Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Taylor, Bill (01998.9) |
| Interviewee | Bill Taylor (BT) |
| Interviewer | Peter Ruffles (PR) |
| Date | 10/04/1998 |
| Transcriber by | Unknown |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: 01998.9
Interviewee: Bill Taylor (BT)
Date: 10th April 1998
Venue: Villiers Street
Interviewer: Peter Ruffles (PR)
Transcriber: (not known)
Typed by: (not known)
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
PR: This is Peter Ruffles speaking from Villiers Street, the home of Mr. Bill Taylor, known across the whole of the town to anyone who's ever been to a public event anywhere in Hertford, sporting or social, the chances are that they'd recognise this face, usually in uniform over, how long Bill, when did you first join St. John?
BT: I joined St. John officially in '43 but I started going from September '41 and then I failed my first exam in '42 and you couldn't become a proper member until you'd got a first aid certificate which I passed in July '43.
PR: So, fifty years.
BT: Fifty-odd years now, yes.
PR: Well, I've known Bill a long time but not really through St. John. I've just seen you around like everybody else in Hertford and 'cos my link with St. John, although I was a junior of one kind or another in the old Durrant Hall a long time ago. That must have been when I was about 12 just for a bit. Then other things took over. You were there and your face has been familiar and I was of course your mother's paper boy in Wellington Street, Number 68, Daily Mail for a very long time. Now this is just establishing that the date is the 10th April 1998, Good Friday. You may hear a rumble of thunder because it's Easter and Easter weather is with us outside and it's just about half past three or four o'clock in the evening.
Now I'm going to ask Bill to tell us about his personal life before we get back to St. John in a few minutes. Whether he was born in Hertford and that kind of thing. I'm now going to press the pause button so we can have a lovely mug of tea.
Now I've had my cup of tea, thank you very much, and now we're seated ready to make some decisions because I can't· decide what the best order is (in which) to talk to Bill.
I think we'll put some John Ambulance and your working ambulance service career on one side and just go back to your beginnings because while I've been having a cup of tea, you've been filling in the form that says you're happy for us to use what we're going to talk about, but you may well take that back at the end and say no, I've had second thoughts.
And I think really just a bit about you would be important because we are the Hertford Oral History Group and we love places and atmospheres and we've come into this house and will hear how you came to be here which is a lovely house at the end of Villiers Street but 68, Wellington Street was where you were born?
BT: That's where I was born, yes.
PR: What year was that?
BT: I was born in 1930, the 26th June. I'm a twin. I've got a twin sister which I suppose in a way was fairly fortunate because my mother died three days after we were born, otherwise I probably wouldn't have been here because my sister was about 12 hours older than myself.
My father worked as a gardener at Miss McMullen's at a house called 'Westfields' in West Street.
PR: Oh yes, No. 50 is it?
BT: Yes. He was there for 40+ years and when he came out the First World War. He served as a medic in the First World War.
PR: Oh, he was in that same line of country.
BT: I was writing a few notes up about myself when I first retired and·I think that's where I got it, in the blood. You don't know but when you look back – he received the Military Medal and Bar for bravery in bringing people in from 'no mans land'. In fact one of them was a Mr. Winch, used to live at Watton-at-Stone and worked in the P.O. at Byde Street.
PR: Oh, Port Vale Common P.O.
BT: Yes - and he got a card, when father was 80 thanking him for what he did in the 1914-18 War, saving his life. So over the years that's what I've followed and been very happy to do so.
PR: Now what was your father's Christian name?
BT: His was William, 'Bill', William Edward Taylor and my mother was Lilla Taylor nee Burgess and she used to live in 37, Port Vale. Her father worked at the P.O. in Fore Street.
PR: That's where Pete Burgess lives now.
BT: Pete Burgess is my cousin and he lives in our grandparents' house. Peter, when we were born, lived next door to us at 70, Wellington Street and then they moved into 44, Molewood Road which was next-door-but-one to us because there are back ways into Molewood Road.
We were brought up by my father and in those days when confinement took place, there used to be a lady that used to come round and care for the mother during the confinement and when mother died, father asked her to stay. And she stayed with us right up to 1944 when she couldn't carry on any longer, because she was quite old when she took us both on.
PR: What was her name?
BT: Her name was Mrs. Galloway. She was a widow. She and her husband used to keep the Broxbourne Lock in their younger days. And she stayed with us. She'd still got one or two on her books. A chap named John Foster who lives up Sele Farm, that was one of her confinements that she went to deal with. They used to keep the fishmonger's shop.
PR: Oh, yes, at Cowbridge.
BT: And another one was in Ware and so once she'd done that she stayed with us for all those years.
PR: So your mother's death, was that unexpected really?
BT: Yes. The thing in those days, they didn't expect twins and they didn't realise that I was still waiting to be delivered. And then I suppose she got (unintelligible) and went unconscious and
never regained consciousness so it was a shock in a way. And my father never really got over it. And it was always, as I say, mother never really wanted to leave that house, didn't want anything done to it. And when father remarried in '44, he had been courting a few years but he'd always promised Mrs. Galloway who he used to call 'Nan' that she would have a roof over her head as long as she wanted, so I suppose in a way it delayed his marriage until the situation changed.
PR: Mrs. Galloway, what did she do actually when, at the. time your father remarried?
BT: Well, she had to leave us because she'd got relations at Ware at Cundalls Road and she went to stay with them, name of Clibbons. Then I think she had to go into Western House.
PR: So the lady you call mother is a stepmother?
BT: A brilliant stepmother.
PR: Oh, was she?
BT: She took over at a difficult time, difficult situation, but she was a marvellous person.
PR: You were in your 'teens, were you?
BT: 14, yes. Yes, they got married December '44 so we were l4½.
PR: Mm - it's a tricky time for a woman to come into..
BT: Very difficult. But it worked out all right.
PR: And she died on the, what a year ago?
BT: Two years ago. Yes, she died in Q.E.II, heart failure, but she'd had a heart problem most of her life in a way.
PR: Oh, had she? Didn't show.
