Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Walls, Jean (O1999.24) |
| Interviewee | Jean Walls (JW) |
| Interviewer | Peter Ruffles (PR) |
| Date | 31/07/1999 |
| Transcriber by | Trish Goldsmith |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O 1999.24
Interviewee: Jean Walls (JW)
(also present Frank Moye (FM))
Date: 31 July 1999
Venue: 18 Campfield Road
Interviewer: Peter Ruffles (PR)
Transcriber: Trish Goldsmith
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
PR: 31st July, Peter Ruffles talking from the home of Jean Walls, famous Hertford resident, formerly of Hertingfordbury Road , and we're going to talk about Hertingfordbury Road in a few minutes , that's really why I've come, cos Jean's interested in looking at little bits to do with - now what number was it - 55 - and that row, and more particularly the other side of the road, and you were at 32 weren't you before?
JW: Yes
PR: But now, on this lovely summer evening, having mown Ruby Henry's lawn over the road all day, walloped out. A glass of Strong - what've I got?
JW: Strongbow.
PR: I've got my Strongbow beside me.
JW: And apple tart.
PR: And an apple tart, I'm now at number 18 Campfield Road, where Jean's been living for quite…
JW: Sixteen years
PR: Sixteen years, cor dear oh me. I remember trying to persuade the council to give you…
JW: I was saying to Frank earlier on it's only through you really that we got this house.
PR: Your mum said she always wanted to live backing on to the railway line here.
JW: That's right. She'd preferred Sele Road but I think they were all three bedrooms or something so…
PR: That 's right, yes.
JW: There's no chance of one of those.
PR: No, they'd have liked to put you in a flat... two women ....
JW: Well they did. We went up Burleigh Road to look at one but ...
PR: So you've really landed here.
JW: I've been up this end of the town all me life.
PR: And the French windows are looking out on to the garden seat. There's a pond, there's a greenhouse, shed, and then there's the conifers at the end of the garden, the other side of the conifers is the railway line.
JW: Which should screen the railway line, but not the noise.
PR: But anyway, Ruby landed here, your mum, and I'm coming across now to clip Jean on.
JW: I’m not sure about the year.
PR: It’s 1999, yeah I’m ever so busy.
JW: You going to take the kids away this year?
PR: No I’m having a break.
JW: I don’t blame you, you can have too much of a good thing.
PR: I am busy. I’m out every night, and all day today has been on that lawn up there.
JW: Yeah you’re a brick doing that.
PR: Well I like doing it cause I know she’s…
JW: Yeah well if you didn’t do I suppose it wouldn’t get done
PR: She’d get a letter saying…
JW: I mean you have got a fairly big garden yourself to do, haven’t you?
PR: No, its good but it’s still busy and these tapes… I did one on the County Hospital yesterday where she was a sister inside the operating theatre.
JW: Did you?
PR: It was quite good to hear one or two little inside stories.
JW: Oh I bet.
PR: And then where else have I been? Miss Sadler’s, I’ve done a couple of others.
JW: Just recently.
PR: Anyway we’ll pick up. So now Jean you are going to fill in a form later, I hope, which will tell us this but when were you born? What year were you born?
JW: I was born in 1946.
PR: So you will be one of our babies.
JW: I am a little bit older that you, but about the same age as Tommy I believe.
PR: No. I know I look wonderfully young but I am 4 years older than you.
JW: Yeah that’s right and I am about Tommy’s age.
PR: And you’re exactly the same.
JW: I wasn’t sure if I was a year older than Tommy or not.
PR: Forty six, then Sheila came.
JW: Then Sheila would be the baby.
PR: A bit younger… and your brother Derek is a bit older than me isn’t he?
JW: Oh Derek sixty, he’ll be sixty-one in September.
PR: Yes, cos I used to have to look up to him when he was head boy in the choir.
JW: Oh, was he head boy in the choir? I didn’t even know that.
PR: Yes, he was head boy down at St Andrews.
JW: I know we went to Sunday School. I went with Marion I believe. I don't remember going with Derek.
PR: Yes, Derek was the head boy, and Eddie Roche was head boy the other side.
JW: Was he? The shoe mender. I remember playing in the walled gardens, as we called, the walled gardens with Tommy and Sheila.
PR: Oh, opposite my house.
JW: I used to call for them some evenings. I used to say 'Oh, I'm fed up, Mum' so she said 'Oh go and see if Tommy's coming out to play, and Sheila’. And I'd walk up to your house, knock on the door 'Is Tommy coming out to play?' If Tommy was there or Sheila they- we used to go over into the walled gardens and we used to have some fun over there.
PR: That's where Riversmeet is
JW: That's right, yes.
PR: Did you go just mucking around up and down the paths?
JW: Yes, up and down the footpaths. There was a sort - well the tree is still standing in the middle of the roundabout or just off the roundabout.
PR: Yes, just off the roundabout.
JW: A great big tree. Well, there was a sort of a swing on there and a little sort of a den place where you could walk round, you know sort of like a kid's ideal playground there.
PR: That was Mr Drury the window cleaner's allotment with the tree in it.
JW: Oh was it?
PR: He used to keep rabbits in cages over there.
JW: Did he?
PR: Yeah. I've just remembered that. So when you came in those big double gates…
JW: Big wooden gates.
PR: Yeah, high - well they were twelve feet high?
JW: They must have been, and they had a round handle on, I always remember the round handle.
PR: Clink the latch and then heave the great gates open.
JW: ‘Cos Dad had an allotment in there, and my grandfather, and Evelyn's husband, Ron, he had an allotment in there so there was quite a few of the family had ...
Transcribers Note: Evelyn and Ron Ambrose
PR: There was a sort of wide path inside them, just about the size of the gates?
JW: No I don't think it was as wide as that, no, it was just like a little path that went round the bend and it went right up to the end where it finished just before the garage.
PR: Yes it got narrow round there, I thought the first bit was wider.
JW: Yes , the path actually into the gardens was wider.
PR: Cos Mr Dye used to get the car inside, into his allotment, that's my next-door neighbour, or ours then, which is the first one on the left.
JW: Yes, I remember that allotment, yes that was quite a wide path, but when you went round the bend it was just like a little footpath really.
PR: Yes just one track, yes, one behind the other, with the nettles coming over at the wrong time of the year. Then the next in was Mr Drury's, with that plane tree in it. That was what I remember.
JW: Yes, that's right. When you come up to the end I forget what it was but there was a sort of a very derelict building at the end. I think it had been bombed out or something which I think the garage is now on.
PR: Oh, what where Wackett's, that was Wackett's, yeah, not Fred Wackett, that we had…
JW: The cycle man...
PR: The cycle shop, but his uncle, his dad's brother. They separated their business and one operated there, where the garage now is, and I think that had something to do with the garage getting its permission because there'd already been - he used to sell paraffin and petrol.
JW: Did he? Well I know when we were kids, ‘cos my uncle, Evelyn's husband, I think he had the end allotment, and we were sort of forbidden to go in this because it was a bit like a wood and it was very dark and horrible in there, and I remember this old sort of tumbledown building in there .
PR: Yes it was a bit of a shack. He used to - lovely smell - he went into it from the Hertingfordbury Road . It's where the wall finished. The wall went right up to the bottom of Sele Road,
JW: Did it?
PR: Then it widened a little bit, then on the left there were some iron railings and the gate went in just about as wide as your french windows here, down a little driveway which would have been, you know on the left of that would have been your allotment or garden. You see the other side there was a bit of a copse and then the garden and then his workshop and shed was there. There was a little showroom on the front, but it always looked cobwebby, you know, you couldn't see in.
JW: Yes I never remember it open as a shop, I don't know what year it actually …
PR: He'd mend your pram, you know, if a wheel came off your pram you'd take it over there to get it put straight
JW: I always wondered what that building was in there. I thought it had been an old house or something that had just got bombed out.
