Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Fiddaman, Lionel (O1993.11) |
| Interviewee | Lionel Fiddaman (LF) |
| Interviewer | Peter Ruffles (PR) |
| Date | 06/03/1993 |
| Transcriber by | Marilyn Taylor |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O1993.11
Interviewee: Lionel Fiddaman (LF)
Date: 6th March 1993 - recorded on two successive days
Venue: 5a Hertford Road, Hoddesdon
Interviewer: Peter Ruffles (PR)
Transcribed by: Marilyn Taylor
************** = unclear recording
Italics = transcribers notes
[discussion] = untranscribed material
Discussion about recording and possible battery running out whilst microphones are fitted.
PR: This is Peter Ruffles and I am in the home of Major Lionel John Fiddaman M.B.E. 5a Hertford Road, Hoddesdon who is an old boy of Hertford Grammar School I nearly said Richard Hale School and know to very many people as “Fid” having taught in the Hoddesdon area for very many years but its in the Hertford Grammar School matters that we really want to talk to him and Fid you came from Buntingford? Born in the year?
LF: 1916.
PR: 1916. How did you come to be a Hertford Grammar School boy?
LF: Well my brother who was 2 years younger than me got a scholarship from the local church school and my grandmother lived….said since he does all the work looking after the pigs and the poultry and I am not going to have his brother crowing over him for the rest of his life so some of the profit he has made on that can be spent on him paying his fees.
PR: Ah, so Theo paved the way as it were and then family picked it up.
LF: Yes and he was actually most annoyed when he became Fiddamen 2 and not Fiddamen 1.
PR: So you arrived at the Grammar school at what age? How old were you when you…
LF: I was about 12, I suppose
PR: That would have meant travelling from Buntingford by rail or by bus?
LF: By rail to start with when we went to the old school.
PR: Right so we are talking about 1930 ish
LF: 1934
PR: 1934 so you came from Buntingford on the train.
LF: No sorry 1932
PR: 1932 and where did you actually go then, where were the premises when you began at Hertford Grammar School.
LF: They were up in what became the teachers training unit area at one time.
PR: Longmore
Transcribers Note: It actually became a “Teachers Centre”. A sort of base for practising teachers and had a professional social use and was an in-service training place.
LF: Longmore yes
PR: In Hertford by All Saints Church
LF: That’s right yes, that’s it because we had, our overflow was at Bailey Hall
PR: Oh yes, which had been the headmasters house years earlier
LF: Yes well when I was there, Marsh was the headmaster of the Grammar School
PR: “Boggy”
LF: “Boggy” that’s right
PR: But he wasn’t living at Bailey Hall at that stage..
LF: No he lived up in Queens Road somewhere
PR: So lets talk about the train journey what time roughly would you have to leave.
LF: You had to catch the train from Buntingford station at ten to eight
PR: That would have got you to now St Margarets?
LF: It got as far as St Margarets then you had to stop and get over the other side of the line and pick the Hertford East train up. There was always a wait of half an hour, whether you were going up or going down. But we were going up in the winter, that was cold, we would pop down to the coffee bar which was on the square outside the station where the level crossing gates are which was run by Josh Heywood/ Harwood?, if it was winter time we always had a hot blackcurrent.
PR: Oh, nothing in it?
LF: No.
PR: No rum in it?
LF: No just a hot blackcurrent, but if it was summertime we always had a bottle of fizzy lemonade one of those which had got a marble in the square shaped neck , if you were feeling at all rich, when it came to marbles time, you bought your bottle you broke the neck off and had your glass marble out.
PR: What was the marble for then? Was it to stop you getting too long a slug?
LF: No that was to keep the carbon dioxide in the fizzy drink
PR: I never understood that.
LF: The pressure of the gas kept the marble right at the top so it couldn’t leak out.
PR: So when you drank it..
LF: You pressed it down with an opener which was button which went over the top of the cap and had a spike sticking in it (wooden button) which pushed the thing down and when that happened the spike was hollow so the drink came out through the top
PR: Ah I didn’t know that.
LF: So you could empty it into your mug or glass. So, as I say, we used to go to old Josh Heywood/ Harwood for that
PR: So then you would get to Hertford East.
LF: That’s right.
PR: What would be your route
LF: Railway Street
PR: South Street, Fore Street
LF: Straight across and up the slip, yes.
PR: Rookes Alley. You would be there in time…
LF: We could manage that fairly well providing we legged it, you couldn’t if you dawdled but you could if you legged it. Your case was a bit heavy by the time you got there.
PR: Any penalties if you were late was it or did they let the Buntingford boys off
LF: There wasn’t any, not just us, there were quite a number of the Grammar school boys came down on the train which we picked up at St Margaret’s. When we went over, they cam down from Cheshunt and all the way down the line you know from Waltham Cross downwards
PR: So the old school was quite a pull from a …
LF: Oh yes as I say there was a whole crowd came along there along Railway Street and all the way through and up that “Snicket” as we used to call it. Then to the …
PR: When did you move across into the new school …
LF: When it was built
PR: Was that about 30…..it must have been fairly soon, you didn’t have too long in the old school did you
LF: I think I had a couple or three terms not more, might have been a year.
PR: Then there was a longer journey on foot
LF: Well we found that we couldn’t, no matter how much you tried, the nearest you ever got to assembly starting in the school was the bottom of the long drive, which wasn’t a lot of good to us so we packed up using the train and used what had become a regular service by then, the bus service which put us down at the Post Office and from there to the new school was a doddle.
PR: Yes, were you well behaved on the train then, you boys?
LF: Well, it was always the job of the train prefects to see you were
PR: They were pupils of the school?
LF: Yes, senior pupils, I mean R C Butler was one…
PR: Famous artist
LF: Yes he was quite good even as a lad. Actually I knew him as the workhouse masters son
PR: Reg. Butler, R C Butler
LF: Yes, Reginald Charles to give him his full name
PR: What did he become most famous for in the art world?
LF: The Prisoner, the wire sculpture which was smashed up by some …. Latvian, was it, or Lithuanian when it was on show.
PR: So he was your prefect as it were, was he?
LF: Well he was the senior one, because he was a lot older than everybody else, wasn’t particularly clever, not that achedemic, but he, as I say the workhouse master in those days was a position of some importance.
PR: But no pranks or escapades, especially ..you never got in to any trouble.
LF: No no you sometimes had to tick some of the youngsters off for getting off the train before it had stopped like. Knocking other passengers on the platform, but they were mainly over keen to get out the barrier and get cracking on to school before everybody else did.
PR: Yes and of course the carriage doors would have been wide open, fling wide. So who, how many boys were there roughly at the school, about the same number as today? How many forms of entry?
LF: There was a first year which took all those under 11. Then there were two for 11 year old, then there were two for the third year, for the second year and the third year, no sorry got it right first time, for the third year, there was three for the next lot, the fourth year 4a, 4b etc and the remove.
PR: That’s a funny term, the removes
LF: Yes well it was a form where the fellows in it were 12 months older than they should be, they had been held back a year somewhere in order to catch up. Therefore they were removed from the ordinary stream that’s why they went in to the removes. Most of them left the removes they didn’t get anywhere. Some of them did get in to the fifth then you had upper sixth, lower sixth and that was your lot.
PR: So pretty big school really?
LF: Well you had 23 prefects including head boy and deputy head boy, so that’s 21 ordinary prefects, which is not a bd stream. You always used to use a special little skull cap, in those days, the prefects, instead of the old peaked cap. Everyone else had the peaked cap with the old badge you know what was on the school doors or above the school doors but if you were a prefect then you had like a skull cap the colour of the material, which was rounded, which enabled you to close it up and put it in your pocket, you came it out and straightened it up afterwards, was the colour of your house. Since I was in Page beg your pardon “Pige” (imitating colloquial pronunciation) mine was a red one.
