Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Clark, Muriel (O1999.7) |
| Interviewee | Jill Mills (nee Firman) (JM); Muriel Clark (nee Firmin) (MC) |
| Interviewer | Eve Sangster (ES) |
| Date | 19/04/1999 |
| Transcriber by | Eve Sangster |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O1999.7
Interviewee: Jill Mills (nee Firman) (JM); Muriel Clark (nee Firmin) (MC)
Date: 19th April 1999
Venue: 181 Cecil Road, Hertford
Interviewer: Eve Sangster (ES)
Transcriber: Eve Sangster
Typed by: Eve Sangster
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
The address of the Firman girls is given in Kelly’s 1938 Directory as 53 Castle Street. Muriel says the house hadn’t a number. She describes the curve of Castle Street coming round to West Street. Charles Beere ran Chaseside Motors; next door to his house was the lodge (unoccupied for many years) of Wallfield, on the left of the wrought-iron gates which opened on to the drive; on the right was the bungalow, a tied dwelling, where the Firman’s lived. Warner & Sons, decorators, operated from No.55 and the Cannons lived at No.57, next-door to Mrs Ealey. No.61 was Castle Cash Stores, run by Mrs Swallow.
ES: This is Monday 19th April 1999 and I’m at the house of Jill Firmin – Mills, and she has with her Muriel, Clark, 181 Cecil Rd. The Firmin girls used to live at 53 Castle Street. Muriel’s just looking at the photograph in Len Green’s book. Can you describe this bit of Castle Street that’s now disappeared, say from the end of…who did we say, the Harts and the Dyes. Well, tell me what happened after the Gladstone.
MC: The Gladstone, that was on the corner of Pegs Lane.
ES: And that was owned by Charles Beere.
MC: No, not the Gladstone.
ES: Oh, he had Chaseside Motors.
MC: He had that house and garage there.
ES: Look, I’m sorry about that, can you just recap – tell me again about the Gardners, you said he was clergyman, and you thought he might have been Natty Gardner.
MC: From St. Andrew’s, yes.
ES: And just tell me again about the bungalow where you lived – we’ve identified it on the map.
MC: It was a large walled garden with a large bungalow. My parents worked for the Gardners. It was a very nice way of life. A very hard way of life and because we were in the situation that we were in I was made to go to church every Sunday morning, Sunday School every Sunday afternoon, and church every Sunday evening, which I appreciate now.
ES: Did you go to the Revd. Gardner’s church?
MC: I did.
MC: I did.
ES: Which was?
MC: It was St Andrew’s Church. St Andrew’s School.
ES: Can you tell me again the names of the Gardner’s children.
MC: There was Sir Lionel, Lady Barbara and Lady Margaret.
ES: Your father was the gardener there. What did your mother do?
MC: She used to help in the house and if they were having any dinner parties she would prepare the pheasants and things mainly. That was her main job there. My father was the one and only gardener and, of course, we were never allowed, as children, my brother and myself, allowed to go through to their part of the property.
ES: You said you did go in when they were away.
MC: When they were away on holiday then we did go in; we were allowed to use the tennis courts.
ES: And have some of the produce? Or did you have some of that, anyway.
MC: No, no. We never had anything from them and were never allowed to touch anything; that was stealing, even though we lived there.
ES: You say your father worked at The Grange in Hoddesdon and you were there until you were 13.
MC: I was at Wallfields for 9 years.
ES: Then where did your family go?
MC: Went to Hornsmill, for the Council had to house us then ... 34 Brickendon Lane.
ES: Now, do you want to just recap what we can see in that map?
MC: What can I tell you?
ES: Well, you said there was a cottage just past the Chase Farm Motors. [Chaseside].
MC: Yes, a lodge joining onto the Beeres’ house and that belonged to Wallfields, then the other side was the drive and this is where we lived and the walled garden which I’ll never forget.
ES: Did some of the poshness of Wallfields rub off on you? (It did.) Did you feel slightly superior to - or was it that other children thought you were?
MC: I think we felt that we had to be because our upbringing was so much different to normal, run-of-the-mill children. Because, I mean, I never knew what it was to go to Saturday morning cinema, or anything like that. We were never allowed to do anything outside of the grounds. We were never allowed to take anyone in. There was just my brother and myself. So it was a very different upbringing.
ES: Slightly deprived in some ways, though in other ways – were you at church because the Gardeners knew you?
