Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Davis, Roy & Maureen (O2010.1) |
| Interviewee | Roy Davis (RD) and Maureen Davis (MD) |
| Interviewer | Peter Ruffles (PR), David Hunt (DH) |
| Date | 16/07/2010 |
| Transcriber by | Susie Hunt |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O2010.1
Interviewee: Roy Davis (RD) and Maureen Davis (MD)
Date: 16th July 2010
Venue: Dunkirksbury Farm, off Mangrove Road, Hertford
Interviewer: Peter Ruffles (PR) and David Hunt (DH)
Transcriber: Susie Hunt
Typed by: Susie Hunt
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
[Discussion]
PR: Since we are already rolling we can pour our milk and that sort of thing as we go along. Maureen's just provided us with a lovely tray of beverage and she is joining us in the wonderfully light and wide room of your fairly new home?
MD: It's really getting towards 15 years. Roy always says we've only been here a few years but it's surprising how long it's been!
PR: Well, we need probably to go back and organise our tape and take you in order a bit because someone's at some point got to transcribe what we say so there is a written record. I've brought some forms one each for you to sign to say what you are happy for us to do with the recording in the future and the point really is that in 50 years’ time to provide people with a little bit of a reference to how life has been for Hertford people in this ....
RD: Everyone reckons I'm going to live forever!
PR: Well, yes (laughter) So can we start with you Roy and just talk about quickly about your earliest years and then we'll move on to later things and then we'll perhaps go on to Maureen's earliest years and I'll turn the mic round for her. Is that a sensible idea, David?
DH: Yes, I should think so.
PR: So, you were born in Hertford, weren't you?
RD: My parents used to live next-door-but-one to the White Horse in Castle Street, Hertford. My granny kept that pub for 30 years.
PR: Is that 37 or 39 Castle Street?
RD: It's not absolutely next door but it's the next one.
PR: 39 I should think probably. Because the pub may go in the next 50 years and people will say well where was the White Horse but the number remains.
RD: I had an older sister and brother. They lived in that little cottage there and then I was born in Hertford County Hospital and then when I came out of there my parents had managed to get a council house, the first one in Homs Mill by the bus stop, so that's where we transferred to when I came out of hospital.
PR: Was that on Homs Mill Road near the off licence?
RD: Right opposite. Do you remember the old cottages where the shop is, well it's the first council house right opposite the bus stop
PR: Next to Hillside
RD: That's it. That's where we went to live and I was there until I got married, quite a long time but my granny she kept the White Horse Pub all during the war. When the war finished she decided to get out and she moved up to Bullocks Lane, 26. but she was offered to buy the house, 26 Bullocks Lane at £110, and although she was quite wealthy she said that was ridiculous, so she rented it with another old fellow who had lodged with her for years and so they rented it.
PR: What was her name? Was it Davis?
RD: Davis, yes.
PR: Was she a Hertford person all her life, do you think?
RD: No, I don’t think Granny was. I'm pretty sure her husband was. He was a wood merchant and haulage. Horse and Carts. I remember from my early days delivering stuff on a Saturday morning in the carts with the horses up to Bayfordbury to their stables. I remember delivering oats and things like that in the cart. A mornings work from the yard up to Bayfordbury and back, Saturday morning. So.. there are some photographs there of the old carts.
PR: We'll have a look a little bit later and our listeners can't see them but they may be useful props and we might see if we can make copies.
RD: Of course, yes
PR: You'll get a file, or a folder you'd call it in the museum, so anything that comes with the tape or any newsy bit that may come through Rotary or something like that gets slipped into your folder so that people can hear your voice and also see a little bit about what has happened. So then, living there until you married. But you went to school...
RD: Cowpers school. Actually I went to All Saints, Abel Smith and graduated to Cowper College as I call it (laughter)
PR: Where was that?
RD: Cowper school.
PR: Where was it?
RD: Just down the road here still part of the old wall there, flints in I, school demolished.
PR: Mangrove.. we must come on to which is Mangrove Lane and which is Mangrove Road in a moment, but its where Mangrove Road meets London Road, but where was All Saints school?
RD: Where it is now?
MD: Yes, you're right.
RD: Next to Longmores -All Saints.
PR: And was that for infants or..?
RD: Yes, your first school and then you graduated up to Abel Smith school which was a bit up the Church fields and then finished up at er Cowper School. Mr Stalley was headmaster in those days.
PR: So it was mixed infants, mixed Abel Smith, boys only at Cowper and Mr Stalley. Good years?
RD: I didn't enjoy school at all not one day, that's why I'm a bit of an idiot now, don't know anything, but actually in the bureau there I've still got my school report written by Mr Stalley - daren't show you it! (laughter). Thing was I was always very interested in carpentry and doing things and er Mr Stalley got to hear of this and whenever a window was broken at school he'd come into the classroom and you know quietly...he knew I didn't enjoy school and used to come in and he'd say there's a broken window in class so and so, would you go down to Mr Turner 97 Fore Street, get a piece of glass and put it in for me. So of course I used to get the job of putting windows in at school which I made last as long as I could of course (laughs). But I did that lots of times!
PR: Turners was near the er ironmongers and er....
RD: Munnings where Munnings was in Fore Street.. Nice chap, old chap Mr Turner and he'd cut the glass for me. I had to measure it and cut the glass there, put it back in, new putty and all that, and I'd fiddle with locks if anything went wrong with a lock or something like that came a bit loose I'd fiddle about with that sort of thing, which I thoroughly enjoyed - better than schooling!
PR: So they were nice with you as it were, as far as relationships were ...
RD: Mrs Johnson was one of the teachers there in those days and then Mrs Green and of course Len Green he taught me.
PR: Was Mrs Green Len Green's wife for a short time?
RD: Yes. They divorced didn't they?
PR: Yes, Quite, fairly brief marriage. Len Green was a Hertford historian and school master at Cowper School.
RD: He was very keen on dramatics and he tried to get me to go in one of the school plays once which was all right I suppose, if you like that sort of thing but it wasn't really my scene, but er...
PR: How would you have performed a school play because there's not a lot of room at the Cooper school.
MD: We used to go to St John's hall.
