Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Pettman, Sheila (O2018.2) |
| Interviewee | Sheila Pettman (SP:) |
| Interviewer | Janet Holmes (JH) |
| Date | 26/02/2018 |
| Transcriber by | Mark Green |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O2018.2
Interviewee: Sheila Pettman (SP:)
Venue: London Road, Hertford Heath
Date: 26th February 2018
Interviewer: Janet Holmes (JH:)
Transcriber: Mark Green
************* = unclear recording
[discussion] = untranscribed material
JH:: This is a recording of Sheila Pettman made at her home London Road, Hertford Heath on 26th Feb 2018 by Janet Holmes of the Hertford Oral History Group.
JH: So hello Sheila, it is really good of you to agree to…, just told me that you've been in Hertford or the Hertford area for about 50 years so, if perhaps if we can just start from why you came down and what your early experiences were here?
SP: Well, I was saying I was in Yorkshire in Halifax and my tutor with whom I was still in touch occasionally, when I was a student in Somerset, said you ought to move on like we were often told if you had been in some job for three or four years you ought to aim higher and get a head of departmentship or something and I wasn't all interested in that. I was quite happy where I was teaching, and joining Halifax Choral Society and singing, and somebody, I didn’t have a…., I had a bike ****** but it was lovely country. In the hills and dales, and then somebody said did I want to, they want to sell their car it was one hundred pounds and I thought I think I could just do that. Bought my first second hand car and then eventually I got a job down here, Balls Park. I hardly knew where Hertfordshire or Hertford was. I stopped at I think it was the Duncombe Arms in Hertford when I drove down here, to tidy up and go to the loo and have something to eat and ask the way to Balls Park College.
JH: Do you mean the Girl’s College? (teacher training college)
SP: Which it was then, and so I did that and, um, had the interview and joined the staff in the staff room for tea, and there was another lady being interviewed and we went to spend a penny in the loo, the staff loo, before we went in to have tea and talked to the next person interviewing us, and this other lady had gloves on, when we washed her hands, she took….. Why has she kept these gloves on, and I think that did for her for some reason or other, and I got the job to my amazement.
JH: You put it down to the gloves (laughs).
SP: And, um, I think I've done a lot of, I've tried to introduce different things into secondary school teaching like a bit of collage and trying to encourage girls who didn't like, couldn't draw, you know. I can't draw, I can't paint, to stick things or or copy things which is frowned on sometimes, and encourage them to do things I think probably. I was a bit more varied perhaps than she was, and at Balls Park under the amazing, um, Monica Wingate who was picked by the County Council person to run this new College of Education in old houses, there was one at Bishop's Stortford, and one somewhere in Saffron Walden. Where after the war a lot of new schools and new infants and secondary junior schools were needed in a hurry, and ours was quite painless really, and, um, taught us how to write on the blackboard without breaking the chalk or making it squeak, and how to letter properly and get students to label the children's work. So ….. and we had Japanese students coming to visit how this
college Balls Park was run, with all the subjects. And the beauty of it was that, whatever you taught, art, history, geography, English, religious studies, whatever, music, you had some.. a group… of students that you were sort of mentor or personal tutor for and they weren’t any subjects, but if they were in trouble or hadn't done their homework or were ill or wanting to leave because they didn't want to teach or whatever the thing was, and I had letters from the boyfriend, they could go to you and Miss Wingate organised this, so that there was quite a lot of cross…
JH: So it was like pastoral care?
SP: Yes, you weren't stuck in your French Department. You knew the French staff and the French students and that you already knew.
JH: So you started there, are you saying about 1967?
SP: Yes. Yes.
JH:? Sixty, sixty to sixty seven
SP: Yes. It must have been 1967, and it gave me a place to stay. Would I be a warden? Oh yes. Well I managed to keep Springfield which is now flats in Mangrove Road.
JH: Right, obviously you were in there, that was the hostel was it?
SP: Yes, it was the hostel, and the cleaners were very nice and they complained if the room they had to clean was left in a disgusting state with unmade bed and clothes everywhere and books and essays not finished and everything in the rooms, would I speak to the students and turn the boys out at ten o'clock at night.
