.
PR: Then the end cottage until just a month or so ago was the home for quite a long period of Dora Edwards.
AS: That’s right.
PR: Miss Dora Edwards and it was at her memorial service when her ashes were being interred the other day that I met you last in St. Andrew's Churchyard and we began to talk…
AS: Reminisced.
PR: Yes and I realised that you were on the list of people that were wanted, there is quite a long list of people that the Hertford Oral History Group would like to talk to and it was a good opportunity because you were talking to Carol, Mrs Edwards’ niece, about Dora. I can remember Dora from when I was working in Farnham's the newsagent.
AS: Yes, Financial Times.
PR: But not really, yes financial, the pink ….
AS: The pink paper.
PR: Wide open walking along the street studying it, often in my mind with a hat on that seemed to be…
AS: That’s right, yes.
PR: And looking well decked out, I thought at the time, quite expensively decked out, but …
AS: Are you aware where she got her clothes ….(laugh)
PR: Yes, she was an Oxfam lady.
AS: Yes she was. Yes she did patronise them, you never knew what she was going to come out in and when she bought the fur coat oh dear, it was dreadful.
PR: Well she was said to have been an eccentric before the term eccentric was invented of course and married only for a very short period of her life.
AS: Yes yes she worked with her husband didn’t she?
PR: Was that on the railway?
AS: The railway offices, that’s right yes,
PR: She became, as a mature woman, Mrs Dora Edwards and he died fairly quickly didn’t he afterwards?
AS: Yes they weren’t married very long, no not really. She didn’t refer to her husband a great deal at all.
PR: No no , now she, it’s a job to know which little bits to refer to. With Dora the most recent dealings, the last 10 or 15 years were when she developed a great aversion to electricity meter readers. She wouldn’t let them in to the house, and had attacked one with her walking stick and the electricity board refused then to send out a further meter reader. Sending me her bills. By that time her……….well perhaps not at the beginning but in more recent times all her financial were cared for by Lloyds Bank and Mr. Colin Love. (actually Mr Colin Lord)
AS: She had started getting people to deal, it was a solicitor first I think.
PR: Yes ,that’s right.
AS: Getting him to deal with things because anyone coming asking for money had to consult the solicitor.
PR: No responsibility of mine…
AS: No, no. How well off she was nobody knew, she was always on about her gold shares and seeing how the gold was jumping up and down.
PR: Yes a very eccentric large lady and last time I saw her was just two days before she died. Every now and again I would have to go, persuade her to let me go down in to the cellar under that cottage and that meant lifting out all sorts of bric a brac the home helps and nurses had left in the well leading down to the steps and she really wasn’t very happy for me to do that. It took a long time before she would go from a standing order to a direct debit and then I think the bank saw that would happen but it was still necessary for someone to go and say these are the meter readings the white meter and the local thing.
AS: Yes yes.
PR: She would rather…she would deflect me from it. I would go for other reasons as well and we would talk perfectly happily until I said now Dora I will go down and read the meter. She never actually said “you may not” but she wasn’t clearly happy and as I was unpacking the last time the various mops and pails and things she pulled me back in to the room up the steps, you know the steps to the scullery up to the sitting room at the front. She said “here’s something for you you can get me one of those” and I had to quickly look on the television and there was a Daltons Weekly advertised “brilliant” she said “any time after midnight will do. Just put it through the door that’s a job for you”. Then I would go back and unpack a few more bits and she would call me up for something else. There was something about the electricity meters some reason.
AS: Yes but in the end you know for a few years, the prior few years before this happened, she used to just get rid of people, she didn’t want them any more.
PR: Yes.
AS: It wasn’t just the home helps, Joy somebody who had been very kind to her.
PR: Joyce, yes.
AS: It didn’t matter who it was, I don’t know, she didn’t like them going in to her home.
PR: No.
AS: That’s the only thing I can think of.
PR: It had to be done otherwise she would have lost her facility, her electricity.
AS: Yes yes.
PR: About two days later of course she died very appropriately and nicely.
AS: I am very glad that she died happily a very happy ending to her life as far as I am concerned because she really….. she was a bit of a trial at times. She really was. If I ever you know ticked her off. I think I told you the tale of the carpet didn’t I? or didn’t I?
PR: Ah well now….. you were telling Carol and I heard some of it, yes.
