Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Burton, Percy (O1998.17) |
| Interviewee | Percy Burton (PB) |
| Interviewer | Peter Ruffles (PR) |
| Date | 01/08/1998 |
| Transcriber by | Jean Riddell (Purkis) |
Transcript
HERTFORD ORAL HISTORY GROUP
Recording no: O1998.17
Interviewee: Percy Burton (PB)
Date: 1st August 1998
Interviewer: Peter Ruffles (PR)
Transcriber: Jean Riddell (Purkis)
Typed by: John Hagen
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
PR: This is Peter Ruffles reporting from the home of Percy and Mary Burton, No. 30, Elton Court, Bengeo - a very salubrious court. I've just looked out of the window and seen from Percy's upstairs room the court which he and fellow residents keep in order. And there is your little court here, and another court, you say.
PB: Each four flats have got a garden which they overlook and it's up to them. We have a gardener twice a week to cut the grass. And it's up to them to put flowers in and keep it nice.
PR: Yes, it's a glorious Saturday morning in August. I've just been to see Len Green on the way up here and this afternoon I'm going to Rickney's Farm at Chapmore End to talk to (Flo Beetham)
PB: I was in the class with Marks, CJS Marks - come 4th and he came 5th and he lost his beer money. Do you remember that?
PR: I heard your clicker go on the coffee pot so we'll put the pause thing down, as long as we don't fall over.
Now, Percy's singing in the kitchen making the coffee. I notice on the coffee table here, in true form, there is a copy of 'The Courts and Yards of Hertford' handy, with a pile of dictionaries nearby. So Percy's obviously been playing scrabble and reading about our earlier little venture, coffee, khaki coloured, coming.
Well, the coffee has come, and Percy and I both like khaki coloured coffee as you say and Percy knowing that 'we' were coming has written out some basic notes, which we'll start with, and stray away from I expect. I shall have to say my bit when I shouldn't. I'm a bad interviewer - I say too much, Percy.
PB: That's right, you should listen. I'll start with my earliest recollections. My first recollection was living with my mother and my stepfather. That was in the wooden cottages immediately next to Bull Plain bridge which goes over into the Folly. They've been demolished, those two.
PR: Oh, have they?
PB: They used to be right on the pavement, left hand side.
PR: Right, now let's get that. I thought you meant those that are diagonal, with that Essex weatherboarding that is still there.
PB: They were exactly the same as these, only there was two at the front. And my mother, my stepfather and my young brother, who was only about one at that time, Reg Bilton, my stepfather, we all lived in there together. And next door to us, I'm sure, it was the Beadle family who later went to Hornsmill. And the other two or three, the ones that are still there, there used to be a chap called Sandy Taylor and he used to be a navvying sort of chap and he always used to wear his spade cleaner and his cords tied at the knee.
That was the time when, what it comprised of, the house, one bedroom and a box, that's all, a downstairs living room which was lit with oil lamps, no gas. We had a small scullery which had a sink with cold water. There was a copper there which was the main source for washing and outside we had a row of privies at the back, water flush. And there was a lawn at the back. There was the front pair of cottages which were parallel with the road and the three that are left. And an entrance round the back and a lawn where they used to hang the clothes out to dry.
PR: Not unlike this shape here I suppose.
PB: It was very old, all this clapboard and they were all wooden-framed buildings and that's where I started life. And of course next to us was a vacant plot where the clinic now stands. That was a bomb site from the First World War.
PR: Oh, that was demolished then when that…
PB: …Zeppelin came over. That was a vacant plot I remember when I was four, four and a half years old and they used to hold the Cherry Fair there and in Bull Plain. Their 'Spring Cherry Fair' they used to call it. They used to have the boxing booth on that vacant piece and a roundabout, and in Bull Plain they used to have the swings and the coconut shies, down there outside where Mrs. Johnson used to live. I'm talking about 1929. My recollections are of about 1928.
PR: Johnsons were there a long time.
PB: Granny Johnson, yes, I remember sitting on her doorstep as a little lad. She used to give us blackberry and ice cream. Joe Quince and I used to sit there, and the young lad from the Oddfellows Hall opposite, Pat something or other. We was the three Herberts around at that time.
PR: Number 19 Bull Plain that was. There were two sisters
PB: There was Mrs Walker, Mrs Johnson. Mrs Walker went to Hertingfordbury Road, with Becky her daughter, lived up Campfield Road. Her husband was a bit of a character. And, of course, there was Mr. Wright who was Joe Quince's stepfather.