MC: I appreciated it and always have done. But, moving from there when I was 13 and moving to a council estate, you’ve been let out! You’re in the road playing with other children and it’s very different. But you realise then how lucky you were. It was very strict. It was very nice. I said, do I have to go to church, do I have to go to Sunday School? But you knew. And I used to be very proud when I had the plate to collect the money from the people in church, take it up to the altar.
ES: Did you also have to be nicely dressed?
MC: Oh yes. I mean, really, while you were seen.
ES: It would have reflected on your parents if you had behaved badly or looked -
MC: Yes, we just weren’t allowed to do anything wrong.
ES: Was Graves the Taxi here when you were?
MC: It was, yes.
ES: And, what was in-between?
MC: Some cobbles.
ES: Oh, that explains it – the front doors were round the side. We’re talking about the 2 big houses that looked like sentinels, they do look as though they were standing guard, but they are not really. And then next door, you said was another house?
MC: Yes, but I can’t remember.
ES: Well, we can look that up in the directories.
MC: Ealey.
ES: Yes, and then on the corner was?
MC: The shop.
ES: Who ran that, can you remember?
MC: Mrs. Swallow, that I remember.
ES: And that was the Castle Stores or Camps Stores?
MC: Castle Cash Stores.
ES: And then there was what we think was No.1 West Street, which you knew just as a piece of waste ground. Then the first house in West Street was Durrants. Just say then about when Queen Mary came.
MC: I don’t really remember much about it. I can remember seeing her, but I don’t remember why she was going through or anything ... but I came down to the corner and waved to her.
ES: I don’t think we actually got your dates of birth. Do you mind just telling me, Muriel?
MC: 1st April 1927.
ES: And Jill?
JM: 16th December 1943.
ES: So these two are both ends of a family. And someone I spoke to in West Street said your mother did some laundry work for them as well.
MC: The Whinnetts.
ES: You recall them living on the right-hand side of West Street going up and not in Wallfields Alley. Well, they have moved. In this 1938 Directory they are given as living at Garden Cottage, Horns Road, which I take to be that little isolated cottage. It could be called Garden Cottage because it was part of the Leahoe Estate.
ES: You don’t remember what he did, Mr. Whinnett? (no). Do you remember any of that poor quality housing in West Street, Ivy Passage, or did you know anyone who lived there?
MC: I did, I can’t remember now, and Harts used to live in Water Lane.
ES: There were some Harts in Ivy Passage. You didn’t know anyone who lived in the passage behind the Black Horse?
MC: Yes, there was a Hart on both sides of our front.
ES: Water Lane?
MC: Yes, there wads a Hart on that side and on that side.
ES: But that’s the Black Swan, what about the Black Horse – do you remember those cottages behind the Black Horse?
MC: I don’t know.
ES: They may have been demolished by your time, there were several cottages there, very tiny, mean.
MC: You’ve been there a long time?
ES: 30 years. So, what else did we say about the Black Swan, I’ve never met anyone who actually went in there.
MC: My parents used to go there.
ES: They weren't afraid of what the Gardners thought?
MC: This was when we’d moved.
JM: Sonny Davis used to run a loan club there for people to save for Christmas.
MC: My father was on the railway then, when we came away from here. He was a guard ..... And they used to go in there and pay their loan club.
ES: It was rather a feature of those days, wasn’t it?
MC: They had a big yard behind there and I think the coaches used to arrive. I can remember the man, I can’t remember any woman being there.
ES: We haven’t said about the convent.
MC: I used to go to the convent, and it was behind Wallfield, over the field, and I can remember taking a jar. I used to tap on the wicket, the door, and slide it back, and wait a bit, and collect it. I don’t think we realised that there was another life outside those walls. I can always remember, I don’t know where it came from, one of these Kiddi Kars, you know, and I found some cream paint and I painted it and my brother was 7 years younger than me and I can remember painting it and this, from here down to the shop, it was a slope and if I could get out and get him in the car I used to push him down to the Castle Cash Stores for a ha’penny bar of chocolate.
ES: Muriel’s just pointing on the photo to the entrance to Wallfield drive. Of course, that’s why it was called Pimlico Hill; it was a hill, wasn’t it? I live at 25 West Street and that garden is very steep and that hill really is still going on.
MC: So, whereabouts are you?