PR: That was Will Wackett's emporium, yeah, and his brother Fred and his nephew Fred (they were both Fred) were down in St Andrew Street. and my uncle had a tailor’s shop down there, opposite the old Ebenezer Chape.
JW: Well that was an old building as well wasn’t it, the cycle shop, the old wooden floor…
PR: Crawley’s.
JW: Yes that was my mum’s uncle and aunt.
PR: Was it?
JW: Yes and often we'd walk down there, go round the back of the shops and up the stairs and it was quite fascinating because it was a lovely old, well I think it was lovely but it was probably, well it wasn't very desirable I s'pose them days. It had the lovely old beams, and it was one big room that went the length of the shop I think, and the floor was all uneven, and you looked out of her front window and you looked down on to the Ebenezer Chapel.
And then there was another floor, which was the bedroom. There was the shop, the living quarters and then the bedroom, and then above that he had his tailor's room, and I remember going up there once and the real old fashioned tailor sitting on his workbench like that sewing the mens' suits.
PR: I think they had two shop fronts.
JW: Yes I think there was more than one, I know they were, from what I can remember they was very bare, there was nothing seemed to be in them. I know when you looked through the window you could see long-length mirrors, I suppose where people would try them on and…
PR: I never went in that shop.
JW: Well I never actually went in the shop. I remember my uncle a little bit but I remember, well it would be my great aunt wouldn't she, she was my mother's aunt, she was Aunt Sally, she outlived him quite a few years. Then she had another aunt, which was her sister, she went to live with her, cos she was a spinster, and when I suppose this Uncle Fred died, she went to live with her.
Transcribers Note: Crawley’s tailor shop.
PR: So she carried on living over the shop when the shop was empty down below.
JW: That's right, yes.
PR: I do remember him.
JW: He was a big man. He had something to do with Simson Shand. I think he was a manager or something down there, where I started off working down there. I think that's right because looking back I can remember paper laying round with letter headings on.
PR: So did he do the two things at once?
JW: I think he must have done but I don't know how he managed to do that.
PR: It must have been a pretty small tailoring . . . towards the end
JW: Just after the war.
PR: No. Spratts in Hertingfordbury village had another little shop doing a similar kind of thing which would have been . . . not so much a rival.
JW: Did they? I think Evelyn might know if he was anything to do with Simson Shand but I'm pretty sure. I'll have to ask her.
PR: Well we can pick that up. My sad memory of him was seeing him come out on a stretcher into an ambulance under the red blankets.
JW: Oh did you actually see him come out?
PR: Yes I can still picture the red ambulance blankets. You know, as kids we were just watching, you could just see his head, just going up to hospital I suppose for the last time. I don't know what had happened, whether he was…
JW: No, I can't remember. I don't know if he had a stroke or a heart attack or what.
PR: And the ambulance was blocking that narrow little tiny bit of the street, cos it was no distance to the Ebenezer was it?
JW: No it was just virtually arm's reach, and if we went down there on a Sunday we could hear the people singing in the congregation.
PR: All slow.
JW: Yes!
PR: They took their time.
JW: And then there was the pet shop where they had the monkey in the window.
PR: Oh I'd completely, I'd never mentioned that pet shop ... forgotten it, yes.
JW: Had you really?
PR: That was before it was McRae's - the wireless people were there, that was the corner one wasn't it?
JW: Then there was a hairdresser's there. Was it Curtis who had the pet shop?
PR: Yes I think you're right.
JW: There was a Curtis that owned some shop along there, I think it was, and I always remember the monkey was in a big cage in the window because I don't know what - which schoolteacher said, but she was saying about how cruel it was to keep this monkey inside, and it's name was Jennifer. Isn't it silly, all the little things you remember! And when I used to go round the back to Aunt Sally's, sometimes they'd have this little monkey chained up outside, you know, for a little bit of a…
PR: Bit of fresh air
JW: Breather.
(Brief discussion about microphone)
PR: Now, I s’pose the best thing is to go back to ... do you remember 32 at all, or were you too young?
JW: Oh yes, very much so, cos I was about thirteen I s'pose when I left there. No, I'd started work I think. Yes I must have been at least fifteen I think. I remember the gas light.
PR: So you went across to 55 after your grandmother had died.
JW: Yes, that's right.
PR: You didn't move in with her at all.
JW: No. Derek went to sleep over there because we only had the two bedrooms, and then at the time I had to sleep in with Mum and Dad. And then when Grandad died Nan didn't like being on her own over there so Derek used to go and sleep at night, and I went into the little bedroom and had one of my own. But 32 I think . .
PR: Were you born there or were you born in the hospital?
JW: I was born in 32, late at night I think, apparently. And Dad had to cycle up Port Hill or somewhere to go and get Nurse Arnold or somebody like that.
PR: Oh yes. She lived in Warren ... well .. Elton Road some of the time and Warren Terrace.
JW: Ah that would have been the one then, yes, I think it was Bengeo he had to go up to. I suppose I was about twelve or thirteen when we had electric put on there.
PR: So what are your memories of the house and living in it?
JW: Well, looking at it now I suppose it was not much more than a hovel. Although I mean it wasn't dirty or anything, but it was very basic. We had gas light, and the kitchen had bricks on the floor and an old copper, a brick copper in the corner .
PR: Of the kitchen?
JW: Of the kitchen.
PR: At the back with the sloping roof.
JW: No the copper was actually in the kitchen, and that took up a good part of the kitchen. It had a little door on it where you raked the ashes.
PR: Did you use that copper then?
JW: I don't remember I don't know if Mum ever used it but I know it was obsolete for quite some time, but it was still there. Then we did have it knocked down.
PR: The stairs..where did the stairs go up?
JW: They went off the kitchen. They went off to the right of the kitchen, and they led up into the little bedroom then the main bedroom. The main bedroom overlooked the public house 'The Oak', so you could hear them at clearing out time.
PR: You'd have heard Ruby Henry in there and her husband coming out, cos she was a regular at 'The Oak'.
JW: More than likely. And we used to have the Salvation Army every so often, used to stand in the front of the pub.
PR: Yes, in the sort of forecourt front
JW: Yes. Before they altered the road there was quite a big forecourt there.
PR: They had a plaque on it saying 'This is not a public right of way", a cast iron one. The ‘offy’ was at the side at one point, jug and bottle up the steps in the middle.
JW: That's right, in the middle. The posh bar one side, where Dad spent many an hour.
PR: He could roll home quite nicely from there.
JW: Cor, I remember one Christmas the landlord had to bring him home. He was so drunk, we'd all had our dinner, course there was a crowd of us "When's Dad coming home? When's Dad coming home?" You know like, one o'clock came, two o'clock came, three o'clock came, still no Dad. "I'm going up there" Four o'clock Les Dunnage arrived home with him. I said "Here he comes." He went straight up to bed, I don't think we seen him any more!
PR: No, he'd had his Christmas, old Cyril.
JW: I wouldn't have minded a pound for every pint he's sunk!
PR: So on our little tour of number 32, was there a doorway at the bottom of the stairs or was it open, can you remember?
JW: I think there was a door, I can't honestly remember. Do you remember the tall houses a little bit further up where Ada Green used to live? Have you interviewed her by the way? She's another old resident. They give me the spooks those big houses, cos I think they were in ever such bad condition.
PR: Yes, big cracks in the cellars.
JW: I think they did condemn them, you know once they'd moved out, they did pull them all down.
PR: Yes they were condemned with people still there for some years.
JW: Oh were they? There was old Lil Whittaker up that little alleyway. No, sorry, that was Roberson, Ted Roberson. I think Lil Whittaker lived in the one at the front.
PR: Little gate at the front, and then a shady pathway.
JW: Oh it was a really weird little alleyway.
PR: Ever so dark and shady.
JW: Tiny - but for a house to be poked up the side there, it's incredible.
