Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Crane, Agnes (O 2002.1) |
| Interviewee | Agnes Crane (AC) |
| Interviewer | Eve Sangster (ES) |
| Date | 14/01/2002 |
| Transcriber by | Juliet Bending |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O 2002.1
Interviewee: Agnes Crane (AC)
Date: 14th January 2002
Venue: 46 Calton House
Interviewer: Eve Sangster (ES)
Transcriber: Juliet Bending
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
[italics] editors’ notes
CASSETTE 1, SIDE A
ES: Monday -- what's the date? Something like the 11th? -- right, this is Eve Sangster on Monday the 14th January 2002. I'm speaking to Agnes Crane in her home at 46 Carlton House, Hertford. (Right, this is playing.) When were you born?
AC: 17th April 1909.
ES: And where was that?
AC: I was born at Ware and came to Hertford when I was three weeks old.
ES: Why did your family come to Hertford?
AC: My father was at work in Hertford.
ES: What was he?
AC: A maltster.
ES: And who did he...? Did he work at McMullen's?
AC: No, not for McMullen's, no. It's hard to remember after all these years. I can't remember.
ES: No. He didn't work in West Street? There were maltings there.
AC: No, Priory Street, the maltings.
ES: Priory Street. And did you have any brothers and sisters?
AC: I came from a big family -- there was 10 of us, and then my mother and father, that's 12 of us. And there's just two sisters alive, and me.
ES: Right. And did your...? I assume your mother didn't go out to work?
AC: Oh no, she never had time to go out to work, no.
ES: She'd got her hands full. [laughs]
AC: She certainly had, she was a wonderful mother. I had a wonderful father, but he died very young, 46, so she had a very hard life. And we all mucked in and helped, you know, as we grew older. I left school when I was 13, this was to help my mother.
ES: And which school was that?
AC: All Saints', near All Saints' Church.
ES: Did you tell me where you moved to in Hertford? What address did you live at?
AC: 27...*****
ES: I know -- we're talking 93 years. [laughs]
AC: Yes. Brickendon... Oh no, not Brickendon, that's the other one...
ES: Was it the Ware Road end of the town?
AC: Well, we lived at Brickendon Lane, I did when I moved, when we moved and I got married, we lived at Brickendon Lane.
ES: Yes. But before then.
AC: Gas House Lane, Gas House Lane, 27 [ on 1911 census the family are at 9 Mead Lane Hertford, just around the corner].
ES: Yes, 27 Gas House Lane, right. They've changed the name of that, haven't they, now.
AC: I think they have, yes.
ES: Something a bit more...
AC: Upper-class.
ES: Yes. [laughter] So what do you remember about that house?
AC: It was all stairs. We had...underneath the kitchen...
ES: Cellars.
AC: Yes, we used to have our meals all down there, then went upstairs. And of course then we used to sleep in *****, four in a bed, when we were very small. But as we grew older, you know, things were a bit better, livened up a bit and we started going out to work.
ES: How many bedrooms was it?
AC: Three. Come to think of all of us trying to get in there!
ES: Amazing, isn't it.
AC: I had a wonderful mother. I had a very good father. He wasn't a man for work, he used to take us out, and I can feel my father's finger-tips scratching my hand like that, you know. He was a wonderful father, but he died at 46.
ES: You must have worked hard.
AC: We did work hard. He had asthma, and so he died.
ES: Was that something to do with his work, do you think?
AC: No, nothing to do with his work, no. We some of us take after him -- that's why they think some of us had asthma, you see. But no, otherwise there was no trouble or anything like that. And my brothers were in the First...the Second World War.
ES: Do you remember the names of all your brothers and sisters?
AC: Yes, yes.
ES: Who were they?
AC: Ada, Fred -- Elsie, Agnes, Bessie, Kath and Vera were the girls. And then there was Albert, William, Ronald, the boys ***** [in 1911 the children are Ada Francis, Frederick Albert, Elsie Margaret, Albert Archibald, William George, Agnes Sarah, Arthur Reginald and 2 had died Ernest Samuel and Thomas]
ES: Are you related to the Mrs Crane that...lived in West Street, at 23? She...when we moved there, there was a Mrs Crane lived next door, a widow...
AC: No.
ES: I just wondered if one of your brothers...
AC: The Cranes that lived at Sele Road.
ES: Oh yes, I don't know any of them, but...
AC: That's where my husband used to live.
ES: So you went to All Saints'. Do you remember your school? Do you remember your teachers there? Were you a good student?