ES: 2 doors on the Gascoyne Road side of the Black Horse. It’s a house with a little flight of stone steps and a black railing. You don’t remember, there used to be a little dame school there, Miss Fountains. Every now and then somebody turns up and they say, oh, we used to be at school here. You don’t know any of these little dame schools, Miss Hilton, which was the other side, next door to Ivy Passage?
MC: No. What I can remember, the other side of Ivy Passage, Miss Silversides lived, and she was my Sunday School teacher.
JM: And up from the Gladstone was the old Girl Guide hut.
MC: That’s where I had my wedding reception, but I can’t put into place where the old Girl Guide Hut was.
JM: It was where the new swimming pool area of Richard Hale is, that’s where the Girl Guide hut was.
ES: On the left, as you went up there? (yes). It’s strange, though - almost as soon as a building is gone you can’t remember what was there, can you?
JM: No, it’s the same as where we lived, . Every single place has gone.
ES: No, it’s a shame. I was going to ask you about the bottom of Pegs Lane.
JM: Len Green, he was my teacher, and do you know Mrs. Felts?
ES: Sort of. [trying to find a picture or map]. This is the bottom of Pegs Lane. This is the yard here. I suppose that’s the Gladstone, not sure.
JM: Beeres’ house then the small garage, then behind were the workshops.
ES: These were cottages up here and cottages down there.
JM: That was waste ground towards the pub. If you came from the White Horse, out the back, behind the Gladsone, that was barren until you got right up to the hut.
ES: Tearooms just pas the Black Horse. Mcbeans Tearooms, they were, a big house, set back with yard in the front I only know because I looked in a directory.
JM: I tried to go there, but I couldn’t.
ES: Millie Bilton said that Mr. McBean used to have a stall out the front in the yard selling all sorts of things, make-up, and remembered as a child buying a little tin of face powder, probably about 7, it rather stuck in her mind as quite glamorous, I think.
JM: And I think they used to sell ice-cream.
ES: Yes, it’s quite likely.
JM: It wasn’t for the want of trying to get out.
ES: No, you lived quite a restricted existence, mind you, I think we all did who grew up in the ‘50s. It was reckoned to be the most un-permissive decade. We just drew the short straw. Are there any people who you remember from the old days who you’ve kept in touch with?
JM: Joan Whinnett went on to marry Reg Creasey.
ES: Millie said she had a big house in Bengeo, wad it in the Avenue?
JM: No, it was at the top of Port Hill.
ES: Oh, you mean on the main road?
JM: It was set back a bit but it was a big house
ES: Oh, before I came I did look in the telephone book to see, but it’s not satisfactory, in the old days if people had a telephone their name was in the book. I wonder if I could find her?
JM: No, she’s dead.
ES: Oh, I see.
MC: He went first, actually, there are still the boys, they’re still about. Then there’s a Creasey up at Fanshawes.
ES: Was Joan an only child?
MC: She had a brother.
ES: I could look in the book, just on the off chance. Yes, it’s a bit like the McBeans, apparently Kate McBean’s not in a fit state to answer any questions and there are some daughters but they’ve all changed their names so its not easy to trace them. Why we are interested, there used to be some very old cottages behind Somerset Terrace, just on the line where this house, where we think Joan Whinnett lived. We have conjectured there were 20 cottages along there, built to house workers from Hornsmill. We thought the Whinnetts lived in what was the end one, or for some reason the one that was left. And we’re just interested to find out if that was so. All the others were pulled down when Somerset Terrace was built in 1875. Did you have any friends in West Street?
MC: The Playles. The Neals on the right hand side going up 2 steps up to the house. It’s the house that has big red leaves comer out all over the house, next is the Black Horse.
ES: Well, there was a creeper over our house and the next one but it was taken down years ago.
MC: Ewell, it was a big house.
ES: Well, we’re in one of the big houses, only 4 bedrooms but the Kerrell Vaughns live next door to us, So we’re in the one you’re talking about, the big house.
MC: Oh, really?
ES: We’ve been there 30 years.
MC: So, who was the man before you?
ES: We bought it from the wife of a doctor in Queens Road – Dr. Jory’s wife, she never lived there. She bought it from the Williams, the deputy Education Officer for Herts. They had a big family, very spartan when we got there, bare boards and slept on iron beds.
MC: I’ve got a feeling I can remember.