PR: And yet they'd got a bit of sort of garden. Never any colour, it was always green, ferns and things. A bit of a triangle of lawn .
JW: Just a little bit there, wasn’t there?
PR: Nothing much, never saw the sun, did it.
JW: No it didn't. You'd never think there was a house tucked away up there.
PR: But those stairs in the back of yours. did they come up in one bedroom and go through to another bedroom.
JW: No, you just went straight up the stairs on to the landing,
PR: There was a landing.
JW: Yes, just a little square. There was a door to the right which went into the little bedroom, and a door facing you just went straight into the…
PR: So you didn't have to pass through one bedroom to get to the other then?
JW: No, like I did over 55. Over there we had to do that.
PR: I don't know whether they were older, over the road.
JW: I'd imagine they was about a hundred, well now they'd have been a hundred and fifty years old I would imagine. They were a good hundred years old.
PR: Jean'II find out and tell us that. We'll read about it sometime. She's wonderful at sorting this out.
Transcribers Note: The Odd numbers were built in the 1830s onwards the even numbers 1824 onwards.
JW: Is she? It's nice if you've got the time to do it, probably when you retire.
PR: You need a good brain on it as well to know where to follow up leads.
JW: Well Frank's lucky, someone wrote him some time back, couple of years ago was it? Cos he's got rather an unusual surname, Moye, not many of them about, and he had a letter from a Mr Moye and they happened to be related. He was a journalist, wasn't he, or something?
FM: Yes he was a journalist. He traced the family right back to 1790.
JW: And he had it all done for him because this chap had done it all and sent Frank all the literature about it and he more or less found out everything about his past without having to do anything. This chap found out he had relations buried in, what was it, Waterford churchyard?
FM: That's right, yes, there's some Moye’s in Watton. They're related to me, though I come from London. I wouldn't have known that.
PR: Well, six miles away.
JW: Yes, amazing, and yet the name on there was Blomfield or something.
FM: That was his second Christian name.
PR: Well we'd better keep on our little tour. You had a little tiny bedroom window at the back.
JW: Yes, about two foot wide I suppose, two foot by two foot, not much more than that.
PR: And did you have any lighting in that room then?
JW: No we didn't, there was no light in there. I think the front bedroom might have had a gas light until Dad had the electric put on. I think there was gaslight in the front room, but nothing in the little back bedroom. Though actually I say little back bedroom - it wasn't too bad a size, when I think of the second bedroom here I'd say the one down there was just as big as that, if not a little bit bigger.
PR: Did the roof - was it slate saving, or did you get a slope on it?
JW: I think it did slant slightly.
PR: A bit towards the window?
JW: Towards the back of the gardens on North Road , but we only had a little back yard and an outside loo.
PR: Oh yes, right so let's get across to the outside loo then. Out of the back door and you had a little square.
JW: Just a little square patch really, and the loo was against the brick wall which I think is still standing along there - well, it is, because Evelyn's still got a brick wall at the back of her and that was the same wall and actually our toilet's still there although it's never used.
PR: And what about the neighbours, did you have a fence down?
JW: Yes, just a little wire fence. And there were some old characters along there as well - Granny Godfrey and another one (I don't know if that was the one who lived in Evelyn's house before she moved in) and there was another old girl.
PR: Yes, Mrs Ford.
JW: Was it Mrs Ford? Well one of these old ladies, I remember her now, she was like Mrs Bridges on 'Upstairs, Downstairs', she had her hair up, and I remember seeing her in the garden and she had this long dress, right down to the ground, in sort of a grey - I don't know if it was flannel or cotton or what, and this lovely great big white apron on, just as if she'd stepped out from 'Upstairs, Downstairs' and the apron was as white as anything - it looked just like it was brand new.
PR: It was probably Granny Godfrey at 28.
JW: Yes I think it was.
PR: She was there - Mrs Ford died first and so of the two you'd probably . . .
JW: She was a short little fat lady.
PR: That's right.
JW: Only I do remember her wearing these dresses that you'd have thought she'd have worn about fifty years before. I know when one of them died there was an old grandfather clock and again I don't know which one it was but she was always pleading how poor she was, and course, none of us had much but if she'd needed a bucket of coal we'd supply her with a bucket of coal to keep the old girl going, and when she died I think they found coal everywhere ! If it was true or not I don't know, but somebody even said she'd had coal in the grandfather clock.
PR: For emergencies, yes! She was very deaf, that Mrs Godfrey.
JW: One of them was, yes. We had little Florrie Mansfield living next-door to us. She was a lovely old lady. She was a housekeeper for somebody that lived up Bengeo. She 'lived-in' up there and she got this little cottage because I think she was afraid that one day the old girl she worked for would die and she wouldn't have a roof over her head. She didn't come down there much, weekends and that and whenever, but I don't think she ever came down there permanently to stay. She always used to say "I'm ready to meet my maker." I always remember her saying that, but she was very kind, very generous.
PR: Was that 34?
JW: Yes, where Dot Sherratt lived.
PR: Yes, the Sherratts. I remember all those houses had kids, nearly all of them, and there were little things across the door, so the front door was open, and at playpen height - you had one.
JW: Did we? I don't remember that.
PR: Slotted down with bars to keep you from tumbling out into the road which was right by the door.
JW: Yes we came right out on to the main road. There was a little path along there.
PR: Dot Sherratt had three boys.
JW: Yes. I think that's why I grew up a tomboy 'cos I had a brother, we had a cousin that came to live with us for a little while and then there was John Morgan one side and three boys the other side so I either had to muck in with their games or I didn't get to play.
PR: And my brother Tom.
JW: That's right, or Sheila.
PR: The Wisbeys had moved, had they, by the time you were there? Number 30. Derek and Paul.
JW: Didn't John Morgan's mum have their house?
PR: She may have done. I remember her at 36, the end one.
JW: They lived at 30, did they the Wisbeys?
PR: Did she move, Mrs Morgan then, down?
JW: She moved up to Sele Farm when she left there.
PR: I can remember them at 36, but I can't remember
JW: What, the Wisbeys?
PR: No, Lilian Morgan.
JW: No, Lilian was next door to us.
End of side one
Side two
PR: Now, no light in your bedroom?
JW: No, candlelight.
PR: So... candle, you used a candle. .
JW: Candlelight. As far as I can remember I did, or maybe a torch. I think we had a torch.
PR: Yes, batteries were....
JR: I don't think we could afford batteries and the old accumulators, going down Carringtons go and get them charged up.
PR: Yes, for the radio.
JW: I mean really it's not so long ago is it, you're probably only talking about forty years ago, which isn't that long really? And how times have sort of changed in even that short time. We used to have to have two of these in a radio, great big things, yes.
PR: Now, I'm just thinking where we've been on the tour. We've been upstairs, and we've got gas light in the front bedroom if they wanted it, and we've been across the yard, and there was just the toilet there was there?
JW: Just the toilet, and we did have a few chickens at one time, but how we had room for chickens I just can't tell you. But I don't think we had them for long, just a little while.
PR: In the front room what would - I mean there was no television in those days and . . .
JW: Not till we had the electric put on, and it was quite a treat when we had that put on. It cost my dad £25. Course when we had that put on we went down Carringtons, got our first telly - ooh great, seeing Wagon Train on your own TV! You know John and Josie Way? They were quite kind to us because they would come up and say 'If you want to come and see Wagon Train come down and watch it,' cos they had a little telly.
PR: Number 24?
JW: Yes, we quite enjoyed going down there, watching a bit of telly, and when we had our own it was terrific.
PR: And you would just have a chair or two would you, and would you eat in the front room?
JW: Yes, we ate in the front room, on a wooden table like everybody else, and a sideboard. . .had four dining chairs which were obviously tucked under the table (that just sat in the middle of the room)... settee under the window...
PR: Ah right, so you had your back to the road as it were
JW: Yes, and budgie in the cage. That was got off of George Gladding that you might remember, that lived up here.