PR: Oh yes, Cowper, Croft…
LF: Cowper was dark blue, Croft was light blue, Wallace was yellow, Page was red, and later on the had a, formed an extra house which they called Hale and that was green.
PR: Yes I was the house captain of Hale.
LF: Well that was green.
PR: With Frank Taphouse as my house master.
LF: Oh old “Tank” do you know why he got the name “Tank”?
PR: No.
LF: He used to have an Austin Seven the sort where you pulled the hood up, you know the sort of thing I mean.
PR: Yes.
LF: He used to come up the drive in that, domp domp domp…. We used to say “here comes Frank the Tank”
PR: He was a Major in the School Cadet Force.
LF: Eventually, I mean up until Guts Holton retired.
PR: I mean how did that operate, it seems a public school thing
LF: It was, we were in with Haileybury and all the rest of them
PR: Saturday morning corps? (OTC Officer Training Corps)
LF: Er no Thursday morning from 11 o’clock, from break onwards, rest of the morning and if you weren’t in the Corps you could never be a prefect.
PR: So didn’t take your weekend time as it did when I was at school.
LF: Oh no no no… I mean you might have a field day when you ………..usually if we had a field day we tied up with Haileybury and went over to Berkhamstead and those places the other side of the county. They used to have double decker buses to take us around. Not many of them had much windows upstairs, got wacked by the trees and the branches used to smash all the windows.
PR: Places that double decker buses didn’t normally go. Who actually ran the Corps then? All the teachers?
LF: A E Holton. Oh yes they were all teachers, all of them, but there was one fellow there he was pretty useless at anything else, he was he was a regulars captain A E Hotton commonly known as Guts because, he got a free meal everyday in the canteen there and his plate was that high you could hardly see over the top of it.
PR: He was a teacher? No he used to do a bit of PE but that was about all. What about the caretaker was he involved?
LF: Not until the present one, Major Inman came there, he was the first one, came along from the army but we did have a fellow called Carpenter used to do the band who was an ex TA bandsman
PR: Yes so he knew a bit about things?
LF: Oh yes and he kept them up to scratch.
PR: So did you join the Corps then? Was it a volunteer?
LF: Well if you didn’t join the Corps you could never become a prefect, so if you had any ambition for getting anywhere you joined the corps. Also to it did mean you or ten days either Tidworth or Tweseldown somewhere like that, camping which was a relatively cheap holiday and you would taken there by the OTC and they looked after the whole time.
PR: Most boys……well what happened if you didn’t join on those Thursday morning then were you, did you have lessons or…
LF: No no you went in to the hall and they gave you some soul destroying job to do, I forget what it was now, but something which would have driven me up the wall.
PR: Yes yes, and did your brother join, was Theo in it?
LF: Oh yes yes he was in the corps yes, we used to bring your weapons and go down the……sorry come in the armory door down by the main door.
PR: Yes to the right of the main steps.
LF: Put your rifle in the rack, you got your own number on it, then you went out the door the other end and up the stairs and you came up by the head master’s office. Made certain *you did it quietly like, cause “Boggy” used to get upset if he got disturbed.
PR: And then Mr Bunt?
LF: Tommy Bunt
PR: Was he there in your day?
LF: Oh yes he was history. Yes yes he was there when I left Hertford and went to "Marjon's". it was then that I learned that THB…
PR: Thomas Hollyman Bunt
LF: Was a Sinjun (St John) it was him that put me on to "Marjon's".
Transcribers Note: Fid is saying "Marjon's". It wouldn't make sense to the vast majority! It is the common name for the Teacher Training College at which he trained. It was then St Marks and St John's College King's Road Chelsea.
(Mark and John = Marjon)
PR: Well that’s useful, as far as lessons were concerned were there any difference between the fee payers and the scholarship boys or were you all...
LF: None at all, you all went together, you didn’t know anything about anybody,
PR: As far as you were concerned the bloke in the next desk was…
LF: You didn’t know if he was a fee payer or if he was a scholarship, the only thing you could say was a large number of fee payers were a bit thick.
PR: Oh right.
LF: Fortunately that didn’t seem to apply to me,
PR: So a good guide there, it was modelled I suppose on the public school system
LF: Oh yes yes because you see “Boggy” came from Rugby
PR: Right
LF: He was one of the house masters from Rugby and he came there as headmaster
PR: I think that’s exactly the route that the present head who has just resigned came by, he was a Rugby man I think, well he was certainly associated with Rugby, whether he was a teacher or master or a pupil there I couldn’t say.
LF: That’s where the headmaster went he left Hertford and went to the Abbey School in St Albans
PR: What other staff were there in your day that stayed some time?
LF: “Biffum”
PR: “Biffum”
LF: S F Clouting (Sidney Frank) commonly known as “Biffum”
PR: Oh yes because…
LF: “Tab”
PR: Chemistry master T A Blake, Fred Harvey?
Transcribers Note: (Tommy in the staff room). His wife, a Lab Tech, was Ethel Chloride.
LF: Fred Harvey he was there yes, Fred Harvey was my Aunt’s by marriage cousin, he was also “Biffum’s” cousin
PR: He’s only a few years older than you I think isn’t he?
LF: Fred was yes. Mark you I didn’t realise his first job I think from graduation.
PR: I think so and he retired from there didn’t he?
LF: Yes I think it must have been his first job, I know I was in the lower sixth in the time that he appeared
PR: Yes that would be about the right sort of margin wouldn’t it for a first post. Did you have anything much to do with the town of Hertford? I suppose you had to make a beeline between the school and your transport.
LF: Yes, as I say once I got in to the new building of course the chance of getting there from Hertford East station was nil, that why you went to the bus that put you down outside the post office
PR: What sort of shops can you remember in Fore Street at that time?
LF: Gaveds, bicycle shop
PR: Yes that was Quelch and Brown’s was it?
LF: Probably, all I know was they were the only one in the district that had got the agency for the BSA bicycles. I wanted a BSA bike but of course I didn’t have enough money to buy one, because I liked the BSA three speed, where if the cable broke you went in to bottom gear and you could still use your bike without too much effort. You got tired legs but that didn’t matter as a youngster it didn’t matter too much.
Whereas the Sturmey Archer which was the other three speed gearbox the wire went, it went in the top gear so you got any hills as you know between Buntingford and Puckeridge and all round there were plenty of hills. Which meant to say the only time you could ride your bike, that sort of bicycle was downhill you couldn’t cycle up hill cause in top gear you couldn’t manage it. (BSA gear System versus Sturmy Archer gear system)
PR: So where Gaveds is now was…
LF: Quelch and Brown you are quite right it was Quelch and Brown
Transcribers Note: In 2019 it is Albany Radio
PR: You boys didn’t have a particular tuck shop handy that you used or ..
LF: On the train yes, there was a I believe I told you old Josh Harwood on the car park at St Margarets
PR: Yes, but not Lewis sweet shop or any of the others around Parliament Square?
LF: There was one opposite Boots, next door to Roses would it be?
PR: Yes “The Chocolate Box” was there
LF: That’s right it was “The Chocolate Box” because they had one come down here, the people from there moved down in to Hoddesdon here on the corner of that slip road, you know, can’t think what her name was and she ran it and called it “The Chocolate Box” because she came from the old “Chocolate Box “ in Hertford. Dead opposite what was parrots back gate, at least main gate in those days.
PR: So when did you decide to go to teacher training then while you were still…
LF: While I was still in the Grammar School
PR: Was that because you wanted to do more work with the Corps or did you actually…
LF: No the thing was a cousin of mine from Little Hallingbury, the oldest lad of my Uncle Len as he was then, who was Barclay, RL Barclay the one who gave Barclay park to trhe town and all the rest of it, he was his butler who was eventually the girl I married was the daughter of his fathers? secretary
PR: You got encouragement from that quarter did you to teach?
LF: Well my cousin John he became a teacher, he went to "Marjon's". He carried right on until he retired like someone else I know. But he was down in Dovercourt because he came under Essex.