BT: No, no, but it was always a problem there, severe palpitations and that sort of thing. And she soldiered on and she got a little bit mentally confused as they do when they get over 80, because she was over 80. She was 85 when she died. Father was 88 when he died. His mother was 90-odd when she died, so they're quite long-livers.
PR: So that's going to be your fate probably if it's in the genes.
BT: Well you never know. As long as you can keep your faculties, and are able to get around and not relying on too many people to help you. I had an aunt die about two years ago. She lived to be just over 100, Father's sister, Rose.
PR: Now your father used to come into Farnham's paper shop in the evening and pick up an evening paper and he'd be on a bike, so that was a West Street to Wellington Street
BT: Express!
PR: He was very chummy with Beaky Farnham, the old boy - was that through bowls?
BT: They used to play bowls but I think it was partly due to the First World War. I think they were in the First World War together.
PR: It would be that generation.
BT: He was also very friendly with Ernie Brand who was the blacksmith. He used to call in every lunchtime. He used to have quarter of an hour, twenty minutes with Ernie; go in there and sit on the old bench and have a chat with him.
PR: Now we'd better tell the listeners where that blacksmith was.
BT: Well that blacksmith was in Cowbridge right opposite the Hartham Lane. There used to be a couple of big doors there. There's a little shop next to it now, which was there then, a basket-makers. Then it was Saddlers. Don't know what it is now.
PR: No, it's probably one of those that…
BT: Comes and goes.
PR: Saddlers had it as an office, I remember.
BT: The blacksmith's shop was next to what was then a pub which is now McMullen's offices on the corner of Dimsdale Street.
Transcribers Note: Old Great Northern Tavern
PR: I never remember it being a pub. I can't recall that. But was the blacksmith anything to do with Gunners as well?
BT: It was bought up by, run by Gunners the cigarette people. It was their property and they ran it up until Ernie packed up and died and they closed the blacksmith's shop down. But in my younger days that used to be a job, every Saturday morning, to take the old wheelbarrow down there and load it up with manure and then wheel it all up to Bengeo to put it on Father's allotment.
PR: Where did he have his allotment then?
BT: What they now call the Golden Acres? (The Onion Patch, both spoke together and the name and location were lost.) That was where they built all the new houses by the water tower, The Drive, Bengeo.
PR: So how did you get to these allotments? What was your route?
BT: Well, when we walked up we used to go to the end of Molewood Road and up the steep hill and that brought you up to the bottom of Church Street in Bengeo and you walked along The Avenue into the allotments. There were houses on one side of The Drive and the other side was all open for allotments. That area belonged to the Bengeo Working Men's Club, of which father was a member.
And they sold that land and raised enough money to build the new Bengeo Working Men's Club, that's in Bengeo Street today. My grandfather Taylor was one of the founder members of that when it was first opened, way, way back when Bengeo Club first started. Father carried on - used to enjoy his game of darts and dominoes. He was a great bowler as well, my father, he used to play for McMullen's.
PR: I knew he used to have the Bowls News at the shop - a creamy-coloured magazine thing. Old Beaky used to read it free first and then - he always used to call your father Timmy Taylor - take this round the back and Timmy Taylor can have this tonight and he used to go and sit in his spinning chair behind the screen and read the Bowls News. People used to expect he was doing the accounts round there but he was reading your dad's magazine.
BT: Another one of his brothers was old Fred Taylor, who was the window cleaner, who used to live up North Road Avenue. And he used to serve in the Sele Arms in the evenings and weekends.
PR: Did he have a bit of a limp?
BT: Yes.
PR: What was that limp all about? Was that a war injury?
BT: No, I don't think he was in the war. I don't remember. He did have bad health a lot of the time, but he was quite spritely in his way. He used to just plod on with his old window cleaning and earn a bit in the pub of an evening. He used to enjoy that very much, to meet people. Unfortunately they didn't have any children. His wife couldn't have any children because she'd had a number of abdominal operations. And another sister of my father was Lily Taylor, who was the founder of the Duncombe Prep School.
PR: Yes, and lived in Fordwich Rise.
BT: They used to live in Duncombe Road before. That's where they were born, up in Bengeo, 76, Duncombe Road. There were about eight of them I think altogether.
PR: It was always private school teaching she did, was it?
BT: Yes, she started off as a private tutor to the children of the headmaster of the grammar school, Mr. Bunt, and I think it was Highfield Road they lived, And then he got his friends in and that got larger and larger and they had the Girl Guides' hut at the bottom of Pegs Lane before that was knocked down. And then they used to use the Friends' Meeting House for the kindergarten. And then she went into partnership with Mrs. Bees up at Duncombe School. Mrs. Bees' husband bought it and they set up the school there where it's now developing tremendously.
PR: We used to call her cheekily 'Miss Waggit.' I never knew whether it was the way she walked, 'cos she was again spritely and nipped along or whether she was wagging her tongue 'cos she talked as well. I was never in her school but she was always about, wasn't she.
BT: Everybody knew her as 'Tay'.
PR: Yes, 'Tay' - whether we got that from some of her pupils.
BT: In the end I looked after her for a good number of years. I was bathing her twice a day because she got senile and she never really got over retiring. There was a lot of problems money wise through a person I won't mention who was the accountant and in the end he shot himself. That was a great upset to her really. Anyway she carried on for a little while but she went down mentally and we used to look after her, until we managed to get her into hospital.
PR: I used to see her just standing in the window looking out.
BT: In her vest very often, very sad.
PR: I'm coming over a bit more clearly than you are, I think, but that's 'cos I shout as usual. Let's just move that there and see what happens.
BT: Yes, poor old Lily. Then in the end I had to get her into a friend's nursing home in Hitchin, Benslow Nursing Home. It was run by Johnny Power. I don't know if you've heard of Johnny Power. His mother lived at Waterford and he took up nursing and when he came out of the forces, because he went in to do his National Service, he started with, took over Benslow Nursing Home at
Hitchin.
PR: You see it advertised in the Herts. Countryside a lot but I've never really had any connection with it.