PR: I've been talking to his daughter, that was one of the people I've talked to this week.
JW: June - oh is it really? Oh, have you spoken to Marjorie yet then?
PR: I had 'em together!
JW: I bet old Marge found plenty to say!
PR: That was quite fun, cos they were very different personalities although they're good friends aren't they?
JW: I'll say that, they're very good friends, they get on well I think, but I think they're their own people, aren't they?
PR: So, have we got the front room described?
JW: I tell you what we did have in there as well, we had a point for a gas pipe corning out the wall in the living room. If mum done her ironing we had an old gas iron and she would fix it to this pipe in the wall.
PR: Oh.
JW: And when we had the electric done we ...obviously this was taken out. I know we've got a picture of it somewhere, I think it was when we were celebrating their twenty fifth wedding anniversary and I suppose it was Uncle Ron came and took some photos, we had a little party, but of course he would , we all sat on the settee here and what was behind. . . where this gas connector had been that the old gas iron was connected up with that. That was on the wall facing you as you went in.
PR: Cor, that's a industrial archeology piece.
JW: Yes, yes.
PR: Where was the light, Jean, above your head . . .
JW: Yes,
PR: . . . or on the mantlepiece?
JW: Straight in the middle of the room. And Uncle Gordon, (Gordon Childs) being on the gas company, because we always found it a nuisance to light the thing, he made a little thing for us, a little pipe that came down - a pilot light - and that was alight all the time.
PR: Right.
JW: So when we wanted it on we didn't have to climb on chairs we just pulled the chain down and this little automatic pilot light would light it up.
PR: And you were away.
JW: And away we went.
PR: And there must have been a light in the kitchen, was there ... gas?
JW: I don't think there was. I'm not saying there wasn't but I can't honestly remember if there was a light in there or not. I s'pose there must have been some ...
PR: You probably would want one there wouldn't you?
JW: Again, Evelyn would probably know that but I can't remember there being a light in there, unless we had to leave the door open from the living room to get a bit of light into the kitchen.
PR: Now, the heating was coal fire.
JW: Coal fire, and if we're hard up the kettle went on there to boil, and jacket potatoes, actually done in the fire ashes. But several times - a lot - we had to put the kettle on the fire to boil the water. Money was scarce, we didn't have the money to put in the meter to boil it up on the gas.
PW: Then in the kitchen you got a gas cooker, which you had to go carefully with.
JW: A little gas cooker, yes.
PR: Did you have a bill, or put money in the meter?
JW: We had money in the meter. The money we put in that - we was always sure that it used to eat it up!
PR: And that's when you know it was worth doing your spuds in the fire.
JW: To be quite honest I preferred them under the fire, cos I don't think we ever had them in the oven. If ever we had them they was always done in the ashes, and they had a flavour all of their own, they were lovely.
PR: I remember your letterbox. It was not a paper-boy's favourite.
JW: I don't remember the letterbox. Was you the paper-boy then?
PR: Ah, you had to lift the knocker.
JW: I remember a knocker.
PR: And then the letterbox was under the knocker so it was a two handed job. You had to pull the knocker up that way.
JW: Was it on a spring?
PR: And it was high up, wasn't it?
JW: Yes it was high up.
PR: No, it didn't have a spring, you were alright there. But you had to …that, and then fold the paper and then get it in quite a narrow letterbox, quite high, which was a bit of a nuisance.
JW: Good job they didn't have supplements them days!
PR: Yes. Do you know how they came to be there at number 32? Were they renting it from somebody? You don't know how they came across that as a vacant . . . .
JW: Yes. I think Evelyn might know. I did know.
PR: We can ask Evelyn, or we can scribble it down later.
JR: I don't know if it was anything to do with Grandad getting it for us. I've got a feeling it might have been, but we rented it off of May Chapman.
PR: Ah, I'd forgotten her. She had a bit of a hippity
JW: That's right, she had a bad hip and walked with a stick, didn't she?
PR: She lived at, what, 28? Did she go into to Mrs Godfrey's?
JW: Yes, 28 she lived. Quite a funny old girl. Ten and six a week.
PR: Fair old shell-out though, wasn't it, ten and six?
JW: It was. Very often we didn't have the money to pay for it, 'Oh, I'll have to pay her next week.' Twice as hard the following week isn't it?
PR: Now your mum gets mentioned in a few tapes, every now and again. Bert Munns - I did a tape with him a year or two ago and he remembered your mum.
JW: Mr Munns? Oh yes. Is he still about?
PR: Yes, he's just got a new car.
JW: Has he? Is he locally?
PR: 87. He lives in Hoddesdon.
JW: (Aside) An old schoolteacher, he was.
PR: And I mentioned your mum yesterday to somebody.
JW: The dinner lady.
PR: Yes, because someone was talking..... oh I think it was probably with June. . .Gladding. We were talkng about St Andrew's School buildings, and I remember the window on the street being open. The one in not Miss Smith's top classroom at the comer of Wareham's Lane.
JW: The one that opened up on to the road.
PR: Right on to the road, yes. I remember sitting in there, hot, waiting for the end of the morning like you do, desperately, and then I heard Evelyn and your mum corning by this open window, talking away.
JR: I bet it was Ruby that was?
PR: Ruby was going on, and they were going down to the C.A. W.G. Hall to dish up our dinners.
JW: Were they. They used to have the canteen and cook the dinners up here.
PR: Yes, on the corner of ....
JW: The depot did they call it?
PR: And then they'd take them down St Andrew's Street, and down by number 27 to the hall at the back there, and that's where…
JW: St Nicholas Hall?
PR: No, beyond that, further down - the next - it's still there now. There used to be the health food shop on the corner, it's now an antique shop.
JW: Oh what, where Hertford Dramatic?
PR: Yes, that hall. It's called the CAWG Hall, C.A.W.G.
JW: Oh, was there? Cos Ruby used to do cleaning in there, for the dramatics, yes.
PR: Well that's probably (she may have built up that connection) but she and Evelyn, and sometimes Mrs Johnson (Jimmy's mum, Mrs Win Johnson) would be there dishing up our cake and custard and our mashed potatoes.
JW: Well I'm wondering if I went there, or would I have gone to St Nicholas Hall?
PR: I don't remember.
JW: I do remember sitting at long tables, you know, and we wasn't having dinner at the school here.
PR: No we didn't, did we? There weren't dinners here. I think I probably came home after a bit because I don't ever remember going to St Nicholas for a meal, although I think people did.
JW: Yes I think that's p'raps where I went then.
PR: But I heard Ruby's voice coming down and I thought "Oh brilliant, that means it's going to be dishing up time before long”. So she crops up . What about her family? We've done quite a bit on the Walls in a way.
JR: Well her mother originated from Gloucestershire, they came or her mum) came from a place called Ruardean , which is . . . where is it now? (To Frank)
FM: We went there.
JW: We went there cos we wanted to find the church.
FM: Forest of Dean.
JW: That's it, Forest of Dean. We actually went to the place where she was born, cos we'd learnt this from another uncle (he's now dead) that she was born in a place called Ruardean, and we found the place and we was hoping to go in the church and have a little snout round seeing if we could find anything out, look at some registers or something, but I think it was closed wasn't it? Well anyway we didn't go there in the end.
PR: So how did she come to be in Bengeo then?
JW: Well I don't know too much, but I think Rube's mum (my granny) went in service and I think that's how she came to be up this way. But I'm not sure about my grandad, I think he was a Hertford man, though I'm not . . .
PR: And there were quite a few Childs up in, cos that's my granny's name, I don't think there's any connection. She was a Childs, and your Rube was.
JW: She had five or six brothers, so there was quite a few of them .
PR: Any of them still around?
JW: No. Well there's three left now. There's Uncle Reg , he's up in Wolverhampton, he's about 93 now, and Uncle Gordon you'd know, don't you, on the gas company? Horns Mill. And the other one that's still alive is Uncle Den in St Alban s. I think he's the baby, that one.