JH: So how was…
SP: Somebody was very ill once, and I had to get the nurse and the doctor to come and take her to sick bay.
JH: How long were you there at Springfield?
SP: I was there for four years and then I… I was there when this amazing woman who was brought into run this, this establishment, a new thing in Hertfordshire. She was there for a term, she had retired, and then we had Dr Sangster who was well known, and had a Great Dane that went everywhere with him and, um, it was a very happy mixed staff and nobody was stuck in their subject areas, and we cross… and it's a very happy place and the grounds were lovely and when the students came and it's all very strange and they couldn't ring up their mothers every night and the boyfriend didn’t write and things, and when they left three years later became a three year teacher training course, they didn’t want to leave because the grounds, the place, had an atmosphere as well as the new Labs and everything, a new assembly hall and new lecture rooms, new science room which the Queen Mother opened.
JH: Right, so it developed quite a lot over the period you were there?
SP: It developed a lot,
JH: Yes, yes.
SP: And now it's all back to flats and houses.
JH: Yes.
SP: And, well, the mansion which was a staff common room, principal room, a few rooms
upstairs, and you could see the beams of this 17th century house, which would have been, um, maids’ rooms, and you know, attic, but there were some of the dormitories up there.
JH: And they were offices, were they… or?
SP: Some were the dormitories, and um the vice-principal had her bedroom and her sitting room there and, um, the principal did and. oh the librarian - she's dead now - Jean Kershaw, she had her room up there.
JH: So…
SP: You can get meals, and there was a new kitchen so that you could get meals on your own, tea and coffee and what not.
JH: So how long were you lecturing there for?
SP: Um, let me think. ‘Till about eight and then I went, um, went back into teaching. Oh, then um, there was a surplus of um, there was ****** colleges, Saffron Walden had Hockerill College, and I was at Balls Park and Wall Hall near Watford, near Aldernam and there was another teacher training, this flood of…, for junior and schools and infant and junior schools sprung up but then there and there was um the birth rate went down so didn’t need so many teachers so a lot of these had to close, so Balls Park lost the argument with Wall Hall, and Balls Park had to close. Year by year the students left, and the last ones went there and County had to pay for the staff to go and teach our subjects near Watford, and back again, and um that’s the… it's finished now, and***** (?) Shirebrook. We hoped to go there but we the Balls Park people because of this cross kind of grouping of subjects, and therefore the staff knew each other, and um it was a much broader, deeper sort of …
JH: So you used to go over to Watford for a while did you?
SP: Yes, yes, teach in the afternoon come back and teach here from, or teach in the morning here, have lunch, nip over there for afternoon tea sessions, and let the students know what to do with art and secondary school or junior school, and have you done lettering and did you want to do this and lino prints, printing and potato printing, and then pinning up their pictures and painting things painting bringing flowers and bringing objects and…
JH: So you were lecturing at Balls College and elsewhere?
SP: Yes.
JH: As well as that?
SP: Yes.
JH: You were telling me that you became involved with quite a lot of …
SP: Quite a lot of activities.
JH: …activities in Hertford.
SP: Yes, well I wrote to the Civic Society so they said they told me about what was happening to where Castle Hall is now which was this derelict, free, pot-holey car park, right by where where Castle Hall is now - and now a proper car park. Once I managed to get in there if you were lucky you could get a apace because there were no charges, and it's full of potholes, and you didn't block anybody else but you were right by the weir. And once there was a swan - I got out of the car and there was a swan. It was a wonderful experience walking around and this sort of not quite knowing where the river was, and everyone said ‘oh my they can be very dangerous you know they can break a man's arm’ (laughter), and a man went up to it, and caught it by the neck, and lifted its body up and throwing it back in the water. And it was perfectly alright.
And we could park there for free. And then I joined the Committee and began to learn, which was in 1972/73, and though there was a sub-committee of activities of picking litter and tidying up things in the town, or having local walks with history like um separately told us about something or who had lived in the buildings in Hertford and where the headmasters… how did Richard Hale come here from London, all that sort of thing and how old were these houses and those houses late Victorian but inside it was all Tudor building. Very, very interesting and um I improved their um I think they are upstairs. Their little leaf…, publicity leaflet which says what is the Society. I'm sure I put it somewhere on the stairs.