BT: Johnny Power was a chap who was a keen fireman and a keen first-aider. He used to spend a lot of time at the fire station down Mill Road when it was a fire and ambulance station. And he came into St. John Cadets as a cadet of mine and then he became the cadet leader. And then he went into the forces and then he did get back into the headquarters and became a staff officer, but
unfortunately things haven't gone too well for him recently so he's had to pack that in. He's a good lad.
PR: Jumping a little bit, let's, how did you come to be here in this end of town? Ware Road is a completely different community to Wellington Street.
BT: Yes, I got married in 1957. At that time it was difficult to find accommodation and we spent our first three months at Park Road at Jean's mother's place and my aunt which was Fred's wife, Aunt Annie that lived up North Road Avenue, she worked for Norris & Duval and this house came up for rent - it belonged to Bill Cooper, the farmer.
PR: Ah, where were they, the Coopers?
BT: He did move up into Windy Ridge - think his son still lives there.
PR: Oh, yes, yes!
BT: But Bill died not so long ago and he decided that he wanted to sell it and we'd just finished our staircase which had taken me five years to do, because when we come into this place it was in a terrible state, decoration-wise. My mother-in-law thought we'd never live in it you know. “You can't take a place like that on.” But we did and so we thought about it. I was working on the Ambulance Service then and the pay in the service wasn't all that great but we got it and worked at it and we bought it, so now it's paying dividends really. Of course we were sitting tenants which assisted us in the price of it and we were very pleased to buy it.
PR: It's lovely. Is it a partner with the one opposite? Were they built the same?
BT: I think they were built about the same but they are completely different. Although they look similar, we've got four bay windows and they've just got one round there. They've got the one room, we've got two rooms there. But this house sort of tapers down a bit along that wall and we've got a great big room there as our sitting room and a small kitchenette up the other end and I've got a basement all under here.
PR: It's a very unusual shape, isn't it, on the corner with Railway Street one side and the front door on Villiers Street. It reminds me of the seaside quite a bit. You get Margate and places that were booming at the end of the last century and very similar substantial things.
BT: I think it was built in 1880 something.
PR: Yes, it looks that.
BT: Because when we came in here there was all steam trains which were lovely but they didn't suit the white nappies!
PR: Was it built privately or was it connected with the railway in any way?
BT: No, it was built privately. The garages were built for carts. They were not built for cars. I haven't had a car that really fits in the garage. One garage was extended but I have difficulty
getting in and out so I used the other garage. It's a very wide garage but not very deep, so the back of my car has to just poke out a little bit.
Another thing I used to use it for, I used to do a lot of motor-cycle repairs. I've got an interest in motor-cycles. People'd say, “Can you do me motor-bike.” And in the end I was doing quite a few motor-cycles. Used to do some repairs for old Stambridge, motor-cycle people. When he went into mopeds, he'd got a workshop at the back there and asked me if I'd do the mopeds, and I said well to make a business of it, I'll bring my repairs down and we can do it through the shop which is where I ended up, I finished up doing that.
I also repaired the mowers for old Turner, for Simons, down Fore Street. I used to do their motor mowers.
PR: There was Turner's
BT: His son-in-law took it over. He married Turner's daughter and when Turner died the son-in-law, Simon, took it over. I worked - well was on shift work - so used to be able to go down there and repair the engines up and de-coke them for him.
PR: I didn't realise that stayed in the family when it changed it's name from Turner's. We'd better remind people, that was on the Gas Company side, wasn't it?
BT: The Gas Company was the double-fronted building and then there was Peck's, stonemasons and then there was Turner's.
PR: 95 or something was it? That always confuses me.
BT: 91, 93 Fore Street was the Gas Office and that's where I started work, there.
PR: So 97 perhaps - anyway we can look. Now people are going to say, “What you know this chap for is St. John,” so we ought really to trail your career at St. John because when I rang up the other day to see if I could do this talk with you, you were up there again, at the hall.
BT: Yes, I was examining on the first day of the work course which I do. They run about three work courses there a month and I examine on these and at the moment I also examine Luton University construction first aid work courses and obviously like for St. John, I go to Stevenage or wherever they want an examiner if I'm available. That's done through the Association rather than the Brigade which I'm more known for.
PR: How did you come to start it then?
BT: Well it started by some information that came round to school. I was up at Cowper School. Just started there so it was about September '41 and someone came round and gave a talk and I don't know who it was, and we had to be up at the Grammar School which is now Richard Hale School and I think there was about 80 of us turned up. They turned some away. I was fairly fortunate and able to stay, but unfortunately they used to take their First Aid examination once a year and when I took mine in '42 I failed which fortunately I've never done since. I was a bit disgusted in a way because I was asked to do a fractured rib, and we'd practised so much on doing fractured femurs which was three splints and eight bandages and all I'd got on my mind was that I'd got to do a fractured femur. And I done this fractured femur up and the doctor examining was a Dr. Billington and he was the M.O. at Haileybury College and he said, “You've done a very good job of the thigh but I wanted to see you treat a fractured rib so unfortunately I shall have to fail you.” And I was really upset!
But I was determined it wasn't going to deter me because I enjoyed what we were doing up there - the First Aid. The F.A. was a lot more complicated than it is today. It's been much simplified and I passed my F.A. exam which I've still got the certificate of, in 1943 and that's when I was able to become a full cadet. So officially my service started in July '43.
I've been with the cadets virtually ever since.
PR: Where did you meet? The initial meeting was at the Grammar School as it were but did you go on meeting there?
BT: Yes, that was the meeting place. That was in the dining room which were underneath on the ground level.
PR: Oh, they were, yes, on the right hand side.
BT: With steps. Used to meet in there and on the odd occasion we had use of the gym but I think the most important character up there was Sgt. Maj. Inman - he was the caretaker.
PR: And his wife has been one of our recorders! when she was 100 or 101.
End Tape 1, Side A
Tape 1, Side B
.
PR: Now you were saying that Sgt. Major Inman was fairly central to things.
