Transcript Detail

View print layout

Transcript Title	Roche, Eddie (O 2002.17)
Interviewee	Eddie Roche (ER)
Interviewer	Jean Riddell (JR)
Date	07/05/2002
Transcriber by

Transcript

Hertford Oral History Group

Recording no: O 2002.17

Interviewee: Eddie Roche (ER)

Date: 7.5.2002

Venue: 30 Riversmeet, Hertford

Interviewer: Jean Riddell (JR)

Transcriber: ?

************** unclear recording

[discussion] untranscribed material

(italics) editor’s notes

JR: It’s Thursday today and I think it’s the 7th of May. We’re at No. 30 Riversmeet this afternoon, my house, for Eddie to tell me about Sele Farm as he remembers it as a boy.

ER: Well, the land where Sele Farm estate is now was all farmland where as children we used to play years and years ago in the forties. It was land mostly owned by the Miss Titmusses, who ran cattle there and ran a dairy farm, and by Mr Wynter, who lived in Windy Ridge Farm, who farmed there as well. And then the council decided to build this large estate in the early fifties and the land was compulsorily purchased in sections and the initial part of the estate was built below Thieves Lane and Cut Throat Lane - the estate really is in two halves, Thieves Lane, or Cut Throat Lane, as we used to call it, dividing the estate in half. The original estate, I believe, was started to be built about 1952.

JR: Can I ask you a question, while we are still in the very early stages? The Miss Titmusses ...

ER: They had Sele Farm.

JR: Did they actually live up there?

ER: They did at one time, in the little farm behind the Catholic School in North Road - you get to it by going up a little track between the Catholic School and the cemetery, where Tony Studd lives. That was where the Miss Titmusses lived. That’s where they ran their farm. Two sisters and they used to go out delivering the milk in a little van, up until the time when they retired. They went to live in Windy Ridge Lodge, a little lodge on the Bramfield Road, which now takes you into Broadoak End. And they went to live there and one died. But the main benefactor, we always assumed, was Mr Wynter. He had the most land, which he sold for quite a considerable amount of money in those days, including an area of land where he had built some farm cottages himself just after the war for his farm workers. That is the back of Cherry Tree Green. It became a small private development at the end of Cherry Tree Green and you could go round into Thieves Lane and you left this little corner plot on its own with the little section of private houses, but that was later, after the original conception of Sele Farm..

JR: And where did he build these post-war cottages of his own?

ER: You used to come up Cut Throat Lane or Thieves Lane, whichever you like to call it, from Bramfield Road. There was a little house on the corner and you came up a hundred yards and there was these three farm houses. They were painted yellow - they were very distinctive - you could see them from miles away. And, strangely enough, one of the men who went to live there was a Mr Phillips, who lived in our old shop, 56 St Andrew Street. He moved there in about 1950. Mr Phillips moved from St Andrew Street up to those cottages. But they weren’t part of the overall plan of Sele Farm as we understood it in those days (Mr and Mrs TA Blake also lived there. Mr Blake was Chemistry Master at Hertford Grammar School). We were only, what? Twelve years old when it was first started. And it was built from the Bramfield Road end, as far as I can remember. They started at that end and they built the basis of a road scheme, up the slope which was the start of Windsor Drive and they built a section of Windsor Drive, Cherry Tree Green and Tudor Way, then gradually over the years Windsor Drive was built. Tudor Way went right round to where the shops are, then they built Holly Croft and Farm Close and ultimately they built Hutton Close, which was a field where we used as sort-of sports field. It was a short cut from the top of Welwyn Road. You could walk across diagonally from Welwyn Road across to Tudor Way. Because all those big three blocks of flats which became Hutton Close, they weren’t there then. It was a gradual process. The Griffin came later, probably before the flat and after they’d built the shops, Fleming Crescent.

You see, as they went along Windsor Drive, they built some houses, then they would make up the road. I can remember when we moved into our house we had to scramble over the rubble. The footings, as they call it, they were there, the drains. There was no road, as such. They built us a path to get from where the road was going to be to our house. But the ? of the houses was more important in those days than the other structures that went with it. Yes, Cherry Tree Green was about the first part and the first part of Windsor Drive and I think they built a lot of Tudor Way first off, and Hawthorn Close. That’s where they built a little community centre at some time, yes.

Actually, quite a lot of sort-of people - You know, when you look through an old street directory, which I’ve got [probably 1958] - like in Cherry Tree Green, there were people like Stan Avis, who was a Corporation plumber, and always had a big, old, heavy bike and his tools hanging off the handle bars. Everybody knew Stan Avis, he was always about. There was people like the Hedley family, who were very strong supporters of the local football team. I believe one of the generations is still involved in some capacity, and people like that, you know.