ES: He was a photographer for Country life and slightly Bohemian period. But it’s very nice there, there’s a walled garden and we keep chickens, I was thinking, today, how lovely it looked, all the fruit and the chickens doing their stuff out there, Well, it’s rather plain but it’s lovely out the back and it’s pretty at the back, it looks more like a country vicarage.
MC: The Burgesses lived there.
ES: Oh, yes. Did you know the Burgesses?
MC: I know Susan.
ES: As a matter of fact I hardly know her at all, is that Marjorie’s daughter? (Yes). Actually I know Marjorie rather than Susan, she hasn’t always lived there, has she?
JM: She moved back there when her marriage broke up, I think.
ES: Yes, and of course, the other one’s marriage broke up didn’t it? There is another one, who married John Barnes the footpaths chap, he married a Burgess daughter, didn’t he. I sort of know them. We did do an oral history with the aunts.
JM: Who lived in the house next door.
ES: And also an interview with Peter Burgess, the brother of the aunts – he actually went to Miss Hilton’s school, told us some quite interesting tales.
JM: I think it’s quite interesting doing this, I love looking at all these Hertford books.
ES: The Oral History book – we’ve only been running a few years and we’ve already done 2 books, one on the courts and yards of Hertford and that includes Brewhouse Lane, you ought to get it as a present, either from the Museum, or the Library and I’ve done one called Children of the Angel, about the Angel pub in Railway Street, and families who lived there, part of their childhood there. But, I think this one will be more history because so many interesting people lived in the street, brewers and so on. Somebody did an interview with the Bones, Leslie and Mary, don’t know if you know them.
JM: West Street, yes I went to school with Marjorie, her daughter.
ES: I can always remember them pushing Marjorie along West Street like a hospital trolley, or a wicker Victorian pram. And I always admired them because they’re such a sweet, gentle couple but they
defiantly pushed this girl along. She died when she was about 40.
JM: She used to work in Hilton’s shoe shop.
ES: But she was such an old-fashioned person. She could have been somebody from about 50 years ago. But they took their space on the road and pushed her. He played in a band, you wouldn’t think so, would you? (No!) When he passes in the street he tips his hat.
JM: When Joan Whinnett married Reg Creasey they had a printing works in Bengeo.
ES: Was Reg the one who worked in the shop?
JM: The tall one? (yes) John Moore, not all the family came into print.
ES: Did you work for them?
JM: Yes, both of them from school, when they had a place in Bengeo – 29 and a half years with them.
ES: And where did you work?
JM: I worked there as well. Remember the old Arcade, the bus station end was the printing worked and the Bull Plain end the shop. Then we had offices at Bull Plain as well.
ES: I do remember all that. Why did they go bust?
JM: When they had the new factory built in Gascoyne Way, now Which? They tried to get too big too soon, and the sons thought, new building, new investment. My husband worked for them for 20 odd years. Peter Creasey we came under because we were the print side of it.
ES: It was a very sad do, a loss to the town in several ways, partly because it’s such an ugly development, you’re saying as soon as its goner you can’t remember what the building looked like. I would walk up on a winter evening St. Andrew St. and see the sun low over the water meadows there and you see, Which? And they didn’t even try. Was that their land, or who did they buy it from?
JM: I don’t know, I’ve just got all the pictures of the building going up there. My husband might know.
ES: Because you’d hardly think that was land fit to build on, it’s all water meadows.
JM: That was lovely, wasn’t it.
ES: Beautiful. Right, I’ll get out of your way. You haven’t got any photos of your early days?
JM: We had one of my aunt sitting on the verandah, don’t know where it is now.
ES: If anything does turn up you think might be of interest, photos I could copy and return.
JM: Graves had a place there, you went up the side to the front door.
ES: Yes, one of those big houses. We half thought that was the entrance to Wallfields.
JM: Then Swallows next door,
ES: Did you know Elizabeth Laker, no. 30?
JM: She’s a very old-fashioned girl.
ES: Half of what’s happened to West St. has happened to Hertford.
JM: They’ve got the bowling green there at the back and I’ve gone in and looked at the building and I take myself inside, in my mind, - I can’t imagine what they’ve done to it.
ES: Mrs. Osborne, 45 Cecil Road.
JM: She’s about my age. Did you want the Lakers address?
ES: Yes, but don’t worry, I can get it from John.
End
The talk turns to the Creaseys. Joan Whinnett married Reg and they lived in a big house at the top of Port Hill.