Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Dix, Peggy (O2003.10) |
| Interviewee | Molly Monk (MM) and Peggy Dix (PD) |
| Interviewer | Peter Ruffles (PR) |
| Date | 04/06/2003 |
| Transcriber by | Jean Riddell (Purkis) |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O 2003.10
Interviewees: Molly Monk (MM) and Peggy Dix (PD)
Date: 4th April 2003
Venue: 30 Thornton Street
Interviewer: Peter Ruffles (PR)
Transcriber: Jean Riddell (Purkis)
Typed by: Cleone Gardener and revised by Marilyn Taylor
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
PR: Now I am here in the back of No. 30, Thornton Street, the home of Mrs. Molly Monk, well known in Hertford.
MM: Peggy 's better known than I am. People know your name, they don't know mine.
PD: I used to belong to Hertford Dramatic So..
PR: What is your married name then?
PD: Dix
MM: Yes I often get "You're Peggy's sister, aren't you?" Now I'm the eldest of the two of us but I've always been “Peggy's sister.”
PR: So let's do your story from the beginning. Molly where were you born?
MM: Was born in London. My Dad came from Ware. Mum came from here, she lived in Brewhouse Lane at first.
PR: And what was her family name?
MM: Game.
PR: So that's how you are related to Norman Wisdom (? Meaning look a like)
MM: Yes, my Dad worked at Bow Mills and he use to have to bike to London every day from here, so then they went to live in London and I was born in Queen Charlotte's, Peggy was born two years later in Plaistow and then we came straight back here and I think they moved down here soon after. My Grandad and Grandma lived at number 36 along here.
PR: Which has been the Rist's until very, very recently
MM: My Grandfather and Grandmother lived in Frampton Street, but I don't know which number; we used to live at 17 and then after I was married I went back down to live at 15
PR: And you lived at number 21, across there, then you moved across to this one next door and then I moved across to this one over here. (30?)
PD: And mum and dad moved to one of the houses over there because they put bathrooms on. So that's 45 years ago
PR: So you've seen Folly Island from all angles really.
MM: I only moved for a little while, I couldn't get a place down here and I went down Fore Street. Joan Dye used to collect the rents down there and she had 3 little houses behind what used to be the Gas showrooms
PR: Yes 89,87 & 91 (Fore Street)
MM: Yes I used to live in the middle one because I was due to have one down here and there was another family, she gave it to them. So l went down there but I wasn't there long & I came back.
PR: She used to live in the end one?
MM: Yes, I was in the middle, there were three. But then when I'd got both the children I came over here because we made the big bedroom into two at the time.
PR: Yes, they are big rooms, aren't they. I mean this is a really ...
MM: Yes, they are big rooms - - I mean those over there are tiny compared with these. When you see them advertised, they say about "Fitted kitchen" but it's not a kitchen, it's a scullery, because it's got brick walls and a concrete floor.
PR: Well scullery's not an understood term now.
MM: When we had them we didn't have any bathrooms. I had the bathroom put in when my 2 children were quite old.
PD: Mum had her bathroom put in, it was the year just before I had Stephen.
MM: That's why they moved, because they'd been living here so long, the people who lived in the ones without bathrooms, they offered them to move.
PR: Oh, did they, so they graduated to -
MM: Yes, so we all used to go over there to get a bath.
PR: So when were you actually first in this house, Molly?
MM: Tracey was born in the February and we moved in in the September and she is 43.
PD: And you were in that one how long, that other one?
MM: Oh well I’d got Stephen then.
PR: Was that 17
MM: 15
PR: 15 was that next to Tilly?
MM: My mum was at 17, that was next door but one to Tilly and next to Tilly was Mrs Bell.
PR: And they were all the same landlords?
MM: Yes Andrews used to own the lot and then some of them went along the Riverside and along there and then, until a few years ago Andrews died and the sons didn’t want them, so they sold them off. The idea is they try and sell them as soon as they go empty. But they can’t get us out because we’ve been here so long.