AS: Well when I went in she called me, as we went out she called me, she said “come and see this” and when I went in I said “Dora just look at this carpet, a beautiful green Wilton carpet and look at it, you have walked in the front door to go down the steps to the kitchen you have left a path of earth, leaves, everything from the garden on your shoes, just look at it.” I said “It is not right and I would like you to clean it and I will come and see it when you have cleaned it!” About a month later as I was going out again she called me “I am ready for inspection” (laughs) it wasn’t very great but it was a bit better.
PR: So everyone has got a story about Dora haven’t they?
AS: Yes.
PR: I mean she was very very good in the paper shop with the banter.
AS: Oh yes, yes.
PR: You know with the… she used to source little bits, in her walking out days although she hadn’t left the cottage in the last how many years.
AS: Oh 20 year she just sat in the chair outside. But that days that……She could walk quickly at times I can tell you. It was when she was running away. When I.. when she called this morning and the bell clanged “come quickly Aunt's dying on the stairs". Of course you just go and there was aunt spread-eagled on the stairs, how she got in that position I will never know she just was there spread out, I couldn’t get a pulse and in the meantime Dora was out of the door. I said “Dora come back” so she came back and I got her to go across the road to the drill hall and ask the gentleman to come and help me to move your aunt onto the couch, and she did. Immediately she came back and said he came, but she didn't, she went .. don’t know where she went but she wasn’t there. But we got her moved alright.
PR: Now, that was Miss Moody,
AS: That was Miss Moody that was on the couch
PR: At that stage she a pretty old bird wasn’t she ? How old would Miss Moody have been then?
AS: It’s very difficult with age isn’t it but she was over 70, 75? That sort of age.
PR: Yes well. I would think she was older than that
AS: Was she?
PR: Well she was 90 or so when she died.
AS: Yes, well she must have been getting on for 80 then…
PR: Yes I would think when Dora arrived on the scene the aunts were already there and maturing well weren’t they? Did Dora come because of the aunts….or was it because of Rene and Stephanie?
AS: Ah, but then you see Mrs. Dyer’s son was instrumental I think, his mother was in London Freddy Dyer and Miss Moody was the housekeeper wasn’t she to who was it now…….the Wiltshires.
PR: I can remember her at Cawthorne.
AS: Cawthorne House, that’s right. She was the housekeeper at Cawthorne House and when she retired she came to this cottage and Freddy came down from London and Dora you see knew Freddy Dyers son and he, you know when Dora moved in, did the decorations to the house, the carpets and the wallpaper it was a very pleasant little cottage when she went in to it and that was because he was artistic.
His mother…… He was in the theatrical costume line and he was one of the people that was instrumental in getting up that costume theatre which was opened ten or twelve years ago. His mother was a great help to him because she was a very good embroideress and needlewoman of every sort and she repaired some of the most beautiful costumes ballet costumes that Nijinsky wore. I saw those and the work she put in to those, they were some of them very badly worn but she did the most beautiful work and that was the interesting thing about her and her son. They really were very gifted in that way and Dora, you know she was quite good to the aunts in a way. Well she always said they got a bit ratty but never mind you know they all got along alright. Of course Rene then entered into it because Rene had been in the cottage before Dora went in and Rene moved from that cottage to the one she was in until she died.
PR: Yes.
AS: She was another one that needed a bit of help to cope.
PR: Yes now did Rene own the cottages. All three of them?
AS: Yes she owned the cottages and then of course…yes she did because I could never discover about Dora's rent she didn’t know who her rent was paid to at all. She had no idea, it went through the solicitor anyway but Rene was the lady of the cottages.
PR: Yes Rene Williams lived as a girl at The Gables in Hertingfordbury Road.
AS: Yes, she lived with her godmother.
PR: Right.
AS: Miss, er, what was her name….do you remember?
PR: I don’t remember her I remember Rene walking along with a dog, a little dog.
Transcribers Note: Irene Williams was living at 151 Hertingfordbury Road in 1939 with an Agnes Bunyan but she may have been Miss Williams servant. It is not clear.
AS: Yes that right.
PR: From the Gables but I can’t remember who was living there. The only people I can remember by name were Cooper but they obviously moved in, a Dr Cooper, after Rene and her...
AS: After she had gone, yes,
PR: I might remember the name of Rene’s godmother sometime…
AS: I may just trying to remember what her godmothers name is…
PR: Then Rene presumably, did she become the owner of The Gables?
