Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Welch, Ethel (O2004.12) |
| Interviewee | Ethel Welch (EW) |
| Interviewer | Eve Sangster (ES) |
| Date | 28/10/2004 |
| Transcriber by | Geoff Cordingley |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording No: O2004.12
Interviewee: Ethel Welch (EW)
Interviewer: Eve Sangster (ES)
Date: 28th October 2004
Venue: 10, Palmer Road
Transcriber: Geoff Cordingley
Typed by: Geoff Cordingley
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
ES: This is Eve Sangster on Thursday, I think it's, 28th October 2004. I am at 10, Palmer Road, Bengeo, speaking to Mrs. Welch. Right, you, ah, Peter Ruffles put me on to you, how do you know him?
EW: Well, I've lived in Bengeo for seventy-four years and he used to be the paper boy. Well I don't know whether he delivered papers but he got them ready in the shop at Farnham's and, ah, my boy done a delivery and he got… That's how I got to know Peter.
ES: Right.
EW: And my husband was a postman, and so, my, yes, my husband was a postman, of course he was. And, ah, and he used to meet Peter. And then I've seen Peter, you know, and he's had a little natter to me. I haven't seen him late…, I've seen him but not to speak to lately.
ES: Right, let's start at the beginning, when were you born?
EW: (laughs) Nineteen hundred, April twenty-eighth nineteen hundred and ten. I'm ninety-four and a half now.
ES: And where were you born?
EW: I was born a little village Castle Acre in Norfolk.
ES: And what did your parents do?
EW: Well, my father worked on the roads.
ES: What, a road mender?
EW: Yes, and well my mother had six, six children so she didn't…
ES: That's what she did (laughs)
EW: She done, went out and done a bit o' scrubbing to make the money meet. The money was so small. And, ah, then in 1914 the war broke out and my brothers went. I was four and I had a brother younger than me and a sister three years older than me and three brothers, oh, well there was six years between her and the next brother. And then there were three who went to war. See so there were six and I was the middle one.
ES: Oh, I see. Did the three brothers come back?
EW: Yes.
ES: You were lucky.
EW: Yes, Badly wounded but they come back. Yes we were lucky. I had an aunt who lost three sons during the First World War.
ES: Did your brothers have to go?
EW: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
ES: They were drafted?
EW; Oh, yes, they had to go to war.
ES: They didn't have any choice?
EW: Oh, no, no, no. Because my sister is three years older than me. She was six and then were six years between her and the other one and you see it broke out in nineteen fourteen and she was born in nineteen hundred and eight, so it really brought them in the war age. My first brother was very badly wounded; my eldest brother.
ES: What was his name?
EW: Ah, Edward. Edward, Bonas my name is, were, was my single name was.
ES: Bonas?
EW: B, O, N, A, S
ES: B, U, N
EW: O, N
ES: B, O N, A, S. Bonas! Ah, that's an unusual name, isn't it? Do you know where it comes from?
EW: Well they said he was a, I'm not sure what they used to say, but that he was a Belgian Jew or something like that. (laughs) I don't really know. I don't think it was. But I mean he wasn't foreign by any means, he, he spoke quite, ah, ordinarily.
ES: Ahm, you say that.
EW: But then my mother was 40 when she had me.
ES: How badly wounded was Edward?
EW: Well he had his muscle shot off there and he had something happen to his head. I think he got a small, he didn't get much but he got a small pension. And funny enough he went and took his first old age pension the day he died, strange to say, so he hadn't had a lot out of the war.
My other brothers, I think they were slightly hurt but not a lot, you know, but they were slightly hurt.
ES: So did you have a hard life?
EW: Yes.
ES: Yes
EW: Well, my parents were very kind, very good to us with what they had, because I mean wages. They'd take a fit if they could come back now. Ah, because my father I think he earned 28 shillings a week. Tis true the rents were about £5 a year, (laughs.)