PR: Ah yes
RD: I think it was. I was coloured up like some man who'd been out in the sun too long! (laughter) Yeah, only in one thing. They tried to encourage me but it wasn't my scene at all not on the stage.
PR: Yes. I think I'll move the mic to face the other way so we can get Maureen and we'll come up to about the same point with Maureen when and where you began and...
MD: Fair enough! When I was born my parents lived in Horns Close which was just at the back of the row where Roy llived. I was there until I was two. When I was two my grandfather died and my mother had a young brother and young sister that she had to look after and their house had four bedrooms, ours only had two so she moved into her father's old house which was down Hartham Lane. That was No 5 Hartham Lane right on the end next to the railway line.
PR: Yes
MD: Yes. We moved down there. Of course her sister and brother grew up and got married and we stayed there. During the war of course my father was in the forces and two of my mother's sisters came and lived with us and they had one child each. So there was, my sister is 14 months older than I am and there was me. Doreen, Hilda's daughter was older than Dorothy a bit and Malcolm, Aunty Con's son was the younger, so there was four of us in the house with three ladies and my two aunts worked on the buses. They were clippies on the buses during the war. What I remember most about that time was the bridge built from The Folly across to Hartham Lane in case bombs fell on Mill Bridge so that there was still a way they could go through and the forces did that. I can remember them doing that. A bailey bridge yes across the river.
PR: So was there nothing there at all?
MD: Yes, there was a little bridge that you walked round. A little bridge about this wide. Just to walk through.
PR: More or less over the sluice...
MD: Right where the sluice was, Yes, the sluice was just beside the bridge. We used to stand there and watch all the water come down, you know.
PR: It was quite a big ....number 5 was bigger than other houses, wasn't it?
MD: It was a double house. The bottom two rooms. The ground floor two rooms put it that way, next to the railway, weren't used. They were used as a coal shed and storage and that sort of thing. All four bedrooms were used. They used to park trucks outside my window when I was getting to the courting age. I could climb out my bedroom window on a truck with no one knowing! (laughter) which was quite intriguing!
PR: The main tracks were ahead of you looking.....
MD: The main tracks were in front of the house and there was this siding went down up to McMullens, yes to take the coal up to McMullens. Yes, that's right, yeah.
PR: So it took fuel in...I never quite knew whether Mac's were transporting stuff out...
MD: No. trucks all went out empty and they all went in with coal. What they used the coal for I can't tell you, but they were often parked under my bedroom window and there was gates at the end of that that kept you know so that with the water works just the other side of that where it used to come down from town and they used to take a little drop off that worked the water works and went through into the little river.
PR: The paper mill ditch
MD: Yeah, I can't remember what they called it.
PR: You had two pubs your side of...
MD: No there was only ah, what did they call the pub Roy?
PR: The Unicom and then two or three doors up there was a Red Lion, where.....
MD: I think that was converted into a house.
PR: It was, yes, where what was his name, worked in McMullens seed shop lived.
MD: Can't remember that one I'm afraid.
PR: But there were two, yes, there were two your side and then the other side was...
MD: The Barge, yes.
PR: And did you go under the cattle creep to Hartham opposite your house? That little low bridge to
MD: No, not always, we used to run across the railway lines mostly (laughter) yeah, yeah. That was our playground when we were children you see I mean we spent a lot of time there. We learnt to swim in the river. I dread to think how unhygienic it was. We swum in the river, yes.
PR: I suppose we'd better keep you in parallel a little bit. Um, on school....
MD: School. Yes, I started school in Dimsdale Street and then they took that school over for the Jew children and we did half days up Port Vale with the senior school. I'd have been about 6 then I suppose something like that. And we only did half a day. We used to go up there during the school holiday for our school milk that third of a pint of milk and in your school holidays you always went up to get your milk. I was there of course until I was 11 and then I went to Longmores, which of course was in the churchyard which was lovely because if you come out of school late in the afternoon the boys were all waiting behind the tombstones (laughter). Nothing's changed! But that was my schooling yeah.
PR: Well I think you're parallel with each other again, as it were, so Roy what happened after you'd left school?
RD: Perhaps I ought to just tell you that my years at Cowper school, the poultry market was just down the road. Hertford Poultry Market and every Monday as soon as the bell went we were out of school and I was going to the poultry market to see what was happening down there. Quite often I bought a few chickens or something or another and had to race home before school started again. Usually two or three old hens or on one occasion I bought a goat. Took a long while and by the time I'd walked that home and got back to school, several times I was late back and had to stand in the corner for half an hour, because Mr Green knew where I’d been and you know. I think really and of course at that time too erm just before leaving school I became interested in farming over here at Dunkirks. Used to go there every minute after school, Saturday mornings and what not. I suppose that's where I got the bug for farming really, and livestock and things like that, you know.
PR: So at that time the poultry market was in London Road?
RD: Next to the Plough.
PR: Next to The Plough, opposite your school? So it was very handy for er your lunchtime....
RD: Trouble was I hadn't got much money and of course I had to spread it very thinly to get a few chickens, yes. Perhaps take them back again next week. Hopefully make a shilling. Sometimes, sell them to someone on the estate at home, who wanted something to lay a few eggs and another time I had a few ducks, all sorts of things, you know! Bit ridiculous really but I got the bug. My mother used to work in Mence Smiths at that time as manager during the war and she always said she never knew what she was going to find when she got home. But there we are, it's all rubbish really, isn't it (laughs).
PR: No, no its marvellous! Another world, which is what people are .... no no absolutely not. So your link with Dunkirks Farm? This is Dunkirksbury Farm and Dunkirks? Let’s explain and give people the geography of how you became linked there and where it is.
RD: Well, before I left school, Cooper School, I only just lived down at Homs Mill, which is only a stones throw up Bullocks Lane. Used to bike up there. Used to puff and blow, of course by the time I got to the top I couldn't get to the farm quick enough. Each afternoon I had to go home from school and change. That was my instruction. I must change before I go to that farm, you know. I used to go up there after school and Saturdays. Hardly ever on a Sunday, unless it was harvest time, and do all the boys jobs. Clean the pigs out and do this and do that. I've been over all these fields with a bagging hook cutting all the thistles off and hours and hours and hours...no sprays in those days of course, no, keeping it tidy. And then when I left school I started working for the Neal family.
PR: So the farmer was Mr Harry Neal.