The clinic was then built on that place by McMullens. Then we come to Morris's storage depot and next to that was the harness-maker, Saddler. And then next came these three cottages where there was Whisper Wright, Mrs Johnson, then Mrs Walker. Then there was the dairy where they used to have these big swans in the window filled with fresh eggs. And then we went further up the road and we came to Webb's paper shop after those town houses.
PR: Right, now where would that grocer's shop have been that I can remember?
PB: What, Peark's?
PR: No, that was the other side, on your side later - was it Green's?
PB: There used to be a Green's Stores, Green's, Peark's, but I think that's where the dairy used to be.
PR: It must have been the dairy
PB: I think it's a photographic shop now [Hertford Cameras].
PR: You need to go back and have a long look, don't you.
PB: Well, that's right and of course there was Geally's cafe, that's before you got to Webb's. That was another one that used to run around, Geall.
Then coming back on the other side of the road we had the print shop. What they used to call the print shop with Ramsdens Press above. They used to do the Stop Press in the Saturday night papers for us lads to take round and sell on the street. They'd phone the results there and they used to type them up and put them in the Stop Press.
PR: I remember receiving such things in Farnham's.
PB: I used to go there for my quire of papers that I used to flog outside Simson Shand on Saturday evening.
PR: Were there 26 in a quire?
PB: Yes, you'd got to sell a quire.
PR: So you'd gone on your side of Bull Plain.
PB: Yes and I started coming down the other - Rose's Corner as you call it and then there was the Chocolate Box, Mrs. Warboys was there. Then you came down to Ellis's, I think, the tobacconist and I used to know the daughter. She was about my age. Then we had a hoarding where they was building the arcade about that time. Then there's the big Beedle House (No 16) that still stands there. Then we come to the museum or the Oddfellows or whatever it was. And then we're down then to the Hertford Club to the bridge. So that's what I remember of that.
But the events what used to happen during that short period, the outdoor market each Saturday in Bull Plain. It was open till 8, 9 o'clock in the evening. And they used to have these gas flare lights to light the, because it was only gas in Bull Plain at that time, because we used to have a man with a pole that used to come round and put the
PR: Was that Mr. Dye?
PB: A little short chap on a bike? That's right, used to come with his pal. And there used to be one outside of Hertford Club on the corner. And I remember sitting there because the window of our living room was about 2' above the pavement and I used to look out and see him come along and put the lamps out, or on.
When it came to Saturdays that was my highlight of the week as a little lad. I used to be up there every Saturday morning. The Banana King used to keep me in fruit. And the place opposite to him was a home-made rock stall, used to make their own rock over a hook. Do you remember that, to throw it over a hook, and used to spit on it and throw it over again and do it up in bags, the old peppermint rock. She used to give me a sweet and then I'd get little errands to run or she'd say, "Look after the stall, little 'un, I'm going to have something to eat." Or wherever they wanted to go and I'd get 6d for that.
That was a lot of money and my mother used to take that. That'll do towards a new pair of boots from the Blue Boot Store up in Railway Street, you know. Old George used to be there running that, l/lld a pair.
PR: Railway Street or Maidenhead Street?
PB: Maidenhead Street. I keep saying that. His brother was at Railway Street, Maidenhead Street. I put it down here as Railway Street and had to cross it out, opposite Woolworths left hand side.
PR: By Stallabrass's.
PB: Where do we go from there. As I said before, I was a little bit of an Oliver Twist, Artful Dodger, even that young. And, of course, as I say the boys I was with, Joe Quince and Pat from the Oddfellows, Waddle Webb. Do you remember Waddle Webb. He was Mrs Webb's. He was a little bit simple, Bert Webb's brother.
PR: Oh no. I remember Bert Webb.
PB: He was a younger brother to him. He might have been a couple of years older than me but he was a little bit simple. And they used to have chow dogs at that time, Mrs Webb and alsatian as well. And he had a goat, this Webb, and this was his pet and we used to take it down Hartham on a lead and all that sort of caper.
PR: What happened to him then?
PB: I really don't know. I know Bert. He went and lived up Ware Road but I really don't know what happened to him when old Mrs Webb went. Because I did Sunday papers for her for years. When I was a boy I went back when I was at Hertingfordbury Road but I was older then, when they was building Fordwich Hill and Fordwich Rise.
PR: And then you went to live up there!
PB: Well I went to live at Hertingfordbury Road.
'
PR: And then Sandy Close!
PB: Well, let's go through what I've got here (Back to Cherry Fair and recap). plus a steam wagon or two with vans attached which some of them used to live in. And it was a great event for me as a four-year old, five years old. And I caught chickenpox once and my mother always said it was talking to the travellers and she must have been right because the following year I got the mumps at the same time.