And so we did. But my mother was very good and very, ahm, she'd always get us a, a good meal. It might not be roast beef and that sort of thing but, you know, it was as good as she could get, made with dumplings and gravy and…
ES: Yeah.
EW: So we were well fed.
ES: I mean poor mothers by and large were very ingenious weren't they.
EW: Oh, yeah
ES: They were frugal. They had to be.
EW: Oh, yeah
ES: They knew how to make the most with very little.
EW: And I mean, we kept chickens and a pig. And then they had that killed at certain time and salted down. So we all had enough.
ES: But you said…
EW: And my mother always found a little bit to give to some poor thing who weren't as well off as we were.
ES: How big was your cottage? There were eight of you.
EW: Yes, but I never really knew my, I knew my first three brothers if you know what I mean,
ES: Yes.
EW: But I mean not for them to be at home.
ES: No!
EW: They were…
ES: Did they never come home again then really after the war, then. Did they move?
EW: Oh, no, no, they come home. My eldest brother worked in London. He got a job in a house in London and he got married. And then my other two brothers lived at home and my younger brother, 'cos there was one younger than me. And sadly enough to say, that, ah, he fell down when he was eleven and he was in hospital two years and they said well he would never, he wouldn't live much longer.
And I was then ready to go to service, which I had to do. And the lady come to see my mother, which they always done to see which home you come from, and ahm, she saw my brother and she said, “Well you can't leave him like that.” She says, “I'll have to see what I can do.” So she sent to that, what's that, that hospital in London for children
ES: Ah.
EW: The Royal, no not the, the Royal Northern?
ES: It's not Bart's, Guy's., no I know the one you mean. It still is a children's hospital.
EW: Portland Street, in Great Portland Street, I think. And so they couldn't take him. They was full up. She said, “Well I'm not leaving him like that,” she said. So they said well they would send one of these surgeons or whatever they are to see him if we could get him to Swaffham. You've heard of Swaffham, everybody's heard of Swaffham. It was four miles from us. If she could get him there, he'd come and see him. So my mother got him there, well I think the lady sent a car for him.
And he said, that, ah, he would have him, they would have him in the children's hospital at, the Jenny Lind they used to call it at Norwich. But he would have to take his leg off. So my father was very much against that but my mother said whatever was best for him he's to have it.
So he went in there and they took his leg off, up to here. He never made any fuss at all. He was in there three weeks, that's all, he just had a little stump. And he came home and he was in a chair for a little while, you know. And then he got on two crutches. And then he, they got him to Norwich again to fit him for a peg leg, they were artificial in them days.
And ahm, and so he come home and he worked, worked about and then he went to work on a farm. But whether the poison all wasn't got out of him, it broke out on his head, there. Well that ran, that really ran, he always had to have it done up. But he didn't bother. I mean, he didn't let it worry him much, he just walked about with his, I think for a while he walked with a crutch, when he first, 'till he got used to that.
ES: Let me just check the…So, it sounds as though you, your first employer was a very, good, charitable woman.
EW: Well…
ES: It wasn't Great Ormond Street, was it?
EW: Yes.
ES: Yeah, that's the hospital we're trying to think of.
EW: That's right, that's the one I'm trying to think of, yes. But I mean, I earned 5s a week.
ES: You lived in I assume.
EW: Oh, yes.
ES: Where was it?
EW: Lexham Hall. Jessops, the name was.
ES: Lexham?
EH: Lexham. About, about five miles from my home. Well, ah..
ES: What were you?
EW: A kitchen maid.
ES: You started at the bottom.
EW: Oh dear, don't tell me. (Laughs.) Anyway…
ES: What was it like? Was it a shock for you, to go there away from home? How old were you?
EW: Oh no, I was 14 when I went to, oh, what's the name of that, near Sandringham.
ES: Near Sandringham, right. Was that your, your first
EW: That was my first job
ES: And what were you there? A kitchen maid again?
EW: Well I was a kitchen maid there or whether they called it …a between maid, you did a bit in the front and a bit, some in the kitchen, but it was hard.