RD: And his son was Wilfred Neal.
PR: So they then took you on?
RD: Took me on, yes when I left school. Sadly, I had to do the extra year at school That was when it was changed from 14 to 15 leaving age and that was a bitter pill that was!. Another thing I remember was while I was at school, we had a dreadfully wet harvest and those days we were talking about binders and sheaves and things like that- not combines! I must have been of some use to the Neal family because Mr Neal wrote to Mr Stalley to see if I could have an extended holiday in the summer to help get the harvest in. So I had an extra two weeks, which was jolly good.
PR: Yes, yes.
RD: Then I started working for them. Got a rough Idea of farming but of course Mr Neal was quite old and they weren't very forward-looking farmers. Lots of the old implements they'd got were horse drawn converted to put on a tractor, you know take the shafts off and put a draw bar on and put it behind the tractor, and er I remember cutting the field, the home field there for hay. I had to sit on the mower to work the lever which the horseman used to do to lift it at the comers to tum and Wilfred Neal drove the tractor! It was training I suppose wasn't it. I stayed there with the Neals - I don't know, two or three years until I was about 17 I think, so it'd be two years and then I was offered a job with Mr Broad at Bayfordbury Park Farm. He was the man that owned Waterhall Farm dairy if you remember. They used to be big milk people in Hertford.
PR: Had a shop in the er Parliament Square, next to Botsfords.
RD: Is that working all right?
PR: Yes, yes
RD: Load of rubbish really isn't it (laughter). So I think Mr Broad came to see me, or sent someone to see me didn't he, or did I decide I ought to move on?
MD: I can't remember.
RD: No I think at that point I decided I ought to move on if I was going to be reasonably successful, I'd got to go somewhere a bit more modem. They were nice people, The Neals, I liked them and they were kind to me but I felt I was never going to learn too much with old machines and old things like that, and so to cut a long story short I got a job with Mr Broad who was running a milk business but he was one of the executors of Mr C F Retallick who had died, who was the prior tenant and I went there and Mr Broad, after a year or two, sold the milk business and came back to the farm and er ran the whole farm as a tenant, you know, he got the tenancy from the executors of C F Retallick and started farming on his own account. That was very enjoyable really. I learned a lot there. Erm. he got me out of the army because I should have been called up you see.
PR: I was going to ask ...
RD: But that was the time they were looking for farm workers to keep the food production and all this you know, and he was clever enough to send a letter to the Ministry to say that I was essential on the farm, so I didn't have to go in the forces (laughs) which was good news to me!
PR: Which year was that? Can you remember?
RD: I left school in '48 I was at Neals for two years so I could work it out. I was born in '33.
DH: Same as me!
RD: When I was 17, only a boy really. I only look a boy! Erm (laughter) So [discussion] (much laughter). Anyway, erm where did I get to? Oh yes down at Mr Broad’s. And then I had two or three happy years there and then I wanted to get married. In those days a lot of the farm cottages didn't have flush toilets and things like that. No electricity and the cottages that Mr Broad had were in the brick fields and they were old farm cottages with a toilet up the garden, paraffin lamp, nothing, you know and I thought well if I'm going to get married I don't want to start off in that situation otherwise I'll never move and quite out of the blue, it's extraordinary how things happen, A Mr Abel Smith, Jocelyn Abel Smith who was related to the Abel Smith family at Watton at Stone erm was living in Addis's house in the Fobury He was renting that and he'd bought a place at Letty Green, Orchard House with a small farm attached to it and quite out of the blue he sent his gardener to see me one day, during the time I was working for Mr Broad, and said he'd like to see me. So I thought crickey, I don't know, what's this, you know, old peasant sort of boy being want to be seen by Mr Abel Smith.
Anyway I went to see him on a Sunday morning. He said erm thank you for coming to see me. Very nice chap he was. He was a stockbroker, London and er he said I've just bought a little place at Letty Green and I'm looking for someone to manage it for me, run it, I don't know anything about it but - it was the days of hobby farms, you know when they could offset the profits from one business against the other - he offered me the job. So I thought well, so reluctant!y I had to tell Mr Broad that I wanted to leave him, which he was excellent about really. He could see I wanted to, you know, move on a bit. We were always great friends for ever after. We didn't fall out over it. Anyway I went to work to Mr Abel Smith, which was a nice little number really but not enough work for me. When there wasn't enough doing on the farm, rather than sitting around I'd help the gardener. You know, in the gardens there and that. Erm but that was ok. That was in '54. We married in February '55. 55 years I've had of this sentence! (much laughter) We married in '55 and we lived in a nice cottage.
MD: Nice cottage.
RD: After a couple of years he was obviously doing quite well in his business he decided to have a chauffeur. And so he said, he talked it all over with me, as if I was his son! He said if I was to build a new bungalow, Roy, would you like to move in to it and I can get a chauffeur in your place. So that's exactly what he did. He didn't even go and look himself, did he?
MD: No.
RD: Burgess & Sons from, Bayford, were the builders, Bill Burgess and Mr Abel Smith fixed up for him to pick me up one Saturday morning take us - both of us - to Wormley where he'd built a pair of bungalows to look at them to see if we'd like to live in one of those. So, that's what he did. He built us one identical to those at Wormley West End. And er, we were very happy there, weren't we? Very happy. My two children were born there er but sadly in 1966 Mr Abel Smith went to bed one Saturday night and died. Just like that, at 59. Of course Mrs Abel Smith who really wasn't interested in the farm at all. She couldn't see any sense in spending money on that when she ought to have it spent on her daffodils (laughter) She came to me on the Monday morning and said that she'd decided she wouldn’t want to go on with the farm and gave me three months to find somewhere else, which is a bit of a blow when you've got two young children, you know.
MD: Just taken over the tenancy.