School: I started off at Faudel Phillips. I had to go on my own, up Honey Lane, up Church Street. Of course you could get straight through then. There was no Gascoyne Way or anything like that. And Mrs Thier was the headmistress if I remember rightly with a Mrs Baker was the teacher. And I was only there a short time because from there I went to Cowbridge and I used to go the back way, through the Folly and up Hartham Lane.
PR: Yes, that's the route you take now on your bike to avoid the worst of the traffic.
PB: I used to have to walk that every day and course Mrs Kiddill was one of the mistresses there and the headmistress was Miss Bradbeer. I think she used to live up this part of the world somewhere - Fanshawe Street. And then there was Miss Stocks. Remember Miss Stocks, St. Andrew's Church and of course there was Miss Little.
And I remember one year the school inspector came round and he picked on me and he wanted to know what bird was the 'Herald of Spring' and I said, "A swaller, Mr!" just like that. And I wondered why I got stood in the corner, because of my pronunciation and not calling him 'Sir' - calling it a 'swaller' and not 'swallow' - and I got stood in the corner. I was very hard-done-by about that, and that stuck.
PR: Yes, you could have a chip on your shoulder about that. That was very unfair.
PB: Yes, that wasn't the only chip on my shoulder anyhow… From there I went to Cowbridge [Cowper] School. That was the boys' school at the time - and of course Stalley had just taken over at that time. He hadn't been there long and our friend Len Green had come from College and he was a green junior master then. And of course Marks and old Alf Budgen [Arthur] and a little chap with a bowler hat from North Road, I forget his name, where we used to give his bowler hat a whack on the peg. What's his name, forgotten, forgotten.
PR: Len'll tell us.
PB: Very short chap, Charlie, Booker! That was his name.
PR: Yes, yes, I've heard of him.
PB: He was a character. So was Marks, he was a character, used to run the sports and football team, you know. I used to play in the football team as goal-keeper. And we had Charlie Brand from West Street, Nobby Clark and Gerry Mitchell. And something went wrong one time and we left a note on his desk - we resign. There was hell to pay. Stalley was reading the Riot Act - "no more football, you're not going to play football any more." But we were selected next week and we played football.
Anyway that's digressing a bit, isn't it. About this time, our house and next door were condemned. They were owned by McMullens. We used to have to pay 2/- a week rent at McMullen's rent office.
PR: Where did they take the rents?
PB: You know where McMullen's corner is, right at the top. There was about 10' of office there and a chap named Ashby. He was the rent officer. And we used to have to go up there with the rent book and this 2/- a week. That was a job for me on the way to school. I was only 6 then. I didn't have anyone to hold my hand or anything like that - go and do it!
To get your teeth done had to go to the County Hospital on this 6d a week stunt. Had to sit down and wait your turn.
PR: Yes, different today, but no bad thing.
PB: Well, that's right. You had to be self-sufficient.
PR: It isn't a lack of care, is it?
PB: No, they're spoiled rotten today, it's ridiculous, isn't it. Then, as I say, we moved up to Hertingfordbury Road and I remember it very clearly because I was eight then, just about eight. And my young brother and I, well he was then five, we had a soap box barrow and I used to run around doing errands with it and even at that young age.
Him and I took all the pots and pans, on a Good Friday morning we moved up to Hertingfordbury Road and of course we thought we were going to the other end of the world because we'd never been any further than St. Andrew's Church. And away we trundled up there past the villas where you were bred and born and under the railway bridge and we got up there and we were 108, Hertingfordbury Road. Got there, no one there! We sat on the doorstep for two hours waiting for the Dye's van to bring the rest of the chattels, you know.
Up there we lived next to, Davis was one side.
PR: Yes, she was the other side of the Walk.
PB: Yes, well this was the other side of the Walk. She was 106, we was 108, and the last one was 110 and Bradshaws lived there. He got killed on his bike at Watton-at-Stone. He was a painter for Norris's. Always went on bikes then because they had no other means of transport. And coming back from a job at Watton he got killed one November evening. His son was the survivor and then the Norrises took over when the Bradshaws went.
They've re-numbered them now, 108 is now 112.
PR: Oh, right, that's how I got my numbers in a muddle.
PB: When it came to religion, when I was a youngster of four years old, I was sent every Sunday morning to St. Andrew's Church when Nathan Gardner was the, and I had to sit in the front row with the rest of the so-called Sunday School. And I did that for five years and when they was reconstructing Mill Bridge. I can remember all the building works and the big puddles and I was only a tot all on my own and I had to go back in the afternoon for Miss Garratt to take Sunday School. I was the little ragamuffin from the Plain and I was tolerated. That was all. Sometimes I'd got no soles in me shoes and they couldn't have cared less and it's always put me off of St. Andrew's Church. I was then rescued from that by the girl Garrett.
