Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Sadler, Norman & Margaret (O2002.14) |
| Interviewee | Norman and Margaret Sadler (NS & MS) |
| Interviewer | Jean Riddell (Purkis) (JR) |
| Date | 10/04/2002 |
| Transcriber by | Jean Riddell (Purkis) |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O2002.14
Interviewee: Norman and Margaret Sadler (NS & MS)
Date: 10th April 2002
Venue: 3 Farm Close, Hertford
Interviewers: Jean Riddell (Purkis) (JR)
Transcriber: Jean Riddell (Purkis)
Typed by: Freda Joshua
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
I am about to go to visit Mr Sadler at 3 Farm Close, Sele Farm, hopefully to find out about Sadler Chicken Farm which was in the region of Sadlers Way.
JR: So what is your Christian name?
NS: Norman George.
JR: Norman and ?
MS: I’m Margaret.
JR: So you are the nephew of the chicken farmer – is that right?
NS: Yes.
JR: What was his name?
NS: The chap that had it was Uncle Albert Sadler.
JR: Right. Were there lots of brothers and sisters, because there seems to be coal merchants as well?
NS: When me sister got married. You met them.
MS: Yes, all the Sadlers together. There was 12 brothers and sisters altogether. And his dad, or his granddad, had the coal as well, he had a bit of a yard as well, in the part where the farm was. All his uncles and aunties, they all ran the coal business together. One brother, Fred, his was a separate one which is still going today, well, his son’s got it.
JR: Yes, was there another coal depot in the town? Was that Fred’s?
NS: Yes, yes, that was Fred’s, and George Sadler.
MS: After the chicken farm went and they started to build the houses, his dad’s one went down to the East Station there. And they had two yards opposite one another.
NS: Yes, Fred had a bit of ground down there and we had a bit of ground.
JR: The chicken farm here, if you wanted to get to it now, you’d have to go to Alexander Road?
NS: Go down B1000, first left, first right and then the house is down there on the right.
MS: A white house that stands on its own?
JR: Yes, it’s older that the other houses, do you know when it was built? - 1920’s?
NS: I’ve no idea when it was built.
MS: I know they moved in about 1962, they moved to the Rose and Crown at Tewin.
JR: Did they have the farm for a long time then?
NS: Yes.
JR: And they were always in that building?
NS: Yes.
MS: (Shows a photo) This is all the Sadlers together in the fifties.
JR: It’s a lovely picture. Which is your ----
NS: That’s Albert.
MS: That’s the one that had the farm?
NS: That’s me dad, that’s me Uncle John, that’s Kim and that’s Mary, Robert, that was our pub, that was our lorry, there’s Uncle Fred, there, the one with the coal that’s still going now.
MS: There’s still the sister, Aunt Olive, she’s 80 now, she lives in Russell Street.
JR: I think we’ve actually recorded her.
MS: Years ago, his grandad had a pub down Port Vale, The Greyhound [corner of Russell street].
JR: 12, they all survived into adulthood.
MS: They’re into their 80s, quite a few of them. Aunt Mary was 89, nearly 90, she used to live across the road in a flat [in Farm Close]. She came from Bayford and she used to go to the Community Centre a lot, to the church. She had a lot to do with different clubs around Hertford.
JR: Quite well known, was she?
MS: Yes, yes.
JR: I’m going back to the chicken farm because we’re interested in what was here on the estate. I think it was just fields here [Farm Close]. But how much ground did you have at the chicken farm?
NS: I don’t know. I know we had a bit of land for the coal and a garage for 2 lorries, but how much was chicken farm, I don’t know, but quite a bit.
JR: Did they go because they were going to develop the estate, is that why they moved to Tewin?
MS: Yes, because they bought another chicken farm.
JR: And they still have it?
MS: Well, Mollie died last year. Her brother, Christopher, he’s still got the house and the grounds and everything behind the Rose and Crown, but we don’t think it’s a chicken farm now there. We know he’s living there but we haven’t seen him for years.
JR: So you don’t know whether he’s running a business there or not (No). Now, the chickens were reared in the chicken farm, but where did they, did they sell them to local butchers, or were they producing eggs.
MS: She sold all her eggs at markets, and people used to go up the farm for eggs and she used to sell fresh chickens. And she used to get the turkeys in August time.
NS: And fatten them up for Christmas.
MS: She’d take orders – used to have a fresh turkey. One year the fox got one and damaged its leg, so she was one down of what she could sell. We had that one.