PR: Did you choose your college easily or did they choose you? How did you get to….
LF: well as I say my cousin went to “Marjons”
PR: We had better say that is St Mark and St John, Kings Road, Chelsea
LF: That’s correct that’s not the one down, down in Exeter area. (Plymouth)
PR: No no
LF: Which is where it is, no as I say he went there, I went there, and as I say, Bunt he was quite a bit of help to do that. Also to Percy Bancroft who was at the school down by the river which is now a primary school
PR: Yes Broxbourne.
LF: Broxbourne Primary yes
PR: All age school then.
LF: It was, well no it was a senior school and a junior school
PR: Ah.
Transcribers Note: This slips in to Fid’s introduction to Freemasonry (the Croft)
LF: Their hall was communal to both. When I started making enquiries about The Croft, Percy Culham of course because he went to Culham therefore he couldn’t take me because I wasn’t a “Culhamite” so we went through all the paraphernalia which we know about and he found a fellow named Regan who belonged to the college of St Mark and St John lodge or at least Sir Walter St John lodge as they now call it and he arranged with the secretary of the lodge at that time… No the treasurer of the lodge at that time because he was the secretary, Regan was, to meet me at the ABC tea rooms Liverpool Street station just across, just outside the station, belonged to,…
When I got there Regan and I stopped and looked at each other because I had done my final teaching practice in his central school in Wembley. He said to me “we have met before,” I said “yes we have” He said “Yes you still doing Geography” I said “not very much now, why?” He said “I shall never forget that geography lesson you had with all those pictures when you had your inspection, even shook the inspector. That was a marvellous affair.” “Oh” I said” I have been doing that sort of thing for some time” I said “as a matter of fact in the end I packed up geography because it was so time consuming.”
PR: Oh yes preparation.
LF: I found it much easier to take one of the sciences
PR: When you where first appointed to a teaching post it was where. Not at Broxbourne?
LF: No no no my first job was in Hitchin, in the Wilshere-Dacre school in Hitchin which…
PR: As a science teacher or geography?
LF: As a science teacher, the scientist there had a breakdown from tuberculosis and they had to find somebody to step in. Mark you nobody told me that the last lesson he taught the lads had him on the floor in the lab, banged his head against the floor against the wooden block floor and the headmaster had to come out of his office and go in and rescue him. Never told me that his name was Jenkins. He went off for his treatment and I went there “pro tem”, temporary because I hadn’t got a job at the time. As I say they never told me about it and had a bit of…..well as I say they used to think it was ha ha science lessons and they would go in and play merry halleluiah. Nobody told me, nobody warned me and I went in there was a fellow got a bit lippy, I told him off, he didn’t like it and I said to him straight, I said, another belt from you, see this pointer, I shall hold this end in my hand and the fat end’s going across your backside my lad.
PR: Cause you could get away with it to a point in those days… couldn’t really, not really
LF: You never let on about it, well of course he came the old funny didn’t he, you know, leaning on the front bench, my teachers bench, you know, which is just what I though he would do, I whipped the thing up held the thin end of the pointer in my hand, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, pulled him up so he was dangling in the air, backside nice and round over my knee, he got 6 of the best, he yelled and yelled and I looked to the window …saw the old headmaster outside looking at me ********** he was absolutely scared stiff .
PR: Cause you were a very big bloke weren’t you as a…
LF: I was a PT bloke….
Side one ends
Side two
PR: Spool there run out, just got to the run out point.
LF: Oh where was I?
PR: You were at Hitchin. When did you move on from there?
LF: Well as I say, I carried on that term until just towards the Christmas holiday which in those days as a supply teacher you didn’t get paid for the holidays, you only got paid during the term but you got paid a higher rate.
PR: Right yes.
LF: You drew the whole salary you would have got for 12 months in the total number of days the school was actually open, so in the end you didn’t lose out if you did a full year you had to make certain you had a bit of spare cash knocking around for holiday times you see because you didn’t get anything then. As I say it was getting towards Christmas and they said would you come here permanently, I said yes,
PR: Were you living then in Buntingford still?
LF: Yes living in Buntingford still in fact I used to cycle home from there, Hitchin, on Friday after school closed, because my landlady, I stopped in digs at Lancaster Road just behind the school all the week I used to take my bike carried on the back my case packed and when I had finished on a Friday at school I used to get on my bike and go home via Weston and Willian and all that way over the back. Down then to Cottered and down in to Buntingford. since I was at the Old Vic I came in the right end of the town didn’t I.
PR: That’s the Old Vicarage Buntingford, we have to tell the listeners.
LF: Yes the corner of Hare Street lane, hare Street Road
PR: Then when you moved from there where did you go?
LF: From there they built a new school in Cuffley and I was moved from there by Richardson who was the PT organiser whom I had met on a course while I was at Hitchin there at the Wilshere-Dacre he ran a PE course in the local gym belonging to the boys brigade. I think it was on this new adult education PE for fun and games, you know recreational PE and when I got there I attended two lessons taking part as I should do, from the time the third one came I’d been down working in the swimming pool and I had picked up a virus and I had got blistered feet and they told me whatever I do I mustn’t do anything like that with other people around because I would pass it on.
So I saw Richardson and I said I am sorry, he said that’s alright I will arrange for a mat to be put down and you can keep you shoes on and you can sit down and take your notes and see the timetables as I go through them. As I say the next thing, I carried on for a bit, but actually it was a bit awkward because I was in lodgings with one of the governors of the school at Cuffley. I was called up from there.
PR: Is this war time or..
LF: Yes war time, yes, teachers were reserved whatever their age for a bit then they lowered the age, raised the age, I became eligible for a call up and I was called up in June and I wasn’t doing too badly. I got on the OT2 two selection board list which was something, thanks to Hertford Grammar School’s OTC of course.
PR: Yes.
LF: That gave me a good lead, almost as good if not equal to the boys brigade which was doing very well. As I say I was doing that and I was then put in to the Signals and sent to Cambridge. We were in Englefield Green, Egham where we were stationed, that’s the Royal Signals, and I was sent to Cambridge to do the Morse course and Radiography and Radio Interception actually. Well it was Radar Interception not that we knew it was called Radar in those days, I had met it earlier on, out at Cardington where in the old Air Craft hangers, you know the Airship hangers they had there which meant to say anything electronic that went on inside couldn’t get outside because it was a screen of metal all round it you see. I was on that course dealing with picking up bits on the oscilloscopes they are now but at the time we weren’t told they were oscilloscopes and as I say we worked on that, and that was very interesting indeed. As I say I was then send on this course which I was in, to Hitchin, not to Hitchin to Cambridge over the Young Men’s Christian’s Association canteen they had there. I forget the name of the lane, it was a little lane that came from ****** to the main square, but as I say I was there doing that then suddenly in the middle of the night I was awakened by a couple of MP’s (Military Police) and I had to get up, get dressed, pack everything, put on my Number Ones, you know my best suit, not my ribby one, get in to their wagon and they drove me all the way back to Englefield Green. Billy Field who was dealing with the course at Cambridge had been at Bishops Stortford with my uncle, eventually finished up and retired as postmaster at Hoddesdon Post Office.
PR: Oh.
LF: Jean and Pauline’s father.
PR: Yes
LF: Billy Field and he had been at Stortford Post Office together as youngsters, two young men so of course I was well in wasn’t I with Billy Field I was the apple of his eye, especially when it came to very elementary science I mean as far as I was concerned I was teaching that before they bought me in. Chicken feed as I say when I got pulled off like this, I said to my pal who was in the same digs as me I said you might tell Mr Field what’s happened so he doesn’t think I have scarpered and so that’s what happened and the next thing I knew I was at Englefield Green there with this mob of mine and two red caps appeared. Pack your kit your going back on that course in Cambridge and I spent six weeks travelling between one and the other under close arrest each time with different red caps either from Cambridge or from London. Depending which way it was you see.