Her father used to be a jeweller at the top of the Plain, in Maidenhead Street next to Graveson's that used to be Garrett's, Clockmaker and Jeweller. And his daughter Margaret Garrett and Beaulah Ellis, these two got me to go to Ebenezer Chapel. They were very good people. They were strict in their religion but they certainly looked after us poor people. That was the first time I'd every left Hertford and they took me on a Sunday School outing down to Walton-on-the-Naze! And they used to do that every year.
Sometimes there was two coachloads. All the urchins used to go to the Ebenezer. They used to give Christmas parties and Good Friday was a big day there. They'd have a tea and the Parker family were really good to the youngsters in that part of the world.
PR: How did they do it, because that went on for years after your time? How did they get their income?
PB: I really don't know. The Harts was another family that really attended it regular and old Tommy Hurd. He married one of the girls. He married one of the Parker girls. She was the one who worked for Simsons the envelope factory.
PR: Did he ride a bike?
PB: Tommy Hurd did. Used to live at Hornsmill. His sister used to be the washer~up at the dairy at Castle Street. Tommy Hurd used to live with his mother, Pearsons Avenue. And he married this girl of Parker and they went to live at Sele Farm. She died quite young, but he's got some by her, I'm sure [back to the Ebenezer] the first time I went there was to a party at Number 13, Villiers Street - three storeys and a basement.
Then they used to get some rent from the chap at the side of the chapel – Cox. Do you remember? Used to have a motor-bike and side car.
PR: I remember his sister or wife. She had a 4-wheeled wooden mahogany trolley.
PB: Wife, that's right. They used to be the caretakers of the Church and also they had the accommodation and they used to attend the Church and above their house, the big room was where they had the Sunday School. And they had their little miracle when they built Gascoyne Way. It was pulled down and a brand new Chapel was built which stands there today. And old Parker's still alive. He's got to be getting on for 90 now. And he followed his father who was pastor before him.
PR: They don't live in that house, do they, at the back?
PB: Don't they live in that house now?
PR: I don't think so. If they do, she doesn't, the wife.
PB: Well, she was a lot younger than him.
PR: Yes, very much younger.
PB: She came from Hornsmill.
PR: Lovely lady, gentle.
PB: He used to be very active; used to work for Grubbs the butcher and he used to do a butchery round. And then they went to Stansted Abbotts and they had a shop there.
PR: Interesting one. We haven't had much on the Ebenezer. People have referred to it but they've mostly known it from outside.
PB: There was three daughters and a son. There was Floss, the one who died, and there was an elder one, she was much more prim and proper. Floss was the Sunday School teacher when I went; there. And I used to sit in her pew at the Chapel. And we had prize giving every year and you used to go there one evening. And I had to get up and say my piece and I was the first up and I think it was 'Adam whose tribe increased' - something like that. And then when I finished all the parents started clapping and then there was a profound silence. They frowned dreadfully on anything like that - "this is a place of worship." And the rest were listened to in silence.
And they gave us nice books, readable books for children. And there was always plenty of tea fights and to be honest that's why we attended. Let's get it right. We never went for the religion. We went for what we got out of it.
PR: Well, they would accept that.
PB: They would think, that's putting them on the right path, and I'm sure they did. They introduced the family spirit which a lot of us were lacking. I remember the things in that little book.
Going down to the slaughter house That was a treat on Mondays. Monday afternoon was slaughter house day - the pork butcher's. Earls used to have most of the stuff from there. Their horse and their trap, very smart rigout, used to come and collect the pork carcases.
PR: A smart job, was it?
PB: Very smart job. Earls when they had a stepping horse and a nice two-wheeled cart.
Talking about the boys – Clark, he used to drive for the brewery where Durrant Hall is/
PR: Wickham's?
PB: Wickham's Brewery. He used to drive for that with a horse and dray. Gerry Mitchell' s father used to drive for Barker's on Old Cross. He had a big shire horse and a cart. And I used to go down there with Gerry to see his father because he had no mother. Gerry and me used to go down lunchtimes to see his father. - take him a hunk of cheese because Gerry had to look after his brother. The Hawkes brothers, Davey brothers - librarian - he was a year older than me and then his brother Claude, who died; traumatic stress in the Pacific war. He had to go into a mental home when he came back and then he died and that left Stan Davey. We used to go to Boys Brigade together.