PR: So we could talk to Gordon, couldn't we?
JR: Oh yes, you'd get quite a lot from him I would imagine.
PR: And you don't know how she met your dad?
JW: No I don’t
PR: It's not a big place is it? And he was here all his life wasn't he?
JW: Yes he was here all his life. I can't quite honestly remember how she first met him.
PR: Evelyn might know!
JW: Yes, I was going to say ask Evelyn! Ask her something that happened yesterday and she won't remember.
PR: And then after 32?
JW: Butting in there, she did have another child . . 18 months ... he died up the isolation hospital.
PR: Where did he come in the order of things?
JW: He would have been older than me, younger than Derek. At the time it cut Dad up so much that the doctor said 'Have another baby' but I think it was two or three years later when I came along. Otherwise I may not have been here.
PR: Yes, that's what got you started. I thought it was a lot younger, cos Mrs Bilton ( Mrs Vi Bilton 14 Hertingfordbury Road) had a..
JW: That's right, she had a baby that died, didn't she?
PR: Number 14. Yes, younger than Paula.
JW: Yes I always call him little Brian, cos I spose they never grow up when they die, do they? He's always known as little Brian. I'm 53, he would have been about 56 now.
PR: Now, you moved over the road after…?
JW: Nan died.
PR: Yes, she died, and then your dad was still alive then, wasn't he?
JW: Yes.
PR: You moved across there. So back into - was that his old home
Transcribers Note: Tysoe’s Cottages 37 to 61 Hertingfordbury Road
JW: Yes back into his old house.
PR: And that was much more spacious.
JW: Well it was, because we needed the extra room. I know Evelyn was entitled to part of the house, but she knew that we needed the extra room, cos what with Derek sleeping over there anyway. So she said 'Oh well, you take the house.
PR: And that had got electricity?
JW: Yes. I think that was a bit ancient but it worked . When I think back now, even when we moved in, I think Uncle Ron might have put that in for them.
PR: I think they had it quite early.
JW: Yes I'm pretty sure Uncle Ron might have even put that in. That'll be something else for Evelyn to tell you.
PR: Cos May Dennis next door hadn't got
JW: Oh no!
PR: And the Parkers did have at the end, but I don't know whether they
JW: Yes. And there was Vicky, I don't remember her surname, (Dietrich) she lived a bit further along, an old girl that lived on her own, next to Winnie, you know she used to go round with a shovel in the ... when Ted and Charlie went up with the horse and cart. What was her name? Winnie somebody. She used to shovel up the horse's manure and take it round to. . . I think it was her sister that took her house on when she died.
PR: It was Empson and . .
JW: Ah, that rings a bell.
PR: She was called Violet.
JW: She lived opposite Bet, Bet lived here and this Winnie lived facing, well the kitchens faced each other. Getting back to Aunt May though, she was quite a little character. This is May Dennis
Transcribers Note : Bet is Bet Brace
PR: Number 53
JW: Yes , my next door neighbour and she had a piano in there which I don't think I ever heard her play.
PR: Leaves behind it - when she opened the front door and the leaves flew in they stayed behind the piano.
JW: Yes -, I don't think housework was her favourite hobby. Rube and I used to get invited here now and again believe it of not, now and again, and she used to make her cheese scones, and she used to say Ruby, Jean, I'm making cheese scones tonight, would you like to come round?" So obviously we couldn't like to let the old girl down. 'Ooh that'd be lovely!' Ooh my God, did we have hard seats in there! I don't think there's a comfortable chair in the house. They were like - I think a cardboard or wooden crate would've been more comfortable. She had a settee and a big old· armchair, or two old armchairs. Ooh dear, Peter, I just could not get comfortable on there. But she could talk.
PR: She was probably in her eighties then, was she?
JW: Yes she would've been well in her eighties but she used to like to talk about the gentry and you know, you couldn't fault her really. I think she just lived in a little world of her own. I always thought that she was something that she wasn't you know. She mixed with all the right people I mean.
PR: The lifts - people used to come to take her.
JW: Yes, and when she went out - fur coat, and she was done up to the nines.
PR: Fingernails painted beautifully.
JW: Yes absolutely, and everything was just so.
PR: And yet the house, she took the wallpaper off the walls years before cos she was gonna move “I've got to move, the house is coming down.”
JW: "I've got to leave everything clean." And she used to wear those Scholl sandals, flip-flops, something like that, only made of wood, and of course she took all the stair carpet up that there was, and when she went to bed at night you could hear these Scholl’s clumping up and down the stairs. Terrible it was, but you couldn't help laughing at her.
I know late in life she had I think it was an eye operation, and this was when I used to go up to London quite a bit, just shopping, looking around, and I was on the train one Saturday morning and I looked up, I had the shock of my life. I didn't know, she must have been on the same train as me going up, and I was on the underground train, and I looked up and she'd had this eye operation, she'd got this great big patch over her eye and I thought "Aunt May- on the underground!" Honestly she must have been about 86 then, or maybe more. Cos it wasn't so long after, she died. And I thought, whatever's she doing?" She was standing up, cos nobody gives you a seat on the underground. Anyway when the train stopped she got off and I think she got out the same stop as me, and I said "Aunt May, whatever are you doing?" And I presume, I think that she was going back to see about her eye, and she went up there all on her own.
PR: Spirit, talk about pluck.
JW: Getting back to the gas light that she had, she had gas light in two rooms downstairs, but the kitchen never had any light, and I used to feel so sorry for her, when I see her pottering about in the kitchen with her candle or her torch , I would leave the electric light on so she would get a bit of light from my kitchen into hers. So I tried to help her out a little bit there. Oh the wallpaper was all off the walls, and the upstairs - well, I went upstairs, I think that was after she died, I think for some reason Nellie, her sister in law, wanted Bet to do something for her, and Bet said "Oh will you come in there with me?" We went upstairs and the little back bedroom that was all - the ceiling was all caving in. We used to say "Why don't you get Addis's to come up and do it?" But she wouldn't
PR: No. She was frightened of them putting the rent up, cos she didn't actually have a rent book.
JW: Didn't she? Well I often wondered where she got the money from because I don't think she ever had a job as such. I think she used to help out at a little sweet shop, Evelyn tells me, but I don't think she ever went out to work as such.
PR: No I think the chief reason was that she hadn't got a rent book and she thought that if she asked for anything…
JW: They're gonna put the rent up.
PR: I think that was in her mind. But she moved from there, didn't she, up to Sele Farm?
JW: Yes she went up Sele Farm.
PR: Eighteen months about she was up there.
JW: Yes I've got a photo, I think what" you took actually, somewhere, with her up in her new dwelling. It must have been a luxury to her, I mean, having electric.
PR: She sent her sister-in-law over to Welwyn Stores to buy all the new - everything was new, and this beautiful hearthrug, you couldn't imagine the contrast.
JW: I never did go up there,
PR: It was really thick pile.
JW: And what she had down there and spent nothing
PR: And pelmets just like yours there, and all the curtains, and they didn't just come from anywhere - Welwyn Stores!
JW: I don't know where she got the money from, Peter, I really don't.
PR: She sent me in to get some bits, must've been the same time as you, I think Nellie asked me to go, but I remember going to some drawers in the bedroom and hoiking stuff out, and everything in the chest of drawers was beautiful. Folded - all this lovely clothing she wore beautifully folded, and so much in contrast to . . .
JW: . to how she actually lived. I mean housework, you know, didn't exist I don't think.
PR: I must try and dig out a tape I've made. I did a naughty with her. I knocked on her door and had a tape recorder in a bag.
JW: She didn't know.
PR: No. Shouldn't ever do that, it's not like this oral history all worked out properly. But you hear her little voice "Oh come in".
JW: Hee, hee,hee!
PR: Yes, that's right.