A lecturer came, a paper one of Hertford Civic Society joined us because it does this this and this, and looks after Hertfordshire, tries to keep the buildings in and tell of the history and keep it nice etc, and they have, um, occasional events and they always have an autumn party, and a summer, an award scheme every two years for new buildings or extensions or house paintings or something that is really beautiful superbly done, with experts invited with reps from the WI and Hertford Civic Society members and those with skills. So that we try and draw people in from the town to be aware of this building is very nice but the brickwork is terrible, we can't give that an award, but this one is very cleverly done de-dah de-dah and things like that, which still runs. And I was innovative in helping to start that and I would call myself the secretariat because people had to… said that we ought to put in this this is a new building or this has been beautifully altered, or this house has got a very good extension it fits in with the other houses in West Street, for instance, and Pearl? Street, so I had to check that the owner or the manager or the residents approved, and when could the judges a team of judges see it.
JH: Right.
SP: And then there was a panel to discuss it, and the awards, there was a plaque and then certificates for commendations.
JH: Oh, so it was quite a big thing?
SP: Yes, I really enjoyed doing that because I really learnt about buildings, you know the owner of, um, Beckwiths the antiques shop and things like this,
JH: Yes.
SP: You know, um, it has changed now because it can't exist now only on antiques and I think half of it has got kitchenware and…
JH: Well, it is closed down now.
SP: It is closed. It is so sad.
JH: It is standing empty now.
SP: Is it? Oh so sad. So I did a lot, I was what I called myself the secretariat but it is just… look!
JH: Yep, snowing.
SP: I won't keep you, anyway I did that sort of thing and then I helped, me and Jean Riddell, do you know Jean Riddell, in the museum?
JH: Yes. She has been involved in with the…
SP: Oh good yes, she … and well we are still in touch on and off. And we organised the summer garden party which was in, wouldn't believe how many beautiful gardens are in Hertford which are hidden and which go down to the River Beane view or …and Mr Melville who was our chairman, and then president, and lived in The Grove and in um High Grove in Mangrove Road up down there these Gardens, we always had Gardens.
Trancribers Note: Alan Melville lived in The Grove, Port Hill. High Grove must be a house in Mangrove Road.
JH: So this was a Civic Society?
SP: Yes.
JH: Garden party?
SP: Yes, yes. We had one in the summer and and we we began to organise our people made little eats and sandwiches and things on biscuits and dips and what not, it was much nicer usually than the bought food that we organised ***** and people paid, and we always had an important guest like the um, one of the oh yes ‘73 (1974) was the beginning of East Herts District Council because before then it was the Borough Council, so we had a new um man in charge of, I don't know what they're called now, the Director of old, Chief Architect, Conservation Officer…
JH: Chief Executive.
SP: Chief Executive. So we invited people like that, and the president of the WI or something, as guests.
JH: Yes, yes. Local civic dignitaries.
SP: And they were enjoyable parties we went to, um do you remember the Thompson McCauslands in Hertingfordbury? And lovely, very, in that beautiful house. They are bankers now and don't do anything in the village they live in. As you go into Hertingfordbury, down off the main road into the big house behind the wall.
JH: Oh yes.
SP: Helen was … um um… he died, before they were grown up, his children I really just saw occasionally but the River Beane I think it is, goes through the bottom of their garden and they had this wonderful lawn and um um Helen would love to have the garden used, and the Red Cross used to have their parties there. Once they left all their little folding chairs, which we could use when we the Civic Society had our party, and um that was wonderful. Only once did it rain and we all went into the drawing room, ‘oh come inside don't get wet’ Helen said. She was a lady. She was so charming and loved to have this garden and house used.
JH: Yes, a nice place to go there.