PR: What happened to the Davey Librarian. They were at Sele Farm, weren't they?
PB: They're still at Sele Farm. Another benefactor to the town was old man Keeble, the tallyman from St. Andrew's Street. He was the Baptist Church. I was dragged into the Baptist Church for the Boys Brigade which was every Monday evening. And I went as a Life Boy for physical training, Leonard Keeble used to take that and Smith - he used to work at the cemetery.
And we had the drum and bugle band and I used to have a bugle, and we used to have a church parade once a quarter and we used to march down from Hartham Lane down to church for the evening service. I could never play this bloody bugle. I used to puff my cheeks out and march down the road.
Stan.Davey was quite good on the bugle and he carried us down there. And we used to go in there with our white satchels and a cheese-cutter cap. And we was the opposition to the Church Lads Brigade which was formed about this time and in the end. They got stronger than us because they had a better uniform!
PR: Interesting you should say that because Bob Harding who was the driving test examiner in Hertford. When he mentioned what the Keebles did for him, he got quite emotional.
PB: Well, the first time, I belonged to these Life Boys, not many months. Then one day I was told, "You've got to be down here tomorrow evening at 5 o'clock." I thought, “I shan't be finished my errand boy job, Miss Levey. I had papers to take round.” So I got off early from school, done me round and got down there and we all got on Street's coach and we went up to Olympia to the circus. I'd never been any further than Cowper School that way. Old man Keeble had paid for all of us to go. Fantastic!
Mind you, I think he used to get it back as Tallyman,l/-d a week, to buy a suit and that sort of thing. But they was a devout family and I think even today they are well remembered down there because he did a lot for that church.
When it was the Silver Jubilee - King George V - they had a big do up at Balls Park. The BB had to pull old Wilborn's coal lorry. We had these long ropes and each one of us was dressed in a singlet and a pair of white shorts and plimsolls and we all had a name of a Commonwealth country on our back and I was Ceylon. And we walked with this thing up to Balls Park where we all had a cream tea and I looked at this bread and I thought, “I don't want that. What's that rubbish they got on this bread?”
You see, I'd only been used to margarine or something yellowish and it was white being cream you see and our boys were scoffing it. Anyway, we had a very nice tea, a mug and a book up there. And then a fire brigade rescue from a burning building and of course I got acting to run in as someone who was panic stricken as a little lad and of course I got dragged out, but I got an ice-cream off the firemen for doing a good job. That was 1935.
PR: I was born too late, I missed all that!
PB: What else can I tell you, list me thoughts!
PR: I can tell you something. They'll be back up talking to you again now. This Percy Burton, we've got to ask him this, that and the other.
PB: When I was a lad and had moved up to Hertingfordbury Road, my mother's husband left her and there was just my brother and myself. And my mother used to go out doing all sorts of menial tasks. And I remember we made a truck and we bought bundles of firewood. Some home out Hatfield way used to sell these bundles of firewood and I got to find out who they were; Lazarus Home. And they used to do this as a means of raising funds. They used to sell me these
bundles at ½d each and they were selling them in the town for 1d a bundle and I was selling them 1/4d cheaper. And I used to hawk 'em all round the estate, Sele Road, up at North Road. And then I got stopped because I was undercutting the little grocers shop down by the Ebenezer Chapel where he was selling them for 1d a bundle.
PR: Oh yes, Lawrence.
PB: And he complained. So we then went on to potatoes. Used to buy 1 cwt. potatoes and we had a set of scales. Used to go round flogging these potatoes. Then having done that I then got a job with Miller the oil-man. He used to come round with a horse and cart selling candles, paraffin, Rinso, Oxydol. And he used to come round the Hertingfordbury Road estate on Saturday morning and I used to go there and get l/- for the morning and that entailed going down to where Sampfords used to keep the pub there, opposite – on that corner was the big house - the miller used to have his house and stable there. And I used to have to muck his old cum mill, cum horse out and he was a vicious thing. You had to be very careful when you went round the rear end of him. And used to harness him up, stock up and then we used to go along North Road and sell this paraffin, because a lot of people were on oil lamps still and oil heaters and the candles and washing-up stuff, vinegar.
And we used to run the errands and the caretaker of the Mayflower Hotel used to be up North Road. There used to be a lodge there and an old dear used to live there and every time you went there on a Saturday morning she'd give you a saveloy. I used to hate saveloys, but you'd stuff it in your pocket, you know!
And of course we got up to Hertingfordbury Road estate. We must have come along your road. You were a bit more modern there, you had more mod cons.