ES: Was it?
EW: Oh, yes
ES: What sort of hours did you work?
EW: Five, five in the morning till about twelve at night if you were lucky. And that was six days, seven days a week. You got five shillings. But however!
ES: Were you unhappy?
EW: Well no, but it was hard, and I mean I was such a little old dot. Oh what's the name - Castle Rising, you've heard of that?
ES: Castle Rising, yes.
EW: Castle Rising Hall it was. They, they were Scotch people - Ferrierker. And
ES: Ferrier Kerr?
EW: Ferrierker, yes.
ES: Right
EW: And er,
ES: I wonder how that's written. Do you know how it's spelt?
EW: There's Ferrier.
ES: F,e,double r, i, e,r
EW: Yeh, and then there's k,e,r.
ES: ker, ok.
EW: Ferrierker. As I say they were scotch.
ES: So how long did you last there?
EW: I only stayed there a year, because they said it was, oh, my feet were blistered underneath. They were all flagstone floors, you know what I mean. And I mean, ahm, I used, I went, they sent us, I was there when, was it Queen Alexandra died? Was it she died that time?
ES: I don't know when this was.
EW: It wasn't Queen Mary anyway 'cos I mean. It was Queen Alexandra, she laid in state there. And I remember they, they sent us, they took us there to see her laying in state. 'Cos there was three, four men, well, armoured men.
ES: What standing at each corner?
EW: Ahm
ES: Was this at Sandringham?
EW: Yes. 'Cos Sandringham Church is a wonderful Church. Have you ever been?
ES: No. 'Course I've seen it on television. You see pictures now, don't you, of the Royal family going to Sandringham Church.
EW: 'Cos I believe it belongs to them, don't it?
ES: (Laughs) Well I expect so.
EW: Well all their places don't belong to them, do they?
ES: I don't know.
EW: I don't think so. I don't know. I should think they belong to the Crown or something like, I don't know what they call it. But, ah, there's silver, there's everything in there but there's always somebody watching there, though.
And then I left them and then they recomm, those people get together, you know, they recommended that I went to Lexham Hall. Well there were 17 maids kept there. (laughs) And they're all flagstone floors, which you scrub forever more. Talk about having bad knees now, it's no wonder I got bad knees, (laughs)
ES: What family was it at Lexham Hall
EW: Ah?
ES: What was the family at Lexham Hall.
EW: Jessops
ES: Oh, you told me that, Jessops. So were they a nice crew you worked with?
ES: Oh, yes, oh, no, they were very nice. But I can't tell you that on there.
EW: Why?
ES: 'Cos I had, I had to leave there.
ES: Why because of … the master? He took a fancy to you?
EW: No, no, nothing like that. (Whispers)
ES: Oh!
EW: And they said I must get off my feet. I must get off my feet a bit. So I was to do temp'ry work. Well then I went to somewhere near Norwich, I forget the name of the place, for three weeks. And then I was just about. And then I was, they used to send me these jobs from an agency in Norwich. And then she said would I come to London. Well, (laughs), I'd heard o' London and my mother had heard of London, and thought it was the most dreadful place. I didn't ought to come there. But I did come. And I worked for, oh, what was their name – Lady …. Penryn.
ES: Penryn
EW: Yes. They own Penryn Castle in Wales, and they own Westmin in Hampshire. They were very well off people. But I only come there temp'ry, but
ES: And where was their house?
EW: In, ah, Cambridge Square. I'd never been in such a tall house before. (laughs) When I went to bed I wondered where I was going. When they took me up.
Well, when I went they had come back from this Westmin, you see, the maids hadn't, or them. There was just one lady there. (Laughs) Mind you, I've had a funny old life really. Ahm. And she, she said, “Oh, I expect you're hungry.” And I said, well, I thought, well I don't know what I want to say to you. So I said, “I would be glad of a cup of tea.”