BT: Yes, there was no messing about. When we met up there was probably forty boys because there was only boys then, there was no girls. There was no playing around because he lived in the house half-way up the drive, and as soon as he saw any messing about going on - playing around - he was either shouting up from his back door, or come up and sort us out. So, this is where the discipline comes in and we were disciplined in that respect right from the very beginning. The cadets were managed or the person in charge was a man named Frank Brace. He was the superintendent and he worked for the electrical company.
PR: North Met?
BT: North Met and he was in charge but also who used to help run it was George Durrant who was the superintendent of the Hertford Adult Division. And there was a chap named Corporal Bob Jacobs and Fred Barton who lived at Hertingfordbury and they used to be the four people that helped run the cadets. They used to take us in First Aid and we used to do a bit of boxing; put the chairs round and have a fisticuffs to take our energies away and have a run round the fields.
George Durrant used to have the chemist shop on Old Cross.
PR: Yes, Number 1.
BT: I think his telephone number when he was a councillor was Number 2.
PR: Was it? Yes, I know it was a very low one.
BT: Johnny Power mentioned he'd got a medicine bottle with it on. But he also run a mineral water factory at the back of Durrant's the chemist. And as cadets we used to go down the mineral water factory and help after school and Saturdays and sometimes go out on the lorry with Bob Jacobs who was the corporal I mentioned running the cadets, who also lived, 'cos Durrant lived in West Street, and Bob Jacobs lived next-door-but-one to him - a little chap who had a bit of a limp - he had a deformed leg.
PR: That was about No. 3 or 5 West Street was it? Just round the corner from the cash stores.
BT: Yes, well Mr. Durrant lived in the first one and Bob lived in the third one. The adult St. John was then held in a room underneath the mineral water factory. I remember they had darts and they had a little billiard table there and every now and again we were allowed to go there to use those facilities and meet the adult division. That was always a big treat for the cadets. But unfortunately that all got bombed.
PR: Was the factory adjoining the shop?
BT: No. There was a space and then the factory was at the back of the shop. Between the shop, during the war, was the first aid post. There was a brick reinforced building put up there (this was the original Wickham's Brewery house which was reinforced) to act as a First Aid Post and this is where the St. John people did their First Aid cover and duties and they used to sleep there and be
on call and standby. They was in there in '44 when the bomb dropped and blew the lot to pieces. It was fortunate that that concrete roof which was turned into toilets, and a store room afterwards is what protected them, because they were in there when this 'rocket' landed (it was a VI, not a V2) just the other side of the bridge (Durrant's side of the bridge, though) where there were some
shops and Ilott's Mill.
PR: Wasn't one of the Comley girls in there?
BT: Yes, she was.
PR: To do with the organist at All Saints.
BT: Can't think of her Christian name.
PR: Mimi Comley or Nora Comley.
BT: I think she married, tallish, dark-haired lady.
PR: My mum told me one of her friends, and I think it was one of the Comley family and I couldn't think what she was doing there 'cos all I could think of was Wickham's Brewery. So she could have been doing some public service there.
Transcriber’s Note: Wickhams sold to Wells and Winch in 1938
BT: The pub next to it belonged to Wells & Winch. That was wiped out. But I went down there on the morning because on the Sunday mornings we used to go down there. I couldn't believe my eyes, because it was just gone. That was the end of Durrant's Mineral Water Factory, but at the time the chemists was run by Russells, a big chemist from Letchworth bought it and took it over from Durrant.
PR: So they were actually running in '44 were they?
BT: Durrant had given up and he was busy with his mineral water factory.
PR: That's tied up a few things for me, 'cos it was always called Durrant's the chemist even when it was Russell's.
BT: George Hugman had the pork butchers shop and everybody used to queue up for their sausages. Well, George Bent run it.
PR: So there was no loss of life with that doodlebug?
BT: No.
PR: But what about Durrant Hall then at the back? That Nissan hut.
BT: Well, when we hadn't got a headquarters, but we also got involved with the Civil Defence because it was all part and parcel in the war days and just after the war. I've been lowered from that balcony in the Corn Exchange many, many times, strapped on a stretcher. So the CD used the Corn Exchange and we joined them.
Then we had rooms at the back of the library on Old Cross. But we'd got our own ambulance at the time so it was a bit of a priority to find garage space for that and what we did, we went down there. and cleaned all the bricks up. And poor old George Durrant hired a brickie and he built a garage down behind Hugman's shop and we had a garage to put our big old Ford VB ambulance in.
Then they built a small meeting room which was attached to the back of Hugman's shop.
In the meantime they were looking for an army hut that could be used to build a HQ on the old mineral water site and in the end they come up with asbestos air force huts and Durrant bought these two and he got old Harry Blythe to build them up so they made them taller and put a floor down and we had our own new HQ and that was called Durrant Hall.
The only unfortunate thing was the sewers didn't go that low so the men's sewer (W.C.) behind where they built it in the First Aid Post had a sewer and all the others were Elsan pans. And at that time I was a caretaker for it and every Sunday morning down there to empty the – cor, dear, that was a game!
PR: And in those days they were probably the best years for numbers, were they of people involved with St. John?
BT: As the lads come back out the forces George Durrant had a deputy, a divisional officer named Bill Hunt. We always used to call him Daddy Hunt. His daughter used to keep the Ship, public house on Old Cross.
PR: Yes, he was the cricketer.
BT: Yes, which takes me back again to my mother's side of the family because the Ship was run by grandmother's relations, Owen Dean. And an uncle of mine built the little ship and he put that up there. This is where the curtain shop is now, opposite the library.
PR: And right over the front door, the entrance to this pub, was this beautiful model sailing ship as a sort of sign for the pub which rocked. But it met it's end after the pub closed in the yard. The dray backed into it, in McMullen's yard. They took it across there for storage as part of the artefacts of the brewery.
BT: Daddy Hunt's daughter took it over from my relations and the Deans, because they took a pub in Baldock Street, Ware. After our drill nights we always used to go from Durrant Hall into the pub and have a pint and a chat.