PR: Yes, they had the gas.
PB: They did at Hertingfordbury Road, didn't they?
PR: I suppose so, yes.
PB: Well when we moved up we didn't quite know how to go on and they had this electric light with the slot meter. And my old mother was always dubious. She kept her oil lamps. She said they may not come on one day.
There was luxury there, indoor bathroom. The toilet was almost indoors. It was on the passage way.
PR: On the way out, yes.
PB: Opposite the coal cellar, that's right. It was really a step up in the world. Mind you, the rent had gone up from 2/-d to 2/l0d. That was the rent. It was a lot of money in those days.
I found myself another little job and I was still at school - Cowper School. And having worked for old Miller. Must tell you this, though. All the boys from the estate used to go potato picking. Remember Jones the farmer from Hertingfordbury, the milkman come farmer, wicked man, wicked man. He used to get us boys "Come and earn yourself a few bob, come and potato pick for me." So half a dozen of us would go up there all day.
"Well then, Mr Jones, are you going to settle up?"
"Come down the farm with me, lads and I'll settle up with you."
We'd go down to the farm. He used to be in Hertingfordbury where they've rebuilt it now.
"Come into the dairy." And he'd give us a pint of milk each - that was our day's labour.
So we thought, “Thank you very much Mr Jones, you mean old so-and-so.”
When it got later in the evening, back we went and we all filled our barrows with the potatoes.
And he was a bible-thumper. He was the Gospel Hall man. He exploited us lads.
Anyway, I'd left Miller's one day because he used to work us to death. We'd do the round Saturday morning, get back to his house and he'd say, "I've got some shopping I want you to do." And his shopping was going to the market if washing powder was cheap there or the soda was cheap there, or there was a little place at the end of Townshend Street.
That was a general grocers shop there and he used to get stuff cheap off of him to re-sell on his cart. And we used to have to trundle up there and perhaps get 24 boxes of Persil or Oxydol or Lifebuoy soap and it was sometimes 2 o'clock before we got finished, for our l/-. And he said, "While you're on your way back take these two accumulators and get 'em charged at old Ditton's in St. Andrew Street.”
So I was walking by Neale's 'Bon Marche' and someone said, "Do you want a little job, Perce? Go in there and see Attee. He wants an errand boy."
So in Percy goes, rough and ready, with the accumulators in hand and saw this Mr Attee and he said, "I want someone who can ride a bike."
I said, "I can ride a bike."
He said, "Got a carrier on the front?"
I said, "Yes, do anything."
11, 12 year old, whatever I was and, "All right," he says, "Come after school. That'll be half past four to six Monday to Friday except Thursday (which was early closing) and Friday night till nine o'clock. Saturday all day till 8 o'clock."
"So how much do I get for that, Mr?"
"7/6d" - which was a fortune.
"Yes, I'll take that!"
So Mr Miller had to go by the way. I told my mother.- "Yes," she said, "But you'll have to give me some of that. You can have 1/6d a week out of that."
The first day I got on this bike and I'd never been used to riding a trade bike and of course all the weight's on the front. And all these parcels to deliver up to Bengeo and Ware Road.
And I got on it and I fell off at Fosters! Any rate, I got the hang of it. Mind you, it was a long old day. I used to clear up in the cellar, help 'em on the haberdashery and the heavy furnishings and run out the orders. And then Christmas time used to have a toy fair there upstairs. And they used to do painting competitions.
So Percy got the job of going round all the villages in the evening. I had to take the bike and deliver all these painting competitions through the doors to all. round the outlying villages. It was dark evenings. I used to get wet through. And that went on until I left school at 14, because at 14 you was out.
There was none of this further education. We had the 3 Rs and if you could read and write you'd done well and you was out.
And I went full-time there at 15/- a week. All good money in 1938.
And I thought this is not for me, serving on the heavy furnishings, undoing these bales of cloth at 1/11¾d a yard and 1/4d change and putting it in these old things across the ceiling (communication wires.) And I got a job at Meadside Garage, to serve on the petrol pumps and generally help out there.
And then being there with all the cars I started pushing the cars, moving them about. Then I started to drive them about and then I could drive. I got a 12 months provisional licence and I was only 16 and then directly I was 17 I got a full licence. And then the war broke out, 1939. And I was still there till 1942 when I was called up but for a year. Before that I was driving army officers about from Fore Street. There used to be the RA Service Corps based there and the barrack wardens.