PD: There’s very few left now.
MM: Up until me they are all privately owned now. Next door that’s been sold, but Eric’s Games, that hasn’t. Rist’s hasn’t but that will be. Sally bought hers and the very end, that’s been sold.
PR: Yes. Greens, what about Chris Q’s is hers?
MM: I don’t know. I don’t think she bought it
PR: So Joan Dye, Neale, was collecting the rents for the Dye family and the Andrews family?
MM: Well the Dyes were the ones by the riverside so she used to collect for them and then she started collecting ours as well. Then when she finished, Mr. Dale. He was the agent in charge of them then.
PR: He was the one for Andrews, that was difficult about the rents on the bridge, protecting the tenants along here really. He’s the right one to be put in charge of a tangle, you couldn’t get much over Bill Dale. So how’s the house changed in your time? What’s been done to it since you’ve been here?
MM: Before I moved in, we’ve got a bathroom, there used to be three beds upstairs, a big front bedroom then when you got to the top of the stairs there wasn’t a landing, they’d got a door to go in to the one bedroom and the other bedroom was a long one and you went through from the big bedroom to it. That door now leads to the fitted wardrobe but that used to lead to the back bedroom. Now we’ve got a landing and where the other bedroom was made into a bathroom.
PR: So is there anything built out new at the back?
MM: No, not in these houses
PR: Because these were the bigger houses?
MM: The small ones they built on the back
PD: When they first put the bathroom in they didn’t put toilets in, it was after I left they put toilets in. They just did the bathroom and your toilet was still outside. So what about 20 years ago, 24 years ago that they put the toilets in because we didn’t have indoor toilets when I was here.
PR: So where were the toilets?
PD: Outside, you had to go out the door and round.
PR: Built on the house -not at the end of the garden. It's only a short time back, really.
MM: And we only had gas, too, when we first got our houses
PR: So you've seen people change and you've seen the buildings change. What about the people? I mustn’t talk about myself too much, I always do that and get told off afterwards by the others but I've always loved it on Folly Island - had this ambition to actually live here. It's going now because the people I wanted to be living with have gone - it was the paper round, Famham’s - you met the same people week after week and you just wanted to be part of that community.
MM: They were all families.
PD: And they weren't people to run in and out of your houses, none of us were but, if you were in trouble, then you'd only to say to one of them - you were friendly but you weren't always in one another's houses.
And in the War it was much more marked because most of the husbands were away, so sometimes we used to go into a family - Cheshire's they we’re - they've gone to Australia a long time ago, but we sometimes used to go and sit under their table with their family or they used to come to us, or we used to come across to Mrs. Rist's house and we used to sleep in the cellar but there was a nice atmosphere, especially when the bombs were dropping over Hartham, incendiary bombs. My grandad was an ARP warden & if anyone wanted to run to someone else's, he used to say "123 run" because that's the timing between the bombs.
MM: My cellar hasn't got any steps down but where my Gran was, where Mrs. Rist is now it'd got 3 steps down - we used to have to come and sleep in there, but the best bit of it was, she had shelves above it and she used to have those old iron saucepans and we used to sleep with those old iron saucepans above us !
PR: So what is the cellar arrangement - you say yours hasn't got - -
MM: No, it's only under the stairs.
PD: A lot of them had them done, but in them days you had to walk 3 steps down and then you just had the long bit up to there. We had an old mattress in there. There was Molly and I and 3 cousins living in Frampton Street, their Dad was in the Army so they came over as well, so there was about 5 children and the Mums.
PR: And it wasn't that low but it was safer than the …
PD: At 17 that's where we lived when we were little, we couldn't get over to our Grandad. we went into the cupboard there, well, most people have knocked it out now, well it was just a cupboard, and it was under the stairs.
PR: Were these this side of Thornton Street the only ones with 3 steps down?
PD: Yes.
PR: Because the water table must be not very far below, if you went down a whole room they'd be paddling.