PR: He lived there with Harold Hunt - Daddy Hunt. He died there didn't he, in the pub?
BT: I can't remember. His house was in Ware Road, but whether he was with his daughter when he died, I don't know. But Harold Hunt - wasn't he the chap from Bengeo?
PR: There was another Harold Hunt up there, in Duncombe Road whose wife, she lived to be 100. But this was your Daddy Hunt's son who they called Bubbles. He was a plump chap and he married. It was his son, not his daughter.
BT: That's right, it was his daughter-in-law, then.
PR: His daughter-in-law, she was the licensee, she'd been an Allsop. And he came I think, your Daddy Hunt, to live at the Ship in his last years. He was a bus driver for a while.
BT: I remember him now. I forgot all about him to be truthful.
PR: So he was invo1ed with St. John. I hadn't realised that.
BT: When they came back from the war Daddy Hunt was the disciplinarian and started getting them on parade, like we did with the cadets. We always had a parade. One or two of them'd had enough of that which I suppose you can understand and they didn't carry on.
A couple of them went into the ambulance service. A chap named Willie Lee used to live in West Street. He came into the ambulance service. But they didn't come back to St. John, very many of them.
One of the members got killed during the war. A chap named Lee, I didn't know him because he'd
gone into the army before I got involved with the adult division. I got involved in 1946 when I was 16.- That's when you could transfer up. There wasn't many of us that transferred up but I was one of the fortunate ones that did.
My first function, I'd got my nice adult uniform, was with Tom Warren, who was a corporal. And we went to a cadet army camp, attached to the Herts. Cadet Force down in Firle House down in Sussex near Lewes. And we were then attached to the medical corps. And we got flooded out. The hospital tent was flooded then. We had to go on any manoeuvres they had, to apply first aid.
Then. I went the following year up to Southwold with the army cadet force with Tom Warren. He was the chap who worked for Addis's but he lived in a house up London Road, stood back in the
woods just before you get to the new estate.
PR: Yes, yes, I know.
BT: He recently died. That was my first introduction to the adult division, going off on a train from Hertford North, cut down the old line through Port Vale, picked up more here, through London and down to Firle Park and this army cadet camp. The funny thing was on the second one, I met a chap up at Southwold, an RMC fellow, who was running the M.I. room up there for the cadets and he was the first person I met when I arrived at Colchester Military Hospital after doing my six weeks army medical training, down there as a nursing orderly.
PR: And then from getting into the adult world, you've been really involved examining.
BT: Yes, I was thinking today, just before I went in the army we had to go round to do some training. I've been training the public since I was 18 and I can remember being taken off in a taxi cab - Graves the taxi people. They used to take me out to the villages. I went to Bennington, Bramfield and Tewin before I went in the army at 18, to do first aid training for the first aid parties or civil defence parties out in these villages.
PR: I suppose you haven't calculated how many people must have passed through your…
BT: I haven't, no. And I was doing the training at Durrant Hall when the ambulance service first started and it was run by the Chief Fire Officer, Geoffrey Blackstone, and they had to come, Cyril Izzard and Howard Crane who were the leading lights in the ambulance service then, although there was no ranks in the ambulance service at the very beginning. They had to come down to Durrant Hall to do their first aid training and I was training them, so that's going right back to 1948 when the ambulance service first started.
PR: We could tell our listeners that Geoffrey Blackstone's daughter is now the Baroness Blackstone and she went to Ware Grammar School as a pupil.
BT: She was also one of Lily Taylor's children, the Duncombe School.
PR: Was she, was she called Tessa?
BT: Yes and Cyril Izzard that I mentioned was my wife's uncle. He was a senior ambulance officer when he retired. He was a divisional officer and that's what I ended up as, divisional officer in charge of all the East Herts operational side.
But going back to St. John, I did my two years in National Service with the army medical corps and did the training there and began as nursing orderly 2nd class which not many people got within that time. And I was a corporal in charge of skin diseases at Colchester Military Hospital and I still used to go to cadets when I was home on leave, and out with them. Then I came out of the forces and went back, to my old job, which was training to be a gas fitter, the Tottenham & District Gas Co. in Fore Street, where I started at 14.
I was there and finished my. training, in fact I was doing my practical exams on the Saturday afternoon when the manager, Mr. Garnham, came down and he said, “Are you leaving us Taylor?”
I said, “Not as I've heard of.”
And he said, “I've had a request for a reference from the Herts. Fire and Ambulance Service,” or Brigade as it was known then. And I said, “Well, I have applied.” And a fortnight later I was working for the ambulance service. Started at W.G.C. station which was in the Council Offices opposite Welwyn Stores more or less on the Campus there.
PR: Garnhams, they lived above the Gas Co. didn't they? He had a son at the Grammar School.
BT: We had to work in the showrooms to start your apprenticeship and every morning poor old Phil Thomas who was eaten up with arthritis, he was the manager, we had to carry coke right up the top morning and evening and that was all part of the training. I qualified as a gas fitter but left, and went into the ambulance service and retired in my 40th year.
PR: You didn't have Alfie Mansfield. He wasn't around in your day there?
BT: Yes, Alfie Mansfield was on the Gas Co. He worked for the Gas Board when I first was there.
PR: He's another one of our recordists, or was, he's died now. Yes. He was born in Brewhouse Lane. He gave us some colourful stories as Alfie would.
BT: He became a fitter in the end and he used to do lamp lights as well. Old Dobbin Dye, he was a lamplighter when I was on there and I used to help him out. And we used to go around and go up Fanshawe Street and stand on your bike, hang onto a lamppost and you could look over North Road to see the lights up over the lanes over the back of the station, the little walks round there, make certain they were on, 'cos you had to go round every night to see if the lamps were on.
PR: Oh, you could do it from Fanshawe Street.
BT: You'd get up there to save going all down there - pick out the lights and count them out.
PR: I suppose at that time it was only gas lights in off-centre places. Was it Cowbridge had gas for a long time.