And I can remember at Tudor Way there was a block of flats as you came up the hill, at the start of Tudor Way facing down Windsor Drive, and in there was a Miss Adelborg and she’d got an artificial leg and she’d go along with her stick and she’d tap on a car window and ask you to take her to the town and she was quite well known that she would step out and put her stick up or tap the windscreen; "Take me to the town. There isn’t a bus."

And then there was a lovely chap that I knew who at one time worked for me and my father, Maurice Pike. Kath Pike, you know Kath Pike? She could give you probably some good points of reference ‘cos they had a flat there, originally, and then they moved to a house just along from where their flat was. Maurice and Kath were lovely people. Unfortunately Maurice, a lot of people called him Jim, I don’t know why, he died a few years ago, sadly. They were there. And, of course, Maurice Fleming became Taylor & Pike, the television place (at junction of Cowbridge and Port Hill), with his great friend Jack Taylor.

I was remembering today about another family - the Paynes. And old Mrs Payne still lives in Tudor Way and my wife said to me today I should ring her daughter, who I went to St Andrew’s School with; Alvina Swallow, her name is, and she lives in Tudor Way and they went to Tudor Way when it was first built. Well, they were there when this directory was written. And some of the earlier people in Windsor Drive, at the beginning of it.

There was Fred and Olive Church. I don’t know if you remember Stan Mansfield who had the fruit shop, I believe he lived there. And, of course, we felt quite secure because they built four pairs of police houses there. George Hill was there. Another chap, Long. And there was a chap there - I forget what his name was now. I think it was something like - He was a boxer, this chap, Woollard, yes, Woollard, and he fought for the British Police and we went up to the Albert Hall and watched him fight. A very strong man. We always felt very secure because it was a new estate and we were all newcomers. There was another couple there, Bert and Barbara Morbey who lived at No.60, and they were very good people, very kind people. I remember when my dad was ill, Barbara was always very kind. And the people next door to us, Al and Betty Bye, who lived at No.70, he worked for Moss’s who did a lot of the work. I’m not sure if they were builders or whether they did all the, what they call, the ground work. Al had come over .. A political refugee. An exceedingly clever man. I believe he’d been a chemist in his home country. And he was working on the estate and he was a very good table tennis player but kind, a very kindly man.

And so the estate grew but along the road and I remember [them] building the shops there. And one thing I can’t remember is when the school was built, Sele School [1963, according to PR’s photograph], ‘cos that was built the other side of the road.

JR: But that was after the shops, wasn’t it?

ER: I should imagine so. After the shops and after the Griffin.

JR: After 1960.

ER: Yeah, because the shops - It’s quite interesting, the shops there. Because it started off you had Mr Tilcock, who had the sweet-shop and tobacconist’s and he’d only got one hand. He’d got a gloved hand but he could drive a car and, of course, a lot of young kids were quite intrigued, you know, why he always wore this glove and why he could drive this car but no one would dare ask him, you know, and it was left to older people to understand. And then next door was Meadows, the grocers. Meadows were a firm called Wash who were a Broxbourne and Hoddesdon company (family dropped ‘l’ in ‘Walsh’ for business purposes) and I still see Brian Wash, who was the grandson of the founders of Wash’s. And then there were Ken’s, the butchers, were there before Eddie’s and all that came along, and Salmon’s the greengrocer’s and fruiterer’s before Norbury’s. I think they used to have a place in Railway Street, opposite John’s butchers were years ago. And then at the end was Hicks the fishmonger, who didn’t last there very long.; he was just a wet fish merchant; he wasn’t allowed to have a fish and chip shop, in those days. Then that became a television shop, Peter Gay’s, radio and television. The fish shop didn’t last very long at all. Then on the end you just had this little building which was the rent office, Council rent office, and later they built the other shops but they came quite a lot later. Oh yes, I’d forgotten about Rayment’s, which became Symmonds, yes. Rayments had got a little place at Horns Mill. There’s still a little shop there now at the bottom of Brickendon Lane and they had their main bakery in Hertingfordbury village.

JR: I interviewed Inge Griffiths, whose husband was one of the bakers for Rayments. They had the flat above Rayment’s shop but he didn’t work in the shop, he just worked in Hertingfordbury and she didn’t know they had any other shop except Hertingfordbury and [Sele Farm] - But they had one at Horns Mill?

