Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Thomas, Frederick William "Nanna" (01999.8) |
| Interviewee | Frederick William (Nanna) Thomas (FT) |
| Interviewer | Eve Sangster (ES) and Jean Riddell (Purkis) (JR) |
| Date | 21/04/1999 |
| Transcriber by | Eve Sangster |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: 01999.8
Interviewee: Fred Nanna Thomas (FT)
Date: 21st April 1999
Venue: New Road, Bengeo
Interviewer: E
Transcriber: Eve Sangster
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
ES: You said that in 1938 when you were working as a labourer?
FT: Miskins were the people.
ES: Miskins. Have I got the year right, 1938?
FT: About 1938, in that region.
ES: Can you just say again what you told me about what you found.
FT: You should have them in your museum. There was about four of them. Well, the man who was on the bottom you see, we used to have a bucket on the crane to go down underground because it was so far down. But there was so much sand there we couldn’t use the bucket.
ES: So much sand?
FT: Yes, it was all sand up County Hall. County Hall’s built on sand. So instead of having the bucket we made four stages: the man on the bottom used to get the dirt out; he used to throw it on the top stage, and then on another one, and then over the top. Follow? And he was down the bottom one day and he said, Cor! There aren’t half a lot of bones down here and we must have moved our trench or our trench must have gone out a little bit to get round the corner of the tax office. Is there a tax office on its own?
ES: Now it’s the library and Local Studies but it used to be the vehicle licensing department.
FT: And we moved just round the corner a little bit and we must have come on the graves. And there was four or five, I wouldn’t be sure, and there was all these four people lay there but they were within 20 feet. They lay side by side.
ES: So how far down would you estimate they were?
FT: 20 foot.
JR: Oh! 20 feet down? That’s very deep.
FT: We were working 20' down. And going up the hill of Pegs Lane we was down nearly 30 feet.
JR: So how did you get into the area to dig? Down a ladder?
FT: You had your trench there, you had a piece of wood or a plank on the cross to hold the frames up.
Transcriber’s note: He says something but it is not clear how they got down.
ES: Oh, you had wooden retaining walls so it didn’t collapse and then you had planks across. I am interested to get this quite accurately cause I have asked in the archaeological department at County Hall and they know nothing about it, they know nothing about it at the Museum, I have asked the EHAS boke and he knows nothing about it.
FT: It was over 40 years ago.
ES: Yes I know that but you would still expect it to be recorded. Do you remember if there was any publicity about it in the Mercury?
FT: Only for about one week.
ES: So there was something about it in the Mercury?
JR: Can you remember what month it was? Was it summer or winter?
FT: Summer, because I used to go in the maltings in the winter. It was a summer job ..... The man from the Museum come up and he sprayed it with some stuff. But they powdered straight away soon as he touched them.
JR: What did they do with them afterwards? Did they bury them somewhere else?
FT: They took some of them bones into the Museum.
JR: You don’t know if they were reburied anywhere?
FT: No. If they’d been reburied they’d have pipes and that on top of them.
ES: No, what Jean means is that sometimes when they find old skeletons they rebury them in a churchyard or something like that, .... consecrated ground.
JR: You didn’t hear of them doing that with them?
ES: But who sent for the chap from the Museum, then?
FT: He was the foreman of the - It wasn’t the foreman, it was - What do you all them? Clerk of the Works.
JR: Do you know his name?
FT: Oh, no.
ES: (looking at a map] So what you=re saying is: this is County Hall, right? This is the colonnade, the front of it; this is the tax office.
FT: There’s a road runs up here, isn’t there?
ES: Well, there’s a road up here but there’s also a road between the two.
FT: It was the road between the two.
ES: And you say you’d just turned the corner.
FT: It was the back of the tax office.
ES: Back of the tax office, so it would have been -
FT: About where you are now. [the map is marked] We come off of Pegs Lane and go along the back of the tax office and we was going across that path, across into the main building. The back road I told you about the other day as you go up to Mr Meads farm.
ES: I have got that on another map and that is something else I wanted to ask you about O.K.., so it was off that service road ..... When they were found there was no evidence- Were there any traces of, say, a coffin?
FT: No, because when we got through this seam of sand, we come on a lot of kind of black soil.
ES: Was that under the sand?
FT: Yes, it was under the sand.
ES: And were they in the black soil?
FT: In the black soil more-or-less.
JR: When you notified the Mercury and the Museum, did you get anyone else coming, like archaeologists, to dig more?
FT: No, nobody. They just saw them and said they was worth noting.. And they took how long they was. I think was nearly 6 foot long. They just made a note on it and collected a few bones and he went. It was all over in a matter of minutes.
ES: I wonder if it was- You don’t know who it was from the Museum? I mean, Mr Andrews was the chap who -
FT: Yes, he was there a long, long while, wasn’t he?
ES: But you don’t know whether it was him?
FT: No. ..... How old would I be? Probably, what? I’m nearly 90. I’d have been, what? 38? I was born in 1909 ..... I would be nearly 30.
ES: I’m going to put it in this book even though nobody else says – and we will certainly look in the museum. Just trying to establish if it was 1938 only that will make it easier.
FT: I think it was 1938 because County Hall was finished in 1939.
ES: It was but it was started in 1936. But the main part was already finished, was it?
FT: Well, the biggest part of it was finished because County Hall was finished when the war broke out and they was more worried in case the army collared it. So, what I can remember, they shifted a lot of things into the main building so if anybody enquired, they was still using it as being occupied.