SP: Oh, it was beautiful and Jean and I organised it and also organised cause often men and women stuck by the beer tent, wine table, you couldn't get your drink or get a guests drink, um and um and they didn't move around to see the garden and didn't talk to anybody else, and so Jean and I made a trail you know, what's the first thing you see over the bridge and which river goes by.
JH: Try and get them to move around a bit.
SP: And so a statue to a dog or a cat or a… the river or something the river goddess so what does it say on this, and we made them walk about to find this thing.
JH: That worked did it, and got them away from the beer tent?
SP: Yes, yes, several times and actually move around the garden because …
JH: Yes.
SP: …you know.
JH: Shame not to look at it.
SP: Yes, and they are beautiful gardens.
JH: So lots of things going on in the Civic Centre (Should be Civic Society) when you were…?
SP: We did we did all these things and I improved the um… Before I forget I think it is on the stairs, this um publicity leaflet and it was in black and white which was just cheap to be printed, and what it did and how much it joins and who who to apply to… Chairman this and Secretary, Membership Secretary, and then it was slightly better one and um, and then we helped me and others helped to do the up… upper Lea Valley through-walk.
JH: Right.
SP: You could walk along from… I wasn't a great walker but I was in encouraged to see that it was done, because you could walk from London…
JH: Yes.
SP: …up the Lea Valley…
JH: Yes.
SP: …and which comes from Ware along along the Meads,
JH: Yes.
SP: to Hert… through Hertford. And I had done with a lovely couple she* was such a good artist she’s moved away now, and she drew the map and we were making pictures of St Leonard's Church.
*Transcribers Note: She may be talking about Joy Norris
JH: Yes.
SP: Because you come up there, and you see these Meads,
JH: Yes,
SP: And there are flats between us and Ware.
JH: So when was this, do you think?
SP: It was all in the 70’s 80’s.
JH: It was in the 70’s was it?
SP: The late 70’s 80’s.
JH: Right, because you can walk right down to what was…
SP: You can.
JH: …the Olympic Park
SP: Yes.
JH: …or ride there.
SP: yes which I never did. There was an open day apparently to the water thing.
JH: Yes, yes.
SP: Which I didn’t go to but it's not far.
JH: Yes, yes but you can go further.
SP: And just out of London and people come and live, oh they come to Tottenham, and then their school and then they have left school, and then they marry, and then they come up to Broxbourne or Hoddesdon or, and then that and then that is even nicer in Hertfordshire really.
JH: They shuffle up the A10 really.
SP: It is. (Laughter)
JH: So you were involved with um the group that put that girl in that **********
SP: Yes, yes. There was a lovely girl that did these beautiful drawings. I drew um a little drawing of St Leonards. St Leonards with its round apse which sits on the top of the hill overlooking, you know, and somebody else so Cecil Parkinson he was very good prolific artist he's dead now, um he did one of um one of the pubs in um Hertingfordbury, I think, we all drew something to illustrate this thing with, and I did the wrong views or something or other and I had to go and draw it again… ‘we don't want that view because it isn't in the map description where you walk – so - ha - do it again’.
JH: Yes, yes.
SP: I was quite a good drawer really.
JH: Yes I’m sure.
SP: but a sort of, again a sort of secretariat to try and pull people who could tell, draw or paint or write,
JH: With different talents.
SP: and print, to produce things.
JH: Yes, yes. So how long were you involved with the Civic Centre (should be Civic Society) or are you still a Civic…?
SP: I am still a member.
JH: Civic Society.
SP: ..and about um when I came off the committee eventually I did those activities and Jean and I one or two others were in the parties, and I did the awards. And we often
had the awards given or a little speech, and the expert architect or surveyor came from somewhere in the Castle.
JH: Yes.
SP: We’d have them in, or once at the ball room in County Hall.
JH: Right. Were there any of those awards that you remembered particularly, or there..?
SP: Yeah, I have got a whole lot upstairs. I’ll bring them down.
JH: No its ok I just wondered whether any of the buildings or any of the …
SP: Yes.