PD: But everyone said, when we used to say we lived on the Folly, they used to say, "I bet you get flooded" And all the years -I'm 70 -and I've never seen a flood. We've got all the rivers round us.
PR: Port Vale's been flooded.
MM: Over the other side in Hartham Lane, that's flooded but the Folly Island hasn't. Even along the riverside, that's never flooded.
PR: So what about things like shopping - up in the town, you presumably used the town shops. Did you use the corner shop?
MM: I remember that during the War
PD: And what was that man's name? I forget his name now, he used to smell of paraffin and used to sell everything. His wife was very nice. He was all right. Once I went in and wanted some chocolate 'cause you couldn't have chocolate in them days and he sold me what I thought was chocolate and I was very ill. My Mum looked at the" thing" and it was Ex-lax - and I ate the lot !
PR: He made a sale and nearly made a killing as well.
MM: I mean everybody used the shop, there were shops over town - what's… What's the one where the camera shop is now?
PR: Greens.
MM: Greens, yeah, and there was Pearks at the bottom of the Arcade - used to go up as far as there, you know there weren't the shops there are now.(?)
PR: When I can remember it, it was called John's stores - was that the name of the people that were there in the War ?
PD: I don't think his name was John because I think I'd remember what his name was.
MM: We just used to say "the Folly Shop".
PR: There used to be a bit of a whiff there because they used to have cats - I remember going in and you had to sort of squeeze through the door.
PD: He used to sell everything -coal and wood for the fire. More old people used that shop than went into the town.
PR: What about the older people when you were younger - who were the older people ?
MM: Mrs. Claydon, Mrs. Bell, old Mr. Parker -his life must have been a misery -that end house just on the corner up here to the Folly.
PR: Where the notice board is?
MM: Yes. Well he used to have lovely roses growing up there but for us kids, that was our place, where we used to go every night. We used to all sit on that wall & it must have been awful for him but we used to hate it because he always used to come out and chase us away.
PR: So that cross roads was a centre?
PD: And we had evacuees down here with Mr. & Mrs. Plumb. They went to Australia but they lived here from when I can remember and they had people in London & they came down and we had parties in the road, all the Mums got us parties - there was a more community spirit.
MM: Do you remember when the War finished, they got a big party in this road - all the Mums got together and made this party and then in the evening they got the piano out and they had a bonfire at the comer there. Bonfire in the middle of the road.
PR: What about Tilly? I only remember Tilly Claydon as what seemed to be a very old lady.
MM: Well she always seemed that to me
PD: She was very old when she died and Mrs. Bell lived next door to her and then old Mrs Astler, where did she live?
PR: Old Hall Street.
PD: She lived on the other side of Old Hall Street.
PR: But Tilly - what was her background?
MM: I think she was related to somebody on the other side.
PR: She just seemed to be a single old lady.
MM: But she had a son or sons, because Doreen Claydon from Hornsmill - she was some relation to her and one of the relations came to live with her for a little while and she'd got a little girl with little thin legs.
PR: I think why she sticks in my mind - in later years I have been trying to piece her together - on Saturday mornings when you did the collecting of Farnham’s money with a leather bag, quite a lot of houses you'd knock and then go in , and hers was one of those & you took the money off the side-board - she put it in a little glass dish but one Saturday morning, when I went in she'd got her bed in the front room by then and the relations were all standing round it - she was obviously pegging out or very ill - that was a picture, and I thought " I wonder if she was down here all her life?”
MM: She was, as far as I can remember.
PD: And there used to be an old lady in the Folly about two doors away from .... and even Fred lived with her for a while and she'd been down there years. She was another lady that used to wear those overalls and she used to stand at her door - but she was another lady like Mrs. Claydon and Mrs. Bell.
PR: Another little mystery I had was there used to be a blind lady living in Old Hall Street that had the Daily Mail and it was always her paying the paper bill on Saturday morning. She lived on the right hand side almost at the end of Old Hall Street.