ER: A little general store ... It looks a bit like a pill-box. It sits at the bottom of Brickendon Lane; know where I mean? But what I was just saying, the thing about the school intrigues me because it could have been built after I left. I left Sele Farm in’61 and it could have come in that time ... It was before I left Sele Farm that they acquired the land the other side of Thieves Lane - or Cut Throat Lane, whichever it is called, where Bentley Road is now and Calton Avenue and St Andrew’s School. That was part of a second phase of the development and work started on Calton Avenue and Bentley Road and part of the land in Calton Avenue had been set aside for private building of private houses. Calton House at the very beginning was an old people’s area and Simpson Shand’s had a large plot of land and Mr Shand built a row of houses that backed on to St Andrew’s playing fields for his employees which, in the event of time, they were sold off. Strangely enough, they were all two-bedroom houses. They were big houses but they were only two-bedroom houses, for some reason. And then there was another little area along there for self-build. I’m speaking to the converted. You know what I’m talking about.

JR: I know all these things but I like to hear you confirm them for me.

ER: I mean, the name that comes to mind there is a chap named Harry Godfrey and I was trying to think of his wife - Kath! Harry and Kath Godfrey. He was a Liberal councillor many, many years ago. That was in the fifties. In Hertford, yes. For a short period of time. Yes, Harry and Kath were in this group of people. I remember Kath’s sister, Miss (Vida) Blay, who lives in North Road, telling me about how they used to come down every weekend and help build the houses and how, course, it started off very enthusiastically but, you know, if you’d got your house built, you weren’t, you know, so enthusiastic to help the others. And I think it was a little bit difficult towards the end to keep the thing going ‘til everybody got their house. It was hard work and, as you say, Harry and Kath Godfrey would probably fill you in with a lot more detail than I could. And then, of course, they built the school, which was a great blessing, really, the school up there because it was something that was very much needed. I’m not sure if we’d got the school behind Fordwich, Hollybush, by then but the school definitely was needed, that was very much needed but I’m not sure if we’d have got the school behind Fordwich, Hollybush, by then but the school was definitely needed. I always remember if I ever went to visit my father when he was ill (at Sele’s Windsor Drive near St Andrew’s School) - he would be in bed - and he always had the window open and always had the room at the back so he could hear the noise of the children in the playground. He thought it was wonderful, you know, all those little children down there causing nobody any problems; you know, innocent little souls and he just found it - He loved it at Sele Farm ... He lived up there from 1954 until he died in 1978 and he loved it. My mother was never keen on it, for whatever reason ... For some reason . I never liked it.

JR: For what reason?

ER: I don’t know. I didn’t particularly like living at the shop. I think my happiest time was when I lived at Sele Road. Life was uninhibited. You know, we had the war ... But when, soon after that, they carried on building Bentley Road ‘til it went all the way round and came out into the far end, by Welwyn Road, and they built Calton Avenue and we saw Edmunds Road come, where the private houses are, and we saw Thieves Lane, where people like Des Arbon came to live in Thieves Lane and lots of people; a chap named Chamberlain, who worked for Simpson Pimm, a very tall man. He came to live in Bentley Road and, I think, Dick Darton.

JR: Yes. He still lives there.

ER: One of his brothers lived just along from us in Windsor Drive. I’m not sure what his name was (Laurie). Several Dartons. I’m not sure if this one didn’t die.

JR: One called Fred (of Tudor Way) died some years ago and there’s one that lives in Campfield Road (George). There were several more brothers and the sister who’s Peggy Jackson now.

ER: Yes, yes, she married George Darton, didn’t she? (Peggy, as said, is a sister. George’s wife was Margaret from Derbyshire).... And then, of course, they built Keynton Close.

JR: That’s where the widow, Mrs Hill, lives.

ER: George Hill’s widow?

JR: I’m going to interview her when she comes back from holiday. Betty, Betty Hill.

ER: Of course, Henry Sargent ... I used to go round to Henry’s when we were on the board of governors at St Joseph’s and he never used to cut his hedge. I think it’s all disappeared now but if it was a wet evening you were very careful when you walked down his pathway. I remember we used to have quite a few little laughs about his hedge and then round the corner was Bert Whiting and they built the scout hut, which was another proviso in the building of the estate. I’ve been looking in my Scouting in Hertford book ... Yes, "provision was made for a scout hut off Thieves Lane at a rent of 1s per annum" and the 2nd Hertford Scout Troop wasn’t formed because it had been formed many years ago and had fallen into abeyance and two chaps, two well-known scout heroes in Hertford, Tony Burgess and Wilf Brown, called the little troop of scouts - and I can remember in 1958 a chap named Tony Wirral (Whittle?) and I took this little troop down to Malvern for a week’s camping and it rained every day; the weather was awful and I think we were all glad to come home.

JR: When you say ‘off Thieves Lane’. Where was that, then?