JH: extensions in *********
SP: Buildings in West Street and um, even in Bengeo. I think one of the houses it's a sort of 60’s houses of Bengeo Street off once the school I think, so I go up there… I don't go up there very often. One below the Avenue or the other road up there that goes off Bengeo Street and it's a sort of 50’s 60’s house but they, um, have forgotten her name, sometimes and they built an extension but it wasn’t just plonked on it was fitted with a roofline and brickwork and what not around the edges, and it wasn't a sort of 80’s or 90’s stuck onto a 50’s 60’s house and it did get a commendation or something.
JH: Right that's interesting, because it's not the sort of house …
SP: No.
JH: …that you would necessarily think would get an award.
SP: No.
JH: That's really good.
SP: And things like a museum, I mean some of them there are some plaques on some of the buildings in Hertford. In the museum with its garden …..,
JH: The knot garden.
SP: …and um one or two in West Street.
JH: Yes, yes.
SP: Um I forget them all now. I have got a lot upstairs,
JH: Yes.
SP: …under the sofa upstairs.
laughter
JH: But you were involved with a lot of these awards that’s quite….
SP: Yes.
JH: They were biennial you say biennial awards
SP: Um, yes biennial. And um Terry Betts, he was the Chairman now lives in Morgans Road end of Morgans Road, um he and one or two others and Richard Threlfall the architect.
JH: Right.
SP: Probably a bit older. He lives in Mangrove Road he designed, he helped me um reorganized the house because when I came the garage which fell off in the wind was in front where my car is really.
JH: Yes.
SP: And it was, um, asbestos and wood, and once I was teaching and a lovely woman, had the two best neighbours I have ever had, left school at 12 and 14 one lives there and one lives there and she said now my dear, and she would look after a cat I had my own cat then, and she said something awful has happened - oh - and the roof had blown the wind had blown in gusty thing, on the back lawn so I had to have the garage pulled down and rebuilt properly. And the bathroom was out at the back.
My predecessor had because they all had loos out at the back all these two-up two-downs you know, and the passage my lovely lovely neighbour here um, there is a passage from the back kitchen door only from here to there to the loo which had the potatoes and the deep freeze and the onions, and his washing line, as well as the loo out there with electricity lines carrying through for the light bulb there and, and my predecessor had the loo built at the back, and I used the back door and the back door was there. Which is now a porch because I didn’t want another door and all these draughts, and um and um so I had the loo eventually put up over where the garage so it had to be properly built.
JH: So the architect helped you with all this.
SP: And Richard did all that, and and it wasn't load-bearing the original so I, when it blew the roof the roof blew off it was a move back to where it is now along there.
JH: A more sensible place really.
SP: Yes, and there's a bit more drive.
JH: Yes.
SP: There I mean the garage is full of other stuff
laughter
coal and wood and things and rubbish.
JH: Anyway with the Civic Society there were all sorts of people…
SP: Yes,
JH: ..who were members at the time you were…
SP: Yes,
JH: And you were the secretariat?
SP: Yes. Andrew Sangster would remember quite a lot I think but several of them have died. Alan Melville has died.
JH: And you still go to the meetings do you?
SP: Yes, I still go to the …and very good talks like they do um yes this is um this is this, one they did this, I didn’t do this but Terry Betts the Chair
JH: Oh yes.
SP: **** he made them. He was very, very, good. **** he lives with his African *****
JH: Peter, Peter Norman, yes.
SP: He writes about, you know, all Hertford things and housing and how terrible problems can happen and he keeps a check on that. He does activities, and Claire she sings in the Hertford Choral Society.
JH: Yes.
SP: And then, when I’ve just marked um…
JH: These are all the,..
SP: I went I went to something else that night, but I would have loved to have gone to them.
JH: Yes.
SP: And here, an AGM I should go to that.
JH: Yes.
SP: Do you know what's happening. I may not be able to get that, and then this is the garden party at Roxford, um that's a nice garden.
JH: Right, that is down in Hertingfordbury as well?
SP: Yes, she’s um Linda Haysey is a County Councillor, District Councillor?
JH: Right.
SP: District Councillor, and Malcolm’s organising that, and then
JH: Malcolm is all the blue plaques?
SP: Yes, yes, which Jean Riddell and Geoffrey (Rice)…
JH: Yes.