RD: Yes, I'm just coming to that. Shortly before Mr Abel Smith died, only about 6 or 7 weeks, the tenancy of the farm next door, its only over the hedge from Letty Green, the farm there the tenant had died who was the Master of the Hunt and I said to Mr Abel Smith one Saturday morning when I was talking to him, next door's coming up. He said well, could you manage it Roy? I said, well I should think so, it's only just over 100 acres. He said what can we do then so I said I'll make a few enquiries. I saw Mr Broad who I'd worked for who was also a tenant of the Wallace family. It belonged to Wallaces in those days not Medlands, and er he rang up and we got it. Mr Abel Smith had got it. I was so fortunate because he'd had, bearing in mind he only lived 6 weeks after he'd got it, his man, Mr Redman, I'm sure you remember from Letty Green who was senior manager********. He negotiated a very good agreement Mr Abel Smith did, which erm helped me a lot when I started. Erm, and so er, when Mr Abel Smith died I didn't know what to do, to be honest. I went and saw Mr Broad who I had a nice relationship with and said what can I do now. I hadn't got any money, cos I'd got two young kids and I'd only been a working man, you know. He said, why don't you have ago on your own? I said I haven't got any money. You don't want any money, he said, you come and borrow anything you want, he said.. Just come and borrow it, he said, don't you get in a lot of debt and he really lectured me like a father! Don't get in a lot of debt, you come and borrow it.
And he loaned us everything we wanted, didn't he? In that first year or two. Oh, I missed a bit out there didn't I. When I went and saw Mr Broad he said - I said I haven't got any money so he said well don't worry about that he said but borrow anything you like. This was on a Sunday morning and he was having his breakfast when I went and saw him. He said I'll just go and speak to Harry Hoy, he was the agent for Mr Wallace and honestly he went to the telephone and he said to Harry Hoy you’ll never guess what's happened, and he said now what? A proper Jack Blunt this Harry Hoy, he said now what's happened? He said Mr Abel Smith's died in the night Ooh bugger, he said! So Mr Broad said to him so what're you going to do with that place now, then? I don't know, he said. Well why don’t you let Roy have it? Could he pay rent? He said of course he could pay the rent, you know, that's how it's done isn't it! (laughter) I hadn't got two ha'pence for a penny really (more laughter) So, er he said I'll speak to Mr Wallace, he said and we'll see where we go. I think it'll be all right. So at lunch time on the Monday he rang back to me - I'd only met him once when he'd shown me round Hall Court Farm, Mr Wallace said that'll be perfectly all right you can take on the same agreement, and go from there. He came back and saw me and said the rent'll be £3.8s.0d which was what Abel Smith had agreed. But after a year it'll be £5 because it was in a dreadful state. It had been ranched with horses for years and ragwort was this high, in a terrible state. I could only go one way, couldn't I. Couldn't get any worse. So er that's where we started really.
MD: That's when we cashed everything in.
RD: To get enough money to give us a start I sold my car and I cashed in my life insurance policy, to get enough money. I had 500 quid that's what I raised to give us a start. The rent was £300. (laughter).
DH: And we're already in the '60s!
PR: So, we left Maureen at school and then perhaps we can move up in parallel because the arm (phone rings loudly)
MD: Take that Amy please! [discussion] In my last year at school, in the summer holidays before I did the last year, I went and worked at Addis's in the factory. My father worked at Addis's. My sister worked at Addis's and I went and worked during that last year and when I finished school I went and worked at Addis's arm started off in the packing but then I went on to a filling machine which was one of the jobs down at Addis's where you earned the money on a commission basis. I think your wage when you started there was about 29/ - a week. Going back a bit isn't it! But going on to the commission basis once you'd learned to work a machine and you got on with it you were earning about £8 a week. which in those days was very good? I was earning more than Roy was when we first met up. I was introduced to Roy outside Hilton's shoe shop
PR: In Maidenhead Street!
MD: (laughs) One evening I was out with a friend, he was out with a group of boys and we were introduced. I can't really remember the early days of how we carried on from there but it wasn't long before we were going out together. When I took him home my parents said Oh I know his parents, we used to live near them so our parents already knew one another. We'd never met but our parents knew one another which was quite intriguing really. As Roy said we got married in [19] '55.
RD: ’54.
MD: No we got married in '55.
RD: Just seems like it!
MD: Erma, in February '55 it was all the ex and as he said we moved out to Letty Green. We were there till Ian was born in '66. Ian was weeks old when Roy's boss died. I'd got an older daughter. Sandra was three and a half arm and everything went up in the air then. It was a what do we do from here type thing. He decided he would take the farm on. As he said everything was cashed in. I lost my car. I finished up with a gritty old van (laughter). We hadn't had the car long. It was a new one wasn't it. First time we'd ever had a new car. Wolsley 1500. It was a nice little car and from then everything went downhill, obviously.
PR: Can we just sit back a moment to Addis's and how it was for people. I mean you've given us that essential detail but were people happy there or....
MD: If you worked in the packing shop or anywhere like that it was deathly quiet No one spoke. You would talk to the person next to you, but very very quietly but if anyone came in everything stopped and you worked. When you moved in to the filling shop it was noisy. The belts on the machinery going, the machinery itself going. The machines were in blocks of 10. Five each side facing one another, so you called across to your mates and you know. Surprisingly if Mrs Addis senior came in the door the word was round before she'd hardly shut the door. And everyone got on with their work because you didn't talk. Having said that, (sigh) in the filling shop it was a happy shop. It was, this was where you put the bristles in the handles. It was a much easier atmosphere in there. Erm, you'd got the men that were the mechanics so of course you reacted with those as well and you all pulled one another's legs which you didn't do if you were in one of the quiet shops, you see, and it was very different. Of course you all got a Christmas bonus at Addis's. The best we ever done was 6 weeks’ wages. Well, you know in those days if you got 6 weeks wages as a Christmas bonus it was gorgeous, you know!
PR: Boom time wasn't it!
MD: Four weeks some years, 6 weeks some years, depended on how well they's done but we all got a bonus from it. Everyone wanted to work at Addis's. It was incredible really. Before I finished working there I was teaching the new girls coming in to learn. I was the teacher. So I got into a nice smart overall and just walked round, instead of actually getting....
PR: Did the Addis family know you as people, would you say, as their employees?
MD: No generally. No. My father worked at Addis's and he was a security officer and he was known by the family. Erm, because he was a one off, but the people in the workshop, they just couldn't, there was too many of us. I suppose that there were about 800 of us working in there and old Mrs Addis as we used to call her and we always called him Bertie, Robert Addis was always referred to as Bertie. They just used to walk in walk through and walk out you know, didn't react with any of us at all . It was a...