ER: Well, off Keynton Close, actually it was. It was Keynton Close and then first scoutmaster actually was a chap named Hollis, who was Group Scout, and then a big man in scouting, George Pollard, who was a police sergeant in those days. He served the scouting community in Sele Farm wonderfully well for over 20 years, I believe. He took on the scouts and he really was the mastermind and he was a very strong personality. He was very firm but very fair. He was a typical old-style policeman really. And he sort-of moulded a scout troop out of a lot of boys who might not have become anything really in life. He was very, very good, you know. But then that scout hut was knocked down. A new one has since been built because they built some more houses off Burnett Square.

JR: A scout hut was included as part of the deal, was it?

ER: Yes, they built a new one ... I remember being there.

JR: Can I ask you a question? You said Keynton Close just now. Can you get through from Keynton Close into that little area where the scout hut is or was it just a slip?

ER: That was a slip of the tongue. I was getting Keynton Close confused with Burnett Square.

JR: Now, when you come along Thieves Lane, the built-up road of Thieves Lane, that continues the line of the old Thieves Lane, doesn’t it? Because you’ve got the old Thieves Lane coming up the back of St Andrew’s School, haven’t you? ... and it emerges into Bentley Road beside, I think, No.1.

ER: Where a family named Kennedy used to live years ago (Platt before that).

JR: Then it dwindles down to what it was.

ER: Into a track that takes you in to Bramfield Road. Yes. Well, it was in the corner there of Thieves Lane, that was where they built another little private sector of houses, where Mr Wynter’s farm houses had been. He had that bit back and they built some private houses in there.

JR: Which are now part of Cherry Tree Green; weather boarding and they’re painted white (?).

ER: I’m not sure. I haven’t been up there for years.

JR: Well, they’re modern.

ER: Yes, they were built afterwards. I mean, you got to remember that Cherry Tree Green was built in the very early fifties. I mean, those houses are coming fifty years old, aren’t they?

JR: Well, it’s the Jubilee, isn’t it? That’s why we’re doing all this.

ER: But, that side of the estate just kept growing. You had these Burnett Square, Keynton Close, and then they built another community centre farther down off Bentley Road in the area of The Ridgeway where, again, they built this big area, mostly flats, and they set aside the end pat of that area for private housing. This was in the early 60s. ‘Cos I can remember I’d not long been married and I went and looked at these houses and maisonettes that were up for sale. Well, they sold the houses quite easily. They were 3-bedroomed what they called ‘linked’ houses, they were. And they backed on to open land and they built some 4-bedroomed semi-detached houses and then opposite them they built two blocks of maisonettes which were to be sold and then they built some more blocks of maisonettes which were to be tenanted but I had a look at one of them maisonettes because they were about £4,000, in the early 60s, yes, and I can remember my father saying to me, "It’s all right. They might look very nice but you might have a problem selling it if you wanted to move on in time to come." And I don’t think they ever sold all of the two blocks that they’ve allocated for sale. I thin, in the end, they reverted, some of them, to tenanted council flats. I think so. I might be wrong. But I know people said at the time, "Oh, they can’t sell’em at that sort of price." And they were quite nice and I would imagine now that quite a lot of the tenants, if they’d any sense, they would have bought them because I think they make quite reasonable money nowadays, I’m not sure ... So, more-or-less, the estate went round and probably the last bits were places like Lawrence Close. I’ve probably missed out one or two.

JR: What about the end of Edmunds Road. What’s it called again?

ER: Norwood Close, yes. That was one of the last bits. I think probably the last bits was the Longwood area, which in time since they’ve totally refurbished, haven’t they? I haven’t been along there for quite a while now - a year or two - but it looks to me as though they’ve made a good job of it.

JR: They have and they renamed to try and make them sound a bit more interesting, I think.

ER: I think they were trying to reinvent that area for whatever reasons.

JR: It didn’t work, for some reason.

ER: No, it didn’t.

JR: So they tried again. Maybe it is, now. I couldn’t say, really.

ER: But the pub came and that was a dual venture between Whitbread and McMullen’s, in those days. I can’t remember why it was a joint venture and, of course, since those times I think Macs have taken it on totally because, in the last year I think, they reinvented that as one of these theme pubs, instead of being a local sort-of house, drinking house, pub, whatever you like to call it. I mean, I used to walk down there occasionally and have a drink and a game of dominoes with one or two of the people in here. That was in the 50s, yes? ‘Cos we had a couple of blokes work for us and one of them lived in Windsor Drive and he used to go down there quite a lot. Sometimes I’d wander down there.

JR: ... big fish?

SIDE 2

ER: Salmon, yeah. One of those was 32lb and one was 20-something lbs. We used to bring them home, cut them up and give them to people. Salmon like that, they used to sell that at £5 a lb. People would buy them at the river at £5 a lb. Then they used to say the fun was catching them.