BT: It wasn't really many in those days - electric lighting. It was nearly all gas. And then during the war you had to paint the glass. You had a little bit of black at the top and then a little strip clear and then all yellow paint at the bottom and they had just a little glimmer.
PR: Now Dobbin lived on the Folly?
BT: Yes, he went blind in the end.
PR: Yes, I'm not sure whether he was on Riverside, or
BT: I think he was on Riverside. And Mick Murphy was another character on the Gas Co., unfortunately with a deformed back, poor old Mick. He was one of the real old gas fitters of his time.
PR: Now in St. John, people, we've lost Les Oakes, haven't we in the last year.
BT: Yes.
PR: There have been some characters.
BT: I taught Les Oakes first aid when he was a bus conductor down at the bus garage, Tamworth Road, before he even come into St. John, taught him first aid because he used to do the training down there for them, or St. John did. So I was sent down there so they had to re-qualify, those who belonged. They had their own first aid centre down there. And Les Oakes was one of the people that I went down and taught and then Les Oakes did a short spell in the ambulance service.
PR: Did he?
BT: Yes. When we was down here he was an ambulance driver, in Mill Road.
PR: Oh, I didn't know that.
BT: Yes.
PR: He worked at Addis as well.
BT: He was quite a character.
PR: Cor dear, yes!
BT: Poor old Leslie, he did try hard.
PR: Who else was latter-day St. John. We've talked about George Durrant who was a benefactor and an outward looking person in the community.
BT: One of the other original founders of it was Dan Dye, who, as you know, was the Mayor of Hertford on a couple of occasions. I think it was about 1909 and then when the First World War started it packed up and then it re-started with Durrant and I believe he was still involved in about '37.
PR: They have this curious arrangement. I'm the president at the moment - a bit of a joke.
BT: Oh course, you're following Longmore, old John Longmore was the president in the earlier days and Vivien and Vauser were the doctors.
PR: Now we've got John Read as a surgeon, a great County Hospital man. The president has always been somebody that's connected with the town life more broadly.
BT: Yes, we used to have Proctor, do you remember Wilf Proctor, used to be the president of the cadet division at one time. He was quite a nice fellow. Used to do quite a lot for the cadets.
PR: Yes, railwayman, he had been.
BT: That's right, the station-master, lived in the house which has been pulled down which was opposite the Fire and Ambulance Station in Mill Road.
PR: Oh, yes, stood on its own. Didn't realise that?
BT: Then he moved out to Watton-at-Stone.
~
PR: I can remember the Watton chapter but not the earlier one. So, who else have we had?
BT: Well, Alf Sweeney was another and his brother Mike, who was Con's father, and Percy Mansfield.
PR: Oh, yes, of course, and she has kept her link until fairly recently really. She's at Beane River View now.
BT: Con Sweeney, he was one of the cadets and he married Percy Mansfield's daughter and she was a cadet.
PR: Now what Christian name?
BT: Irene. That was Con's wife. Unfortunately Con died. 'Cos Con had polio when he was a young lad and he always had a bit of a limp, but he was a St. John cadet. And his father was with Alf, and Alf Sweeney helped run the St. John Cadets with me. And then when Stallard died, Alf Sweeney took over the superintendent of the adult division. Then we started up nursing cadets and in those days they all were separate divisions and they had their own superintendents and Nora Izzard, do you know Nora Izzard?
PR: Yes.
BT: She was a superintendent in charge of Nursing Division and that's Jean's sister-in-la. So you have to be very careful because all the families were intermixed. Mrs. Mansfield was a member of the Nursing Division. And then there was the Sweeneys. They were all sort of mixed in with the divisions. Pam Butler, she used to run the Nursing Division.
PR: Oh, did she. I saw Pam in the album but I don't remember her through St. John at all.
BT: Yes, she run the Nursing Division. It was when she packed up that I had to amalgamate the two divisions. And then because there was then only me running them, I got Dave Poole and Joyce Poole from Sele Farm. They came in because they had to have a female officer as well. So I had Dave Poole and Joyce Poole as my Divisional Officers, because being a mixed group, so they were my officers for a time. But they had to pack it in. Well I think Dave because he felt there wasn't enough going into Adult Division. But you just have to accept that when you're running cadets, when they become 16 and that, very often there's schoolwork and that
PR: Especially nowadays there's so many other pulls on them.
BT: We've had quite a few go through cadets that have become nursing sisters, doctors and good jobs. There are several doctors.
PR: What was the difference, and how well do we get on with the Red Cross?
BT: Well, I think we get on reasonably well; more so since they've been amalgamated book-wise. I think there used to be more little problems when there were different thinkings on teaching. But
Red Cross have been more involved in hospital work than the St. John.
We knew that some of the St. John members go in various casualties and do work that way. I mean we used to do quite a bit at County, go in the Casualty there and run the telephone and all this sort of thing, as did the Red Cross. But they were more in nursing than perhaps we were.
But I remember going way way back to the Shire Hall, there was a joint Red Cross and St. John Fair, but we was cadets then and we went to this fair and it was an amalgamation.
End of Tape 1, Side B
Tape 2, Side A
It was amazing, the interest that the people from the Rotary had in knowing one or two of the old people like Frank Chappell and those. You mention them and the eyes light up.
PR: Well, we've done it this afternoon, because again, Frank has made a tape about his farthing years and the toy shop.
BT: And again, going back to Frank, they were very friendly with our family and he used to live out at Stapleford with his parents when he was a boy and we used to visit them out there. My job as training officer of the Ambulance Service and with St. John, because I was involved through the County St. John and with the Red Cross with the Ambulance Service, that was a help especially when did joint exercises and at Knebworth Pop Festivals when we was all together, planning and this sort of thing. I think we have worked fairly well together.
At one time, when we were talking about new HQs before we moved up to Sele Farm, there was a suggestion that the Red Cross HQs in the old gaol site, Baker Street, would be a joint Red Cross and St. John Ambulance HQs. In fact we also had, you know where the Salvation Army Hall is now, that site was put down for St. John. But we couldn't afford to have the type of brick building that they wanted to match in with the rest of the architecture there, and that's when we took over and had this building built up at Sele Farm old Community Centre.