PR: What was the purpose of their visit, just to make ....
MD: Check on everything I think really. I mean I see Mrs Addis stop and pick up a piece of coke in the yard and walk lord knows how far to put it on the coke heap. They were very careful but generous with their wages. We did extremely well.
PR: That's very useful. Just people come into the museum to hear about specific things sometimes, the County hospital or Addis's would be one of those institutions, so where we get a chance to get a picture...
MD: They did a thing in the museum about Addis's a while ago, didn't they? Well my father was in on that. My sister's got all the information from that.
PR: Yes, they've got the worlds finest collection of toothbrushes at Hertford Museum. (Laughter)
MD: When my father first started work he was what they called a fashioner. At 14 he went to work and they used to make the toothbrush handles out of blocks of celuloid with a file, they used to file it all. They hand made every brush until plastics came in. Then they were all moulded handles. Intriguing!
PR: Yes. And things other than toothbrushes were they in in your day or after?
MD: Toothbrushes were the main ones. Hairbrushes, nail brushes, that sort of thing but then they started doing the homeware, the bowls and buckets and all that sort of thing, you know. They did all that while we were there. More after I left than while I was there. But erm all sorts of stuff they did.
PR: Any er, colleagues that had a reputation, that would be of interest? (laughter) Working in the newsagents at father's we used to see people coming in on their bikes, cycling in to Addis's to work every day, pick up their paper on the way, they would go to any one of the newsagents that you had your own. Sid Castle was one of those Warren Terrace you know that I ...was a character for us but I don't know what he did when he got to Addis. Were there...
MD: Definitely all sorts of characters! Unrepeatable some of the things old Con Franklin used to say. Well she lived in Ware and she was in the filling shop with us but she was a sort of mother figure because she was considerably older than the rest of us. She'd got a son our age. Some of the things she came out with were unbelievable. Talk about finish off your education, that's where it happened (laughter).
PR: Perfectly natural and er normal in places of work.
MD: All sorts, yes!
PR: And blokes? Any relationship with the girl staff, was that ...
MD: Some of them were courting. Bill Wyden and his wife picked up in the filling shop. He was erm a mechanic and she was a filler. Most of the men in our shop were already married which made things easier for them because the girls really were.....you get a group of ladies together they can outdo the men any time. They really can, they're unbelievable! When they set to at Christmas time, you know, the poor men's lives weren't worth living. You know, they had a hell of a game with them. And the other thing was erm Reg Cook always ran a sweepstake. We all put, I don't know what it was, a bob a week or whatever it was in whatever football team you got, you know it just came out of a hat, yeah, so each week someone won a certain amount, you know. Erm, but it was only in our what they called 'shop' that it worked like that. They were all different. And when your machine broke down if they hadn't got a spare machine for you to go to they sent you off somewhere else. One of the jobs you did was knocking up bristle. They used to do bristle brushes. All came in and it all got to be sorted out, got level and you know. We used to hate being sent down to do that. They were such a toffee nosed lot down there we didn't like that at all.
PR: The other day around town, a group took ourselves on a tour. You were talking knowledgeably about some streets off Ware Road opposite Addis's, Townsend Street and that sort of thing. Did you know that patch particularly well, I mean was it just part of your wider world.....
MD: No, well, it was the wider world to us, you know, erm at one time I courted a bloke up on um, Page Road, I think it was, so you tended to get about a bit like that, you know but generally speaking you didn't go that far away. The one thing we did do as children when we all got together in a group in school holidays we would walk to Hertford almost up to Cole Green take a sandwich with us and there are nut trees along there and we used to get caught in there an told off (laughs) which was Panshanger, in the back there, you got about like that as children, you know. My playground really was Hartham, Bengeo, you know which is just a stones throw away. Yeah.
PR: People don't with modern transport and you used your feet and…
MD: No one had a car in our days.
DH: This was wartime?
MD: After the war, yes.
PR: So, have we got...
MD: More or less level again, yes
PR: More or less level again. Come back to the Roy direction!
RD: More rubbish...
PR: You always say that but.... [discussion]
RD: Starting on my own. In '66 at Holwell Court. It was 120 acre farm in those days thoroughly neglected when I got it. It had been the home for the Enfield Chase Hunt. They'd been there. Chap named Tim Muxsworthy, big red-faced fellow, he was the huntsman and they just ranched the farm with horses, really. The hedges were – phew – many yards wide and hadn’t been touched for years and the fields were full of ragwort and everything else, you know. But I felt lucky enough to get the place and set about licking it into shape. I was lucky enough to talk to Frank Vigus one day, who used to farm at Hertingfordbury and he said you ought to – no, it wan’t Frank Vigus it was Mr Broad – he said you ought to get one of the ministry chaps out to look round the place with you because for a first generation farmer there are some grants available to give you a start, help you get away.
This was in the days of the old war aid. So of course an old fellow, named Albert Game who was a wonderful advisor he came and looked round with me and scratched his head a bit and said well what do you want to do? No use me advising you to do something you’re not going to en joy. We had a talk about it and in the end he said you ought to have some sheep. Buy some old sheep. I don’t know anything about sheep, I said. He said they’ll teach you, if you buy old ones they’ll teach you how to lamb and all that sort of nonsense, you know. So I went to Banbury, I believe he came with me now, and we bought about – I’ll tell you exactly, its in the book there – about 40 old ewes which are ewes that really ought to be put in the pot but they were old and broken mares, no teeth much and that, you know. Had lots of lambs and they were cheap. They were £2.50 each, those. Good ones would have been about £6 or £7 quid so I bought some of those, took them home, bought a black faced ram. Forget when we bought him. Put him with them and of course we started producing these lambs.
They were ok but the idea being that they would kill the ragwort because there weren’t any sprays in those days. Sheep are one of the few animals that can eat ragwort and kill it off and it wont harm them. So we put them in and they eat the heart right out of the Ragwort and they cleaned the farm up like that. So we did it. We decided we ought to have some chickens so we got some chickens and got eggs and I delivered around Sele Farm and various places and you know just to get enough money to keep the house ticking. Think at that stage we lived on chips and eggs, cracked eggs we couldn’t sell and so we survived, we’re still here and er, we started ploughing it up with the help of Mr Broad’s machines and that and we grew a bit of com after three or four years.