JR: Where did he catch them?

ER: On the River Wye at Symmonds Yat. Used to go down there a lot when he was fit and well.

JR: ... Yes, you’ve told me about the early part of Sele Farm when the Titmus sisters and Mr Wynter were still occupying the land. Some people have said something about a farm being at the end of Cherry Tree Green. Now this would be Mr Wynter still hanging on to that land.

ER: Yes, he farmed that land.

JR: Was it chickens or was it arable?

ER: It was arable.

JR: ‘Cos they seemed to have got slightly confused, I think. But it was at the end where the cottage were that he built and where -

ER: Yeah, the land going up to Welwyn Road, he had all of it. He might even have had the other side of the road. I don’t think so, though. You know, which is still farm land.

JR: Archer’s Spring and all that? He would have had all that, in his day?

ER: Possibly, possibly. I’m not sure about that but he certainly farmed the land where the actual estate was built on. Mostly, that side going - I think it’s west of Thieves Lane and I think more of the land where the original part of the estate was built; more of that land, I think, than the Miss Titmusses. That was always just grazing land.

JR: Titmusses?

ER: Yes, it wasn’t good soil. They used to say it was very stony soil there. They had cattle there, yes.

JR: Yes, because the lady I’m going to see on Monday, Mrs Grimes, whose mother was a Mrs Alexander, said that her grandfather occupied Sele Farm in the early part of the century and I found him in the trade directories. He was certainly there in 1906 and he was gone between 1926 and 1929 and apparently he owned a Jersey herd. He was from Jersey himself and he got foot-and-mouth disease on the farm and went bankrupt. This was in the 1920s. So I was thinking there must have been a gap, I imagine, before someone took it over to make sure that the infection didn’t spread but Titmus is in the later directory after that. I don’t know whether it’s a man, a father, who had daughters.

ER: I’ll have a look in mine. I’ve got a pre-war one of these at home and I’ll have a look.

JR: I’ve got a record upstairs of the street directories but I hadn’t realised that Titmus was - Because Titmus, the name Titmus, is not commemorated whereas Alexander is in Alexander Road.

ER: Is that who that is named after?

JR: Yes, the farmer, Sele farmer. And also Sadlers Chicken Farm is named after Sadler (and Sadlers Way).

ER: Yes, ‘cos that’s where we used to get our chickens from for Christmas and some of the little lads from the various surrounding estates used to - They used to call it ‘going egging’. ‘Cos the chickens ran wild where Sadlers estate is, Sadlers fields. The chickens ran wild all day or they got out of their coops. They were free-range because some of these lads, they were quite crafty. They knew a little bit about country life, put it that way. And they knew where these chickens were going to lay their eggs and they used to have one or two free ones, put it that way. ‘Cos they had a coal yard there, as well. Was it George Sadler? It was George Sadler and Fred Sadler, ‘cos they shared an office at Old Cross (They were brothers – refer to Miss Sadler’s HOHG recording).

JR: George was the father, I think, wasn’t it?

ER: And there are two Sadlers, you see. I’m not sure. I think it was George Sadler and he had his coal store. You got to it - You know where Sandy Nook, the house on the right-hand side, next to there was a track and that took you up to where his coal store was and eventually - I can remember his building his house, on the field which is now incorporated in part of the estate there. Because they never knocked it down. They had a four bedroomed, detached house.

JR: This is the Sadlers chicken farm house? Yes, because I interviewed Edie Sadler and Norman but actually was probably the more -

ER: Is that the daughter?

JR: No, a daughter-in-law.

ER: The Sadler who farmed on Sadlers fields, he had a son and I’m sure his name was Peter; ‘cos I think he was in the Scouts with us at one time. And there was a daughter. He was a chicken farmer and when the Sadlers Farm stopped, when that was bought for building, she moved to a little place - She had a smallholding behind the Rose & Crown at Tewin and she was badly taken with either arthritis or rheumatism. I’ve seen her in recent years and she could hardly walk. She’d come into the shop and buy her Wellingtons still and she was still doing a bit of farming. She never married, I don’t think. I’m not sure.

JR: I couldn’t quite work this out because Norman told me some of the things and Edie the rest of them and when they were talking about this lady in a wheelchair I thought she was the wife of the original - How can I explain this? It was one of - There were twelve children in this Sadler family. I think they had six boys and six girls and the father was a coal merchant. The father of this family was a coal merchant but they lived in Russell Street in the Greyhound beerhouse.

ER: We were talking about this the other night.