So she said, “I'll give you something to eat.” That was the cook. She was their cook. So she did give me something to eat. And I was sitting, she said well there's no one here so we'll listen, she had a little wireless what I, you wouldn't remember, I'm sure. But a little, a little box. And then the front door bell rang and I heard a man's voice, I thought, oh, I've heard of them getting people up here and then somebody coming for them.
(Laughter)
EW: Oh, I was scared to death. (Laughing)
ES: You thought you'd been white slaved! (Laughing)
EW: Yes. Oh, dear. You can imagine it, can you? I mean, I was I suppose I was 18 or something like that, (laughs) 18 I should think. Anyway, it wasn't, it was her son-in-law had come to see if I'd arrived and she'd… or they'd stop there the night 'cos it was a big house. So, they lived at Cricklewood, so he'd come to see if I had arrived and so she wouldn't be there alone, you see. (laughs) But I didn't know that at the time, but, till she said to me, “Well that was my son-in-law, you see.”
ES: But, was that a, you know, a happy home? Were you, were you happy there?
EW: Oh, yes. 'Cos there was only this. Well there was one old lady of 81 and her daughter, But her daughter'd got a flat. She usually come there to have her lunch everyday with her mother but she didn't live there. She was a spinster but I mean, she didn't live there although there was this great big house. And ah, oh yes I got on alright there.
ES: Were you having to send money home to your parents?
EW: I did, because by the time I was getting temp'ry money, I got about 30s a week. So at that time I..
ES: So you could afford to send some home.
EW: Oh dear, yeah. I was glad to because of poor old mother. But the lady who got my brother to hospital and that, she, she was very good to my mother. She give my mother £1 a week to sort of, give him what he wanted, you know, and anything he needed. So she was very, very good to my mother for about two or three years. But I, poor old mother, she worked hard.
And ah, and then I, ah, one, I went back every six months and I went with Lady, the other six months I went with a Lady Townshend. Lady, no, Charles Townshend of Cut, have you ever heard of him? In the First World War?
ES: No
EW: He was, he got, ah, killed, I think in First World War. He was Sir Charles Townshend. You've heard of the Townshends?
ES: Yes yes.
EW: Because Raynham Hall belongs to the Townshends
ES: Oh, you mean, the Townshends of Hertford?
EW: No, no
ES: Not that family. No I wondered because there is a Raynham Street in Hertford.
EW: It might be something to do with them.
ES: it does rather link it.
EW: They lived at Raynham Hall and, ah, but when I was in London, at Christmas, the old lady, she was 80 odd, well over 80 anyway. And she, I'm now pumping, I'm now bragging myself up. I mean I, I never knew her not that I knew her. I never saw her because she was always in her room. It was six flights up, we was at the top of the house. (laughs) There was six maids kept there, and there was only her, so it wasn't…
ES: It wasn't much work to do.
EW: Oh no, and there weren't big dinners at night and that sort of thing. And no, well on Christmas morning she called them up to give them a Christmas present. Well I thought she won't give me one I've not been here long. But however she called them. And then they, the last one to go said she wants to see you. I thought perhaps she's going to tell me off, I hadn't done nothing wrong though. (Laughs)
So she said, ah well, she said, “I wish you a Happy Christmas and I usually give, which I have given a sixteen shillings War Savings, they used to be in them days.” But she said, “I'm giving you two because you're the prettiest girl I've seen for a long time.”
ES: How sweet, how sweet, oh right.
EW: So I'm blowing my own trumpet.
ES: No.
EW: I don't think.
ES: I can tell, I can tell you were a pretty girl. Ahm, right so…
EW: So but then one year the cook and me were supposed to go down to this ahm, wherever I said it was in Hampshire somewhere. 'Cos they had this house. And I said I don't want to go down there, I said, I'm too far away from home. I can't go down there. I don't know why I was always thinking about mother and them, but I was. And so the cook said if you're not going, I'm not going. So she applied in the paper for a cook and kitchen maid, temp'ry. And I come to Bengeo House,
ES: Oh.