Of course what I didn’t know, that Richardson having got to know me by name etc etc as a result of the course in Hitchin and my enthusiasm even though I couldn’t partake because of my feet had been working very shortly after I was called up, was coming back in to Hertfordshire and doing some Boys Club work because they were getting so many juvenile delinquents. That was why I was being taken from one place to the other because my unit in Egham didn’t want to let me go but Billy Field didn’t want me to miss his course either because it was going to lower his standard, you know what I mean. Because I was picking up on the math, I was picking up scores of 98, 99, 96 something like that out of 100. As a matter of fact they got a young subbleton in the Signals to set me a test they knew I couldn’t possibly have seen and I scored the same then, he said “Come on, you haven’t seen this one, now see how clever you really are.” I went through it and I scored 99. I said “I am sorry I dropped one point” to the young subbleton you know. He said “Theres no need to be funny” I said “ No I can take all the insults from you you like to **** since you have got one pip on your shoulder and I have got nowt”. So therefore I was allowed to go back on the course.
Then suddenly I was whipped away again. Then I had to go and see me CO his name was Cameron Webb we called him “Cami-knicks” because whenever the siren went he would go rushing down his shelter, one leg in his trousers, the other leg of his trousers over his shoulder, we had to stand out with our steel helmets on to make certain he was safe. You can understand why we called him “Cami-knicks”. No respect for him at all, little did he realise how he undermined anybody’s respect for him. As I say it was all there like that and so on and I was called in and told to go and see the quarter master and get my cases and bits of kit that were still there and hadn’t been sent home yet and I had been there months and months and months but they had still got it stuck in the store. Then I had got to report back to Mr Richardson at County Hall, Hertford within 24hours of being discharged, released not discharged. So I got back here on a warrant, got down to Buntingford station and got home, well it was no good trying to get in to County Hall that time of a day, about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. I was there at 9 o’clock the next morning asking for Mr Richardson, had to wait till he came in of course. He hadn’t a clue I was coming and I couldn’t let anybody know I was coming so as I say he sent me down, here he said I have got a job for you they have got a load of problems down in Rye Park. So many miscreants down there amongst the lads, its almost getting out of hand.
He said I am going to take you up and see Mr MacDougall the county treasurer, he’s a Haileyburyian and Haileybury have got a club in Stepney and its been bombed twice, this time they have decided not to rebuild it because what’s the sense it will only be bombed again. So they started one up in Rye Park where all this trouble was. It’s a job which you could do with your PE and one thing and another and I will come over and see “Lovejoy” that was D M Gardner, gymnastics equipment manufacturer as he was, Miss Lovejoy actually owned the firm by then was the boss person. I was taken over there I had six benches, a buck, a box, a pommel horse, the whole lot…. medicine balls and gawd knows what and I was put up in the Walton Road school, there in the hall, all down the side. The headmaster there was on the council here, Hoddesdon Council, Winter was his name Winter? Can’t remember. Something like that.
PR: So you were given, that was the founding of the Haileybury Boys …
LF: Haileybury club, no boys just the Haileybury club
PR: When did you operate then the club in the evenings or …
LF: The evenings, I went into… I did Cuffley school for a bit, then I did Broxbourne school and Ware Central school, one week I had three days in Broxbourne, and two in Ware Central and the following week three in Ware Central and two in Broxbourne
PR: As a PE teacher?
LF: Yes PE man
PR: Because Haileybury club is still running today
LF: Yes. yes yes, used to meet in the old tin hall in Old Highway
PR: Yes now it’s in Burford Street.
LF: Yes its now Robert Gilling Hall he bought it. That was a rope factory, it was during the war. Used to be a rope factory.
PR: So you really were the founding professional?
LF: Yes I had to go up with Richardson and with MacDougall up to see the Master at the college. Cannon Bonhote I think it was at that time. The Reverend Kenyon who was the vicar at Rye Park, he was there as well and they were asking the usual sort of questions about what did I feel about youngsters and religion. I looked straight at them I said as far as I am concerned with youngsters religion is caught not taught. They said well what does that mean, you wouldn’t make them go to church, I said I certainly wouldn’t do that as that’s the surest way of making certain they never do. I said no, I said I will certainly do all I can to encourage them, I won’t prevent them, I won’t run anything at the time church is on so they can’t have an excuse
PR: So you were teaching during the day and running a club …..
LF: Well yes but I didn’t really do much teaching, it was a matter of a few hours per day when I was in….I was up County Hall most of the time with the County Youth officer, what was her name, something Betty, I cant remember, Sparkes, Betty Sparkes. I was well known round County Hall.
PR: When did you then, you became the deputy Headmaster of the Baas Hill secondary?
LF: That was after … I went…. After a bit..the work I was doing was getting a bit topsided because I was commissioned in the ATC and in the ACFM the Sea Cadets Corps because the boys club had a contingent of each sort. With one thing and another I had to pack in, I was in a state where I was dragging one leg and that sort of thing, got myself in a proper two and eight, so as I say 99 percent of what I was doing I had to stop. It was then that I went down to Broxbourne school full time, the one by the river.
PR: Yes.
LF: I would spend 90 percent of my time in me garden the other 10 percent on PE
PR: What year roughly would that be then?
LF: Well just before they started Baas Hill, I went from there to Baas Hill this was before Bywater came round, before they closed Sawbridgeworth school for seniors
PR: So that’s about 1950 I suppose
LF: Probably. As I say…
PR: When they closed that school and your garden…
LF: Well the thing was that, Percy Bancroft retired, he had to you see he got to retirement age when he went they shut the senior part of Sawbridgeworth School because they had opened that new big school, which Bywater didn’t get the headship of. So Bywater came.
PR: Levensthorpe.
LF: Yes came to take over from Percy and it was Bywater that took us up to Baas Hill . Because we took stuff from the gardens, you know Broxbourne gardens at the school by the river.
PR: Yes.
LF: Up to Baas Hill to sent up all the shrubbery and all the rest of the stuff , went from there. I managed to get as far as deputy head there and of course they put us together with Grammar school as it was then, became the Broxbourne school, and for some time, I was a square peg in a round hole. They turned round and said “ we have got just the job for you” we have got so much blooming paperwork to do, we haven’t got any of these things, we never had them, to do all this before …
PR: So Ian Laydon the head of the Grammar school that was merging with the Secondary Modern
LF: Merging, well it took it over, swallowed it up.
PR: Yes to become Broxbourne Comprehensive school which it is today
LF: That’s right yes, so he said “Right, I am going to make you Registrar, It’s up to you to get the administration of this lot organised”. I believe, from what I see, you are still using some of the papers, forms, that I drafted and produced.
PR: We are yes, we are using quite a few with your handwriting on, the assessment sheets and various things.
LF: Well I didn’t realise that was going on quite the same but I knew.
PR: Yes the forms I have got some here, this is your pattern.
LF: Yes that’s my stand in sheet yes.
PR: All arranged in the same way they were.
LF: I knew that was going on
PR: Now we are running out of tape Fid, anything on the war actually affecting schooling there wasn’t any…
LF: They did drop a bomb in the playing field of the school by the river.
PR: Oh did they?
LF: Right smack in the middle, never went off.
PR: Not during school time.
LF: No no a weekend, it wasn’t until the caretaker was looking round the field in the morning, on the Monday morning, he saw this hole in the middle of the field. The bomb came down but never went off. Just made one “woop” hole!! Of course the bomb squad was called out and “Bob’s your uncle” and we had four days until they dug it out, it was in the ground
PR: So you have really been connected with the young people in Hoddesdon and Broxbourne, Wormley for 50 years
LF: Quite that, Oh quite that.
PR: Your award of the M.B.E. came for your youth work.
LF: Yes
PR: Chiefly which was…
LF: Yes my service with the army cadet corps, which I went from a one pipper up to brigade Major.
PR: When you go shopping you still find the odd former pupil
LF: Oh always, I don’t go shopping now unfortunately.