AC: Well, I thought I was, I thought I was. I can remember making gloves for the soldiers, we had to do that at school.
ES: What, knitting them?
AC: Gloves, for the soldiers...I'd just help out with different things. And I remember being in a play, and they'd got trees and we were rushing round the trees saying 'Tu-whit tu-whoo' -- for an owl.
ES: [laughs] You were an owl! What play was that, do you remember?
AC: I couldn't tell you, only I do know I was an owl. I do remember it.
ES: So, could you have stayed at school longer?
AC: Oh, I could have done, but my mother needed me, to... I had to take the two children out in the pram to take them down the Meads, and another sister would come down with a meal, and I'd keep them down there out of the way for a little while.
ES: So when did you...? How long did that go on for?
AC: Well, I had a very bad experience really, when I was doing that. Before that we were playing Girl Guides. We went through a forest called Billy Mumford's, we used to call it, we went through this forest, and some man stopped me, but the others wouldn't come, and they said, 'Come along and we'll find *****'. He stopped me and chased the others away, he just got hold of my neck like that...
ES: Really?
AC: ...honest. And he keeps saying, 'What's your father's name? What's your mother's name?', going on and on like that, and the children run home to tell my parents. In the meantime I was struggling, you know. But he had to let me go, he just let go once, he was trying for a bit of string...
ES: He was what?
AC: Trying for a bit of string in his pocket.
ES: Oh, right, so it was really serious?
AC: And I managed to get away, and I rushed up there, and people were just coming down to fetch me, and they caught him. He was working on the railway.
ES: What was the motive?
AC: I don't know what his motive was...he was just in his working clothes, just walking along there. I don't know...
ES: You say it was called 'Billy Mumford's Wood'?
AC: Billy Mumford's Wood.
ES: And where was that then?
AC: Well, it was nearly opposite where we lived, at Brick...at...
ES: Along by the railways then.
AC: Yes, we had to go down a dip, and we were at Billy Mumford's Wood, we used to call it...there's all trees...well, that's the impression we had.
ES: Well, it's still quite wooded down there.
AC: It is.
ES: (Let me just check that this is...) So how old were you when this horrible incident happened?
AC: Oh, I was about...10...11, between 10 and 11. Of course, I left school at 13, so it wouldn't have happened then, no -- between 10 and 11.
ES: And how many years did you stay helping your mother? Or did you get another job outside the home?
AC: No, no, because I was in this job of looking after the children. But I liked it, I liked it. As you get older, you think to yourself, 'I didn't get this, I didn't do that.'
ES: And did you go out in...? You know, what were your pleasures in those days?
AC: Well, in those days they didn't go out like they do now. No, we had to be in at a certain time, you know. Nobody was out in the evenings, and then my mother was left on her own, it got harder, you see.
ES: Of course.
AC: But it was a happy family.
ES: So was the first exciting thing when you met your husband?
AC: Well first...after I grew up, I got a job at a laundry.
ES: Oh. Which laundry was that?
AC: In Lion's Laundry, at Gallows Hill, it used to be down the bottom of Gallows Hill. And I became forewoman there, I was quite young, I was about...twenty ...twenty-five. And then I was forewoman there quite a while, until I met my husband, and he'd never been married before or anything like that, he was very quiet. And then we got talking and we courted for quite a while.
ES: Did he work at the laundry?
AC: No, he worked at Earl's the butcher's. Do you remember Earl's the butcher's?
ES: I don't remember it, but it's at the bottom of Port Hill, isn't it.
AC: That's it. He worked there as a butcher. And when we got married we lived at...Horns Mill, Horns Mill, of course we did! No, we lived at Spence...at...a place at Port Vale, a little place -- I can't think what it's called now -- near the shops.
ES: Not Russell...
AC: Not Russell, the one before that.
ES: Yes.
AC: Nelson Street. No, that's further down.
ES: Yes, but...OK, the one next door to Russell [George Street, unless she is referring to Port Vale itself – she later says she lived at 8 Port Vale].
AC: Where Briden’s is?
ES: Yes.
AC: Down there, near the baker's, we were down there, and we lived there for quite a long time.
ES: And that was when you were first married? What were they like, those cottages?
AC: They were nice, they were nice, they were. I was quite happy. The only thing is, they hadn't got a bath, they hadn't got a proper bathroom, we used to have a tin bath, in them days. You used to hang it on the wall afterwards, you know, *****.
ES: So, how old were you when you got married?
AC: Oh I was getting on a bit, 29, yes, 29.