JR: But the boys tended to go into the coal merchant business themselves. Fred got himself an independent business down near the East station, Mead Lane, I think it was, but the other one who went into the coal business was Norman’s father. So he took over his father’s business.

ER: That’s right. Doesn’t he live up Sele Farm?

JR: He does. He lives in Farm Close. He’s about 62,63. You may know him.

ER: Yes, I did know him years ago.

JR: And he told me that it was his auntie had the chicken farm but it must also have been his cousin, then. This lady who has the arthritis must be his cousin, mustn’t she?

ER: Could be.

JR: Because although I think his son - I’m not quite sure - The generations are slightly mixed up. Because his father was the first child, apparently, and he was one of twelve and, well, you’re going to have a twenty year span, aren’t you, between the children, between the oldest and the youngest. So, he’s talking about the children of the youngest member of the family, for instance, they’re going to be much younger than him, aren’t they?

ER: Because he had the coal business at one time, I’m sure.

JR: Well, he said he worked for his father. He didn’t actually say he was a coal man himself. He didn’t say he took it over but he might have done, I don’t know. He described delivering coal. But, I think, I got slightly confused as to who was who.

ER: Yes, you do, because, as you say, they were a large family and I think the Sadler girls, some of them worked for Jack Skinner in the catering.

JR: Yes, Edie did, this wife of - I can’t remember her husband’s name, now.

ER: And then, of course, there were marriage and people marry certain people and the net got wider and wider and wider. ‘Cos they used to come in our shop and I used to get terribly confused as to which ones they were. And, of course, there was still another relation of Sadler, Richard Sadler, who lives out - oh, goodness gracious me - somewhere up the A10 and I think they had part of this office at Old Cross, where the two Sadlers shared an office, two separate businesses, and he had a yard down by the East station and I think in the end he gave all that up and just had a yard at home. I think he had a smallholding, this Richard Sadler, and he worked, he ran what’s left of the coal business - Because it’s a dying, dying business, isn’t it, now? And he worked from the yard at home in the end. He was a nice chap, actually, Richard. Very well spoken lad. He used to come in and buy his boots. Yes, very nice. Very nice chap, Richard. But the more you talk about these things and people who lived -

JR: I think the other thing that’s slightly puzzling me was the actual building of the Sele Farm, the building, the farm house, because Peter says he remembers vaguely coming up the little path from North Road, not the one you’re talking about because that was a -

ER: There was another track up the other side.

JR: That’s right. Went up there, you could come up to a flattish piece of green at the top. In fact, that area of green looks as though it has been a disused garden. Doesn’t look like a field, does it? Looks much more cultivated than that, even now.

ER: I haven’t been up there -

JR: Well, if you ever get the chance - You walk up this path and then somewhere up the top there there’s a flattish area where he says he thinks the farm house was. But I’m hoping to confirm that with this Mrs Grimes, who’s going to bring photographs on Monday of the Sale Farm.

ER: See, in the war there was a Royal Observer Corps post - When you go up to the top of Welwyn Hill and where there’s a walk-through now to Hutton Close, there was a gate and a field there in those days, and you know, you walked along the edge of this field and there was this big drop into Sadlers Field. If you look there, there is quite a difference in height and at the end of this path was this brick building and it was, so they said, a Royal Observer Corps lookout, because it was high up in those days and, course, there was nothing around it, was there, you see? And, of course, when we were kids, we used to run along there and have a look, see if there was any one in there, you know. We’d get told to clear off a bit quick, you know. ‘Cos, as you say, this is all fifty years ago.

JR: Yes, yes. What about Thieves Lane coming up from Hertingfordbury village? How much has that changed? I mean, was it a very muddy -

ER: That was a very narrow lane. It was the same width as what where it goes behind the houses of Windsor Drive and behind the playing field of St Andrew’s School. The only thing is that behind there, through disuse, it’s gradually filled in whereas the bit from Welwyn Road down to Hertingfordbury Road, with the development there, they widened it and, of course, towards the bottom it’s changed its contour completely, because, with the building of the bypass and the big roundabout, instead of going down Thieves lane to Welwyn Road and swinging round very sharply left where the lodge is, you can now carry on in a big wide bit down on to the roundabout. Whereas originally you went round to the left and you- There was a track leading off it which went in front of the big house on the green where Sir Henry and lady Richard lives, which is now right up high, you know, that big house there and the main road came down by the lodge which is still there on its own and swept into Hertingfordbury Road and there was a little triangle of green (actually quite big) in the middle and I believe there was a well or the remains of a well there.

JR: Yes, that’s what John said.