PD: Oh yes, I remember. You spoke to her Granddaughter, she lives in Bengeo. You know Webbs were at the end, the chimney sweeps, well they were the last house and this lady lived in the next house.
PR: There must have been someone else in there, but she was completely blind.
PD: There were two sisters, there was the blind lady and she'd got a sister and the granddaughter came down..
PR: So two sisters, so another one could read The Mail. Two nice old ladies that seemed like Sunday School teachers in number 2, this end, Meadows I think they were called, do you remember them ? Used to go round the back door for the money there. I don't think they had been there for ever - their room looked a bit like the shop -crammed full of stuff and they'd do knitting and things like that and be sitting when you went in the back.
PD: That's the lady's house that kept all the cats.
MM: Next door.
PD: And I can't remember her name, either, and she was about Mum's age - they never had any children but they kept cats and if you got a cat and you couldn't find it, you'd go round there and she'd got it! And then the Webbs, Mrs Webb, her mother lived in one of the houses over there - so you don't leave the Folly, you get houses in the Folly.
PR: It speaks a lot - its not the place to escape from ever.
PD: Well, I escaped from it!
PR: Well for a bit, yes. But it obviously means a lot to you.
PD: Yes it does, 'cos its our background. My Grandad used to keep, on Millbridge there used to be a little Pub, opposite the New Bridge Inn
PR: The Tap of Wickhams?(Brewery Tap)
PD: Yes, well my Grandad used to keep that.
MM: The doodle bug dropped on my birthday. I'll always remember because there were allotments over there, 'cause we lived at 17, where the car park is, nice allotments and we were standing watching the doodle - bug coming over and it stopped & then Mum made us go in and get in the coal cupboard.
PAR: So you were up quite early? Sunday morning it was.
MM: We watched it because it was a doodle-bug, then it stopped. And all where McMullens have got their things now, they used to be maltings because my Dad, before he went in the Army, worked in the maltings there next to the river.
PR: Was there much damage here?
PD: No, I don't think there was any - I don't think anybody lost any windows - I think it all went the other way because it didn't really damage the main bridge over the road.
PR: Funny things, aren't they, the blast. So that about the two pubs? I just had to run down by the Unicorn:- I left early to get here then I start yappin' down the road and by the time I'd got to the end of Hartham Lane I was late, so I had-to run.
PD: There was the Unicorn one end and there was the Barge the other end.
MM: The Unicorn was Freddy's, Freddy Whiting.
PD: And my job every night, my little nanny, Mrs. Game, she didn't eat very much & I used to have to go round every night and get her a milk stout in Freddy's and I got a 3d piece a week for doing that. But of course there was all houses round there then. I think Ted Watkins or John Rist said from the boys’ point of view they didn't count these houses as the Folly.
MM: No they weren’t the Folly they was Hartham Lane.
PR: Would you say you were up on them or were they not part of your - - Not part of us.
MM: And anyway we were a bit up on them because their toilets were right at the end of the garden.
PR: I merged these because on the paper round it's part of the same paper round but also they were a bit more primitive then. And did the men from here use the two local pubs?
PD: Yes they did.
PR: Would they have interchanged, or was there rivalry between them?
PD: No, some went there and some there and then another night they'd go, as in those days it was regular for men to go to the pub every night for a drink because they worked hard, harder than they do these days, l shouldn't say that really, but it's true. They did manual work most of the time and they always used to go either to there- or to there. Do you remember Nurse Major or Nurse Pont?
PR: Oh yes, she was Whiting before she married - Sister Whiting!
PD: Yes! I knew there was some connection.
PR: Then she married Teddy Bugg and Teddy Bugg changed his name to Major
PD: And the Barge had a little place where you could go, where you could buy an Arrowroot biscuit.
PR: Nowadays all the grumblings - it gives me a lot of business as a Councillor for Folly Island, it's one of the hardest areas to represent. There's pressure: people walking through and car parking and a bit of rivalry between whoever's the Chairman and the residents' association. Ann Dye did it for a while, didn't she, and Collins, Martin Collins and now John Barber but they didn't have an easy ride, they try and do what they think is best and each of them gets harder. But it's the pressure of people coming through, either by car or on foot, but I would have thought that pedestrians were good news really.