ES: And did you have any family?
AC: No, not for a long long time. We tried...I was trying for one, but then as things came on, we had the War broke out, didn't it, and I was...I had moved to Brickendon Lane then. And then war broke out, and they asked people to take in evacuees.
ES: But just before that, did you...your husband go away during the War, was he called up?
AC: No, because he'd got his job kept him. He was a slaughterman as well, so his job kept him out of the army. But he was doing evening work for them, you know, a lot of different things.
ES: What do you mean? Like an Air Raid Warden?
AC: That's it, that's right.
ES: So, where did you live in Brickendon Lane?
AC: Number 26.
ES: Right. I'm trying to think...Brickendon Lane is the one with...houses only one side, isn't it?
AC: Pardon?
ES: It's got houses only one side.
AC: That's right.
ES: So it was...there was a Post Office.
AC: That's right.
ES: So what happened with the evacuee? How did you get hold of one?
AC: Well, they brought two little girls, we'd got to take them in.
ES: Did you have to apply?
AC: No, oh no, no. And we took two in, one was Linda and one was Joyce. Joyce was...she played up...she was a little devil, she was. And Linda was a sweet little girl, only 8 I think she was, and they asked me to take the other one away and keep Linda, so we kept Linda, and I had her with me all during the War. And then she took my mind completely off from having a baby, so I fell for my son. And she...we didn't tell her anything about it, of course, when I was...you know, waiting. Her mother come to see her. And she said, 'Linda, you're going to stop with your Nan tonight. Your Auntie's not very well.' So when she'd left, and I'd got the baby, and they said to her, 'What do you think your Auntie's got? She's got a little boy,' 'Oh, take me back, take me back,' she says. She wanted to be back. And was she good? She was a good little soul, and I kept her right until...well...quite a while, with my son. I had some lovely photos, I can't find them, I think I've given them to her once before, you know, and...
ES: Where did she come from?
AC: Near London, Harrogate...no, not Harrogate...
ES: Haringey?
AC: Not Haringey...Finchley.
ES: Finchley.
AC: Finchley, Finchley, and then when she got older...well, when she got a bit older -- I had a lovely photo of her, and I can't find the blessed thing -- but she lived in there with my son, you know, she thought the world of my son. In fact, my son -- I must try to look for that photograph -- as he grew up -- I had beautiful photos of him and her together, he used to say, 'I'm going to marry her when I get older, Mum.' ***** She was, what, nearly 10 years older than him.
ES: And where did she go to school in Hertford?
AC: I couldn't tell you what school -- All Saints', I think. There was just a crowd of them, you know, ***** a place of their own. I can see her walking up the road now, with her gas mask hanging down, you know...she was a sweet little girl. We never ever lost touch. Every week she phones, every Mother's Day I get a parcel, Christmas Day...four things, I got four presents. And we went to their wedding, Jewish wedding, that was beautiful. She's never ever lost touch, that's over 60 years, I think that's wonderful. I keep asking different people, ***** 'Did you ever take any evacuees?' 'No, no, they didn't take any evacuees.'
ES: There were...somebody else, in one of these interviews we've done...somebody else was saying about Jewish evacuees coming out...[ [it was called a Jewish orphanage but the children seemed to have parents].
AC: There was a coach-load.
ES: Yes, of course it's true Finchley is a Jewish area. I had an idea it was a school that was evacuated, a Jewish school.
AC: Could have been. Because she was...she wasn't living with her mother, she was put in a Home because she'd lost her father and her mother'd got to go out to work, so she come from a Home.
ES: Well, perhaps it was a Jewish home or school. Yes, I must find out more about that.
AC: It could have been.
ES: I'll let you know if I find out anything.
AC: But I know she went to a school. And when she grew up, her brother ***** was much older than her, and he took on a chemist's shop, I've seen it, and we used to go over and see it...see him. And then, of course, well...she grew up, we got an invitation to the wedding, we went to the wedding. The best bit about that was, my son didn't want to wear a cap, a Jewish cap, a little thing, and we was all queuing up inside -- it wasn't a proper church...a hall -- and somebody tapped my son like that, 'Just put that on your head.' My son said, 'I'm not wearing it, I'm not wearing it.' He did! He just put it on his head like that. The best of it was, the ladies were all sitting this way, all highly dressed, you know, and the men are sitting that way. I was right facing them, and I dare not look at anybody, it would have made me laugh to see him in a hat like that, you know. But no, she got on all right. Terrific turn-out they had, wonderful turn-out. But, you know, they stamp...stamp their foot on the floor and break a...a thing, don't they?