JW: I know we're being wicked but when she used to come round on a Sunday morning, because when we lived at 32 Sunday morning was a gathering of the clans. We would all go over to Nan's for tea for about an hour, Evelyn, Uncle Ron , Marion, Dad, meself, I don 't think Rube used to come. Then there was Bet used to come along, and I think Horace did sometimes, and we'd all sit in Nan's middle room as we called it, and then Aunt May would bring her mother round. And we used to say 'Wait for it' and there'd be a little knock on the door. Course, before she even got there we were going 'May I come in, hee, hee,hee?' and it was her to a tee, and sure enough - knock on the door, she'd do it! But I mean, her toilet was worse than ours. Again it was an outside loo and she sort of had to go round the corner to hers.
PR: Yes, I've got a photograph of her toilet.
JW: Have you?
PR: Oh yes.
JW: Well you should have put that in that book I've got haven't I - public loos or old loos.
PR: Yes she had to go round the outside of her wash-house.
JW: Privies of Hertfordshire or something it's called. But I used to say well I'm the only one that could go down my toilet and leave the door open and directly along that back yard there you know, my toilet door went all the way along the back yard, and I could see St Andrew's School and the spire of the church. And the moon used to shine and I used to say I'm the only one where the moon can shine on me when I go to the toilet!
PR: Yours wasn't like round the back of the wash-house?
JW: No, ours was attached to the shed. We had the kitchen and then there was a shed where grandad would brew his chicken feed up on, and then the toilet was on the side of that. But Aunt May and all the rest along there they had to go down the yard a bit and round the corner. Well actually their sheds ran along the bottom, didn't they, before the actual garden started.
PR: The path kinked round Mrs Neal's next door and yours somehow, didn't it.
JW: It just went straight. I suppose us being on the end, I suppose ours was a little bit different , because our shed was attached to the house and their shed, they had a bit of a yard, and then the shed and then the main garden. They couldn't actually see their garden because the shed was in the way.
PR: What about Elsie and Dollie Parker?
JW: Oh they were great neighbours, very kind and helpful. If they could help you out they would. Many a time Rube 's washing machine had broken down "Come on, put it in mine gels" she used to say, you know, and mum would go along there and put the washing in and she'd do it for her.
PR: They didn't want to move at all did they?
JW: No. I never did. I mean obviously I'd miss what I've got here now but If 55 was in better condition than what it was I'd be quite happy going back down there. I'm not saying so much now though with all the traffic and everything. I still miss it. It's nice up here but sometimes the kids outside can be a bit troublesome, well we've had ever such a lot of trouble up here, haven't we? People have been phoning the police and what have you.
PR: Yes, that's a different kind of living, isn't it.
JW: It's a different kind of life up here to what you have down there. I suppose down there it was its own little world, you know , everybody knew each other…
PR: …and had done for a long time in most cases.
JW: Yes. Di and Fid are nice, we get on well with them. We're lucky where we are, we've got good neighbours that side, but Terry, you know Terry Foster? We never see him - he's like a hermit isn't he?
PR: I saw him walking out today but…
JW: Well that's the first time I've seen him today and that's the first time I've seen him for weeks.
PR: Is he still working?
JW: No, he's retired, he told me today. I know he was looking into retirement and he did tell me today that he had finally retired. But mind you I don't mind, better that than somebody there that's noisy and over the top.
PR: That was a busy home wasn't it, Vera and Cecil, community wise. What about his brother Richard?
JW: Well he's at Hertford Heath and he's moving down to Dorset or Somerset, somewhere there. He moves in September.
PR: So Terry will be stranded then won't he.
JW: He'll be really on his own then, course he had a slight stroke. I don't think he's been well for ages, then he had this slight stroke, and he told me before he even had that that he was hoping to get early retirement.
Side two ends
Tape two side one
PR: Peter Ruffles, 31st of July 1999, this is a little bit extra cos I can't bear to stop, with Jean, up in Campfield Road, and I'm just going to ask her a few things about school I think mainly, cos we've skated over her family a bit.
JW: I'm not sure why I've picked that one. I haven't got my glasses. One of these is his mum obviously, I spose it's this one cos she's holding him.
Transcribers Note: Mr and Mrs Walls snr. 55 Hertingfordbury Road
PR: Ethel Mary.
JW: Ethel
PR: Well, there he is, toddling, Cyril in the sea.
JW: Cyril Ernest George.
PR: Ethel Mary apparently fainted in church when he sang a solo.
JW: Why was that for heaven's sake?
PR: Your dad was singing a solo one day, and she got so worked up about it, thinking he was going to make a mess of it
JW: I suppose you've got one of those?
PR: No. That's my mum down the back there. Where's this then?
JW: That was in ... by the side of the pub.
PR: The Oak?
JW: That's Peter's mum.
PR: They're having a party.
JW: That's the Coronation.
PR: I don't recognise anyone. . .
JW: ls that Grace?
PR: Oh crumbs, that's Grace with dark hair, and Horace.
JW: Uncle Ron.
PR: Uncle Ron's forehead.
JW: My dad.
PR: And that looks like Grandad .
JW: This is Aunt Doll's husband, Uncle Jim.
PR: Now I always get - cos I've been teaching children –
JW: Binney
PR: Yes, I've got Binneys at school.
JW: I felt sure you'd have that one.
PR: I'd love a copy, that would be really good.
JW: Well I'll get you one done, Peter.
PR: Can you? Don't spare the expense.
JW: No, that'll be my treat. That was their Golden Wedding.
PR: Oh, do you think you could?
JW: Another one?
PR: Yes. I don't want you to pay but that would be part of the archive. We come to the Walls family in so many ways, you know , through Evelyn, Bet referred to them of course. Then even last night, or the other day when I was up at Marge's.
JW: You see these are the pantiles on the loos, the sheds that were at the back. That was taken in I think in Bet's. Anyway one of the back gardens, it might have been our garden.
PR: What actually polished your dad off?
JW: Cancer. Are these the two you want? I felt sure you'd have one of your mum.
PR: No. She wasn't often in The Oak, my mum, but
JW: No.well that wasn 't in The Oak, see, that was at the side of The Oak.
PR: So did he die at home or was he in hospital?
JW: No, he died in hospital. We had the doctor late one night. He got him into hospital that same night, I think about ten o'clock the ambulance came up, and dinner time the next day he was dead. But he suffered a lot at the end, Peter, it was quite a happy release in the end.
PR: He didn't have a long time in hospital as well to…
JW: No. He had this treatment, whatever they call it? Radiotherapy and all that, and he used to hate that. And he used to say "Oh I don't want to go there any more, mate." Well it wasn't doing him any good. I think they just had to show a gesture. I had a word with the doctor and he didn't go any more. But he had a terrible turn before this and I thought he was gonna die on the stair and then one Sunday morning it was like a fit , and he was kicking out like this and his arms, and I thought this is it, he's going. Then he sort of went unconscious, and he, you know, he went downhill from there. I was surprised he even got over that.
PR: How old was he?
JW: He wasn't that old. I think he was about seventy-four when he died.
PR: Well that was alright wasn't it.
JW: Well people seem to be living longer these days. I was thinking he didn't have that much retirement but I s'pose - seventy four - he had nearly ten years. What is it - three-score years and ten you're entitled to, so he got to that didn't he.
PR: ****
JW: She'd have been eighty-eight in the July, she died in the June, so that wasn't too bad. She, went downhill quick though, you know, didn't expect her to go quite as quick as that. She took to her bed and I thought she'd got the 'flu or something because she'd done this before, she said she didn't feel well and she was in bed for about a week, didn't eat nothing, and I thought shall I get the doctor? No. no. Anyway she was up, she got up, she was fine and when it happened this time I thought the same thing. Anyway a week went by and she still didn't feel right. We had the doctor, he prescribed something, and another four or five days after that she was still no better. Had another doctor, and he put her into the hospital straight away, she'd got a blockage. They operated on her and I think that finished her off really, I think the heart gave out about the next day. She was only in hospital about three days when she died. I think the doctor was surprised, he couldn't believe it, that she'd passed away.