PR: Yes, that site is interesting because it was nearly, I went up to look at it as a church warden because we wanted to have some church base up there from St. Andrew'hut and St. John took on the ******* but we were looking while it was looking a bit iffy as the new Community Centre was being built at the far end.
But St. John and fundraising. The finances of St. John generally are always a puzzle. There must be a natural holding of one kind, and then the County, but we're responsible for a lot of local fundraising here.
BT: Although the fundraising has changed a bit now, the finance holding's changed because it all now comes under the County HQs. Up until that, every division had their own funds and everything they made went into those funds but now it's all controlled from the White House at Stevenage, the Herts. County HQs. But we still have to raise the funds to be viable for running the ambulance, the dressings, the cost of running the hall and so letting it out to the Association to run first aid awards work courses brings in the income.
But the finance control is all done through one banking system at the County HQs where before it was all done on the divisional level. That came under the Act for Charities. They all had to go under.
PR: You don't see so much from Red Cross locally.
BT: They call them detachments. They're all run from County, everything is financed from them, so if they raise anything, it goes into the County funds.
PR: Now we've been, my children, knocking on doors last week and beginning of this week, and we got £1,800.
BT: Did you really? Now I've got a little query, because I had a little boy come in from St. John and I wasn't able to get to the meeting where it was decided because I'd strained me back, and I had this young lad come, and he said he was collecting for Hertford Division of St. John. I said, “Oh, yes, that's interesting, have you got any official identification - only I'm a member of the Hertford Division and I don't know anything about this!” But anyway he showed me it and I give him £1 and he said, “Thank you very much!”
PR: Oh, you coughed up, did you?
BT: Oh, yes! He just happened to come, and we'd had our flag day and thought someone had found a box somewhere.
PR: One or two got questioned appropriately on technical matters, because they don't know that they don't know the ins and outs of the organisation, whereas in the past when it's been the Children's Society or, we've done some St. John odd little fundraising before, but not in a big way, they're much safer. But a lot of people know about St. John and rules and regs. and someone asked whether he could get a new hand-book and this chap didn't seem to know much about hand-books. So that (money) will be banked and sent off to Stevenage and then
BT: It will be credited to Hertford Division, so anything we want with 'that "money we can have. But you're not allowed to have all the little individual pockets of finance.
PR: Now we haven't mentioned two people who in recent times have put long, long hours in to St. John and that's Geoff and Ray Edmundson who live at Broad Oak End. Geoff died and Ray has moved away. But they did a lot of work, didn't they? Expanded on the site a bit with them. He got the hut I got for the Campfield Road Residents Association after we'd done the modernising of the
houses and refurbished that so a lot of credit there.
BT: Oh, yes, they did do their best while they were there and put in a lot of time.
PR: But now you're run by a lady from Bengeo.
BT: Lynne Bosward.
PR: And from Enfield?
BT: Yes, Keith and Brenda.
PR: Who come across and…
BT: You see, they was in the adult division and they was interested because their daughter was a cadet.
PR: Oh, that was the…
BT: And they were interested in coming over to the Cadet Division and obviously I was getting near 65 and long-term thinking, I thought these would be ideal people to take over the cadet division. They had to do certain training to be responsible for children and get their qualifications to get
Divisional Officer and Superintendent rank as Keith's now got and that's worked out very, very well. And they're doing an extremely good job with the cadets and assist with the adult division. They are in their own right divisional officers for the Cadet Division. Well Keith is Superintendent and Brenda is D.O. for the Cadet Division. Lynne is in charge of the Adult Division and obviously she should soon be made up to become an officer of the Adult Division. It's not an amalgamation of the two divisions, so they are two separate divisions but we've always worked close together.
I've always worked with the Adult Division and whereas some Cadet Divisions never really meet the Adult Divisions and of course we get a good rapport with cadets going out on public duties with
the adult members. Cadets must have adult members with them but they do some fantastic jobs, like the Christian Aid Walk.
PR: Yes, oh dear.
BT: They are well trained to go out as First Aiders.
PR: It must be an added difficulty for them living so far away but their commitment is to Hertford.
BT: Keith and I go out quite a lot to other divisions, examining and training. Recently we was over at Bishops Stortford in the evenings. And it's all voluntary work, and they put a tremendous amount of time in. It's two nights a week before you've done anything else. We've run first aid courses for Ware. Keith and I've been out to different workplaces in the evenings.
PR: I shall have to go, but a quick side-shoot on the Ambulance Service in Hertford.
BT: It's been a good asset for St. John with me as a trainer with being in the Ambulance Service because I've had the experience especially for our own division. I've been able to put it over in a practical way. One of the difficulties with St. John is they're all textbook trainers, they haven't had
the practical experience.
I joined the Ambulance Service in '51 and I got promoted to Shift Leader, it was then, and went up to Cheshunt as an officer in charge of Cheshunt Station and then Alf Sweeney - he was also in the Ambulance Service and he was a Shift Leader at Hertford. So he asked if I would come back to Hertford and help him run the Control and be a Shift Leader at Hertford and I worked in the Control when we moved from Mill Road to Old London Road. I had 12 years in the Control and became Senior Control Officer. I then transferred out as an operational ambulance officer at the same rank. I then qualified while I was in control as an Ambulance A Trainer under the D.H.S.S. The Training
Officer's job came up and I applied for it and I was promoted to,the Training Officer for the County and having 12 years in Control and I operational.
I then had 15 years as a Training Officer for the County of Hertford in the Ambulance Service. And then the last two years they had a re-shuffle and we all had to apply for our jobs. I was again promoted and became a Divisional Officer for the East Herts. Operational side of the County until I retired in 1990.
I've lived every day of it. It was a marvellous job and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. And I think with St. John and the Ambulance Service and of course the R.A.M.C., I've led a thoroughly interesting and enjoyable life.
PR: What about the vehicles, the actual, when you were in Mill Road, how many vehicles were there.