PR: Well you just got rid of your car last week but up till just now you have been a Sainsburys regular.
LF: Yes and I know the staff there, they knew me, oh yes, I mean there is one, Ted Tarry has helped me with me tomatoes, put me runner beans in and also marrows. I mean no sense in doing them I can’t go out and pick them now. Unfortunately.
PR: Well you might by next summer if this doctors stuff sorts you out.
LF: I don’t think so somehow, I don’t think it will stop me from falling about
PR: Falling about, no
LF: See I go to the shed now, that stick there was Maggies, I use with this one, I can then manage to get to the shed put stuff in the dustbin.
PR: But it’s a long haul.
LF: But I have got to have both sticks which you see, there’s not much you can do when you have got two sticks.
PR: No and being a tall person its more difficult isn’t it?
LF: I keep telling meself “Stand up” “Standup”, its so easy to get in to the habit of leaning forward. When my basin full of stew or whatever you like to call it, when I have me dinner It’s a case of you’ve got to turn, steady meself, get meself upright, then walk, with the big table there with the mat already out, just rest the corner of the thing on the mat, then hang me stick up on the door handle then put the whole lot down on to the table mat, then I have got to wash up. When I have done all that I need a rest see.
PR: Yes, well that’s very handy. When did you move in to this bungalow, 5a Hertford Road?
LF: 1942, we moved in here in 1942, when Bill bought the whole of the yard, this went with it. When the army who were down at the….what was Gardener’s place down the bottom of Essex Road no Duke Street dead opposite there was a house that was R.E.M.Y. and this was the juniors officers mess, one and two pippers, Captains and Majors was the other bungalow further up.
That was owned by one of the chemists who ran off down to the coast, ran in to trouble didn’t he. You couldn’t get any answer out of him, in the end the council took bungalow away from him and put in their local surveyor. Then of course in the end it got so the council could buy the place, but they didn’t buy it themselves they let their assistant surveyor buy it.
PR: Oh.
LF: So that was a carve up
PR: Then Parrott’s yard was down beside the bungalow, Parrott himself lived next door…
LF: No, Not then he didn’t he lived in North Road. He didn’t move in there until the assistant surveyor at Hoddesdon Urban District Council put his secretary Mrs Carter into there and then the wooden place, its so old that house
PR: Yes, it’s a farmhouse.
LF: A farmhouse originally yes. Its got no damp course, so of course it was absolutely steaming wet.
PR: Is that number 3 then?
LF: 5
PR: 5 and this is 5a
LF: Yes you see…
PR: so what was the farmland up towards Cillocks Close
LF: Up this way.
PR: Ah up to the ..
LF: All the way up, all the way through..
PR: Ah up to Merck, Sharp and Dohme as it were
LF: Yeah all the way through you know, down to the brook, you know there’s a brook down there.
PR: Yes yes
LF: Right from that brook right the way through to the road which now is Winterscroft Road
PR: Well Woollens brook forms the boundary starts at the top and comes through
LF: Yes well, that’s right, well that is …..
PR: What was the farm called?
LF: It was called Cillocks,
PR: Cillocks
LF: Cillocks farm, that’s why they called their house Cillocks
PR: Oh right, No proper foundation, no damp course,
LF: No that’s why they ran in to all this trouble. As a matter fact they kept finding that the bathroom was getting soaking wet if you got any rain. I said to them you’ve got no damp course, you’ll have to do the same as they did with that one the other part of it which is now dry. I said you have got a big trench there which is held back by paving slabs, I mean to say its got paving slabs put across the top, and that’s what he’s been doing………..
PR: I see, clearing a cavity,
LF: He’s been doing a similar sort of thing along there, he’s done it not badly,
PR: So I wonder what date the house is, we ought to find out
LF: I wouldn’t have a clue what date it is
PR: This is between the wars isn’t it, this bungalow?
LF: This bungalow is the time when the built the bulk of Rye Park, the home makers, there was a tobacconist in the town called Bryant’s which is now Heathers, that a tobacconist too isn’t it? Well Bryant lived up the road, now he was clerk of the works for the homemakers down, who built Rye Park. This, not this room but the rest of it which finishes there, that is all stuff which fell off the lorry on the way to the homemakers, Bryant built this out of all those bits.
PR: Yes
LF: All the original stuff here is exactly the same as you have got in all the places down the Rye.
PR: So that dates it pretty precisely and ….you recognise some of the materials, the old roofing
LF: All the doors in that part of the house, even the door knobs, all the same.
PR: Yes the oval…
LF: Yes, here they are, this one went on because you see you had two bedrooms in the front, no sorry one bedroom in the front, this one here behind me which is now a dining room was another bedroom, the kitchen was a living room, the room which is now a second bedroom, you know on the left hand, on the roadway side……………………………
Tape stops abruptly
Second Tape
PR: It is Sunday 7th March 1993 and I have just arrived at 5a Hertford Road again to do a bit of gardening on my fast motorbike. Gardening with the lawnmower, we have mown the lawn today for the first time this year and I have now asked Fid if he would give us a few more pictures of various bits and pieces particularly his early life. Now Fid you have told me that you are technically a Cockney.
LF: Oh Cor Blimey.
PR: And yet you are a Buntingford boy and you have got a dutch name, is it dutch? Right explain.
LF: Its simple, I was born in 1916, my father who came from Brancaster as a lad, was in the post office and he was running two post offices this was World War One, he was running Ilford and Barking and I was born half way between within the sound of Bow Bells. *******
PR: How did you get to Buntingford?
LF: My father in the epidemic after Word War One got the flu, you know that killed everybody off, they called it “Spanish Flu” did they or something?
PR: I believe so yes.
LF: Anyway he died and my mother was left with two youngsters, myself and my younger brother, two years younger.
PR: So that was…. How old was he when he died?
LF: Well I was just gone 5 so he would have been about 3 or coming up to 3
PR: So he was quite a young man really, although he had obtained the post office…
LF: My father, was yes,
Transcribers Note: Alfred John Fiddaman, Lionel’s father was 40 when he died. His mother Ethel was 30.
PR: So your Mum widowed with two young boys went back to her home base or….
LF: She went back to her mother who lived in Buntingford
PR: Was that in the old vicarage?
LF: At the Old Vicarage that was where my brother and myself grew up, we went to the church school, I have forgotten who was the head, it was a headmistress in charge of the junior school of it but Ernest Edward Dennis was the headmaster of the senior part of it. He was also Organist and Choirmaster at Aspenden Church and he was an extremely good musician, we used to say if he wanted to he could make a chair sit up and beg and sing. He really was he ran the “Buntingford Bells” as they were called the concert party which used to for two or there years, stage a weeks entertainment at the Benson Hall. Which of course was the hall belonging to the Catholic Church.
PR: How did your mother then make ends meet in widowhood at that time?
LF: Well she went back to the job for which she was trained. Dressmaking, tailoring and upholstery and I should think myself that she had the work and as a result of showing she could do it she had the work or practically every large house Meesden, Anstey all the way round Buntingford. I mean one of her local big clients was “Cornes” the firm you still see advertised on the television today when you go to these various race places. “Corne Minerals” she went back home because that’s where Grandma was her mother and her mothers husband had been injured as a head gamekeeper at Hamels. Poachers set a trap and he walked straight in to it, got his eyes damaged, so he had to do a different job and he became coachman for the Woods family. The sons became Bishops.
Transcribers Note:
Frank Theodore Woods (15 January 1874 -27 Feb 1932) became Bishop of Peterborough, 1916-24. Bishop of Winchester, 1924-32. Died Feb. 27, 1932; buried in Winchester Cathedral.
Edward Sydney Woods (1 November 1877 – 11 January 1953) was an Anglican bishop, the second Suffragan Bishop of Croydon from 1930 until 1937 and, from then until his death, the 94th Bishop of Lichfield.