ER: I think saying Richards, they had a well in their garden. ‘Cos I know sometimes when we were returning from a long walk we’d stop there and ask if we could have a drink of water. But the water was cold; it was always beautifully cold, for some reason or other, yes. See, that whole area now has changed. I mean, from your photographs of Hertingfordbury Road that you’ve got, you know, we can see where the old road is and the whole thing has changed dramatically, really, in that small area, see. But, you know, the road was, when we were young, it was wide enough to get a tractor down the whole road, right through. See, it went from Bramfield Road right up across Welwyn Road, and down to Hertingfordbury Road, and it was all the same narrow width, you know. ‘Cos in those days there wasn’t the traffic. There was very little traffic and, as I say, probably wide enough for a tractor to go along. Because very few people had a car.

JR: Did they ever have that bit open beside - I mean, could you at one time or is it recently been closed up - the bit of Thieves Lane between Calton House and Welwyn Road?

ER: Yes, that was always open -

JR: When did they close that up, then?

ER: I think they closed that up when they built Calton House. Yes, because the road came up, as I say, from Hertingfordbury Road down there, up and then crossed the Welwyn Road and across down into Bramfield Road.

JR: You’ll perhaps like to look at my two maps, Eddie. It’s quite clear on here. This one here is - That’s 1794 and that’s North Road there. This is Welwyn Road, up here. And that’s the junction with Thieves Lane and -

ER: You can see why there was this discrepancy in - That was a gravel pit where Sadlers Field was! Yes, that’s the road, there. I suppose in those days it was a main artery and this was expanded because they started running buses and vehicles through to Welwyn and Tewin and -

JR: They seem about the same size, the roads, originally.

ER: Yes, yes.

JR: This is 1794.

ER: Well, I’m blessed!

JR: I traced that one. I shall display that one. I just didn’t have those two in there. But it’s quite an interesting map. It shows you the original Sele Farm there. Doesn’t show the mill because that wasn’t part of Cowper’s property but it was Cowper’s map of his estate, that’s why places have been left out and some you might expect to be there are not there. Then this one, it’s a much more detailed one, is - I haven’t got the date on it but it’s 1838 and it’s the other way round, this time (tithe map).

ER: I can see where you are now.

JR: ... This is Sele, down the bottom, yes, that would be it. And we’ve got Thieves Lane; there’s the whole of Thieves Lane here. It’s quite interesting. I thought that they would be - We can probably pick up some of the field names.

ER: That’s brilliant that, isn’t it? As you can see now, from your map, you can see - I mean, I can remember there was a pit in this field here. Because that’s a track, isn’t it, from Chelmsford Wood? We used to walk across from there across to here and in the war a bomb fell in that field there and I played truant when I was a little lad with a chap named Bob Wareham who lived in those villas down from Peter that was knocked down. He lived in there and he was bigger than me and he said to me one day, "Shall we go up the bomb field and get shrapnel?" And it was a lovely summer afternoon and over in this part of the field was pit where courting couples used to do their courting when we were little lads, and we’d crawl to the edge of the pit and drop stones. Shouldn’t tell you that really, should I? And, of course, that’s where Sele School is now, isn’t it? And this, yes, this, you see this was all the first part of the estate and this was the second area here. That’s good, that is, isn’t it?

JR: Well, I think it - You can’t get a photocopy, you see, that’s the problem. You do have to painstakingly trace it all. I did make a couple of errors here but I just stuck paper over ... and this, of course, here is John, John Trinnery, is where the cemetery - That’s who the tenant was at that time. We’ve got that recorded - That’s when they made the cemetery. So, I imagine the Bramfield Road - It doesn’t show that.

ER: It’s got to come up here, in this area here. Then swung away to Bramfield there.

JR: And again, you see, it’s St Andrew’s Tithe map so it’s St Andrew’s Parish and then when the parish boundary comes they just stop the map. So you don’t know quite where the Bramfield Road is. But it’s quite -

ER: It’s interesting, isn’t it?

JR: I think I’ll put this in -

ER: Morris’s is where Shades is now ... in Parliament Square ... There’s not a lot really sticks out in my mind except if we used to go out anywhere a pal of mine he used to drive along and he used to always complain. He used to borrow his dad’s car and, of course, the road wasn’t made up and he had to beware of all the manholes that had been set in where the sewer [??] was going to be.

JR: Did he ever get punctures and things?

ER: I don’t think so, because people were more careful and course there weren’t so many cars about. I mean, my dad didn’t have a car ‘til a couple of years afterwards; by which time the road had been tarmacked up. I mean, in two years I think they probably finished Windsor Drive in that two years because they built quite quickly, you know, and it just sort-of unfolded as days went by. As I say, at one time you could go across from Welwyn Road across to nearly the junction of Tudor Way and Hollycroft, across this field; then all of a sudden they started marking it all out for Hutton Close came there. I remember going up in to one of the flats which was on the top floor and you could see right across Stratton’s Folly at Little Berkhamstead and the radio mast at Brookmans Park. You could see for miles. Wonderful views. And, of course, a lot of people loved it because it was all new and a lot of them had come from probably not such good surroundings.