BT: Two operational ambulances and about six sitting-case vehicles, where we used to pick up people to go to Outpatients.
PR: All Daimler?
BT: Yes, the Daimler Ambulances started coming in in 1950 but before that we had a lot of ex-army vehicles, which were converted. All the vehicles that were in the counties and in Hertford, a lot of people will remember the ambulance which was run by a private person, Barker, and we had his ambulance - a Morris. But he was a one-man ambulance person that ran the ambulance because after the war there was no statutory requirement for counties to have ambulances. And he used to come round if he had a job where he thought he'd need two people and pick me up.
And in those days, after the war, we used to have a plaque on our front door, 'St. John Ambulance, First Aid' so that people, if they wanted any emergency treatment, could come and knock on your door and you could apply First Aid for them, 'cos we wasn't on the 'phone then. And used to get a knock on the door and Mr. Barker used to say, “Just help me with this job,” and off we'd go.
PR: Cor, another world, ain't it? And he was operating from North Road was he?
BT: Just opposite Cross Lane, his garage at the side of his house where he garaged his ambulance.
PR: So he would get a call from either the hospital or the public and then he'd round up some help.
;
BT: In those days if you wanted an ambulance, they used to ask you your name and address and they would charge you for the ambulance. But nowadays obviously it's all free. Dial 999 and wherever the Control is now - once upon a time all the calls went into the local fire station. And also, when I joined the Ambulance Service there was no radios in the vehicle. You got a call, you
went out and dealt with it, you went to the hospital, you'd ring up from the hospital and you'd call in other fire stations on the way back, to see if there was any more work for you.
And if you went out on a job and you needed assistance, you had to find someone to go round to a telephone to ring up and say you wanted another ambulance. So the communications now have changed tremendously.
PR: The state of health of a patient wouldn't have changed greatly, you'd have still had the same emergency accidents or disasters-indoors, as it were.
BT: If you think of a public holiday years ago, they used to put up on a screen how many people had been killed, and how many injured. In the early 50s that piece of the A1 was known as the 'Bloodstained 10 miles'. The accidents we had there were horrendous. There was no care safety, everything in the car was dangerous. People on push-bikes turning right on the A1 and people hitting them up the back because the dynamo lights had gone out.
Jack Oldings Corner was another one - accidents galore. I mean they still get serious accidents, but I do think from an ambulance person's point of view, we had the most experience any ambulance people would get through their lifetime in perhaps two or three years.
Nowadays with the paramedics, we often used to be at a scene trying to keep a person going and you think if only you could put a drip up - it's all they needed. And you have to worry to get a doctor to come out and do that and you could see them fading away while you were cutting away with hacksaws. Now they've got the old mechanical cutters. They can take the roof off a car within
seconds. They didn't even have reclining seats in those days to try to get a bit of circulation back to the brain.
PR: You said you remembered seeing your first body that you just came across.
BT: Yes, we used to go up to Balls Park. They used to hold the horse show and gymkhana at Balls Park.
PR: And this is in nineteen forty?
BT: Must have been about '45, perhaps even before that, probably '44 when they had the gymkhana up there and we were setting up for the duty and I happened to walk round to get some water from the tap and in this lane where the cycles were parked and by the tap was this man and I thought, “I don't know, he don't look too good.” I and got down to have a look and there was no movement or nothing. He did look dead. I believe I got George Durrant to come and have a look, and it was Dr. Vivien that came along and certified him.
PR: And you can still picture it today. But since then, you'll have come across many. Can you turn off easily after?
BT: I can turn off that sort of thing. The things I do have a job to turn off, St. John and the Ambulance. I still dream about the Ambulance Service and I still dream about St. John. All the work we did with both really like planning. I was on the H.E.S.M.I.C. Committee for Herts Emergency Services, committee for major incidents and we used to plan all these large exercises
throughout the county, training. And I must admit it's fading a bit but you still get the old heart murmur when you hear the two-tone horns go. I'd love to be behind that wheel!
One of the difficult times we had was when the ambulance staff were on not strike but they were in dispute and they'd brought in the army and the police and all the ambulance officers were on emergency call for 24 hours a day from your home. And you had to turn out if the police was going on to an incident, or the army was going to back them up. And that was one of the most difficult times that I ever experienced because as the army dealt with, as time went on they got a bit more efficient, but they'd only been trained to treat young men with wounds and when they started trying to treat children, women and old people and they didn't know just what to do to start with because they hadn't had any training.
And one Sunday I was called out to go to Stevenage where a boy had been knocked over and the police were in attendance and he was in such serious condition. We'd got Entonox and oxygen
and everything in the car, had to go all the way to Stevenage to this lad who'd got multiple fractures of his legs because the police - I mean they were right to do what they did, keep him warm, treated him for shock and did all that, But there was too horrific injuries on the legs for them to really treat and they got no Entonox or anything and that's another one that's always stuck in my mind, that poor lad laying there.
PR: And all that journey time for you.
BT: Jean and I was going blackberrying when we had the training school up at Ware Park one Saturday afternoon. I'd just got down there and got a radio call. We had to go up to the A10 where the New River goes under the A10. A vehicle'd gone off and there were people in the river. One was drowned. And we had to stop there and I had five ambulances up there and was in the water getting people out. And then when we'd finished and they said 'can you help us, we've got a boy fallen out of the tree at Goff's Oak.
So Jean and I went up in the car, dealt with that, took him to Chase Farm. He'd got a broken arm and that was all in a day's work.
And then when you look back and think of all the children and adults over the years that you've taught first aid. And I know for a fact, because Dave Poole's son, he came across a person who had collapsed in London one evening and this was some time after he'd left the cadets. And he
applied mouth to mouth resuscitation and revived the person and was highly commended for it. And that was when he'd been out the cadets for a good number of years but it's still in the back of the mind what to do. Even that in itself makes you feel proud of what you've done over the years.
PR: Oh, it's been an excellent afternoon, hour and a half we've been talking. Right, many many thanks Bill.
BT: It's a pleasure to be able to do it for you!