Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Cannon, Win (O2001.21) |
| Interviewee | Win Cannon (WC) |
| Interviewer | (not formally identified) Meg Fewkes (MF) |
| Date | 14/03/2001 |
| Transcriber by | Jean Riddell (Purkis) |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording No: O2001.21
Interviewee: Win Cannon (WC)
Interviewer: (not formally identified) Meg Fewkes (MF)
Date: 14th March 2001
Venue: Hertingfordbury
Transcriber: Jean Riddell
Typed by: Freda Joshua
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
Italics editor’s notes
MF: We’re just going to try to record again. 3 sisters and one brother and you came to Hertingfordbury in 1938. Where did you go to school, Mrs Cannon?
WC: Essendon.
MF: And do you remember any of your teachers’ names?
WC: Miss Bamford. Schoolmaster was Mr Wilson.
MF: And how many children went to school? Was it a big school or little village school?
WC: Just a village school.
MF: And did you stay at that school all your school days?
WC: Yes, I left school before I was 14. In those days they left at 14.
MF: And what did you do then?
WC: I think I went to [inaudible] and helped there and then I went away to a place in Surrey. Can’t think of the name of the people.
MF: What memories of Hertingfordbury have you?
WC: Not any particular memories.
MF: Do you remember the coronation?
WC: Oh, I remember the coronation.
MF: And Doris went to school in Hertingfordbury, did she?
WC: Yes, that’s the Cowper School, it’s run by the Wallinger, he died. Did you have a pass to go to that school?
MF: And was it in Hertingfordbury?
WC: Up on that street.
MF: But at one time they had part at the bottom?
WC: That was the nursery school.
MF: And Doris was at Birch Green – did she walk to school every day?
WC: Didn’t have a car in those days, dear.
MF: And did you go with her?
WC: Well, Rayments used to take her because the Rayments were the only ones that had a car in those days. My husband worked at Rayments. Not that she was pleased because she had a friend who lived next door and she was left out.
MF: And when you came to Hertingfordbury your husband went to work for Rayments?
WC: He worked for Rayments before we came to Hertingfordbury.
MF: He was there 38 years. Did you marry in Essendon Church?
WC: Oh yes, very good bread and doughnuts. We always had doughnuts free, and hot cross buns.
MF: How many people worked there?
WC: Just 2 or 3 I think. My husband used to get up early.
MF: What did he do, did he make the dough?
WC: That’s it, then of course it had to stay so long (to prove0. Lots of people used to come for miles to get the bread [queuing up for it] – like those sausages, have you ever had those?
MF: Braughing? I haven’t actually, no.
WC: People come miles to get those sausages.
MF: And what other changes have you seen in the village? The White Horse now?
WC: I knew the Lamberts quite well, they were there. But I don’t know the new people [then something rather inaudible about a Mr Muir].
MF: I knew Mr Muir, he is, or was, in Southampton because I went down there with my husband. He was working in Southampton for a day and I went down with him, and Mr Muir was manager of the hotel there. What other businesses were there in the village?
WC: Miss Hummerstone – she used to have a little sweet shop – we used to go there for 1d worth of sweets.
MF: What sort of sweets did you have?
WC: Well anything really. One day years ago, my mother told us she’d give us an outing. My youngest sister was 2 but she had been in her pram. We walked to Hatfield Hyde and my aunt, who lived next door, she took her 2 children. My mother took sandwiches and we had a day there.
MF: What a long way to go!
WC: My mother took sandwiches and my aunt made tea!
MF: Did you have a milk delivery here in the village?
WC: I used to fetch the milk from Howe Green when I came home from school. People at The Lodge, I used to fetch their milk. I got 3d a week and a piece of cake.
MF: When you moved to Hertingfordbury and Doris was 8, did you have milk deliveries then?
WC: Yes, by horse and cart.
MR: And do you have any memories of the war? And do you have any memories of the ’14 – ’18 war?
WC: Yes, my husband went in the war and was invalided out. He was fighting in the trenches. He got frost-bitten, that’s why.
MF: And do you remember the last war and all the celebrations when it was over? How did you manage for food during the war?
WC: Well, not too bad. When my husband used to go round with the bread, he often got hold of little things. That helps, doesn’t it? We didn’t starve, anyway. We kept chickens so we’d always got a chicken, kept geese. Someone gave us 3 goose eggs. They always said a Black Leghorn (hen) would never sit on an egg long enough to hatch. (But) she hatched one (goose egg). We kept that goose and that hen followed that goose like a mother ‘til it was old, and we kept them in the field.
I’d got a little West Highlander and I used to take her across and feed the chickens, so I took her this morning, and when I let the hen out the coop, and where’s the egg gone? Because there was only one egg [it appears that the dog was doing something with the egg] because he could hear the duck (?) inside but it wasn’t out yet. Next morning it was running about!
MF: Being a country girl you’d like animals anyway.
WC: I remember where I lived in Essendon, you wouldn’t know Price’s Lodge, it’s on the corner of Cole Green Road, right at the bottom. Well, when you come along the road there’s 2 houses, we lived in the first one, very big garden. Although there was 5 children, we never bought vegetables. We never knew what a strawberry was. She did all her own bottling, jams, wine-making, killed her own pig. It was a big night when she killed the pig! My father, the man that he worked with, Mr Bantry, had been a butcher, so he killed the pig and my father helped him clean it, do what they had to, The house that we lived in had a barn for the coal and a shed that we called the bakehouse. In the bakehouse was a big oven where they used to bake bread years ago.