ES: Who did the land belong to? Who sold it to the County to build County Hall?
FT: I don’t know who sold it because it was a big field ..... I should say myself, my suggestion is, it belonged to the convent because there’s a clause - someone was telling me; I don’t know how true it was - that there was a clause ..... That they mustn’t pull the old convent down. That’s what makes me think the convent sold it to the Council and its still standing isn’t it.
ES: If you look at this map of 1923, there’s nothing to suggest that it isn’t Leahoe land. Look there’s the convent.
FT: It must have been Leahoe land because it was all fenced in from Pegs Lane right down to the end of Bullocks Lane cos the old nuns used to use the field; they used to come right up to Pegs Lane. That was all fenced in and it was the same down Bullocks Lane, that was all high hedges. Cos when they used to have their sessions walking round the fields, you couldn’t see nothing; probably see the top of their heads, like, the cover.
ES: That’s Pegs Lane it almost looks from here as though the only land that belonged to Wallfields is that (pointing to map).
FT: Wallfields is separated from that field by the lane that went up to the farm.
ES: Yes, that’s where you say Mead’s farm is.
FT: On that side Wallfields, that’s where Mr Mead used to come across the field what belonged to Wallfield into the convent up here. The convent must own all that ground -
ES: Well I don’t think there is any more we want to ask about that. Can you say a bit more about the convent.
JR: We will let you know if we find out any more about it, get a copy of the Mercury report.
ES: Did you say you took milk there or you collected it from there?
FT: I took it. When I used to go up to the pony (?) Mr Mead used to ask me to take it up to the convent and they used to have a big old bell and you had to pull that and wait a few minutes, then you’d hear a voice and they asked you what you wanted and they used to say, Wait a moment. Well, you’d wait about 5 minutes, the door used to open, a little door like a prison door and in front of you was the kitchen and you’d take the milk through there and then a voice used to say, Wait a moment. Well, when you went in there, there was a cup of drink made for you and a piece of cake, or something.
JR: But the milk you’re talking about was actually produced on their land, was it?
FT: Mr Mead kept a farm half way up that lane.
JR: It was milk for the kitchen?
FT: And they used to keep the cows; they used to turn them out in that field.
JR: So, the rest of the milk they didn’t use in the convent, did they sell that?
FT: I don’t know what happened to it?
ES: They probably did because we were speaking to somebody who was a child of the gardener at Wallfield and she used to get milk from Leahoe. Was this a proper road or was it just a little lane?
FT: It was a little lane. It wasn’t a proper road you go halfway up that little road. You was on about the man keeping pigs. It was the nunnery keeping pigs and the man looked after them. Because ..... You’ve been up to see Mrs Bilton and asked her about it. She said they had a man to look after them but the convent fed them.
ES: I think its that little collection of buildings.
JR: Do you think that’s where it was?
FT: It wasn’t far off the convent.
ES: Look there’s the convent and there’s the farm.
FT: It is possible.
ES: There weren’t any other buildings up there?
FT: It was only a short distance off the road, I think that what with the milk and the pork they were prac…
ES: They were self sufficient.
JR: Who was the man who looked after them, was he a Spaniard. Did the nuns go out into the town?
FT: Oh, no! The ones in the white, they was the novices and - But the ones in the white, you could always see them, they worked in the gardens of the nunnery.
JR: So they worked on the land as well?
FT: Yes, they all worked on the land.
ES: You’ve told us, haven’t you, about the nuns walking round. I expect they were telling their beads, weren’t they? Saying the rosary and so on, on that field?
FT: Directly they build them houses opposite, you know, Horns Mill, the first lot that went up, and that overlooked them, and that’s the reason why they went ..... Directly they went up, they [the nuns] went.
JR: They went up in the 30s, didn’t they? So they decided to sell and go.
FT: Yes.
ES: Did you have relatives in Somerset Terrace?
FT: Not me, Millie did.
ES: You said something about Mr Kettridges and I know Mrs Ketteridge was Millie’s grandma.
FT: You asked me about the Playle where he lived and moved
ES: I know about George Playle, he lived in Ivy Cottage then next door to Westfield House.
FT: The house used to face Westfield House, down little steps, there was two people there.
Transcribers Note: What he means is Mr Playles House was attached and had a side door - two familes shared it..
ES: There’s a picture of Wallfields Alley (showing him) You didn’t know anybody who lived there?
FT: No
ES: This is Somerset Terrace and that’s Westfiel;d Alley I don’t suppose you remember there was a cottage further along Westfield Alley. Right at the Black Horse.
FT: I belive Playle was the last one lived there and he moved across the road.
ES: Oh right, this is what I want to know, this Blackhorse Alley up there, you walk along here and this is Wallfield Alley (looking at a map) where you go up the steps to Leahoe. Now allotments and on the left there was a cottage.
FT: That was Father Maceroni.
ES: He lived – this is the lodge in Horns Mill. There was a cottage at the top of the steps opposite the path to the football ground, I wondered if you remember it, you don’t remember the Whinnetts?
FT: The end of Somerset Terrace was allotments and the other side was that twitchell that come down. Then further along was the lodge where Father Maceroni lived.
ES: There is something shown on the map
FT: There was only a little spinney there, that can’t be it.
ES: No that’s where Father Maceroni lived, this is part of the football ground, what we are wondering is, what is this building? I think it was called Garden Cottage and belonged to Leahoe. There’s the convent and that’s below it.
Tape ends