PD: Well I think ordinary pedestrians are OK, It's the yobs and I mean they ruin all the new trees.
MM: People on that side of the road don't leave any ornaments in their front garden because if you do they end up in the river. When there's anything on Hartham - -
PD: Like the Fairs - -
MM: It's terrible late at night because they come through and they don't just talk - -
PR: So there is a down side to that. Most of the trees amazingly, have survived not quite all, I've been tying them so they grow up, hoping then they won't be snapped off by people walking by. I noticed this morning they are just coming into blossom again but we had that dreadful chopping them all down.
PD: Yes, I thought that was bad because there's always been trees here, there used to be plane trees.
PR: Well even an idiot works out that you don't chop it down while its in full bloom without upsetting somebody. I'd always thought that people walking through would be good news - -
MM: Well it's night time when they come out the pubs and they've got a habit of corning down here and park here when they go up to the pubs and when they come down it's not quiet.
PD: Because it is so different at night now, there's all these restaurants and you can't get down Bull Plain very well with a car because you haven't got the room have you.
PR: And you' ve the parking place for quite a few. It is a good town, even at night time. I think it's nice that it's being used but every good thing - - - I mean if people are in there spending money, the buildings are going to be looked after.
MM: But Saturdays, they fetch their cars down here, go up and get their shopping and then they leave their trolleys down here and they usually end up in the river, because the youngsters come along - -
PR: So what else must we talk about - the fair - had a complaint this morning from someone - I thought she couldn't hear very well- about the noise.
MM: Well I don't really notice it.
PD: Well there's always been a fair there even when the railway - - used to wait for the man, Mr Wagland used to open the doors. It was very funny because when we went to school there was these white gates and we used to wait while he opened them.
PR: Which gates?
PD: There was big white gates by the railway.
MM: You know, where it comes across the road to go round the back of Mc Mullens, the gate was there. You could get across.
PD: And he lived (Wagland) where Mrs. Ewing’s lived, then he moved out and when I moved up to Norwood Close who should be in the bottom flat but Mr & Mrs Wagland. And they spoke to me as though I was a child because they knew me as a child ''Oh, there's Peggy .”
MM: The railway lines, we used to cross there, we used to play along there.
PR: What, even while the goods train was there?
MM: Oh yes, you could see either end.
PD: The trees that were along there, we used to make camps, all the children from the Folly, we used to have different camps. So we used to go over the railway line to get to it.
PR: There was never anything speeding along there, just shunting.
PD: You could hear them because they were steam trains.
PR: Now what's this game you played?
MM: It was hiding -seek - we'd start of from there and one person would stay and the rest would go off in different directions.
PR: You'd start at the cross-roads.
MM: Yes, there was a lamp there but you couldn't go out of the island, You couldn't go on the railway lines or down the river or over the bridges or anything. And the idea was that somebody'd look for you and you'd try and get back before they found you. But you couldn't go off the Island. Where these new houses are now - that was the foundry there used to be a galvanized hut- thing- it'd got no front to it. And we used to go up and climb up inside there and hide. But you had to try and get back before you were caught.
PD: We used to go out in pairs or 3 and somebody would come down Frampton Street and somebody would come down the other streets and we used to go and rattle all the dust bins or we could knock- a-door and run away.
PR: Did you pick your victims carefully?
PD: No we didn’t!
PR: Anyone would do!
PD: That was very funny 'cos we really used to run.
PR: Did you use the rivers at all?
PD: Swimming in the river.
MM: Not the barge river. You wouldn't find any kids from the Folly falling in the barge river.
PD: None of us fell in this river because you' re brought up with the rivers. If you're brought up with the rivers you've got no fear of them. When we was quite small, Mum and Dad used to swim and we was at 17 & we used to go there and where the bridge was - -
MM: The waterfall bridge.