AS: I rather think so. I don’t know.
PR: No I can’t remember, she lived for a while in a flat at the back of Harmes…. (Scales builders and undertakers )
AS: Oh I knew that, yes.
PR: That was 61 Hertingfordbury Road, two rooms, she had a very nice kitchen and bedsit. Then suddenly she was in residence in Port Hill.
AS: Well I expect when all the estate was settled she had inherited that would enable her to buy the cottages. Then of course when Rene was getting to the stage when she really wasn’t very fit, you know mentally either. Stephanie Garston she came to stay, her godchild, do you remember her?
PR: I do yes. Dark haired, looked rather austere in a way with this pulled…
AS: Well she was art mistress at a… the girls school the well-known girls' one down on the coast. Anyway that’s where she came from and she was very arty and she was quite gifted and she did quite a few engravings and printing cards and books you know, she was very clever.
PR: She was a big help to St. Andrew's Church.
AS: Well she did the book of remembrance didn’t she.
PR: She died, didn’t she?
AS: Well after Rene died she left and went back, you see she came from Eastbourne and she worked in a school, what is that big private school near Eastbourne?
PR: Yes I can’t think…
AS: Girls' school….. well known name’s gone.
PR: Yes well anyway we can think of that.
AS: She moved up, she went back, to live there but she had a ………...
End of side A
Side B.
PR: So now Rene Williams I think she was 84 when she died but I know at St Andrews there was this joke that she was the oldest and most dangerous car driver in town.
AS: ******** yes she had held a licence longer than anybody.
PR: Yes yes when women motorists were very thin on the ground Rene was in at the beginning. But it is true to say there was a time when I think she was rather 'sweet' on Mr Brown, Father Brown from Bayford.
AS: Father Brown used to go there for tea you know quite a bit.
PR: Did he, well Rene was rather fond of chaps wasn’t she
AS: Oh yes.
PR: And rather good with us really, when I was about 5 or 6 she was playing the organ for Father Brown at Bayford and would sometimes call and pick up one of the aunts, Turnball aunts next door or me sometimes, to go, perhaps on a Sunday afternoon service and be behind the organ stall as she played. I remember my mother being anxious about me making the journey with Rene even then ……
AS: Oh well that was a long time before her crash days, yes
PR: I distinctly remember the anxiety - for some reason mother had a vision of a head on collision, it never happened, on that hump backed bridge along St. Mary's Lane. That’s probably because Rene had given us the usual child’s thrill of going over the bridge a bit fast and we had talked about it at home. Mother had this fear there was going to be some great disaster. Many many years after that when I was churchwarden at St Andrews we were having events, perhaps a parish supper, when we asked members of the who congregation needed lifts, and those who could offer lifts and Rene in her 80’s would always offer and it was her gift and something she could do really as I say she was becoming sort of mentally frail.
AS: Oh she was, her celebration? wasn’t as good as it had been at all.
PR: We had to be very careful we accepted her offer and made her feel…..
AS: Yes but I feel sorry for the people in the car.
PR: We had to then chose carefully those who would dare trust her.
AS: Yes I remember that Arthur, she used to ask him to drive her sometimes, to certain places, especially if she was going somewhere and would he wait and bring her back. Well he used to do that, I remember. I am reminded, Mrs Melville, Peggy Melville she was there last week, that driving to the other…. Lady Melville's daughter's wedding out at Hertingfordbury Rene asked Arthur to drive her out and wait for her, well of course the reception had…
PR: Oh yes
AS: It was a bit….however it was alright; it all worked out in the end, it was the best thing to do for her.
PR: it was a little Wolsley car she had.
AS: That’s right a grey one, it was grey
PR: Nearly always had a dog, didn’t Rene?
AS: Oh yes, yes. The poor dog died didn’t it and that was it. She was very fond of it.
PR: She was a very sweet, genteel lady.
AS: She was a genteel lady oh yes oh yes and she liked everything to be, you know, very genteel. That’s the type she was, non of her type today are there.
PR: No she invited me for Sunday lunch once when she was getting on quite a bit, someone had told me in the week that we were having chicken, Rene was doing this special thing, but she forgot to remove a plastic bag off something or other.
AS: So the giblets were still inside?