MF: Doris has an allotment, doesn’t she?
WC: Oh, yes.
[Back to Hertingfordbury}
MF: You had a post office in the village didn’t you, and Mrs Harvey. The post office was up at the top of the hill?
WC: The post office was next door [when they first came] and then moved up the hill.
MF: When we first came to the village, the baker’s shop had become a shoe shop and then it was an antique shop and now it’s a house again, which is nice. You obviously knew everybody in Hertingfordury?
WC: I did then, I don’t now. The people who lived next door here, I still hear from them. They went away to a place called Manningtree.
2nd Tape
MF: Doris (daughter) was saying that she had to fetch water from the river when she lived at Essendon.
WC: Yes, we had water, we had taps, we’ve had those put in.
MF: Here?
WC: Yes.
MF: Where did the water come from?
WC: The well underneath my sink.
MF: You had to pump it up, did you?
WC: Yes, we had a pump.
MF: But your water now comes from the mains (oh yes). You obviously had electricity when you came here?
WC: Oh yes, well when we let the house we had a pump outside, that was very hard water. My hubby used to take a bath and a couple of buckets and there were steps down to the river and he used to fill the bath for the washing because it was softer.
MF: You’ve had quite a hard life really. And you were married at Essendon, you lived in Essendon for a while did you? (Yes). And did you ever work?
WC: I used to work at Crawleys, up the road.
MF: And you still see Dr Crawley, do you?
WC: They come and see me, they’re very kind. They both came Christmas time, brought me a big box, every kind of tin you can think of.
MF: Yes, they’re very nice people, they’ve lived here a long time now. So you’ve got good memories. You’ve seen the children grow.
WC: I’ve seen the children because I used to look after them.
MF: And are there memories of other village people?
WC: Not the people that you’d have much to do with, really.
MR: But there was some community feeling in the village.
WC: You were all friends sort of thing but when you have your own home you haven’t got time to go.
MF: Yes, and you’ve been busy with Doris and all the other things.
WC: Do you know Mrs Tompkins?
MF: Yes I do.
WC: She’s quite nice, she comes over.
MF: Very talented lady, very good cook, she paints. So you see her quite often.
WC: Oh yes, she comes in every day.
MR: And you see Doris quite a bit? Doris still lives in the village, in the area that she –
WC: Oh yes.
MF: Before you came here, Doris and yourself lived in Essendon? (Yes) And you moved here from Essendon to Hertingfordbury. Did you like that or did you find that quite a change?
WC: Well I suppose you do in a way because you get so used to a place.
MF: And going around, you all had bicycles, did you? Everybody cycled.
WC: Yes, well I think they’re going back to bikes.
MF: Yes, I was a cyclist. They want cycle tracks now because the roads are busy. And did you go to church regularly?
WC: We had to, every Sunday morning, Sunday school. My father used to ring the bell.
MF: He was a bell-ringer, have you been a bell-ringer?
WC: Yes, at Essendon.
MF: And your sisters, they moved from Essendon, did they?
WC: Well, 2 sisters. One was a cook and one was a housemaid at, I can’t remember the name, but the people lived at Little Berkhamsted at the big house. They used to cycle.
MF: And what about Hertford town? Have you memories of how that’s changed?
WC: Oh, it’s changed now, terrible. Some weeks ago I went. Ernie took us and I never knew my way now.
MF: What shops do you remember?
WC: I remember Fordhams, I remember Gravesons, Hiltons shoes
MF: And was it always a Saturday, market day?
WC: I think most people went on Saturday.
MF: When you lived here you used to cycle into Hertford and do a week’s shopping and bring it back? (Yes) And did you grow your own veg or did you have to buy them?
WC: Oh no, we grew all our own up the allotment.
MF: So when you went into Hertford shopping you didn’t need any veg and you didn’t need bread of milk so you’d buy things like meat and bacon and butter. So you’d have a carrier on the bike to bring it all back?
WC: A bag on the handlebars.
MF: What about hobbies? Did you knit and sew?
WC: Did a bit of knitting and sewing for meself, like.
MF: And Doris went to work in Hertford did she?
WC: Yes, Doris went to the hairdressers.
MF: Yes, I know that because she used to cut my boys’ hair when we first moved here. And Doris married in St Mary’s Church? (Yes).
Tape is stopped and restarted
WC: I do remember we used to be up until 10 0’clock at night watching the harvesters. We used to go to the fields (as children) but couldn’t help much.
Tape stopped again
[Apparently looking at a cup]
MF: And this was at Hertingfordbury School, and what was the cup for?
WC: Silver cup (inaudible).
MF: And who was the Headmaster?
WC: Mr Wilson. But she had the cup one year or Rayment had it.
MF: You knew all the Rayment family, didn’t you?
WC: Well, the son. He still comes to see me. He’s got a bird sanctuary at Bedford.
MF: Yes, I see Ivy, who is lovely, isn’t she? Very lively person. She lived next door to you then.
WC: She used to be in the shop.
MF: Ivy was married to Eric, was she?
WC: No, Ivy was married to Reg. Amy was married to Jack.
Tape stopped