PR: The foot bridge on the way to - - You could alter the - -
PD: And we used to swim that side - not the side - -
PR: -that's holding the water back - -
PD: Yes we did ---we used to swim that side rather than this side
PR: Where it was more still.
PD: Yes we used to go there Sunday mornings.
PR: Was that your family's particular thing?
PD: A lot swam- you know when you go under the bridge into Hartham - - there used to be a nice little stream there, Well when we were small we used to paddle in there and go with our fishing nets and so did most of the children but there always used to be one Mum watching. On the other side, the bigger river there was a dam thing and we used to swim there.
PR: So you started off at the Paper Mill Ditch .
PD: Well that was the little river to us, and the other one was the waterfall river.
PR: Which was the old River Lea proper. And you wound these gates up, the sluices which let in a bit more water. (Photograph shown) the wide waters.
PD: We used to go down there but not for swimming.
MM: Here's the little river, under the railway bridge and the waterfall river was there and that's the railway line.
PR: There's more water in the Paper Mill Ditch one than I remember And the trucks on the railway line. It was very broad and shallow - at least under the bridge the first bit, I can't remember further down.
PD: We used to swim over there.
PR: That side, yes, upstream.
MM: There's the little river.
PR: lsn' t that a lovely picture.
MM: Yes that was near the top here --that' s us.
PR: What have you got on your heads then?
PD: My mother always used to make us wear something on our heads when it was sunny.
PR: You look as though you're a real conversation piece. I ought to line you up today and repeat it.
PD: But we had lots of fun and when we got a bit bigger our mothers used to let us go to Hartham on our own with jam jars and string to catch tiddlers and things. Hartham was used a lot by the Folly children and…
PD: The Warren because because we were able to go out them times and not have any fear of attack.
PR: Well, that was everybody's world really, where ever you lived you used what was there. Hornsmill, the gravel pits at the back of Bengeo, or, for us it would be up Panshanger and for you, you'd got the water and the park.
PD: Yes and we used to walk up to St. Leonard's Church because there was a big slope, so when it was snowy we used to slide down there on bits of tin.
MM: Used to slide down from the top of the Warren on bits of tin! When the War started we were still at Cowbridge, well the Jewish Orphanage came down and took that over so we had to share Port Vale with the senior girls. Well they shared Longmore with the boys, then Longmore got bombed. We only went to school half days, afternoons one week and mornings the next. I was at senior school when we were doing that ' cos we used to wander round Hertford because we used to go up to Port Vale for Domestic Science, up St Andrew's Street for history. When the sirens used to go Miss Bradby used to take us into the playground down these little steps to the dugout, but we wouldn't have been in there 5 minutes before my mother would come and there'd be all the Folly kids in a crocodile following my Mum home while there was an air raid on.
PD: Through Hartham she used to fetch because my Mum and Dad always had this saying that if we are going to die we'll all die together. When my Dad came home on leave my Mum and Dad slept at the top of the bed because my dad wouldn't get down under anything and Molly and I used to sleep at the end of the bed.
PR; Must have mucked things up for them.
MM: Miss Bradby used to tell us lovely stories about the Wishing Tree and the Wishing Chair but we could never listen to it because Mum used to come and fetch us
PR: So the teachers were happy to let the …
PD: Yes, because that was a little bit less responsibility for them
PR: So Doris Stocks was your teacher, did she wear those half glasses?
MM: Miss Kiddill.
PR: Oh very upright.
PD: She was very upright and she used to keep you in order but she was a lovely lady.
MM: Miss Stocks used to stand in front of the fire with her skirt bunched up because we had open fires in those days.
PR: They all lived on a long time.
PD: Oh yes, and they worked hard. Everybody worked hard in the war but working hard seemed to give them longer life. Mum was near enough ninety when she died. She had a hard life because when she was about 13 she went into service. There was a big house in Fore Street, I forget what the people's name was but she used to get up about 2 o'clock in the morning and yet she lived 'til she was nearly 90 and she was a busy little person all her life.