EW: you know, what is the mews now.
ES: Yes.
EW: You know where I mean, on the corner.
ES: Where the Savorys used to live?
EW: No no, no, Bengeo Hall. Up here. You know the Mews.
ES: I'm a disappointment to you, sorry.
EW: You know the school/
ES: Yes.
EW: Well there's…
ES: What Duncombe?
EW: No, no, the ordinary school, up there, right up the end.
ES: No I don't really.
EW: Don't you.
ES: I'm a disappointment. I'm sorry. Anyway you went to Bengeo Hall.
EW: No Bengeo House it's called.
ES: Bengeo House! Who was the, what family were there?
EW: Hayes.
ES: Hayes
EW: Hayes. They had Hayes Wharf in London.
ES: Oh, right,
EW: Oh yes
ES: I didn't know that.
EW: Well, ah, one of the sons went as a, something, ah, who was that Princess who died, not Diana, oh no that was a long while before Diana, one of them, one of, he went as a what do they call em, something to see to her letters and that.
ES: Oh, like an equerry or?
EW: Yeh, yeh. And, ah, and the two sons worked at this Hayes' Wharf and one went in the Navy. He was a Lieutenant, well I think he got higher up than that but he was a Lieutenant in the Navy. And then
ES: So what did you think of Bengeo House when you came then?
EW: Well it was, oh, I'd been used to big houses, but that was a big house there were six [ xxxx] kept there.
I was a kitchen maid with her. Well then she wanted to go back to London, and so ahm, she said, ah, well would I stop and be the cook. Oh no I said, “I, no, I don't think I'm up to that.” You know I was always frightened, 'cos there's a lot of work to do 'cos there's big dinners and that, and there's a lot to do although I did have a kitchen maid.
And I said I wouldn't do it and then she, she had me, and she said I'll get Miss Foster to come. They live up, oh, they did live up where the football pitch is now, somewhere up there. Anyway she said, ah, and she'll watch you and if you can't do it, she'll tell you. And so she let me do it. Well I had had a good training actually but I was always afraid I was gonna be wrong.
ES: You weren't confident.
EW: No, no. So she said, well I'll watch you. I'll help you but I'll watch you and see what you do. So she said she'll come for six weeks. She'll see what you do. So one morning she called me, the lady did when she come out to give all the orders and she said. “Well Miss Foster said you know more than she do.”
ES: Really.
EW: “You could easily do it.” So I said well I'll do it but if I can't manage it I will leave and I'll get another job as a something and ah. But I, then I stopped there for seven years.
ES: And did you come to enjoy it?
EW: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I did. I mean I knew I could do what was done but… Well you see I'd helped her and I knew. But I'd go to have a kitchen maid, you see, and they was young, and so I had to help with a lot of their work and do my own as well. (laughs)
ES: So how old were you then, when you came to Bengeo House? Twenty what?
EW: Twenty, I had to tell 'em I was twenty-one, I did tell a lie and said I was twenty-one, 'cos they wanted someone that old. So when I was twenty-one I said to my mother don't you dare send me a card 'cos they'll know I'm not twenty-one. But I…
ES: So you got an increase in wages did you? As a cook?
EW: Well when I left I was twenty-eight and I got £72 a year. They wouldn't work a week for it now would they?
ES: No. So, ah, did they have grand dinner parties?
EW: Oh, yes.
ES: Who, who was invited?
EW: Oh, all sorts of people, I mean I'm, all sorts of people.
ES: Yeh. What all the local gentry?
EW: Eh?
ES: The local gentry.
EW: Not all local, no, no. They came a long way some of 'em. They owned Sacombe Park, you know, that big house there.
ES: Yes.
EW: Oh they were very well off. And ah, but he died while I was there, he had cancer and died, the gentleman did.
And I often, I laugh, I have, I can laugh about a lot of things that happened. There was ahm, Oliver who was the, parson I call 'em, they don't call 'em parsons now, I don't know what they call 'em.