We got some week old calves. Mr Broad. We had six in the first year didn’t we? Fresian bull calves which being a milk producer, his cows he wanted to keep as replacements females. Male calves were all surplus you know and he used to sell them off and so helped us a lot and pay me when you can attitude, which was jolly useful, so we had half a dozen in the first year and we ran them on using the waste from the cereals the seconds and all that sort of stuff, hay and that, and er I remember the first two we sold we took them to Hertford market and they came to l00 quid each. When I got the cheque from Norris and Duval I thought I was a millionaire! (laughter) 100 quid each! We gradually increased that and Mr Broad was letting us have them for a few pounds each. Not much were they. Not making a lot of money at that time cos it’s not the best of beef, Friesian, you see you want Charolets and modern continentals really but anyway it got us going and we earned a few bob or we must have done somewhere along the line and er then after I don’t know a few years, three of four, four or five.
I was talking to Wilfred Neal over here at Dunkirks whose father had died by that time and he was renting the farm himself and he was coming up to 65 and to be honest I think he fell out of work when he was quite young but he wanted to cut back (laughter) and I rented quite a bit of this land off him. It took me from just over l00 acres to 200. So I used to travel on the 414 with the machines back to here to make hay and we had a few cattle about here and one thing and another and er we carried on renting that and Holwell.
DH: Who owned the land then?
RD: At that time it belonged to a Birmingham business man the whole farm and the Neals had rented it, but he died I don't know, and Wilfred Neal was offered the tenancy to buy which after a lot of thought and that, because he hadn't got a lot of money. He was going to buy, he wasn't going to buy, he was going to buy, you know how people dither don't they. He came to me one day and he said They've offered me the farm, he said but I don't think I want it he said. I said, well you buy it and I'll find the money somewhere or other, It was seventeen and a half thousand for the whole farm, the buildings, it was the whole lot and he was going to turn it down.
Anyway in the end he wouldn' t let me do it I was only a worker I wasn't a, you know, a landowner! (laughs) He got on to his brother-in-law who had retired a few years earlier and he'd got some money and he loaned him the money to buy it and he bought it for seventeen and a half. After a few years Sam who farmed in Leicestershire decided it was time he had the money back and the deal was apparently when Wilfred borrowed the money that he would sell a bit off within a year or two and pay him off. It was obviously worth a lot more with vacant possession than what he got it for as a sitting tenant. So he Wilfred was a bit of a ditherer and he couldn't decide what to do and he made a few enquiries and he used to make me laugh at times, dear old Colin Lord was his bank manager, at Lloyds in Hertford
PR: The rotarian, yes yes
RD: Wilfred, I used to come up and see the cattle most days and Wilfred would come out because he didn't see anyone much only when he went to Newmarket, that was important (laughs) He used to come out and say I had a letter from my bank manager again today wants to know what I'm going to do. You know. So he said I think he'd got a bit of money from the bank as well. I'm sure he had and he kept saying I'm going to do something, I'm going to do something, but he never did and in the end Sam got a little bit stroppy with him saying I want this money back, you know now. Fair enough. So brother Frank, Frank Neal, Wilfred’s brother, had been farming at Swallow Grove, he started up there. He had bad health and had to sell Swallow Grove. He was living at Wellpond Green.
Well he'd got a little bit of money in the bank so Wilfred persuaded Frank that he ought to loan him the money to pay Sam back so he borrowed the money from brother Frank to pay his brother-in-law but he poor Frank he was always after Wilf to let him have some back cos he hadn't got a lot. He'd had to buy a little place at Wellpond Green to retire to and you know farms didn't well 14, 15 thousand pounds, was an awful lot of money in those days. Frank sold that one for just over 20 in the end but he owed a lot on the mortgage. Anyway, Wilfred decided that Frank didn't need any money. What would he want money for at his age, he's got a pension! They had a few words several times over this money.
To the day he died he didn't pay his brother back. But moving on, Wilfred Neal had a stroke when he was late 70s, couldn't look after himself so he went to live with his niece - I should have told you actually that er Wilfred Neal never married so he was living alone in the big old house and so he went to live with his niece in Shropshire. The niece could see some money coming I suppose. She immediately persuaded uncle Will to sell the house and buildings for development and just keep the land which he did. He sold that lot to a developer called Horace Key, who was a very nice chap but still didn't pay brother Frank back. Frank never got a penny back which was awful wasn't it.
MD: £450.000 that made.
RD: He sold the house and buildings for £450,000 and the amusing thing was, (laughs) Is this all rubbish or not?
PR: No, no, it's the way things happen ...
RD: Well, absolute truth. He went to live with the niece in Shropshire, Nescliffe, and they thought they were going to be on to a good thing of course. Money coming and it is amazing really because he wasn't too keen on her husband, that's his nephew, he used to try to tell Will what to do and he didn't like that much. Anyway Wiulf was there living under their roof because they were looking after him and er they were going to do this and do that when they got their hands on the money. I think quite unbeknown to them he rang the bank manager Wilfred did and got him out one day and gave him the money when he got it the cheque told him to invest him for him. (laughter) So they weren't able to get their hands on the money but to be fair he only lived - well I used to go and see him to pay my rent a couple of times a year, drive up, he only lived about three or four years after the stroke. Fortunately he left them all right which was nice and as it should have been. Poor Frank didn't never get any back. He was still alive. In fact we looked after him.
And then in his will he left the money to four nieces, one of which had the lion’s share, the one that looked after him. And then after about two years, bearing in mind I was renting the land off of Wilfred Neal, he died about two years the family had obviously got through the money. They decided to look where they could raise some more. So they got on to Lloyds Bank who were the executors. Would they like to sound me out to see if I would be interested in buying it as a sitting tenant. So of course erm what's his name, used to be a small chap in Fore Street, still around, was an agricultural land agent. Lloyds Bank instructed him to come and see me with a view to buying this lot so he came round and er, walked round and I knew more than anyone. They didn’t, the family didn't know much where the boundaries were and everything, and he didn't know anything and so I just decided that I'd take where I wanted to take him obviously, (laughter) have a look round (laughter). Bearing in mind there were no buildings and no house. Just the land! And so I took him round and within a short time they said would I like to make them an offer for it. So this was when land was £1200 an acre.