PR: Yes still inside. Yes so all that happened and it was when she was beginning, well it was clearly a special struggle for her to do but she wanted to do it.
AS: She is not the only one that did that Peter do you remember the tale, this was told me, when Mrs John Longmore was married, well she went to receive how you did in the old days, she received it from the butcher at the door he delivered and he carried it in to the kitchen for you and she was cooking the chicken she cooked it with the giblets inside.
PR: Ah yes well I marvelled that Rene managed to get her car out of that cul-de-sac across the road because that is a very difficult exit.
AS: Well yes to get out of there it’s a wonder of course if the traffic had been then as it is today I am afraid she would have had no chance.
PR: No and its not in ancient times we are talking about. Really its not that long ago
AS: Well it is so different. Its all altered now and that is a very dangerous corner it really is and there is nothing you can do about it. You just have to wait for cars coming over the hill (bridge) and then coming down the hill well.
PR: Hope that they are not going too fast and that’s a matter for them, not for you.
AS: I remember when there was a car coming down the hill. There was a ring at the doorbell “Come quickly” and a car had been coming down, this was Dora and “There’s been an accident” so up I run and it was the Norman’s daughter from Bengeo Street. She had been coming home from Presdales had been knocked down by a car. I said “oh the police and the ambulance; we must get her to hospital straight away”. I went to the phone to phone for the ambulance and I did, Dora had disappeared, she wasn’t there. The child actually was badly injured she was taken to a London hospital to Islington but again Dora ran away.
PR: Was she crossing the road at the time then?
AS: No she wasn’t crossing she was just walking up the hill. That’s all and I couldn’t get hold of her parents or anybody I remember that much but I phoned the works (Ekins) and I got her brother to come along.
PR: Yes, quite a lot of passing things along that particular road, all sorts of bits of news have happened there. There was a bus toppled once on the bridge when they ran double deckers to Bengeo apparently.
AS: Oh I don’t remember, I don’t know.
PR: They built the bridge up a few more layers of bricks.
AS: Oh yes, yes.
PR: I don’t know if it would really have been very useful if a double decker bus was going to fall on it.
AS: Well a lot of good hopefully, yes.
PR: That was to do with it. Doris, Clara was away headmistress of Redbourne school for a long time. Doris stayed in Hertford.
AS: That’s right, yes she did.
PR: I was always surprised that she didn’t teach at St Andrews school because she was such a mainstay of St Andrews Church treasurer for 30 odd years or something.
AS: Yes she was very faithful to St Andrews, oh no she wouldn’t have moved from there and the school was very handy it was just round the corner more or less which of course when the school moved from Port Vale up to Sele.
PR: Yes Hollybush.
AS: Hollybush that was a different matter wasn’t it, she wasn’t there all that time of course. I mean going to church at St Andrews, Doris, do you remember by name the people who lived in the cottages, McMullens cottages down by the side of the river. The end house..
PR: Oh Heffer, Eric Heffer.
AS: Heffer yes old Mr Heffer used to say “ I set my clocks by the Stocks going to church in the morning.”
PR: Yes and she was regular in the evening, weekday evensong.
AS: Oh yes yes. She went to every service nearly she was a very faithful friend of St Andrews.
PR: It meant though that she was never able to put down the stuff and say I will have two or three days off always something to clear out of the wall safe.
AS: Yes, but she really enjoyed doing that. She was very immaculate in her dealings with the money of course and she told people when they could spend and couldn’t spend. (laughs) which didn’t always suit people but was quite a good idea really.
PR: Oh yes she had a very firm hand.
AS: Good disciplinarian, well known for that. Kind with it in schools.
PR: I did one naughty thing with Doris that I have not regretted. She was anxious because PCC elections were looming. There was talk of, I think she had been treasurer around the 30-year mark, lots and lots of new people had arrived and Doris’ methods, the role she took of long books were outdated.
I know that she was anxious because the treasurer had to be elected to the PCC in the first place and then a new treasurer and she'd been doing the job for 30 years and her methods were considered outdated. She had first to be re-elected to the PCC and then elected treasurer. I was churchwarden and there was a very big crowd at the annual meeting in the hall where Doris gave her report the full years and a lot of competition to get on the PCC which was a really good thing. When we went in the kitchen Stan James and I as we were the churchwardens to count the votes it was meant to be, well it was a secret ballot, every person at that meeting voted for Doris every single one. Knowing that she had been anxious about it and had her critics people like old Maynard.