ES: Yes.
AC: ...when they're getting married. But it was really very good...But she's never ever lost touch.
ES: No. Oh well, you were rewarded, weren't you, for your good deed.
AC: I've asked several people, you know, if they... 'No, we didn't take them in.'
ES: No, well, of course, Hertford's not that far from London, is it. Perhaps it wasn't considered far enough.
AC: No. I don't know. But she's always kept in touch, not a week goes by, that's 60 years, that is a long time. And I've told different people -- 'Oh I don't remember them being here.'
ES: Well it is...you're certainly not the only one who took a Jewish evacuee.
AC: No, of course not. But her mother used to come down every Sunday and have dinner with us, have dinner with Linda. But she was a lovely girl. She looked beautiful at her wedding all in white -- no bridesmaids, nothing like that.
ES: So when you were...going back to your childhood, you were in Gas House Lane, so did you play on the Meads and so on?
AC: Yes, that's where we used to take the two children down, onto the Meads, we used to take the two children down there. In fact, one of my sisters fell in the water, and she told my mum I pushed her, the devil! But I used to have three -- two in a pram, one walking.
ES: But when did you move up towards...? I mean, why were you in this 'Billy Mumford's Wood' when you were only 10?
AC: Oh we were just playing...
ES: But had you come from Gas House Lane?
AC: Yes, number 27.
ES: That was a long walk, a long walk...
AC: No, no, it was across the road, we were right opposite. Right next to us was a...record factory where they made records.
ES: Yes. I must have got this wrong. Where is Billy Mumford's Wood?
AC: Well...it's Gas House Lane.
ES: Yes, yes. I'm thinking of the railway at Brickendon, but of course you're talking about...
AC: No, no, no, there used to be a shop -- and that was run by Cranes, they were Crane relations -- and their shop...we pass that and you go across the road, you go down and then there's the forest. Whether it's still there, I don't know. We used to call it old Billy Mumford's. [This is Mead Lane].
ES: And when you...so you were a young girl at home you had to do a fair bit of helping, did you?
AC: Oh yes, everyone had got your own bit to do. Of course, I was doing bedrooms, make the beds and all that, and I'd got two brothers in bed. They used to say, 'Bring the cards up, will you.' We'd sit on the bed and play cards with them. My mother would call up, 'Have you nearly finished up there?' That's what we used to do. One's got this to do, another one's got that to do, you know, everyone else had got something to do. She couldn't do everything herself.
ES: Of course not.
AC: Not with all of us, you know, but...she used to make all our clothes. Oh, I had a wonderful mother, yes.
ES: Was she a good cook?
AC: Oh yes, a good cook, nothing bought, no. In fact the money was very poor, because she...and what happened my mother took in...when she lost her husband the people he worked for paid for his funeral. So with that she said, 'There's a second-hand shop going.' She said, 'I'm going to buy that', to keep us. She used to have to go round people's places, they used to send her a note -- 'Do you want to buy this? Do you want that?' -- she used to buy the clothes and put a little bit more money on them, like that. And then she'd sell them, she'd say, 'Oh, I've got this, go and get pork chops, we'll have them for dinner' -- because she'd made that money.
ES: A bit of a hand-to-mouth existence. Where was the shop?
AC: The butcher's?
ES: No, the second-hand shop.
AC: Railway Street. You know the ***** -- Duncombe Arms?
ES: Oh, not where Mrs Mills...? She didn't buy it from Mrs Mills?
AC: My Mum was Mrs Mills.
ES: Oh! Was she? Well, we've spoken to Reginald...
AC: My name was Mills.
ES: Oh! I never got round to asking you!
AC: Yes, my name was Mills.
ES: Well, I've heard some of this story from...is Reginald one of your brothers?
AC: Reg, no, not Reg. Fred?
ES: Well, perhaps it is Fred, a chap who...
AC: He's died. He's dead now.
ES: ...a chap who lived out at...Bramfield.
AC: That was Ron. Ronald.
ES: Ron. Is he still...?
AC: No, he died, three years ago. I was in hospital the same time as he was in hospital. No, brother Fred, he was...he died. There were so many of them, you know. Makes you think, doesn't it? I keep thinking I'm living too long, you know, and everything, all the others gone like that.
ES: But did you move to Railway Street when your mother took the shop?
AC: Yes.
ES: So you moved from Gas House Lane to Railway Street?