DH: What year are we in now?
RD: '92 I bought it. About '91. £1200 an acre then - we've come some way since then haven't we? Anyway we had a look round and I had to make him an offer. I went in to see the chap. Can't remember his name, lives in Bengeo. Des Clark, he was a very nice chap.
PR: Yes, yes, Clarke Quinney.
RD: Nice chap, you know honest, straight chap.
PR: Yes, he's fairly recently died.
RD: Has he? Oh dear. He had a little office over National Provincial Bank*******. Anyway we, Ian and I, we went and saw him and erm we thought, well we ought to try and buy this, you know, as a sitting tenant so we talked around figures and I said what have I got to offer him and he said well, I tell you I can't deal with both sides you know. Anyway he got it out of me in the end and we'd looked at it and we thought well sitting tenant usually reckon to get it for about half, just over, you know so we offered him £70,000 for it. £65,000 I think for a start. I think that's how it was for 130 acres. It was a lot of money,
Anyway we talked around it and er he got us up a bit and then we got to £75,000 and he said I think that sounds a nice figure he said and I think that's fair. He said I'll go back yto the family and see what they think. He went back to Lloyds Bank and the family and they said get £75.000. I must tell you that seems a lot of money but that was when I was 60 right and at that time, well we did the deal at Christmas time. I said I can't pay you until May. I said the deal's got to be on the strength of that. Pay you in May, cos I knew I'd got a policy, my first policy coming out on my birthday, 27th April and it was going to be somewhere in that region so I got my cheque from the NFU on my policy which I'd paid all my working life and gave it to Peter Sturrock who was my solicitor then. Paid for the place. Done. So I still had a few quid in my back pocket which I'd always thought I was going to have when I was....well that went! Squared it all up. It was good. I felt quite chuffed. Had a bit of dirt around our house.
PR: Specially stuff you'd worked.
RD: Yes. Then after, yes, we carried on farming and by that time I was farming it all. Mr Neal had packed up you know and I was coming from Cole Green to here and then I thought one ay when I was up here I don't know it would be nice to get the right side of Peter Ruffles and all these wretched councillors, you know, (laughter) I thought well I don't know I'd like to see this kept as a farm. I'd worked hard. It'd been a big farm Home Farm with this one as a boy and I thought well I'm not a money man, doesn't worry me at all really. I just love what I'm doing but anyway I thought that be nice to live here one day, perhaps we ought to ...it's going to take years to get planning and er I'd got another policy coming out when I was 65. You know what's coming now don't you? I thought well I'll go for planning see what we can do.
I didn't spend any money with professional people I must admit. Mac Carter helped me, a great friend of mine and put a case together went for planning and thanks to Peter and a few others we got it at our first attempt. And so the money I got from my second policy built the bungalow built the buildings so the whole lot belonged to us without borrowing any money which was just a stroke of luck because without Mac Ccarter I wouldn't have had any money. When I first started at Holwell I went to see him to get a bit of insurance you know you do, an old tractor at £3 a year and that sort of thing, insurance. He said er don't ever forget Roy, he said you're a tenant farmer.
One day he said you may want somewhere to live but he said if you just take a policy or two out when you can see your way clear put a bit to it each year and pay the premiums and perhaps when you have a good year put a bit to it, that will build up and by the time you want it there'll be enough money to go and buy a little house. So of course and during the 60s and 70s and 80s the insurance earned a lot of money. These policies earned a lot and so of course without Matt's advice I wouldn't have had that money because you know when you're farming every time you get a bit of money you want something you just buy something else. I've always tried to replace one sort of implement or buy something every year one a year, keep up with things otherwise you get left behind. So of course I was able to square off the bungalow, square off the buildings. It's all paid.
PR: Malcolm Carter? Look, who are we talking about?
RD: Malcolm Carter, he was the NFU secretary for many years.
PR: Do you call him Malcolm?
RD: Malcolm, um, everyone does.
PR: Yes, yes
RD: Mac yes
PR: I was trying to make it clear to the listener, later. I know who you're talking about bottom of Caxton Hill.
RD: Everyone in Hertford knew Mac
PR: Malcolm, but his initials are M A Carter. So that was for clarification. Si I suppose because we musn’t go over the tape and we are approaching the second side it would be for locals and geographical reasons, what sort of land ….well…its’s in the valley and the stream… is there any water usually running in there, after this..
RD: It comes from Broxbourne woods drains water all the way through the woods to farmland all the way down here and finishes on Hartham. Goes under what used to be the old poultry market through there and comes out along Ware Road.
PR: Behind the Red Cross Hall and crosses Ware Road and then …
DH: Is it this that flooded recently?
RD: It floods on Gascoyne Way if they don’t keep the drains absolutely clear. It floods trhere yes. Oh yes that can be bone dry that ditch and we can have a good old thunderstorm and within an hour…
MD: Its running
RD: Pouring down there. It lands a lot of water. There’s two there; this one and there’s Brickendon Brook which comes further over Will Ashley’s place through Jepps Farm, Will Ashley’s, Clements, down er through the bottom of the Malaysian Rubber place. That’s where that big ditch starts.
PR: Causes trouble to the Harts Horns.
All talking at once
RD: I own there to Brickendon Lane and all that big ditch, do you want to buy it? All that big ditch in Granny Walker’s wood had to come in with the farm when I bought next door.
PR: Yes yes so you got both the water courses on your territory. What sort of quality land is this. Is it hard work?
RD: Very heavy clay. It starts light. Over by the school, Morgans its like a beach its all all stones and very light, burns up, there's nothing there now, you need a wet week well a wet cay every week and then you get a nice crop off it. But if you don't get any moisture you dont get anything there, well you know the area. That runs to Granny Walker's wood. 14 acres on that end and it changes just like that it goes from really gravelly easy working to heavy clay. And the clay runs right through, and the clay is all this side, through to Clements farm and all up there, heavy clay. Good land but clay.
PR: You'd better say where Granny Walker's wood is.
RD: That runs alongside Brickendon Lane.
PR: As you go into a shady area the brook runs..