SP: And then um, oh, oh, oral history.
JH: not the Oral History Group.
SP: Peter Ruffles
JH: Cropping up.
SP: yes, laughter, and they all happened there.
JH: Yes, yes.
SP: And we have had some very good speakers.
JH: Yes, that's interesting.
SP: Yes, so we did that.
JH: I'll put that back up there for you shall I?
SP: Yes, …just sticks there.
JH: Yes, ok. So that was um quite a big part of your…
SP: Yes.
JH: …life for quite a while by the sounds of it?
SP: Yes,
JH: When you were involved in…?
SP: Yes, and then I retired I can’t remember I suppose it was ‘85 because of the um we didn't need um teachers, I went back to school because um we didn’t need so many teacher training colleges, but I hadn't retired. I was still 70 something I suppose 60, 60 something, so I went and the County didn't know what to do with these floating teachers that they couldn't afford to pay early retirement to but they needed to get rid of some of them but I did two or three years at Waltham Cross…
JH: Right.
SP: …at Queen Eleanor School which was and I had a form and taught art, and most awful man teacher I ever, ever, worked with, a younger man inflexible at what he should have called a job, and our art rooms were in a lovely block, with woodwork master and metalwork master, ********* and coats and cupboards and things in my room and his room, and his room, and I got that job and it was my form roll I had to register of my class, overlooked the building of the M25.
JH: Right, oh so you were right there?
SP: And the County had to double glaze the whole school because of the noise, you could look down and see 20, 30, 40
JH: So you were there for a few years?
SP: Yes, 2 or 3 years and...
JH: And when did all the involvement with the Choral Society begin?
SP: Oh I joined when I was at Balls Park yes, yes.
JH: And you were telling me the connection with your grandfather.
SP: Oh yes, um well he wrote um, I have got a piece, but I haven’t got in to hand I’ll have to give it to you later, I wrote I put a bit more ‘cos oh no it, it is upstairs I think, but I put it, he was he was um became good at, um, born in Kent as my father was born he married and he married and um my father, his twin sister were born in um London, grandparents came from Kent and he um is my great great grandfather was a schoolmaster in Dunkirk which is near Canterbury.
JH: Oh, that Dunkirk.
SP: I didn't know Dunkirk was in England (laughter), and it still is a Junior School. All the children were born there including grandpa and two or three others, and two girls three girls, and um got good at the organ, so my father said. My father was interested but not particularly musical himself, but he could have been I suppose.
JH: But anyway your grandfather…
SP: Grandfather played the organ, and then got into the Royal College of Organists and wrote music, and had um organ, organist and choirmaster in these two London churches in Kilburn. I should have got it all out for you, really.
JH: Yes, but don't worry.
SP: Well I'll show you.
JH: But he wrote some carols?
SP: He wrote um The Angel Gabriel’s message, the Angel to Mary [hums a few bars] he was very busy, the Angel Gabriel his part about the Annunciation is particularly well known but he wrote several actually, up to 5, and I came down at Christmas and there were often other people’s um words, and apparently grandpa - as lots of people - went across to France with some friends stay with their Villas, or drive around well probably not drive, but go around, and picked up tunes there …and some of them are French tunes. A lot of them in the Carol books say, you know, written by so and so, tune early English or…
JH: Or an arranged, yes, yes.
SP: …made a French carol tune or something, folk songs and things. And he's quite well known for that.
JH: But you joined the local Choral Society?
SP: And I joined the local Choral Society*, and um somebody had a connection with the our twin towns’ schools so I went with the choir and sang with our German twin town Wildeshausen, and um obviously they were very pleased to have been twinned with us, but they were all well you know young, our generation, and um they've been here and I had them staying here and I have stay with three of the German friends and we are still in touch with each other, and once went to the French town Evron, and I went there and we sang there and we still have dinners and connections yet.
*Transcribers Note: This should be Choral singing as she wasn’t a member of HCS until she moved to Hertford unless the reference is to Halifax.
JH: And are you still involved with the Choral Society?