AC: Railway Street, where The Duncombe is, The Duncombe Arms, where there used to be...they had big gates there and through inside there -- you couldn't see it from the street -- it was a great big place...
ES: A yard.
AC: ...yes, we had...it was like a big shed there, we used to have all our meals in there.
ES: Did you live?...you lived opposite The Angel public house then?
AC: No, not The Angel.
ES: You know The Welcome?
AC: Yes, The Welcome, opposite The Welcome.
ES: And wasn't there a dairy there?
AC: Yes, a dairy next door.
ES: Well, next door to that...wasn't there an old pub...? [some confusion here: seems that the Angel must have been nearly opposite Mills].
AC: A bit further up, on the other side, yes, it was Claydon's the fish people. The Duncombe Arms ***** next to it.
ES: Did you ever have to go with your mother to collect clothes and so on?
AC: Yes, sometimes, we used to...we used to have a little barrow. She was a hard working woman, my mother. But she kept us well, you know. I think she was 82 when she died.
ES: It is a hard life.
AC: Yes, it is...it was a hard life then. They don't know they're living these days, do they? They get things too easy.
ES: Well, you wouldn't wish everybody as hard a life as your mother had, but somewhere in between.
AC: No, no...in between. I mean, we weren't allowed out after a certain time. Oh no.
ES: But did you think that Railway Street was rather a rough area?
AC: No, I didn't.
ES: But I mean, people said there were a lot of fights over the weekend, or perhaps it was before your day, a bit earlier on?
AC: No, it was quite a nice place, we thought it was. The Welcome, we lived opposite The Welcome, and then there was a little alleyway, there were some people living down there. Then there was a shoe shop.
ES: Yes, Coleman's.
AC: That's it. Then you come to ***** the bakers. Then there was another one called The Diamond.
ES: Yes, on that corner opposite, yes.
AC: There wasn't all the shops that they've got now, nothing near. But we was a happy family. A lot of the -- we were saying -- with all them children...and we had hand-me-down clothes, of course, hand-me-down as they grew out of them, give them to the next one. I always remember when I first started courting...I was courting a sailor, *****. And my first new coat I had, I can remember that plain as anything -- my mother ***** a new coat -- a great big button, done up with a big buttonhole like that. Today they wouldn't wear that sort of thing.
ES: It was really new, was it?
AC: It was actually new, yes. And I had a wonderful mother, none of us could ***** for anything, but she was so happy.
ES: And how long did she carry on with that shop?
AC: Oh, quite a while...well, she died there -- no, I'm sorry, she'd moved from there because it had got too much, we were all getting married. And she moved to live with one of my sisters in a prefab, at Horns Mill, in a prefab, one of the first prefabs...
ES: So that's probably about 1935 or something, was it?
AC: Oh it must be, must be, yes. But we was with her the night she died, she lived with one of my sisters there. But at the top of the hill, the prefabs, I think they're still there, aren't they? But they've been modernised or something.
ES: What, at Horns Mill?
AC: ***** Hill.
ES: Yes, I think they're...what is that road called? It runs from Bullock's Lane in a great curve...is it that one?
AC: That's it. That's right.
ES: It's funny, though, that your mother's Mrs Mills because her name has cropped up a lot. I mean, for instance, I did a book about The Angel and the Morrises...
AC: My mother lived in a pub when she was single.
ES: Oh, where was that?
AC: At Ware, on the main street. We talked about it. ***** she used to tell us. She had a hard life.
ES: But one of the chaps who lived at The Angel -- because it was turned...it stopped being a pub and became a lodging-house for McMullen's employees -- and one of the...
AC: My son worked at McMullen's.
ES: ...yes...and one of the employees, he used to get old shoes from your mother and put new...mend them.
AC: Oh yes.
ES: I mean, I think he bought them for threepence from your mother, he would put a new sole on and take them back again and get sixpence, so he'd make threepence, your mother would I suppose sell them for a shilling or something?
AC: That's it. Yes, it was a hard life, it wasn't easy. That's my son up there. That's my son when he was small, up there, look. That's my son as he is now.
ES: It's a lovely photo, isn't it, a nice-looking chap.
AC: A wonderful son. And that's my family, all in that ***** -- well, not all my family, my relations. Yes, [moments in time?]. There are my three grandchildren, and that girl there -- this is her baby, the first one, and that's the same child ***** and that's her there, she's two-and-a-half there.
ES: So, just -- where have we got in the story? -- You...what year did you marry?
AC: Now...*****
ES: Well, anyway, you went up to...Horns Mill.