PR: Yes
LF: They lived at Layston Court. The sister of the wife, Mrs Woods, Mrs Dixon she lived on the market hill next door to what in those days was the chemists. Next door to the big house which eventually, the fellow became Lord of the Manor because that was the Manor House forget what his name was, I know during World War Two there were some troops stationed in the area and they did a bit of scrumping and he shot one, caught him scrumping in the orchard shot him with his……..but I can’t remember what his name was not off land, it will come back when I don’t want to know, it always does.
PR: So your mother must have worked very hard but it wouldn’t have made her a wealthy woman.
LF: Oh we did have three, we had three apprentices, in her workshop she had three apprentices, three improvers, three qualified plus herself, oh plus her sister too. Queenie but she had her more out of charity because her husband died, he was a guard on the railway, Great Easter Railway in those days, he was a lot older, as a matter of fact he was brother to Reginald Charles Butler’s father, workhouse master, they were Butlers.
PR: Yes one..
LF: One went in the workhouse and the other on the railway. In the days of the time they did it were both respected jobs. Pensions, both of them had pensions and all the rest of it which in those days was unusual.
PR: So your household… ( Lionel coughs) ..your grandmother, your mother, widowed aunt, did she have any children the widowed aunt?
LF: No.
PR: Did your grandmother take part in the work as well or was she at that stage ..
LF: My grandmother, good lord, she ran the house, quite capable of doing that and she was quite capable, we had an acre of garden, she did 90% of that
PR: Let us just remind everybody where the Old Vicarage is, opposite the Union Workhouse in what road …
LF: Hare Street Lane
PR: Hare Street Lane
LF: It was bought by the garage, what’s the name
PR: Smiths
LF: Smith garage that’s right, which was really run by the wife who was a Miss Squires, she was most efficient. When she was at work she was Miss Squires she used to come down from the council houses up Hare Street Road she used to come down there just after 6 in the morning to catch the first train out of Buntingford which went about twenty to seven and she came back on the train which got back in to Buntingford somewhere about quarter past six at night.
PR: Where was she going?
LF: She went up London somewhere but were she went to I wouldn’t know. Other than the city that’s all I know.
PR: Yes. That was the household then with grandmother running home as it were…
LF: My mother running the business. Yes she had the business and as I said she would go away to Dimsdales for three or four weeks. Working in the house, one of the young maids was told to wait of her and do everything for her all she had to do was get up, have her meals and get on with the work.
PR: So you were shared up really by…
LF: Well I was really bought up by my grandmother. My grandmother of course was connected with the people in West Street, Harpers.
PR: Oh yes.
LF: Bridges.
PR: Bridges, oh yes so did she…
LF: We had oil lamps but we had something that was in those days was quite a modern invention, as a child she had been in West Street with the first oil lamps replaced candles. Her mother was persuaded to leave the curtains drawn so that people could come past and see it.
PR: Oh, that was in the big old house about number 37
LF: My mother of course had “Aladdin” lamps because of the increased the light they gave hanging from the ceiling of the workshop and we had them in house, as a matter of fact one of them is sitting on that table behind you, not the glass one, the other one, they used used to sit on the table in the old vicarage.
PR: Did your grandmother live to a good old age then?
LF: 96.
PR: Oh!
LF: I think it is… you’ll find it if you go to Layston churchyard
Transcribers Note: Louisa Coptcoat nee Bridges was born in 1851 probably in West Street, she was baptised in Port Vale Chapel in Bengeo on 8th June 1851 by Bernard Gilpin, and died 12th April 1938 so she was actually 87 when she died.
PR: Yes
LF: Louisa Coptcoat
PR: Coptcoat, yes. So junior school and you talked yesterday about getting to Hertford Grammar School but what about clothing what sort of… we have got to draw a picture of the way things looked in those days, what for example would you have worn to go to school in Buntingford?
LF: In Buntingford, pair of boots, I can tell you the variety we always had what were known as “ Little Dukes” they were produced by the local shoe shop, you know shoes, I forget the owner now, but he used to work for Barretts.
PR: Did he actually make them there then as a cobbler?
LF: No no, he just sold shoes we had a shop in the town that did the repairs under his direction but he actually worked for, Ah, what’s the big London firm that retails shoes? Good lord I shall forget me own name next. Anyway as I say “Little Dukes” was the name of the variety, we always had those cause they wore well ..
PR: You had short trouser, long trousers?
LF: Short trousers
PR: No blazer I suppose..
LF: No no a jersey, woollen stockings
PR: How did you spend your time, you and your brother Theo when the holidays were on when you were young then? Or in the evenings after school?
LF: When we were young, well in the evenings, in the summer time we would go off to the field and play cricket, not proper stumps, we were lucky if we had a proper bat. If we were lucky, but the stumps usually were twigs or canes, whatever we could get to work, you know what I mean.
PR: So a sporting thing rather than…well there was no cinema was there,
LF: Yeah more sports. Freeman Hardy and Willis was the name of that shop that produced the shoes, well known brand, still going now I believe aren’t they?
PR: Yes I think so. So when you came to need money in your pocket how did you first earn a bit..
LF: Well if it was summertime you went driving away.
PR: Eh?
LF: Well in those days you either had a waggonette with racks for and aft, front and back, or you had a “tumble” with racks for and aft, loaded your stuff on there, you had to load it in the correct way so you could unload it afterwards, otherwise instead of taking the top forkful you took one three down and then you were in dead stook. You finished up in the middle of the heap didn’t you.
PR: Yes.
LF: It was quite a skilled business, even putting up the sheaves, on a rick, because they were horse binders in those days, you had to lay them in the right direction so that when you put a fork in to lay the sheaf down …
PR: You weren’t standing…
LF: You weren’t standing on the one you were trying to move or trying to fork down the one that was two down from the one you were standing on.
PR: Yes, so that would have made you a few pennies would it?
LF: We did quite well because it meant the famer could use his men for the heavier machinery which he couldn’t use you for.
PR: You told me last time about the post office work in Buntingford.
LF: Yes well during holiday time when I got older you had to be 14 for that, I used to do boy telegraph relief when the other bloke went on his holiday, I used to stand in for him.
PR: So that meant you had to take telegrams around
LF: You had to maintain your bicycle, Post Office bicycle of course, and when you were given your telegram you put it in your pouch what you wore, bandoleer sort of business, cycled of to where you had got to go.
PR: So where from Buntingford might you have been sent
LF: Aspenden, Westmill, Wyddial, *****, Throcking, Buckland,
PR: Oh right up there, yes, that Buckland
LF: Cottered, Throcking anywhere that hadn’t got a post office
PR: No misfortunes
LF: Not as far as I can remember, only when it was raining hard, you got fed up with it then, blistering hot you got fed up with trying to pedal up hills, there were a number of hills round Buntingford, especially if you had to go to Cottered.
PR: Yes!
LF: Up past Buttermilk Hall
PR: So when it came to girlfriends in the teens what would you have done then? Was there any sport?
LF: Well there wasn’t any sport but they were all co-ed schools so if it was a girl in the town you went to school with her one way or another.
PR: They were presumably doing their own thing indoors
LF: Well no they would be out doing certain things, nothing serious, as a matter of fact Les and one or two of them are in the Hoddesdon area now I often see them. Takes me right back to the days of Sunny hill you know council houses off Hare Street Road I believe they are still there aren’t they?
PR: Yes they are I think.
LF: Twenty four houses if my memory serves me correctly.
PR: Yes there is a whole row of them
LF: Two of them, two rows a dozen in each row
PR: So when, did you go out? Were you courting in Buntingford ever?
LF: Yes my first misses
PR: Actually in Buntingford?
LF: Yes she lived down in Presswicks, poultry farm and fruit farm down past Corneybury
PR: How would you have courted her? I mean…
LF: Walking or on a bicycle. I mean we always had a man made sure you were well kitted up with lights, long before it became essential you had a rear lamp you made sure you had a rear lamp.