PR: But your mum went on a lot longer. She was eighty . .
PR: Well, it's sad for everybody isn't it.
JW: But your mum and dad were quite young when they died, weren' they?
PR: Oh they were, yes, hearts and strokes.
JW: How old was your mum?
PR: Sixty five.
JW: Sixty five, that's not old.
PR: She had cancer a lot but she died of a stroke. She'd had this blood pressure for years, and the old man, all his brothers died at fifty, and all the sons of those died at forty-nine or fifty. haven't got a male cousin alive.
JW: Haven't you really? And all died of the same thing?
PR: Apart from one, and he's had major heart stuff. All heart. But dad went on to mid seventies, which was odd because his three brothers all, pop, pop, pop.
JW: Yes unbelievable. Actually when I saw Tommy the other week, after I'd spoken to you dinner time, I thought how much like your dad he was getting.
PR: He is actually, yes.
JW: I thought to myself 'Oh Tommy, you ain't half getting like your dad.'
PR: Yes, more and more, and now he's got his hair short.
JW: Yes it's the first time I'd seen him in years. I think the last time I saw him he had a beard.
PR: Did he?
JW: I didn 't really strike me at the time, it was only after we'd talked about your dad dinner time I thought 'Yes, Tommy is getting ever so much like him.'
PR: And Sheila's four have left home now so she's
JW: Sheila's like you, very much like you. You 're more like your mum's side aren't you?
PR: Yes, apart from the nose, I've got dad's nose.
JW: As I said dinner time, so have I!
PR: Now let's just take you into school, St Andrew's. Did you ever go up to Sele Farm or were you always at Hertingfordbury Road?
JW: Sele Farm? No, I was always at St Andrew's, just down the road.
PR: Now, what Jean Riddell would like, she asked me to ask Marge this same question - can you take us on a little walk round the school?
JW: From the school gates?
PR: Anywhere that you can remember, the layout, the smells, the kind of teachers or anything.
JW: First of all I would leave 32 Hertingfordbury Road in the morning, cross the road and my first job was to go into Nan's and say 'Good morning' to her. 'Morning Nan, hello Grandad,' and then from there she would go to her front door and watch me disappear out of sight which meant that I was at the school gates. There were some railings, and you went in and there was a little yard before you turned right, well not right you walked straight on to the playground, rather a large playground with two or three big trees.
PR: Still there.
JW: Well two of them , or one of them.
PR: No they're all three.
JW: All three are they? I didn't realise all they were still there.
PR: Yes, they're separated, there's a bit of road goes in between two of them, the first and the second one, but they are.
JW: And then there was the old school building there.
PR: L shaped.
JW: L shaped, yes.
PR: A bit along, parallel to the road, and a bit parallel to Wareham's Lane.
JW: Yes, that ran along there . In fact, when they knocked the old school down I took an old brick.
PR: Oh, have you?
JW: Yes, but I don't know what happened to it. When they knocked it down I thought 'I'm gonna keep one of those bricks' and I sneaked along there thinking I was being ever so brave and took one of the old school bricks, took it home and put it in the shed, but what happened to it- it's probably still down there in the rubble! The old loos we had down there.
PR: Ah, now where were the girls'?
JW: Somewhere near the kitchen where they dished up the dinner, along the long bit.
PR: The Wareham's Lane end?
JW: No... yes, it would be, the Wareham's Lane end, down at the bottom.
PR: I know where the boys' were because that's where I had to go.
JW: Well I think the girls' were next to them.
PR: I thought the girls' were in a cloakroom, I had this out with Marjorie.
PR: A red-maroony door it was when I was there, with a boot scraper.
JW: While we're on the subject, I remember we used to wear the shoes with the across and buttons on the side. One of my buttons had come off my shoe, and me being small and being clever kept kicking my shoe up in the air, then running up to see if I could catch it. But what happened? It went straight through the window, didn't it! Wasn't me. Ooh I wanted to die, I was quite a timid little thing I think, ooh my goodness! There was Miss Smith's class.
PR: Yes, you went in that big door, and the end of the cloakroom.
JW: Hers was the far one, and Mr Munns was the long one, and there was a sort of a glass partition between the two.
PR: And a window in a wooden…
JW: A window and a wooden door, and there was a big old fireplace in the comer, and I can remember him putting the old coal or logs or whatever on it when the fire went down.
PR: Who did that?
JW: I think the teacher actually put the logs or the coal on, or whatever they used during lessons. I've no idea who made it up first thing in the morning or cleaned it.
PR: Mr Wylds the… (Harry Wylds)
JW: Oh yes, he was the caretaker. I imagine he had the job of clearing it all out…
PR: Harry Wylds - four grates to do up. And big fire, they used to come right up the chimney, didn't they.
JW: I know in that class there was an enormous big thing, but I know there was a big guard round it. And the playground was really just an oblong shape I suppose.
PR: Who taught you? Who were the teachers?
JW: Mrs Madel, Mr Hadkiss.
PR: Oh yes I'd forgotten about him, I don't think he was there when I was there. Tom had him.
JW: I don't think he was there long.
PR: Tom had Mr Hadkiss.
JW: He was Rube's pin-up, Mr Hadkiss. I can't remember many of the old ones.
PR: Did Bert Munns…?
JW: Yes, Mr Munns, he took me. Maggie Smith (Miss H A Smith) as we used to call her. Derek was her favourite because she had a dog and apparently the only one it would go to was Derek. We've got a picture somewhere of Derek and her dog.
PR: I've forgotten that dog.
JW: It was a little wire terrier of some sort.
PR: Wire-haired fox terrier.
JW: That's it. It loved Derek. There's a picture of him somewhere with it sat in his arms.
PR: Trying to remember what it was called.
JW: I don't know if Derek would remember.
PR: I remember her telling us how the dog had got a bloody nose one night at St Albans because, he found a hedgehog and didn't know what to do with it, nudged it around. Were they happy times, did you like the school or were you glad to get away?
JW: Ooh no I didn't want to leave, I was scared to leave, absolutely petrified last day there, knowing I'd got to start up at big school.
PR: You went to Longmores after that was it?
JW: Yes, went to Longmores, then done a little bit of work at Cowper was it? Cowper School, up the London Road. We had to have some lessons in there because the main building wasn't open.
PR: You never went up to Simon Balle?
JW: Was that the school that's there now? Yes, yes, I think we had to go up there when we was in our second year. I think you had to do one year at Longmores and Cowper School, or one year at Longmores. When you was in your second year you went to Cowper and had some of your lessons up the big school and some of your lessons down in Cowper School. I think Derek went to Cowper School...I'm sure he did. Did you go to Cowper School?
PR: No, I went to grammar school but Tom and Sheila did. Tom and Sheila went to Simon Balle I think. Tom would have done the same as you wouldn't he?
JW: Yes that's right. I think I enjoyed my third year the most but I don't know why . I s'pose cos I wasn't very brilliant at anything. Enough to get by I suppose but
PR: Did you have Foxy Felts? Tom didn't like him at all.
Transcribers Note: Bill and Gwen Felts
JW: No I wasn't very keen. Mind you, his wife was worse !
PR: She was in the paper this week, she was outside 'The Two Brewers.'
JW: Was she?
PR: You have a look in the Mercury.
JW: I did see her myself some little while back, saying is she still alive. I think I see her along St Andrew Street.
PR: It was a reunion of a top basketball team or something, they got in the Guinness Book of Records. I thought 'That looks like Gwen Felts'
JW: We used to call her ?? Felts. Ooh she used to scare me to death, she did. Mrs Wills, she's another one that used to scare me.
PR: She died on peanuts.
JW: Did she? I thought I read somewhere - it was quite a long while ago, wasn't it? Was she allergic to them then or choked?