PR: Where was she living at the very end of her life?
PD: At the very end she was at the Wall House but she was only there about 2 years and she lived in Frampton Street, the second one in Frampton Street up that end, there’s four, next door but one to Daphne, Camp. She was there until about two years before she died and then both of us had to work, we'd got children to look after and no husbands, so Molly used to work part- time at one time, so she was able to give her her dinner and I used to come down at night but it got too much for both of us in the end, and she got very cantankerous and I had to wash her hair because she wouldn't let Molly do it and she got a stick and hit me with it once. She had always been strict but she was a family Mum -- she was always there for you - - when we had our children - -
MM: She looked after them for us.
PD: And especially when we were on our own - she helped us both out, but she was a very strict lady. She was still going up shopping at 85 with her little trolley to Waitrose.
MM: Then she had to go into hospital because her legs were bad and I don't know what they gave her but when she came out her rnind had completely gone.
PD: She loved reading and she read autobiographies right up, then when she came out -- I feel in hospital, where they put the older people they give them stuff to keep them quiet, then when they come out - -I mean she had just blown her mind.
MM: The Doctor gave her a couple of pills before she went in and said "She shouldn't be on those all the time_" When she came out we discovered they had been giving her them. And she said "I'm afraid that's - - -
PD: And that was Dr Anderson. Where I moved to was a little village between Chelmsford and Colchester. My daughter lives down there and she said you’re all on your own, mum, come and live down here. I waited and I got a swap down there and I was talking to a lady at a coffee morning and she said where are you from, I said Hertford, and she said my husband comes from Hertford, he lived at Foxholes and he went to Cowper School!
MM: My husband went to Cowper School - he came from Gallows Hill, Page Road. He was a baker - do you remember Wren's the Bakery?
PR: How did you meet?
MM: He played darts with my Dad and my Mum used to play darts and I went one night and met him and I went to one of my Aunt's wedding and he used to work with him at Wrens the bakers. He used to work at Bridens of Port Vale and then he went to Wrens. He went on the busses for a little while before he worked for Ernie Wren.
PR: Did he like Folly Island - was this for him?
MM: Oh yes.
PR: He wasn't hankering to pull you up to - -
MM: Oh no, and that’s like my daughter - her husband comes from Welwyn Garden City but he always wanted to come down here. They got a place at Sele Farm -but as soon as they could get down here - the house is smaller down here than Sele Farm but Paul wanted to come down here. He loves the Folly.
PR: What's their name?
MM: Jackson - they live nearly opposite me -Tracy was born in No.15. So she's lived down here practically all her life as well & they lived at No. 9 and No 7 was where Mrs. Chesher and her family.
PD; And two of her daughters have come back and the first thing they wanted to see was the Folly and one of them came and looked at the house where they used to live and the lady came out because it’s one that’s been bought and told her off and she said “I’m sorry but I used to live here” and they was 5 children and Mum and Dad all in that little house and it upset her a bit really.
MM: Then when Lilly came she went in my Dad's house 'cos it's the same.
PD: The first thing she wanted to see was the Folly, then Hartham, then the Castle Grounds - all the things that she remembers. They went on this £10 thing to Australia and I haven't seen her for 47 years and when - - - - - - - -went over to see her and that gave her courage to come over here and she's been since and she was thinking about coming again this year but she won't now 'cos of the war and when the bomb went off at Bali (its part of Australia, really) She said it brought it all back to her. (Memories of a photo taken at No 7 during the war)
PR: I remember a tall dark lady with a child.
PD: That might have been Sylvia Wheeler -she took over Chesher's house.
PR: Just looking at that picture - those little fences were everywhere. The door - a solid door but the panels were painted - would the landlords have done that?
PD: No, our Dads would. We used to have concerts at the back of the Barge during the war and all the children used to sing songs and do dances and everybody used to give a little bit and we used to buy cigarettes and send them to men from the Folly, in the army.
(looking at photos)
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