JR: So she had lots of deliveries of meal. Did she employ anyone?
NS: No, done it all on her own.
MS: And towards the end she was in a wheel chair, getting about in a wheel chair.
JR: In Tewin?
MS: Yes, in Tewin.
JR: When you go a bit farther down Welwyn Hill, there’s another house called Sandy Nook, was that any kind of smallholding or was that just a private house?
NS: No, that was just a house there.
JR: Was there a path next to that?
NS: Yes, there was a driveway up to our coal yard.
JR: So the coal yard was quite a way behind. I see there was a building on the map and I didn’t know what that was. That was the coal yard, oh, that explains it
NS: The house was there and there was a hedge and the road went up with the hedge on the right into the coal yard
JR: So where did you actually live? You didn’t live up here did you?
NS: No, in Windsor Drive. I used to live in Molewood Road.
MS: He moved into Windsor Drive when he was about 15.
NS: There was three houses that were collapsing – when they dug the sewerage to connect up with Stevenage New Town.
MS: They’re still up now. I think they must have been underpinned since then.
NS: In my bedroom, I had a lump of iron from that side of the wall to this side to stop them from falling in.
MS: They’re still standing because I went past them the other day. But when you moved to Windsor Drive they were brand new, weren’t they. And he was 15 then, now he’s 62. And his sister’s been in her one since it was first built. She lives in Bentley Road, 111. Loosey her name is, do you know her?
JR: There is a Mrs Loosey lives in Calton Court.
MS: Oh, that’s her husband’s.
NS: That’s a relation to her husband, Monty.
JR: She said she’d like to have an interview so I’ll probably be going round there sometime. We want to get one or two children involved as well, she said she’d be willing to talk to the children when we got them organised. So, the chicken farm sounds quite a successful venture. You can’t remember when it was started? (No) But as long as you remember it was always there. I should think the style of that house would have been the 1920’s. Would that sound about right to you?
NS: Might be. I know they used to live up Bengeo years ago.
JR: Do you have any memories of Sele Farm itself? (No) It would have been the end of this road and round the corner. I wonder whether that had gone before your time.
MS: I’ve always remembered it as just fields.
JR: The house wasn’t there in your memory (No). When you go down the end of this road and turn into the piece of green, it looks like a garden, doesn’t it.
MS: Yes, yes.
JR: It doesn’t look like a field.
MS: No, no. We was coming up from there and when you go straight into the field and that first piece of the hedge, it looks like there used to be fences, posts, as though they were back gardens to houses.
NS: I know when we had our coal yard you could see the houses in Greenways.
JR: Oh yes, they were quite close. I think they were built about the same time as the chicken farm and Sandy Nook. Apparently, if you walked up from North Road, up that pathway next to St Joseph’s School and you got to the top there the Sele farmhouse was somewhere just there.
NS: There’s a sharp bend on that corner there.
MS: Going down the Welwyn Road, yes it is.
JR: So you were saying it was quite dangerous to come out.
NS: On that bend where we had our drive [next to Sandy Nook]. And there was another drive to the house just before Alexander Road there’s a yellow bin for grit. Just before you get to the last for Fordwich Road there’s the top end for Fordwich then you come out the bottom end of Fordwich if you look across you can see where the gateway was.
JR: Did you have to drive between two high banks?
NS: Yes, it wasn’t too bad that one but down a bit further.
MS: Didn’t you say your Dad nearly hit a car? (Yes) coming out of the bend?
NS: They followed him all the way through to [inaudible]…
JR: Did they stop him?
NS: Yes, had a word with him and that.
JR: Where did the other members of the family live in the town?
NS: Uncle John at Cherry Tree Green, his wife still lives there, No. 14, Edith, Uncle Jim, he lived at Ware, Upper Clabdens?
MS: Auntie Nell lived in that 2nd house, as you’re coming up Sandy Close – there’s a pink house there. She used to live at Welwyn Garden City years ago.
JR: Your father, what order was he in, the youngest or the middle one or –
NS: I believe he was the oldest one.
JR: So your aunts and uncles are perhaps younger than you think?
MS: I think there’s just one left now, just Aunt Olive.
JR: So this estate was started in the early 1950’s, I think in 1952. Cherry Tree Green was the first road that was occupied.
MS: His sister, Jean, went into the house in Bentley Road just after she got married and that was about ’56 and she moved in there when it was brand new.