AS: Well he would because ********
PR: Because with his Batchelor of Commerce degree he would have done things differently, bound to. No one got anywhere near to Doris's number and I told her, I shouldn’t have done it really, But I don’t think it would…..I don’t suppose she boasted about it anywhere at all.
AS: Never heard of it, no.
PR: But it was a piece of information I thought she could do with really. Just to give her the confidence….
AS: Yes yes.
PR: Lots of course of Port Vale school pupils would refer to Doris as a dependable teacher, not very often away from school ill I guess.
AS: Clara was the same, I don’t think she had any time away from school. The only time she was off was when her mother died, I think she had leave then. No no they went on and on and on. They were quite proud of that that they were able to do it. Very good thing. But some of the children, I remember at school one day one child, it was in arithmetic I think, and this child brought out a calculator. Can you imagine how Doris felt? She went and seized it and said “ you are not allowed to bring those to school” I will give you it when you go home.
PR: The next day the child’s father came in and told her that she was very far behind the times, this was what was going to be in years ahead what was going to be used therefore the child should use this calculator. She said "not while I'm teaching here." So he had to go with that but of course it has come true. It has come to pass hasn’t it?
PR: Yes yes.
AS: It was interesting.
PR: People often referred to Doris’ glasses.
AS: Oh, the 'half eyes'?
PR: Yes “half eyes” which children remember very well.
AS: Another thing about Doris was, referring back to St Andrews, you know she always did calendars.
PR: Oh yes.
AS: Did them beautifully, was so meticulous about every measurement. Oh yes and these were for the wonderful Christmas bazaars, but…
PR: Hours and hours of work.
AS: Oh my goodness yes, she worked very hard on those but life at 29 was not worth living while this calendar business was going on, there was no space for anybody. No space, the dining room table was never free you just left her to get on with it. Retired to the sitting room and just made the best of it. You couldn’t have meals, you had to have your meals in the kitchen! Because the dining room was not free. She did do them beautifully, it was very fastidious.
PR: Oh yes I can remember the stall being decked out, first at St. Nicholas Hall and then the Corn Exchange later.
AS: I remember Mrs. Thompson McCausland used to come regularly you know a few months before Christmas to deliver the cards she wanted made into calendars. Beautiful cards classic ****** very nice indeed. When she used to come to number 29 she used to say when she came “This is a lovely house just look at that arch and the plaster work”. She liked it very much. She wouldn’t have liked the stairs!
PR: Well no. Describe the house. It has a very nice front garden path to begin with isn’t there?
AS: Yes where Doris used to have *********** you know the lawn and people used to come and photograph her plants the tulips especially she had a great show of tulips. Then what was it she had in the summer antirrhinums, no it wasn’t antirrhinums something else and we used to get people coming down the road to take pictures.
PR: I can imagine, it was a very lofty house the front door was approached by a tiled path wasn’t it. Then this famous bell pull you pulled towards you which rattled.
AS: The bell pull yes, alarmed everybody.
PR: Then once in the front door there was a hall.
AS: The sitting room was on the right and the dining room behind. Between the two were doors which opened to extend it at Christmas time and special days which was rather nice.
PR: Did you often do that?
AS: Occasionally, it was lovely wood, those doors were beautifully varnished.
PR: No central heating?
AS: No no central heating, no. it has now.
PR: So a normal Sunday, you would have a fire in the sitting room?
AS: Or both yes, all fires going.
PR: Then steps down…?
AS: Down yes to the semi basement was the kitchen, beyond that was the cellar which in those days had coal in it.
PR: Now its apparently some kind of sauna place isn’t it.
AS: Oh yes.
PR: I remember Clara telling me she had been back to visit after you came to live here.
AS: Oh yes there’s a sauna, there’s a dark room there to for ?? and for Den and his photography. Upstairs they built, as you came in this way we went down to the kitchen, the other way to the left which was our scullery of course in the old days, then you went up a few steps in to the workroom where Arthur had all his tools it was a work space. Off that was the bathroom in this now where the scullery was is a sun lounge! Where we had the workshop is the kitchen. Oh it has been transformed.
PR: So the old house is now suited to family life of the 90s.
AS: Well yes there is a family there now.
PR: It’s quite lofty isn’t it?