AC: Horns Mill.
ES: Brickendon Lane, yes.
AC: My first place -- where was my first place? -- Port Vale.
ES: Yes, Port Vale. And then you went...
AC: That's it, number 8 Port Vale.
ES: And were you happy in...Brickendon Lane?
AC: Oh yes, we were happy up there, but losing my husband...when I lost my husband there, and I'd got a sister living next door but one, she was a very good sister, but she got onto my nerves so much after losing my husband, she'd be coming round Sunday of a morning with the dinner. Well, ***** cook my own dinner, you know, *****.
ES: She meant it well, but...
AC: She meant it well, but I couldn't take it. Anyone could have seen her coming over with my dinner. So I put in for one in Sele Farm, and there were some bungalows, and I lived there quite a while, over 25 years I lived there. And then, of course, I was getting ***** stairs, the stairs were getting too much, and my son said, 'Mum, we've got to do something, *****, so I said 'Oh, oh...' We used to come over here, ****, if you need anything they've got it here *****.
ES: Yes, yes.
AC: But I liked the place where I was. But he said, 'But Mum, the stairs, you can't do the stairs, you know.' So we put the name down, to start it.
ES: One of the people who is part of the Oral History Group...
SIDE B
ES: -- she's a Councillor --
AC: I've heard the name.
ES: ...anyway she's writing a book about the early council houses, and she's going to call it The Pioneers, which I think's rather a nice name. So she might want to...have you anything particularly to say about your experiences as a council house tenant? -- I mean...
AC: No, I've always got on very well.
ES: Oh yes, I don't mean bad experiences particularly, but you had good...I mean, where you were in Brickendon Lane, I assume a lot of those...a lot of your neighbours had been moved out of the centre of Hertford, had they?
AC: No, they hadn't been up all that long.
ES: No, but I mean, Bircherley Green and so on...
AC: Bircherley Court.
ES: Yes, but it was Bircherley Green, wasn't it, and various alleys and courts, they had all been cleared...
AC: It used to be -- what did they used to call it? -- The Green.
ES: The Green. But that was cleared, wasn't it, all those little...
AC: There used to be a Salvation Army Hall down there.
ES: ...but a lot of those people went to...council housing, and I think Brickendon Lane was one of the first...Horns Mill was one of the first ones, so a lot of them must have been there. And I just wondered what they seemed like, how they settled in -- do you remember any of that?
AC: Oh they settled in all right.
ES: Did they think it was wonderful?
AC: Oh yes, they thought it was nice...
ES: Because they'd all got bathrooms and so on.
AC: Oh yes, everything the newest, like new. But I can remember the last War breaking out *****, and they had...the people, two doors off from us, had a bomb come right through their place -- it did explode, went into the sink.
ES: What! In Brickendon Lane? I didn't know that.
AC: Oh yes, into the sink. Mrs Tarporley...
ES: Oh well, you had a narrow escape -- again!
AC: Oh we did *****. They were a lovely family. In fact, I met one of...her daughter when we was out the other week. She said, 'I haven't seen you for years.' Jean Tarporley -- she's lost her husband now. But they lived two doors off of me, they had a bomb come through their place and landed in the sink but didn't explode -- it was wonderful, wasn't it? Yes. Nothing to worry about, sort of thing -- they got somebody...come to fetch it and took it away. It could have been a big explosion, couldn't it?
ES: Oh yes, of course it could! Well, it must have been a huge difference from living right in a...for the people who lived in the Green, which really was a slum, wasn't it.
AC: Oh yes, it was a slum. There was a pub at the end of it, at the beginning before you went up. Well, that was always packed out. It was all pubs down by West Street actually. Then they built the accommodation...the accommodation down there now where they live.
ES: Well, Bircherley Court.
AC: Bircherley Court. I remember that all being built up.
ES: Yes, of course, that's not so long ago, is it -- what, 20 years?
AC: Oh longer than that.
ES: Is it?
AC: Longer than that. I remember that being built up. Two of the nurses who used to come to me...they lived at the front of it...Hertford Nurses...Sister Page...come, two nurses.
ES: Yes. So all your brothers and sisters -- I mean, it's such a big family -- did they all marry and have big families?
AC: One of my sisters...she lived...she worked away at Margate in service, but she got married to somebody at home, but they never had any family, she didn't want any family. My brother, he got married, they never had any family -- he would have liked it, but she didn't want children. And one brother, he had three children. My sister next-door-but-one to me, she's like me, she had one, a boy. And another sister in Scotland, she had a boy and a girl -- she's coming down in a fortnight's time. And Kath, in Southampton, she had three. They've all lost their husbands anyway. ***** There was a lot of children really -- not like my mother had. I think they saw what my mother had in those days.