JR: It took a number of years to complete. The first houses were ready in 1952 and there were still people moving in in the 1960’s as well. I’ve got a map of 1957 and it doesn’t show the Ridgeway on it. It shows other streets but not the Ridgeway.
MS: I can vaguely remember it when I came from Tewin, seeing the flats as you’re coming through on the bus from Tewin. I came from Tewin myself.
JR: Right, I was going to say where did you start off life. So when did you come to live in Hertford?
MS: When I got married, 1972, and we lived in Bentley Road then, in the flats. But we’ve been down here now 21 years.
JR: So not far from where you were in the coal yard?
MS: We wanted a house with a garden because I’ve got a dog. We waited for 6 years before we could find somebody to do an exchange, a 3-way exchange. It’s changed a lot from when we first, used to be lovely and quiet, especially down this way [there was a car problem in the street].
JR: [Cllr] Mrs Hilary Durbin is still trying to get that sorted out for you, hopefully they’ll come one day and remove, or see about it, anyway. She has been really trying hard, she just can’t get anyone to really do anything, but she’s working on it all the time, so she has got you in mind. It’s a matter of time.
MS: Yes, I believe that next-door-but-one and the lady next door, they’ve been onto the council.
JR: As well- oh well, that will strengthen the case.
Pause
JR: What school did you go to?
NS: Well, years ago I went to Port Vale, then I went from there to Abel Smith, then from Abel Smith I went to the Cowper school.
JR: Yes, so did you know Len Green [teacher at Cowper]?
NS: Yes, yes.
JR: So you had to go from here. You moved up here when you were 15, had you left school or were you still going down to the Cowper School from here?
NS: I’m not quite sure.
JR: Was it 15, the school leaving age then, or 16?
NS: 15. When I left school I went straight with me dad down Hartham Lane there. There was John Barber’s and ours.
JR: That’s where people speak of Sadlers Coal Yard. Did you have to deliver the coal? Did you drive the van [lorry!]?
NS: No, but I passed my test on the coal lorry.
JR: Yes, so you had to heave the coals around?
MS: These big sacks.
NS: Yes, especially going up these flats around here.
JR: So they had coal fires, did they? So where did they keep their coal?
NS: In the bunker, well in the chutes. Hell of a job tipping them in there. You see that black thing on that wall down there, that’s the coal chute.
JR: How much did they hold?
NS: About five hundredweight supposed to have done. But we’ve got coal bunkers out in the back garden.
MS: But inside the flats you had a little trap door where you pulled down and got the coal out.
JR: So it went through to the inside.
MS: My mum lived in a bed-sitter across there and I remember seeing the door bit in the flats.
JR: I was thinking, how did they get it out again. So that wasn’t one of your favourite jobs then, doing the flats (No!). So how wide was the delivery area?
NS: We done up North Road Avenue, down The Folly, Hartham Lane.
JR: How did you manage getting the coal lorry onto Folly Island, the bridge?
NS: Cor! Had a bit of a job going over the bridge.
Tape turned over for a brief recording at the beginning of Side 2
MS: I can remember coming up on the bus, the Tewin bus, when I was about eight, that’s early ‘50s, he got to Sele Farm, where the school is now, but before the school was built. The bus stopped, it was the old 388 and someone got off the bus and they got knocked over on that B1000, but they crossed in front instead of waiting until the bus went and a car came. I can remember that accident
JR: The car overtook the bus.
MS: Yes, yes. And when he was learning to drive the lorries [near Hertford East Station].
NS: I was just pulling away from this truck, I went over one set of metals and there’s another set that shell people used to have, luckily that line was a bit taller and that saved us [from landing in the Wide Waters!] ?Big lake there now, all boats there now.
JR: Were you going backwards or forwards?
NS: Forwards. He says, take your foot off! Nearly put him in the drink!
JR: Yes. How did you cope with all that dirt and dust? Did you have a bath everyday?
NS: Yes, especially in the summertime.
MS: The man who works for Richard, he delivered coal here when we had the boiler, before we had central heating [I think he complained of the dirt].
JR: Did your father ever have a horse and cart?
NS: Yes, years ago.
JR: But not in your memory?
NS: No but they used to have stables round where they used to live round Dimsdale Street, where they used to keep the horses and that, but whether they’ve got any photographs of that I don’t know.
JR: This family, where were they brought up, in Dimsdale Street? These 12 children, where was their home?
NS: Not sure where.
MS: Aunt Olive would know [It was at the Greyhound public house, corner of Russell Street and Port Vale].
Recording Ends