PR: Yes because of the danger yes.
LF: You didn’t, or at least I wouldn’t use a dynamo you used too much energy pedalling, I used to use three cylinder batteries that was in a square box on your crossbar, went back under your seat, you switched it on there then you had a switch on your handlebars so you could do it on or off so .., cut out of three ply a stop sign which I put on the back with a couple of bolts on you know, with a red glass in front of it so when you put your brake on the stop sign came on the back of your bike so you were out at night you were lit on the back side.
PR: Oh ahead of its time.
LF: Well it was just one of those things, you were doing all these sort of things because you made your life if you see what I mean, made your vehicle, made them with whatever was sensible. Quite frequently if my mother finished a job of work which had got to go to Lady Ellis at Wyddial Hall a mile or three quarters of a mile up a private drive, through the parkland, woodland, you know, well you needed good lights, you needed good brakes, you needed everything. Particularly if it was wet.
PR: So she would cycle as well would she?
LF: No she didn’t cycle
PR: How would she have got there then?
LF: She was picked up, they sent the chauffeur to pick her up, same as the Dimsdales, they did the same thing, all those the Courts all the others, the Canons, all the big families, the Flakes? from Aspenden they of course were, I know now, I didn’t at the time, they were Covent Garden fruit merchants, Flakes, I knew that when I was you know, when I started working on the nursery with him doing the tomatoes and weighing them and cucumbers and that sort of thing because Flakes lorries used to come and pick them up.
PR: Ah came and got them
LF: Yes got it all tied up
PR: What about the High Street then in your early years, it was always pretty busy
LF: Always busy yes.
PR: Villagers coming in there using it as their market?
LF: Oh yes there used to be, had a market every Monday on the market square which is just past St Peters Church
PR: Yes and traffic what kind of vehicles would there be on the road when you were…
LF: Well you had bullnose Morris’, T Ford’s, Albion’s, Commer’s, Foden tractors,..
PR: Oh yes, quite a bit of traffic really.
LF: Oh good lord yes, oh yes I mean there was one old dear, Lushington, Miss Lushington, she had a heck of a stutter because when she was a girl living at Aspenden Hall where Sir Arthur Lushington lived, she was his daughter of course, attacked by a swan that hit the roof of her mouth and she had a stutter as a result of that, always. She used to drive her bull nose Morris in the same way, she would go in fits and starts, you always gave Miss Lushington a wide birth because you never knew whether she was going to speed up, slow down or even stop don’t think she knew herself…
Transcribers Note: Miss Florence Lisette Lushington was married in 1929 to Cecil Frank Drury-Lowe Bruce Durham, she was 36 he 22. They must have divorced after a short marriage as he remarried in 1938. Miss Lushington as she was known died in South Africa in an accident in 1945 and her probate says she was a “Single woman”
PR: Characters on the road. Were there any characters in the town, anyone you needed to avoid or..
LF: One of two we used to annoy, there was a fellow named Cox who was the local roadie (sweeper) and he spent 90% of his time leaning on his broom. In other words he was a lazy devil. We used to keep well out of his way, keep well away cause he was a dab hand at it we’d say “Coxy can you tell us why roadie broom handles are always bent”. He used to pick that up and he used to chuck it at you and if you were too near you got the bristle end right smack in the face, he was good at that. You soon learned to run a distance then you were just out of reach. Then when that happened you’d say “bad luck Coxy”
PR: No town drunks or any…
LF: Oh you had a few but not many
PR: None to keep out of the way of especially
LF: No I mean “The Jolly Sailors” was just opposite where we lived and opposite the workhouse, there wasn’t much trouble from there, you had “The Crown” on the Market Hill and you had “The Bull” that was higher up, in fact there were 93 pubs and so on and so on in Buntingford. In the days of the coaching days because it was the A10 you see Ermine Street. ** coaching Inns, some of them you only know they were coaching inns now because they have got archways to go through into the yards at the back which used to be in the early days the stables and the coach sheds and so on and so forth.
Where the farrier was and all the rest of them so they could do running repairs to horses and coaches and so on. In a line that goes all the way up the town, you can’t miss them they are probably still there, in fact I am certain they are there’s one there “The George” because it has got these houses, you know, old peoples’ places where they are warden-controlled and that sort of thing, I forget what its called. But that was “The George” yard which was a coaching place. You had room over all the stables and things at the bottom known as “The assembly room” and that was one of the rooms that was used for public meetings and that sort of thing in the town.
PR: There isn’t a public hall as such is there?
LF: No, not to my knowledge no.
PR: Was the railway important to the town.
LF: Oh yes I mean on a Monday which was a market day you had one special goods train which left Buntingford at six o’clock with all the stock, like cows and cattle in, the pigs were transported down in carts, but they were all bunged on that and they went off to Smithfield. They used to go round the Aspenden turning behind the station, the station in the front I think there’s a “Shah” pub there now.
PR: Back to “The Railway” now
LF: Gone back the “The Railway” now has it, it was known as “The Railway” when I was there. You had a big square in front of it where the tractors and that used to pull up. Then you went round behind the end where the buffers were going towards Aspenden and you had a field which went right up from the road, right up to the railway line and that’s were they used to pack all the stock. You know had them in pens, then run the old trucks forward and put them in the trucks.
Transcribers Note: “The Railway” was demolished in 2013 and replaced by housing
PR: The line seemed to be quite busy for passengers as well didn’t it?
LF: Oh yes.
PR: Would most people would have gone in to London or would some have gone to stations in between?
LF: There were some in between but quite a number of them went in to London and back from London, I mean they used to run special trains, like the one we used to catch in the morning to go to Hertford Grammar.
PR: Now where were the main stops on the line then from London, because Buntingford was the terminus wasn’t it
LF: That’s right yes, the next one was Westmill.
PR: Not much business there I shouldn’t think was there?
LF: You would be surprised because you had got Westmill, *** and all the rest of them, all those people had jobs in the City
PR: Then over the level crossing at Westmill you went to ..
LF: Yes well you had two level crossings at Westmill
PR: Oh did you I can only think of one
LF: There were two you used to finish up ***********. Then after Westmill you went to Braughing. From Braughing three days thrashing three and thruppence. From Braughing three days thrashing three and thruppence
PR: Who said that
LF: Oh it was a generally accepted thing
PR: Day’s labour
LF: From Braughing? Three days thrashing three and thruppences
PR: That’s was the general call was it for a little bit of work in the……what’s thrashing, threshing I suppose?
LF: Yes thrashing from the stacks because in those days you took your sheaves and did them all up then thrashed them. Then as you took the thatch off you had to pick up the right one otherwise you found yourself banged on your nose in the heap.
PR: So the train then gets to Braughing that’s quite a busy ...
LF: Then you went to Standon then Much Hadam
PR: Oh yes it curled round really left the road route really. Busiest station on the line was it?
LF: Braughing was one where you could pass and Hadham was the next one where you could pass. You then went to Widford and the next station was Mardocks and the next one was St Margarets we pulled in to the little bay.
PR: That’s where the Buntingford train stopped always did it or did any go through to Liverpool Street?
LF: No the train didn’t go through but they had split coaches in the same way when the London train came down the end coach was slipped at St Margaret’s the Buntingford train pulled out of its little bay, went across, backed on, hooked it on and off you went. On the way back going down Hadham hill was quite steep brakes put on, squeaking their heads off at but you still done over 60 miles an hour the brakes wouldn’t hold it.
PR: The governor of the Bank of England ..
LF: Oh yes he used to get on at Hadham
PR: Ah who was that?
LF: Montagu
PR: Ah he was at Hadham was he?
LF: Yes he got on at Hadham
PR: I had an idea it was Widford..
LF: He had a … his luggage was carried by an Indian and his coachman was an Arab, I don’t know about what the rest of his servants were like, cause I didn’t know them but we knew those because they come on the platform. I mean he wouldn’t carry even his newspaper he wouldn’t.