SP: Yes, I dropped out of it because I was ill for a fortnight I probably missed two or three to sing in this concert but I love this music which is the Chichester Psalms which is one of the ones that was written for um Leeds Festival I think.
JH: And you were telling me about your involvement years ago with the Leeds Festival.
SP: Yes, yes, oh wonderful, wonderful. I'm driving through the fog and getting there when you couldn't and I remember this bus driver banging on the side of his bus saying stop, you know, when you can’t couldn't see the light at the traffic point, but we sang there with Julie ?? and Charles ? Rourke a French, a notable French composer.
JH: So your involvement with the Choral Society predates your coming to Hertford?
SP: Yes, oh yes. When I was at, I was at a boarding school in Somerset which was a Woodard School, which is a Woodard. Nathaniel Woodard started boys’ schools with a Christian **** based. They weren’t dogmatic but they were Christian based schools for boys whose parents were in the diplomatic service or serving abroad or in the army or whatever, and they could help them if one of the parents had died or a father died in the war or something like that, and then somebody said later on, and still several exist one is St Clare's and one is in York I forget it's name what is it called, um and why don't you have them in fields and woods and walks.
JH: A bit like Balls Park.
SP: Yes, I'm sort of ..modern dormitories over the Coach House that had been the Coach House and we just loved that school which still some of us there because we on
Saturday's it was a boarding school and we could have the run of the grounds. There were chapels and purpose built chapels, it was a great children’s base, and um the backyard where the domestic science was, and the kitchens, and oh we had three Houses with long line long tables St Catherine’s, St Anne's and St Patrick's. With collars, and bells that were in green red and yellow for the three Saints. Superb really, and after the war when there weren't many men teachers around for sciences, and a very good foundation and we did get one or two famous science and biology teachers, and languages, and it was very, very, happy around and the backyard by the kitchens where we ran out of our modern classrooms there was a little Lodge there and a little Lodge there. When I was there there was a pianist who taught me piano continue to teach me piano, and there was one Miss Bell, and they are both dead now. Oh, they could only have been 23, 22 and we were 16 or 17 or something, and she taught us singing. She was exquisite, just superb and so they did music for the chapel and music for things.
JH: So that was a good foundation for you?
SP: And it was, and a very good English teacher. And the little maths I knew which I wish I had done more because you wish you knew, you don't want to do it when you are young but and there was a very, very, tall lady called Miss Simpson, and she said to five or six of us ‘well you probably won't pass but I would be happy to teach you and take you on another stage’. So there are five or six of us who weren’t brilliant at maths and we were going to do other things like secretaries, and personal assistants and air hostesses and …..
JH: And she helped you with your maths?
SP: And she was so tall. So there were four or five of us sitting at the desks, occasionally there must have been something wrong with her blood or, but she was a very, very, tall but a lovely woman and such a good teacher, and she just fell down between our desks once, and we just sort of, ah you know, and clear the desk and make sure she is not choking.
JH: Oh that was a bit scary.
SP: Awful. It must have been so awful for her. I remember it once happening when we were between the desk she sort of, just sort of went, and then in a moment she would come round and she would say ‘oh I'm so sorry, I’m so tired, oh’.
JH: Oh dear. Anyway she…
SP: She was, she taught us maths she was really lovely and very good music yes.
JH: Yes. So you started your music there and continued …?
SP: Yes, yes.
JH: …with it when you were working in Yorkshire, and then
SP: Then joined the choir here.
JH: Joined the choir here.
SP: Yes.
JH: So you have been involved with the Choral Society in Hertford for many years.
SP: And then the offshoot of it is the little um singers that’s a small choir, but we have had had a lot of the big choir join their big choir and I remember once um ‘cos our Derek Harrison. He annoys me sometimes with all these stupid little exercises we have to do before we start singing the piece we are supposed to rehearse, but um he is very, very, good musically and once I have forgotten what we were singing with the German choir and then we sung our own things and we sang Haydn and something or other or whatever it was, or Mozart or something together. And their music um we finished before they the Germans did and we were all singing with 7 sopranos or 7 altos, where's our other pages so one I forget which it was had to get extra copies photocopied. And then once we had a Brandenburg Orchestra and I didn't realise Brandenburg is in North Germany, East Germany, playing and um their conductor conducted whatever it was we were supposed to be singing with the orchestra and that was alright and we did the amen and we did where when we come in and yes we’d stopped in time for the soloist that was alright, then our conductor conducted us, and um one of the orchestra, a little chamber Orchestra said do you want us to come in three time or do you want us to pause there, or what do you want us to do in this bar?