ES: Yes, I'm sure. But do you remember your grandparents?
AC: No.
ES: Where did they come from?
AC: Stanstead Abbots, yes, Stanstead Abbots, that's where my father come from. My mother come from Ware, as I told you. But Stanstead Abbots, up on the main road they lived, in the little cottages down there. They lived there.
ES: I wonder why you didn't see them. Had they died, do you think?
AC: Oh they must have died, they must have done. I don't remember my Grandma. I was named after my grandmother...Agnes, and Sarah after my own mother *****. Oh -- my sister had one girl, Jean, but she died. But they all lived quite a while, you know. I'm the longest one living, sort of thing...
ES: Oh right.
AC: I didn't ask to live this long, put it that way. I like it here though, it's very quiet.
ES: Yes.
AC: But they do like you to get downstairs.
ES: Yes. What have you got? -- a day room, or a lounge, whatever they call it.
AC: Yes, a lounge, a common room they call it, with armchairs around. They didn't have armchairs when I first come here. But they used to have a whist drive. Then it was somebody's birthday, and I was collecting up, the plates up ***** birthday, caught my ankle ***** in here, and we used to have a whist drive on that day, and it was this man's birthday. And I was helping to clear the tables, caught my foot on the chair -- they were just ordinary chairs *****, and some woman, she said, 'Oh let her lay there, let's get on with it.' She's living in Bircherley Court. [laughter] And one of those in charge said, 'No, I'm not.' She said, 'I'm getting an ambulance first.' We waited a while for the ambulance and then they got on with the game. She's dead now, that one. I've seen her house.
ES: But do you visit, between yourselves? I mean, how friendly are you, have you got friends?
AC: Oh I've got a friend comes in every morning to see if I'm all right, every morning.
ES: And she works...she lives here?
AC: She lives here, along the passage, Enid...Evelyn. But...I know quite a lot of them in here, I'm very friendly, but we don't go to one another's place, no. No, it's very friendly.
ES: Why don't you, though? I mean, it must be a long day without visiting.
AC: Well no, I don't think so, ***** to occupy myself, you know. I do my own undies now, but my son takes all my big wash down to their place and does that, sends the ironing all out. But I always do my own personal bits, I like to do them, I've got a tumble-drier and a spinner that they have in there.
ES: Oh yes. And do you do your own cooking?
AC: Yes, all my own cooking. I don't do a lot of baking now, not ***** I can't do it now.
ES: Well, there's nobody to do it for, is there?
AC: I used to make lovely sandwiches, but I can't do it. But I think I manage all right. If I can't manage, I've got to go in a Home, and I don't want that.
ES: Oh well, I'm sure *****.
AC: I'd have to go in a Home. They've been up to see me, one of them, from Hoddesdon, when I first moved in here -- 'Have you thought of going in a, you know, a proper Home?' I said, 'Oh no!'
ES: Do you mean, they come round without being asked? What a cheek!
AC: Yes, at Hoddesdon, a little place at Hoddesdon. She said, 'Have you ever thought of moving into a...' I said, 'No, I haven't, I prefer this.' ***** So she said, 'Don't you think you should?' I said, 'No, I'm quite capable...'
ES: What a sauce!
AC: I was quite all right then, when I first moved in here. I said, 'No, I'm quite happy.'
ES: But you're all right now. I mean, you've got your frame, but apart from that, you're...
AC: I'm quite all right, yes. While I can do it, I'll do it.
ES: Yes. I mean, the thought of going into a Home, it really hangs over people...
AC: Oh the stuff gets mixed up, you don't get your own clothes back, no, I wouldn't like that.
ES: I mean, it's like the fear of the workhouse was in the old days, wasn't it.
AC: That's it. No, I don't like the thought of that.
ES: Do you remember seeing people from the workhouse when you were at...lived in Railway Street? No...I mean, there were...that still was going strong, the workhouse.
AC: I can't remember it, no. Oh we had nothing to do with the workhouse.
ES: Oh no, of course people didn't, but other people have said they remember seeing them on a Saturday night walking through the town *****.