RD: Where Mandeville estate finishes, that takes over, well there's four acres in between. It runs along to the Malaysian Rubber Company, Brickendonbury
PR: So they're your neighbours are they? [voices talking all at once] The other side of Brickendon Lane up towards Clements Farm, does Clements Farm land come down behind Cecil Road?
RD: Yes, it comes right down to there.
PR: Well, what have I missed out David? My interview nudging...
RD: So Dunkirks, we changed the name because we were terrified that …
PR: That's one I was going to ask!
RD: We were going to get the post from Dunkirks Farm here if we had called it Dunkirks Farm, there can't be two can there! They'd have got our post and we'd have got theirs. There'd have been all hell let loose so we thought we'd got to do something. We thought about it and we thought Balls Park, Dunkirks Park.
MD: Park Farm.
RD: Park Farm, we thought of all sorts of things and then we thought [voices all together]... Brickendonbury estate. So we called it Dunkirksbury..
PR: Yes, yes
RD: When I built, or went to the plans to build it I wanted some of the features from Dunkirks Farm because it always was part of the Pearson estate and Clements and this farm have all got these little round windows in the farm buildings. So at great expense I put one in here and one on that gable there.
PR: Yes, yes, that characteristic...Brickendonbury estate.
RD: And I wanted red brick the same as Dunkirks so I got red brick the same. For some reason the planners agreed with that. (laughter)
DH: How do you farm the land?
RD: This land here. Bearing in mind I've been farming it for several years, renting it from Mr Neal then I grew com on some of it, the suitable land. There's an area of land which runs through here between here and Morgans Walk which is un..never been ploughed in living memory. Its all divided up with water furrows like they used to do years ago. Plough them out to drain the land, no pipes or anything like that. They're still there and you couldn't plough it very well.. Well, you could but it would lay very wet in the winter, but it's ideal cattle country. They do extremely well on it. Bruce Johnson who used to be the butcher in Hertford, he loved to buy the cattle off this farm. He'd always pay a lot more money for anything off Dunkirksbury ground.
PR: Oh would he?
RD: Yes, because he knew there was wonderful marbling in the meat. If I'd got cattle going to the market Bruce would always see me in there and say have you got any in here today Roy? He'd go and have a look at them and 9 times out of 10 he'd buy them, keep coming noddiing his old head until he got them. Wonderful marbling on the meat. Joe Vigus said the same.
PR: Because of that quality. Did you have much in common with Frank Chapell for example in the early years because he's…
RD: Not really, only when he had the toy shop.
PR: Yes, no no, because he talked to us about his parents, the milk round and Stapleford and that sort of....some of his stories are similar to yours at the beginning.
RD: Poor old Frank.
PR: Yes, but er, and who else was I just thinking of for a minute? Oh I know what it was, No one seems to know the origin of the Dunkirk bit. We must put someone on to it. It could be a name out of blue or it could have an association.
DH: Does it go back a long time?
PR: I don't know we'll have to dig around that one.
MD: We have got a map in there., I’ve got this and she said…
RD: Which I managed to salvage. It was a scroll and er Wilfred Neal had it hanging over there and of course Wilfred Neal didn't everything had been there years and that and it was beginning to get all frayed and that anyway when they went up to Shropshire, Nescliffe, he took it with him. After he died and the niece said to me would you like that roll, we don't want it and I said yes I would please so brought it back and had it here for a bit and then it was getting frayed and I was talking to Malcolm and Clare in Dunkirks Farm and see where it got damaged when it was scrolled up. Those lines across it can you see that.
PR: Aah, yes, you've got this lovely framed....
RD: I happened to say to Clare and Malcolm one day, I’ve got this and she said, let me have a look at it. I'll take that to London for you and get that looked after, get it conserved.
PR: Yes, yes
RD: Preserved. So she took it and had it stuck on there and framed. It's nice to…
PR: Yes, it's a map of the Brickendonbury estate and what year would you think it is?
RD: A hundred years ago, I think
PR: Yes, 18…..
MD: It does say on it.
PR: Published in 1898,1898, and so……
MD: Goes on to Bayfordbury there and that one's Balls Park. Brickendonbury...
PR: Yes, yes. Oh, excellent.
RD: All the fields you see
PR: Every field named. There’s Moray field and Strawberry Croft,. Rye field, Lower Branches, Home Mead of course, and Edwards green leading up to Monks Green where Peter Ashley now and then the Great Northern Railway line is marked on it and that would be…
MD: Morgans Walk
RD: It goes from the…
MD: That’s Brickendonbury which is now Malaysian Rubber.
RD: This is the land I bought which adjoins ...
PR: And all the fields have got the names
MD: They've all got names, Clayshott, Clay Field….
RD: This is the lot I bought.
PR: So where is - we got the Great Northern Railway acquired some land on the Western end of the Brickendonbury Estate in 1898, because the railway wasn't constructed was it until the First World War some years later. I'm not quite getting my bearings from - I can do this bit
MD: In actual fact what you want is it turned round because that is here and that is up that way, isn't it.
PR: Yes, yes, so upside down really which throws it slightly.
MD: You see Balls Park is over there and Bayfordbury is over there
PR: So Bullocks Lane is at the top of the picture wth Highfield Road already marked on, Horms Mill is top left of the framed print and because the Great Northern Railway would have gone across that top comer at the date here but they'd acquired land along here by that point. Yes.
RD: It was important to buy Home Farm, becaude Dunkirks is here.. here is Morgans Walk and this is Home Farm. There's only a ditch between us.
PR: Well.
RD: You see. Had to come back together otherwise
PR: I'll see if I can get a photograph of one or two bits of it just to demonstrate the field mains and the
RD: Yes, been in their from the sale when it was sold up
PR: I'll see what my..... Is there anything else we ought to do formally David, any chunks that we've...
DH: I can't think of anything, no.
MD: You'll think of it later!
PR: Yes, but I'll just do one or two....I do need your pictures, you two and there are two sheets of paper, which, last time I left with somebody, John Cooper, and it never came back. ! could ask whether you could fill one .....you can leave out any bits you like erm but it's a few biographical details and on the other side it says what you are prepared for us to use it for. It's a very loose paper but your signature says, well, you know, someone could go and plug into this tape.
RD: You've got all this down now haven't you?
PR: Yes, but we like the written bit.
Lots of photos being taken and some indistinguishable chatter.
End of recording