Do you remember old Archie Blakely? - The brick fields at Watton-at-Stone, Stoneyhills. You've heard of Bengeo red bricks, 'Stoneyhills Reds'. Well Archie Blakely [sounds like Bradley this time] and his brother ran the brick fields and he was a barrack warden during the war. And I used to have to pick people like him up, and take him round to these army sites, searchlight sites and AA sites where he used to check the inventories as the barrack warden, You know, make sure all the stuff was there that should be and none had been nicked and all the rest of it.
And also used to pick some of the officers up and take them to various exercises what were taking place, mock battles and that sort of thing.
I was only a lad then, 17. Used to drive them all over. Course there was no road signs and I didn't know what a map looked like to be honest. We used to go right out into Essex and down to Sussex - big trips, out all day, didn't get back till 10 o'clock at night, specially if the little old car broke down. We only had small cars then, Ford 8s or Hillman Minx. That was about the strength of it.
And then I was called up for the Navy when I was 18. And that's another long story.
PR: Well that's absolutely super. I know what's going to happen. They're going to want to pick your brains a bit more. Gladys Wackett
PB: I know Fred. He used to do my bikes for me because he was next door to Mrs Emmett and I used to do the Waterford round from there with Henry. Of course there were the two Wacketts, father and son, and I was always in and out of there for a cheap job and when I was the paper boy for Emmetts. Started off of course with Miss Levey. They took over Miss Levey's business.
PR: Was it in the same premises?
PB: No. Miss Levey's was where the antique shop is now, opposite the TA Centre, that little one on the corner. That was her. paper shop and that was the first paper round I ever did for her. I used to do evening papers and then I used to do the Sunday papers for Mrs Webb.
I was working all my life. I never had any boys' time.
PR: You never got into Farnham's then?
PB: No, I went to W.H. Smith's.
PR: Bertie Hebbes?
PB: Oh, old Bertie Hebbes, oh God, well 'course I was there with the Mitchells and all the rest of them. Anyway, to cut a long story short, when I was working for the Emmetts, the lads used to come down that part of the road in the evening and we was always up to all sorts of stunts and we used to sit on that curb,
I can remember this day, get a ½d and rub it down and file it down and put it in a cigarette machine and used to get a packet of Players out. If you could get the weight just right. They used to moan, “People have put all this rubbish in this machine, oh dear!”
PR: And Bunces over at the Cold Bath.
PB: I think he used to keep his car over there, an old Vauxhall, Vauxhall coupé.
PR: Yes, forgotten that. He went funny in the…
PB: Yes, I know! It was a shame as he was a lovely old boy.
PR: … got persecution
PB: No, he was always like that, wasn't he? 'Cos Spriggs was his uncle. Mrs Emmett and Spriggs were brother and sister.
PR: Yes
PB: Spriggs were down Fore Street.
PR: His sister was Ada Spriggs, wasn't it?
PE: Perhaps I got it wrong, perhaps his wife was sister with Emmett, but I know they were relatives.
PR: I thought his Ada Spriggs was Henry's sister but I might be wrong. They were the wholesalers for a while for the town, I used to have to go down and see Ada to get another six Expresses and another three Daily Mails. And it was Ada Spriggs in Fore Street you went to. And occasionally like you, shop around and buy a couple of Evening Standards off Mrs Emmett so you could put them on the counter round at Farnham's.
PB: What I deprecate today is these people who have a shop and they sell everybody else's products. I think it is dreadfully wrong, butchers sell charcoal.
PR: Yes, it's unfair. It's cut-throat stuff. Gladys was of course, ran Hilton's.
PB: Miss Hilton I used to call her when I was a boy.
PR: She was a trouper, wasn't she, Glad. Things she used to do! And the Sunday School you escaped from when Miss Garratt was running it, Pauline Garratt. Gladys made it into something worth going to.
PE: Well like Miss Stocks. She was a school teacher there as well. She used to live right at the bottom of Port Hill. And Miss Garratt and old Nathan Gardner and Evans was the understudy there, wasn't he?
PR: Harry Evans.
PB: He's got a lovely stained window down in Wales, in the Cathedral there, to his memory.
PR: Is there? St. David's?
PB: St. David's! If ever you are that way he's got it on the east transept of the Cathedral.
PR: Well, fancy that.
PB: He used to live in North Road.
PR: He had two houses, Dr. Anderson's and then
PB: Well, that's the time of Cap, Bowler and Trilby, isn't it.
PR: Yes, yes, the Culls.
PB: What about the fish and chip shop at the bottom of Hertingfordbury Road? It doesn't seem to get any mention anywhere, does it.
PR: No, no, Lukas.
PB: There used to be Castlemead Gardens.
PR: That was a fairly new building.