PR: Choked.
JW: Did she?
PR: She went home one night after some event, whether she was slightly tiddled or not I've no reason for knowing, had some peanuts and then died.
JW: Did she? Gracious me.
PR: But she was quite formidable.
JW: Ooh, not half. Mind you, I'll give her her due, she had a good old voice, didn't she, ? She could whack 'em out. I know we all had to take a turn singing a line of some song or verse of some- song, and we all had to go up in turn and do it, I couldn't get anything out, I was so scared! 'Come and sing with me girl' she'd say, 'come and sing with me' and she'd bang away on the piano. I still don't think I got anything out. Oh dear, I was petrified.
PR: But St Andrew's was a homely school and it was near to your home, just a hundred yards away from
JW: Oh it was lovely, typical old - well Nan went there as well.
PR: Did she?
JW: In fact Evelyn's still got photos. I know I had them here and then I think she borrowed them for something, and obviously she kept them down at her house. There's one when my gran was about this high, when she first started. There's one when she's so high, I s'pose in her last year. Little long dresses and hob-nail boots. Fantastic pictures, they really are.
PR: She was Mansfield wasn't she, before she was married?
JW: That's right, yes.
PR: Same name as Marge.
JW: Was it?
PR: Marge Mansfield.
JW: Yes. Her father was her brother. Evelyn's mum and Marge were brother and sister.
PW: That'll sound tangled for the punters who listen to this in fifty years time.
JW: Yes - they'll say right mob we've got here!
PR: Sitting here drinking Strongbow and talking. So she actually went to St Andrew's School. Where was she living then?
JW: I think they lived at one time, you know the little houses that were by the subway at one time? They were almshouses, were they connected with the church? Well I remember Evelyn telling me that her granny lived in there.
PR: She probably only went there when she was old.
JW: I think at the time, I don't think they went to that church, St Andrew's Church, but somebody Evelyn or they knew, knew the vicar of the church -oh I think it was nan and grandad went to church and they had a word with the vicar because one of these almshouses became vacant, and they had a word with the vicar, and he pulled a few strings.
PR: And they got her mother into one - she was in the end one, yes, Mrs Mansfield.
JW: I know Evelyn did say that the vicar did tell her mum like, my nan, later that "I'm doing it for you Mrs Walls" because she was good at the time, helping out with the church.
PR: Oh yes, many aspects of the church for years.
JW: All the old bazaar things they had.
PR: All the flower arranging for the festivals
JW: Getting there, putting the hymnbooks out, etc., etc.
PR: One row from the back they sat.
JW: Oh yes, cos when I used to go with them we always sat up the back.
PR: Couldn't go in the back pew cos that was Mr and Mrs Hebbes, right behind.
JR: Oh yes, I'd forgotten about Mr and Mrs Hebbes. And what about the other, Mr and Mrs Francis, they were two old Hertford people, I think they lived in North Road.
PR: Yes, but they were Catholics.
JW: Yes, oh sorry I didn't mean they went to St Andrew's.
PR: That's right they lived at number 11.
JW: Mr and Mrs Hebbes lived in West Street didn't they?
PR: Yes, 43. He was Percy Brooks' brother.
JW: I don't think I know Percy Brooks.
PR: I was talking about Percy Brooks a lot yesterday, co he used to live at the hospital, when he was an Alderman of the council. Right, so we've done our little tour, that's probably all we need isn't it?
JW: I should think SO.
PR: I'll just put the thing down cos I was just getting the school map planned out. If you think of anything that we might need to know connected about houses or about people along there, anybody to do with Hertingfordbury Road any time. You could put it - don't write it out neatly, but if......
JW: Yes, you probably remember things after, 'I should have told Peter that' or
PR: If you do and it's easy to scribble it, like the account like that Mrs Godfrey's apron, that sort of detail is just what Jean would like for her book .
JW: She'd have been fascinated seeing this old girl, you know if there's any way I can describe her like Mrs Bridges.
PR: A relic of earlier
JW: The apron was perfectly white. I even remember that as a teenager, you know, remember seeing her.
PR: She came from Hertford Heath I think. My nanna, (grandmother) knew her when she was somewhere from her childhood, because my grandmother came from Hertford Heath. And when there were apples on our trees I used to be sent down to Mrs Godfrey with some apples. They didn't speak at other times as far as I know. There was never a lock on the door, you just opened the door and walked in, the front door, and because she was deaf I used to, that used to frighten me about going cos I thought…
JW: You were scared of frightening her.
PR: She's gonna look up and there's a bloke in the room with her suddenly, or she'll be out cooking at the back and suddenly there's someone. And it wouldn't have been like a regular person, a regular visitor.
JW: Yes, I even used to make Rube jump sometimes. I used to try and get in a position where she would see me before I used to get on top of her. You know, sort of maneuvering. I have done it, sort of made her jump "Oh I didn't hear you come in" where any normal person would have done, so if I came in I'd sort of open the door and put my head round the door just to let her know that I was there.
PR: I think she must have been stone deaf really, not all her life but got that way.
JW: I think I can remember Evelyn or somebody saying that she was deaf.
PR: Evelyn told me about Ron fixing up some wire. That's on Evelyn's tape. When she was pegging out, or ill, they put something electrical from number 26
JW: Oh that'd be Uncle Ron , cos he was dab hand at doing anything like that.
PR: Yes , to go and sit with her, so . . . I think she died in her armchair if I remember. But when she was ill or poorly he rigged up something to...
JW: That'd be Uncle Ron, he was one for his gadgets.
PR: Yes, we haven't said much about Ron, I got so hungry for more stuff from Jean, it's a bit naughty of me. Do you want to fill that form in now ?
JW: I can do if it's not too involved.
PR: Or pop it through the door one day?
JW: Alright, I'll pop it through the door probably Monday morning or something like that.
PR: Won't matter, it'll just sit in the pile, and it's to say that you're happy for anyone to listen to what we've said.
JW: Is there a fee? Before you go, I'm wondering if there's anything else in here. My five pound glasses, have to put them on.
PR: How long have you had them?
JW: Couple of years. Getting worse it is, I'll have to have them done properly.
PR: Good pair of specs.
JW: There's one of the Old Oak, but I expect you've got one,
PR: Oh yes.
JW: You can have that one. There's Rube and two of her brothers.
PR: Golly. What was it with her speech, with Ruby? She had got a cleft palette was it or something?
JW: No, she had nothing wrong with her mouth, l think it was just being deaf probably made her talk loudly. Now there's Hertingfordbury...
PR: Oh crumbs, look at that. There's Crawley's shop.
JW: Now you probably recognise a lot of people on there, because I'm on there with Ru be, and that was an outing from 'The Oak'. I'm right up the end look, Rube 's holding me in her arms.
PR: Oh yes, I see you up there.
JW: There's Rube with all her brothers and sisters, look.
PR: So this was in Bengeo was it? Where were they living?
JW: Yes that was in Bengeo, the little cottages are still there with the little gardens.
PR: Opposite Gosselin Road.
JW: There's Aunt Doll, Rube, Evelyn, look. There you are, Peter, that's our little yard, down at 32. Here's Evelyn and Dad, that's Mum's wedding.
PR: These are treasures. Yes, he's a good bit older wasn't he then, your dad, than Evelyn? ··
JW: I don't think there was much difference. About six years. That's the uncle that got killed in Italy. That's on Rube 's side. There's one of all the gang, down Elmside Beck, one Sunday morning. I think when it moved from nan's house we all went along to Bet's then. Hello, there's a few people you know on here, that's another one from the Coronation. There's Marion and me, or Marion and I. John Morgan, Trevor Powell, the Lamberts, Dot Cherratt, Mrs Andrews (Richard Andrews' mum). I think this is Derek here. There's the cottage, Peter, look where they lived.
PR: Yes , that is right, just opposite ......
END OF TAPE TWO SIDE ONE