AS: Well you went up to the next floor and there were two bedrooms, then you went up the next floor and there were two bedrooms, they were all double bedrooms, then you went up the next floor and there were two bedrooms so there was plenty of space and a big garden of course. They all worked very hard in the garden, very hard indeed.
PR: The railway beside was only a freight line in your time?
AS: Latterly well there was hardly anything going along at all along there and then you see when we wanted to sell the house, that was another thing. There was this question of a road going through wasn’t there, well that bought the price of the property right down and there still hasn’t been anything done. There won’t be a road put through there. It was in the plans.
PR: Why did you decided to move? Because of the steps and stairs and things like that?
AS: When we were, you know you mean just before we came here? Because it was Dr. Bench said you have got to get out of here and it was Dr Bench who did that, he said you must move and we did, well there was just Doris and Clara and I then that’s all. At that time there wasn’t the choice of properties there is now. There was no choice. We looked at various places, we went along to Riversmead, to the flats there, we didn’t like that, we went in and walked out that was all. We went round various places, we couldn’t find anything and we were getting a bit you know fed up with it all so we came up here and we didn’t want it Peter in the first place we didn’t but as a last resort we said yes.
PR: Jolly good move.
AS: Well the great advantage near the town. It is near the town.
PR: If people listening to this tape could see this lovely room, shady because it is extremely hot still, although I am not missing the fan as much as I was,.
AS: No there is a cool breeze.
PR: There are plants everywhere, flowers and roses in vases. I had a little bit to do with the two single roses didn’t I curiously.
AS: Well you went with your friend whom you are now helping.
PR: Yes Lionel Fiddaman.
AS: You went to Ipswich didn’t you?
PR: Yes, I think it was.
AS: Clara said oh let’s have some roses when you go there. I still have the list, oh I had better not get up, I still have the list of roses and the gardening book that you bought for her.
PR: There’s Compassion and Handel.
AS: Aloha
PR: Aloha
AS: That has a lovely scent.
PR: Oh has it?
AS: Oh yes a beautiful scent, that’s a pink one, and Danse du Feu. They have got over the first flush, its been lovely, the roses have been beautiful. I think with the weather as it has been, the second flush has not come on.
PR: No if we have a good autumn, late September, with ome rain.
AS: Well if we get the rain....
PR: The driest summer since 1774. So there we are. Well we have got along our tape and we have got some lovely little cameo pictures of life in Port Hill.
AS: Yes I could tell many tales, I could write a book about it.
PR: Perhaps you might?
AS: I don’t think so.
PR: People are always going to be interested in lifestyle and the way people managed
AS: Well there was I think in those days more of a community life. We were willing to help people out. To help people if there was any occasion, when the occasion arose, especially the older people. Miss Betty Moody – no, it was Freddy that came along one day and Betty had been in Moorfields to have a cataract done when she was discharged she had to have drops four times a day so Freddy comes to the door: “What should I do about Betty having drops in her eyes shall I call the nurse in she has to have them four hourly?” I said “I don’t think you will get a nurse to come and do drops four hourly Freddy. Would you like me to do it for you?” “Oh yes please….thank you.” That was all she came for.
PR: They had in that little ancient cottage I don’t know how old they are, be interesting to find out that now, they had a coal fire when they were two old ladies really they used to go 'wooding' you used to see them sometimes gathering wood across in the Warren.
Transcribers Note: Built before 1760
AS: Well I remember going in one day, they wanted something, the snow was falling down, I went in Peter, there was snow under the door, in the room, I thought oh dear we must get something done about this, something put on the door straight away, I did manage to have something done, but that was the sort of conditions, they were hardened to it and they didn’t complain about it.
PR: They had a small little cheap fire in a very big, almost inglenook, fireplace.
AS: Finished?
PR: No no still rolling
AS: Still going. I was going to say I will get a cup of tea now Peter.
PR: Well now actually I think I am going to decline your offer.
AS: Well I have got it all ready for you.
PR: Because ah well I must go to Fid (at Hoddesdon) at half past four as I have got to be back at half past five for a council meeting. I am on a fairly quick one.
AS: Well do you want a drink of juice then?
PR: No no. Oh I will have a piece of cake…actually I do have time, I can leave the form for you to fill in just to say that…. Well I can leave that with you to do. We will stop.
AS: Stop……….pause