Transcribers Note: Montagu Collet Norman first Baron Norman DSO PC (6 September 1871 – 4 February 1950) was an English banker, best known for his role as the Governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1944. His brother Ronald Collet Norman lived at and presumably owned Moor Place between Braughing and Much Hadham.
PR: Did he have a special reserved apartment?
LF: Oh yes first class not many people travelled first class, very few travelled second class, the bulk of us were third class
PR: So when did you leave Buntingford was that when you went to train as a teacher was that the first time…
LF: Yes that was actually the first time I left.
PR: Your mother stayed in Buntingford longer?
LF: Yes well they went to Hertford with a bicycle to Kennedy to the accountant but of course Kennedy being a Scot he had to take Scottish accountancy exams but because he was practicing in England he had to know English law as well. Which meant to say once he was qualified, he really could sweep the board with anybody. Didn’t matter which law you wanted he got it.
PR: Ah then yes he had his own business in Hertford.
LF: Yes St Andrew Street in Hertford
PR: Severed all links with that now hasn’t he?
LF: Oh yes he’s retired lives down in Royston.
PR: Gone back to his own area yes. He lived in Buntingford all the time he was working in Hertford?
LF: Yes at one time he when got married he first lived in a council house in Hare Street Road you know I think they called it.
PR: When did your mother stop earning as it were?
LF: When she was somewhere about 74?
PR: Oh as late as that?
LF: Then after that she came here as you know and then when they was …yellow velvet curtains she made, pink ones she made, these she made, all these what she made still going.
PR: She died here didn’t she?
LF: Yes, that was the first time I had heard the death rattle in a person so that’s how I recognised Maggie’s
PR: Yes, yes.
LF: I said myself my God I hope your not hearing right but once you have heard it you never forget it.
PR: No… the body giving itself up as it were, but had she been living here long?
LF: I suppose she was here somewhere about 5 or 6 years, actually she….
PR: She did stay for a bit.
LF: Oh yes but she’d got this acre of the garden at the old Vic she couldn’t cope with it all. So she flogged that to Smith so they turned that into their coach park and so on and so forth they didn’t pull the house down at the time but I believe its gone now I wouldn’t know.
PR: I think its still there but its very near to the road.
LF: It always was quite near to the road.
PR: Bit different, you’ve said when I have driven past with you, but its shorter they either widened the road or the car park took up ..
LF: The car park took up a lot of the ground, the side of the place now been turned over, Smiths taken it in to hand. I would think myself the only way you could get in to the place now would be via his car park.
Transcribers Note: The house still stands on the corner completely surrounded by the Co-operative store which replaced Smiths Coaches. The entrance he refers to seems to be the back entrance to the loading bays of the store right alongside the house. The house itself spears to have been converted into more than one dwelling, terrace style. This is a presumption taken from looking at photos and maps on the internet.
PR: Will have to take a trip there in the summer, you have seen the new Buntingford High Street have you?
LF: Don’t think much of it.
PR: Oh right,
LF: In fact I don’t think any of this pedestrianisation is any good to anybody.
PR: Well you have got the Hoddesdon one coming.
LF: I know and its not going to do any good to anybody. I mean its all very well but you get somebody like me if you are just housebound you can’t do a damn thing.
PR: Yes you can’t walk from wherever…
LF: Yes but you can’t walk, where is the sense having to have two sticks to try and go anywhere, I mean when all said and done at the present moment you see when I have got my stuff that’s got to be handed in to the Co Op, because you have got all the divi stamps and so on and so forth I have got to find some kind person who is going into the shop up there who will go in and get it done. I used to be able to.
PR: Yes I mean the pedestrianisation scheme means that where you used to be able to park your car outside…
LF: You can’t. It also means if you can’t walk you are housebound. But as I say you saw what happened with Cinder? there’s a new doctor in the area comes down saw I was, wrote out a prescription, then he said I am not going to leave this with you I am going to take it and get it done, then he bought it back the next day and bought the pills. I said “that’s very kind of you, I though one of the nurses would bring them next time they came,” he said “well I’m on call today so I thought I would make this a call.”
PR: Yes that was good service because you had not met that doctor before.
LF: No never he had signed one or two prescriptions but ….oh by the way when you go out you will have to , seeing as you are not coming tomorrow you will have to leave the gate open would you.
PR: Oh yes, ready for Davies
LF: If they come, anyway even if they don’t Jenny will be, she will be alright she will enjoy being able to vacuum
PR: Well I might look over late tomorrow night. Well I won’t be normal time and probably not at all. I still won’t have a car you see.
LF: No.
PR: Be a motorbike job
LF: No as I say from what you said you wouldn’t be along you didn’t think
PR: Now anything you want getting from the front garden.
LF: No oh by the way did you see ********* is in flower?
Discussion about the garden and when Peter is going in again. And what he can do and what Lionel needs to ask other people to do.
LF: So anything else you want to know?
PR: No I think I have done the bits I jotted down, very keen on courting at the moment
LF: On what?
PR: Courting
LF: Well courting was mainly walking.
PR: Various people refer to their courting days but of course times have changed.
LF: Yes well its not so much that, girls were not allowed out usually after dusk which meant to say if were close to a girl you spent the time in her house. You had the front room to sit in and talk to, under her roof, and you had to behave yourself because you never knew when somebody was going to open the door and come in. But I mean in those days you relied on your radio for your entertainment and that sort of thing. Of course in those days you lived differently I mean I would have a fit now if I had a supper before I went to bed. My old mother and my grandmother they wouldn’t have dreamt of going to bed without a supper. In fact my grandmother was ordered by Doctor Dixon who used to do his rounds on horseback….
PR: That’s some colour!
LF: She was ordered to have bread and cheese and a glass of stout. My grandmother was dead nuts against drinking largely because her husband old Tom Coptcoat who had been a head gamekeeper was a little bit too fond of it and he always used to go to The Crown on the Market Hill he would drink, it was where the estate agents, the auctioneers, and those cronies went so of course what was he on double scotches all the time wasn’t he.
PR: So it made her a little bit against it
LF: She used to go across to the Jolly Sailors but she didn’t go to the other. Jolly Bottle you know what that is do you?
PR: Jug and Bottle
LF: She used to go round to the back door, what it actually was was an old Johnnie Walker whisky bottle you know, she used to have that filled up, she used to have that done twice a week.
PR: Why the back door
LF: Well because she could take it home, she used to go round with it in one of these tall wicker basket sort of thing. They would fill it up, she would pay them and she would bring it back.
PR: Yes disguised.
LF: Yes it was only a question of walking across the road really
PR: Yes
LF: Whereas if she wanted to go in to the public bar department that was up near the river bridge you know up where the public lavatory was and that was a bit public you know what I mean. next door to that you had the public bar entrance but she went round the back you see which I suppose was the store room for the public bar.
PR: so that was into her 90’s the
LF: Yes. 96 well when you think my mother lived a long time I mean well yours truly has got all the sevens hasn’t he.
Transcribers Note: As before his grandmother was actually in the 80’s she was 87 when she died, his mother was 77 and Lionel himself 80 , he died 3 years after the recording was made.
PR: Yes for a bloke that’s better going.
LF: yes well I am all the 7’s that’s what Condor? said when he was here, he said “Well I can see how you are but you’re not surprised are you, look at your age! You are 77 that’s some age”
PR: Yes it is for chaps, right then yes that more or less on the end of the tape, you wont hear my voice much at all I have just been prodding you from a distance, its very directional this ..
LF: *******
PR: Oh smashing yes, picked up some good little bits I will have to get them to make a copy for Robert, there are some bits of family history there aren’t there which he obviously knows but he…
Peter has moved the machine or Mic so you can’t hear the rest clearly.. talking about someone who lived in a big white house opposite the station and someone in Gashouse Lane Hertford.
PR: So its got its gentry all round it Buntingford, the Great Eastern railway, Buttermilk Hall.
Tape ends