And Derek, who was still there, he is very good musically, um told them so they got some info, and then he conducted us in the difficult bits that he knew we would had problems with or come on you know a pause, a long pause, now watch me, you know, and all that sort of stuff and at the end of the two rehearsals with their conductor the orchestra the Brandenburg Orchestra tapped [sound of teaspoon being repeatedly hit on saucer or teacup] on their violins because they appreciated the…
JH: Oh, right.
SP: …sensitivity, and help and knowledge of what we were supposed to be doing from Derek, and the other chap was a very nice man and they do good things but he just ran through it.
JH: Yes, yes, so he didn't have the skills, really.
SP: No, or movement.
JH: Yes, so a, so a lot of things that you have been doing over the years
SP: Enriching really, yes amazing experiences,
JH: Yes, yes
SP: and enriching things.
JH: Yes, yes. Lovely. So is there anything else you wanted to er…?
SP: No, I'm just getting too old (laughter). I have been on the parish council. I wouldn't do it now it’s just too much.
JH: Yes, yes, yes, yes, so time…
SP: I was on the parish council. John, John Budd was the vicar here when I came. Yes John Budd, lovely man and I am still in touch with Jill Budd, who's retired and I send her the parish news when it comes out, and um she lives in Great Malvern and um John Budd there were gaps on the parish council I think we were meant to be 9 people for the size of the parish or something, so he suggested… Very, very, good he was as well as just church things but routed towards what was going on around in the village, and Parish Council and suggested that as there was a gap and you are
allowed to put your application in such and such a date, here is the form, and somebody else Anthony Oliver who lives in St Albans now did a lot with the nature reserve,
JH: Yes.
SP: I think was the other one, so I did I was on the parish council.
JH: Yes, yes. So you have been busy…
SP: Yes
JH: …ever since you moved down to, er
SP: yes, I can’t start Hertfordshire. I really ought to stop
JH: (laughter) ok.
SP: But I can't stop getting interested in things, but of course it makes more work, more letters, more things I haven't read.
JH: Yes.
SP: I haven't yet read that yet, it’s got to stay there.
JH: So another pile?
SP: Yes.
JH: (laughter) Ok, so.
SP: Is that enough?
JH: That's lovely, thank you very much Sheila.
SP: And I love gardening, and I love my house and I love being here, um and doing all things in…
JH: And you have got a nice rose by, um…
SP: It is, it is um the rose in the front, well the big that one um by um by the hedge with the stick by it *****
JH: Yes.
SP: I didn't know what it was I had found out what the other roses were when I came, and um it’s the sweetest smelling very pretty pink, pinky one, and I couldn't identify it. And Peter Ruffles came along once ‘cos he drops me in things and I drop the parish news to him, and he said that’s, that’s Lady Sylvia because she… and who Lady Sylvia was I don’t know, but it was bred um the gardens down, down down here, Broxbourne, Turnford where there were rose, um, gardens.
Transcribers Note: Probably Pauls nursery
JH: Rose growers.
SP: Yes, yes.
JH: Yes.
SP: Yes.
JH: So it was a special rose?
SP: Yes, and then the other one on that side which is very big… I shall have to do some more pruning, the other side against their fence…
JH: Yes.
SP: ..is um I put that in I have no idea I saw it somewhere in Sussex, must have that with its little yellowy buds in creamy yellowy flowers and a mass of them, and that’s um Buff Beauty.
JH: Lovely. Lovely. Nice show of roses.
SP: And there are some at the back, yes.
JH: Yes, yes. Good, ok, so thanks very much that is really nice, Sheila.
SP: So uh…
Recording ends