JR: I think the bathroom was one of the main advantages. Because people have been talking about the first time they had hot water and bathrooms and inside loos. Very important. Their own garden to grow things in.

ER: Yes. You see, when we lived in Sele Road, which was from about 1940 to 1950, we had enormous gardens there but the toilet was in the porchway; you had a porchway with a toilet one side and a coal shed the other side and the bathroom was off the kitchen, with copper which, in the first house we lived in in Sele Road, you had to light a fire underneath it to get it going and, of course, you might be lucky and be the first one to have a bath. You only had a bath once a week and you’d have the best water and then the next one got into your water and perhaps there was a scoop of hot water that you put into it just to warm it up a little bit. And then we moved to another house in Sele Road, because it was a bit bigger, and that had a big gas ring under the copper and you had to get a taper from the gas fire or gas stove or something and reach under and if you weren’t quick it would blow back and scorch your arm, yes. But, of course, that was the time of the war and everybody had big gardens. They cultivated them; you kept chickens. There was one chap along from us, Eddie George Treadwell, he kept goats; he kept turkeys ... Yes, he used to keep them on the railway embankment.

JR: Ah, he was the other side from the hospital.

ER: ... Yes, yes. I know what you’re going to say, because if you looked on the back of the rent book -

JR: That’s right. We’ve got one.

ER: - it said that if you lived in the houses backing on to the hospital, you weren’t allowed to keep anything within so many yards. We were lucky. We backed on to the railway line. Lovely big gardens. We had the last house by the bridge which goes to Fordwich, No.79, and we had a big triangular piece of garden and we kept chickens there. And, as I say, this chap George Treadwell he used to stake goats on the railway line and I can remember my dad telling me that one time one of the goats took ill; he brought it in and put it up in the small bedroom. Which he used as a sort-of animal hospital and his wife said to my mother one morning, "I haven’t had a wink of sleep. That blasted goat has kept me awake all night." But rather than let it -

JR: die

ER: - or whatever, he brought it into the house and some of the people there, I mean they had massive chicken houses, all built out of scraps of wood; most difficult thing to get was the wire netting that you put round the coop to keep the chickens in and give them somewhere to run. That was very difficult. It was very scarce, yes. But, everybody survived. You know, I’ve been reading a book recently about the war and the shortages and I can never remember us being short of anything ‘cos wives, mothers, whatever, had all been brought up to learn to cook.

JR: And make a meal out of nothing.

ER: You had lots of stews and we got some vegetables and sometimes we used to have an old chap come in and he’d bring a rabbit, which was wonderful ‘cos you could bake it, stew it, whatever, and it would last and last. And you had fruit trees in the garden, so you’d have plums and apples and pears which you used to bottle in the old Kilner jars, and you’d make jam. So you were never short of anything. You grew a lot of potatoes and swedes and carrots and Brussel sprouts and stuff like that. And, you know, the chickens laid the eggs and you put them into this stuff called waterglass; horrible slimy stuff, and you always had an abundance - well, I wouldn’t say an abundance - but you always had enough to go round, you know. ‘Cos, obviously, it wouldn’t be so easy for people who lived in towns where they didn’t have gardens, did they, and they didn’t have the same facilities to do these things as we had? I think Sele Road was a lovely estate. Some lovely people lived there. ‘Cos we were young and things moved at a different pace, didn’t they? I mean, you can remember the baker, Mr Wren’s baker’s, horse drawn. Pateman’s, theirs was horse drawn, their milk cart. And that was it. No vehicles, hardly any vehicles. I think Briden’s had a van, a delivery van. Brown with gold on it. That’s about all. All I can say is I hope you find lots of other people – (Bridens also had a horse-drawn bread van, with ‘Peggy’ the horse in charge).

JR: I will. It’s been a very good -

ER: - to talk to who’ll give you different angles.

JR: Well, I’ve got a lot of information now. I don’t think there’s a lot more to get but I think what I’m going to do is to just see how this self help build scheme and how it started up and they did tell me quickly but I need to go back with the tape recorder and record it and they wanted to get photographs out and I want to talk to Betty Hill about George’s - because George apparently was a policeman on that area before the estate was built and there’s one or two things she can remember him telling her about his patrol duties and things like that up there. So they’ll be worth having and I also need to just get a little bit about St John Ambulance, how that started and I think we’ve -

ER: I think they went up there when

 TAPE ENDS