AC: ***** No, that was one thing my mum was strict about. And I can see us now, she used to take us for a walk Sunday afternoons, right up to Gallows Hill, over there, Gallows Hill, and right over the hill and all that, and we were all holding hands, we had a photo, all of us were holding hands. And some man come by, and he was letting his nose drip, like some of them used to do in them days. And I went, 'Oh, just have a look at him then.' We used to come right out to...***** where the laundry was, where I started work, right through where they're building...***** the trees, Gallows Hill...
ES: A goodish walk.
AC: Oh a goodish walk, every Sunday we used to do that, when it was fine, you know. Not my father, my mother used to take us. He would take us out Sunday mornings -- well, we had to go to church...chapel, in the afternoon.
ES: I was going to say, did you have to go to Sunday School?
AC: Gospel Hall, at the Gospel Hall.
ES: Oh right, that's at Hartham Lane.
AC: Yes, at the beginning...Gospel Hall. We went there every Sunday, even when I got older, I used to have to do Bible Class. I remember that, yes.
ES: What...? I assume it's a Church of England, the Gospel Hall, is it?
AC: Well, it's a hall, it's not a church.
ES: Yes, but who ran it? I mean, a sort of evangelical sect, was it?
AC: I can't remember. ***** or something like that. Years ago...
ES: I just wondered which branch of the church they belonged to, the people that ran it.
AC: It wasn't actually a church, it was a chapel, a chapel. And I know I belonged to the Band of Hope, that's down...[20, Bull Plain].
ES: The Salvation Army.
AC: Down that ***** road...I belonged to that.
ES: So you were Temperance?
AC: Temperance, yes.
ES: Did you march through the streets singing...Temperance songs?
AC: No, nothing like that, no. I was there just for meetings and things, you know. And that was up there.
ES: But the Band of Hope was connected with the Salvation Army, was it?
AC: Oh yes. But they didn't have music and things down there, just talking and doing things. Of course I was only young, but I'd left school and that's where I used to go to, because I couldn't get out if I didn't belong to anything.
ES: You haven't got photos of yourself as a ch...young girl?
AC: No. Well, I've got one of us all sitting together, but I can't find it now...in a big book. My mother made all the black-and-white dresses for my *****, there's five of us...four of us in there -- me, Kath, Elsie and Vera, yes, all in black and white *****, and my mother standing behind us.
ES: You've got it somewhere, the photo? If you come across it, you could perhaps give me a ring, and I would like to look at it.
AC: ***** I've got a photo of my mother, it's round the corner there, a little frame, look, there. That's a very good photo of my mother.
ES: She's a nice-looking woman.
AC: Well, I thought she was. She was a hard worker.
ES: Don't you think she's like Ron? Or Ron is like her?
AC: Yes, Ron takes after her. She was a wonderful mother, she used to make all our clothes. She used to mend our shoes with a [hobbing-hook?] -- my father would buy the leather and everything, but my mother would sit and do them. Yes, she was a wonderful mother ***** people like that these days, I don't care what they say.
ES: Well, times were so hard -- I mean, my father mended our shoes.
AC: My father used to buy the leather, and then he used to take us for walks. But he was a hard-working man otherwise, you know. He was ***** because ***** pay for all his funeral. My mother said, 'Well, I haven't had to pay for his funeral. We'll buy that little shop.' That's what she done.
ES: I think Ron said they had a collection at work.
AC: Do you know my Ron?
ES: Well, I did an interview with him...
AC: Did you? Oh, he never told us!
ES: ...at Bramfield. Didn't he tell you?
AC: No!
ES: Oh, the misery!
AC: He never told me! When did I see him, up there...?
ES: [laughs] Well, we...he did, and he said they had a collection at work.
AC: There's his wife, you see, Clare.
ES: I don't know whether there's anything else I ought to ask you. I'm sure Jean Riddell will want to ask you some...
AC: I've heard that name.
ES: ...some questions about being a Council house tenant.
AC: She was in that party at Christmas.
ES: No, she wasn't there. I mean, it was...Carol Howard was the person who said, 'Oh, I've met a...' She said, 'I've met this woman, Agnes Crane, and so on and so on.' OK, right, well that's probably it.
AC: I don't know of anything else to tell you, anyway. It's just that I would like to know if there is anybody else who can remember all this, who keep in touch with their people. I mean, it isn't me that's keeping..., it's Linda that's keeping in touch all the time.
ES: Yes.
AC: Even her husband calls up, 'How are you?' ***** I think they're a wonderful family.
ES: I will...I'll try and find out some more about these Jewish evacuees.
AC: Could you find out? Agnes Crane
ES: Yes, I will, I will, and I'll let you know.
AC: That's nice of you.