PB: Oh, yes, I remember it being built and opened.
PR: Higgins were they, in there first?
PB: Was that the name, Higgins'?
PR: Well, became Lukas'.
PB: Higgins used to keep a grocer's shop in St. Andrew's Street, 'cos young Mitchell used to work for her.
PR: Oh!
PB: He used to fiddle around in there, weighing up sugar and what-not.
PR: Near the TA.
PB: Low down, next to the pub.
PR: The Queen's Head.
PB: Used to go down the steps to it.
PR: Well, it was certainly Lukas' chip shop later.
PB: There used to be a little tubby woman used to keep it. She was the governor really. She was always there in her white overall and had quite a high counter. Well it always seemed quite high to me. We used to nip down there from Hertingfordbury Road for a tuppenny piece of fish and a pennorth of chips.
PR: You never got round to Pingy's then?
PB: Oh, Pingy's, of course we did. And also Thistledoo's . He was another friend to the kids, wasn't he, Roberts. Going to school Monday mornings, first thing you went to was Thistledoo's, pennorth stale cakes. He used to give all the class enough for your lunch. Whatever was left over he threw in the bag.
Another dear old boy, Salvation Army, him and his sister Roberts. You know his sister? Lived at, up at Campfield Road and her son is still about, my age, Roberts. He was a bachelor chap, Roberts, because he was a big awkward sort of chap.
And I can remember they used to do meals there. They used to do a three course lunch there for 10d, up on the board outside. Of course, it's no longer there now, gone.
PR: Yes, Market Street.
PB: Right on the corner.
PR: You went through the Folly. Did you know Folly people quite well?
PB: Yes, the Savages, all those people, Fordham the policeman and 'cos I was there as a little kid when the Rist twins, one of them fell in the Lea and Miller, the greengrocer, dived in on a March morning and got him out and he was literally blue with cold. He used to keep his horse and cart in the pub in the Barge.
And while I was over there, there was Mead, and Spuddy Mead. Don't know what relation he was, and Joe Mead. They used to have ponies on a long piece of rope and break these ponies in there. And the cast-iron foundry was there as well, right on the river, where they used to make these plough-shares, you know, simple casting, agricultural casting. And that then moved down to Priory Street.
The Barratts, you remember the Barratts down there? And Barratt used to be steam engineer. He drove the first McMullen's Steam.
PR: His name's on the gulley, the cast iron grids that come across the pavement in Hertford.
PB: That's right, his brother did that and the other one, Den Barratt, used to drive the first steam waggon McMullen's had.
PR: Did that Spuddy Mead, did he work in the end in Barbers?
PB: He used to stand there on the corner, didn't he, with a clay pipe in his mouth. And when we used to go to school we used to thump him in the back and away would go his clay pipe. We was wicked lads you know! He always used to stand there. There used to be a railway there and he always used to stand there with his pipe in his mouth!
PR: I seem to remember a Spuddy Mead working. in Barbers.
PB: Ah, yes, that was another Mead. He'd got glasses and he was baldish.
PR: Quite a little bloke.
PB: Used to wear a khaki warehouse coat.
PR: So that isn't the same Spuddy. I wonder where I got that name from?
PB: Well, because he used to sell seed spuds I suppose. They used to have all the seed varieties there. That was another little job I had to do when I had my little truck and I first moved up Hertingfordbury Road. I used to come down every afternoon and down to McMullen's in Hartham Lane 'cos all the dray horses used to come in and stand and unload. And I used to fill it up with manure and sell it for 6d a barrow-load to the allotments opposite Hertingfordbury Road.
PR: Willowmead! Now we haven't mentioned Mary.
PB: She's out. Her brother's took her off to coffee. She's got a broken ankle. She's in plaster.
PR: Courtship - where did you blokes do your courting?
PB: Well, Mary's my second wife as you know, Civil Defence - I was a rescue officer down there. When I came out of the Navy I was looking for something to do and Civil Defence was very strong at that time and again it was Stan Davey and Co. They used to run the 1st Civil Defence at the library. Then Marshall took it over down at Ware Road and we then had the premises on the old car park. And then we went great guns and we formed a rescue section and I got all the lads in, Bert Newland and Dickie Payne. My brother and I used to drive the lorry and we used to do these rescue stunts. And we did one in Bull Plain, rescuing people off the top of Creasey's as it was then. And an exercise on the railway bridge at the bottom of the Folly there. And I got a long-service medal for doing that. 15 years I was with Civil Defence until it disbanded in the '60s.
That's how I met Mary because I used to also be a driving instructor.
(The tape stops here)