ES: Vicar.
EW: Vicar.
ES: Vicar, yes
EW: Ahm, his daughter married, ah, I don't know, is Dewers the whisky people?
ES: Dewers, yes.
EW: Well they used lived in that house next to Co-op .... in Bengeo Street.
ES: Oh
EW: Well some of 'em did and it was their daughter who married the vicar's son. I think that was the way round it.
ES: But, was the, what was his surname?
EW: Oliver.
ES: Oh, that was his surname, yes. I thought you meant that was his Christian name.
EW: No his name was Oliver.
ES: So did you have a fine time, you're, you know, a pretty young girl, were you going out with grooms?
EW: Oh no.
ES: Did you have any social life.
EW: Oh, not much. You got out, on a Sunday morning you'd get out about eleven and be back by one. Well I'd only just peddled home in time to put your shoes on and go back again. So that wasn't much.
And then you'd get off about two on a Sunday afternoon and be back by nine so you didn't have much time to find boys.
ES: (Laughs) So how did you find a husband?
EW: Well when I worked at Bengeo House, up there, that was called Bengeo House at that time, he was a postman. And ah, that's how I got to know him. He used come to the back door and I used to take the letters off him. That's how I got to know 'im and I went out with him. Well I didn't get married till I was twenty-seven. I couldn't, I hadn't saved much money.
And he hadn't saved much because he'd, he'd been in the Navy for 15 years and he'd come out because he wanted to help his mother. And his wages at the post office was only two and thru’pence, twenty, no, two pounds thirty, I think, a week. And these houses was 9/6p a week rent.
ES: So was he older than you?
EW: Oh, dear. We hadn't been married long. I was scrubbing the floor up there and I got a splinter in me knee, so I had a bad knee. I went down the doctor. He said sit yourself down and I'll come and see you and sit yourself down.
And, ah, then he took ill and he, the 'em, he said, Dr Vivian, I think we saw then. And he comes to see him and he said, “Well, I don't know what, I don't know what I can do for him, only give you some tablets.” He'd got a terrible chest. I so I said to, I used to go up there and do a little bit of work then, to get things along. And I said, “Well I can't come 'cos my husband's ill.” So she said, “What's the matter with him?”
ES: This is, you're still talking about Bengeo House?
EW: Ehm. She said to me, they've all been very good to me being off work.
ES: It sounds like it.
EW: Ahm, and so, she said, “Ah, I'll ring up the doctor this morning and get him to really come and have a good look at him.” So he come and he said, “Oh yeh.” The man I knew up the twitchel, I knew him very well, well I knew his family and ah. He said, “If someone'll come down, it's on a Sunday morning I know. If someone'll come down and get some tablets, I'll give you some tablets for him.”
So she said, she come round to see him, she was. They was alright to me, you know what I mean, they weren't upish if you know what I mean, they were quite alright to me.
And they, she said, “Oh,” she said, I know a surgeon in, ahm. the Royal Northern, no she didn't, I'll tell you where she sent him first - to Brompton Hospital. And they said well, yes, he had got something wrong with his chest but they, they were full up and they couldn't take him. Oh, he's not stopping there she said I know another surgeon in the Royal Northern.
So she sent him up there and they had him in straight away. He was fetching up all this blood. And, ah, they found out he'd broken a lead in his lungs which was causing that. And so, ahm, he was in there for, he was in over Christmas. He was in there for about eight weeks. But they got him back but he did look a wreck. And I thought, “Oh dear.” And that was around…
ES: But did you, you fed him up.
EM: Ahm.
ES: You fed him until he looked his old self again, did you?
EW: Well he never went to work till May. And the first round he done, that's what made me think of it. The first round he done was a walking turn along Ware Road and it snowed like blazes. Oh I thought. But however he got along. And that, soon after that was when the war broke out and he was a reserve man, you see, so he had to go. And he was away the six years of the war.
ES: What, despite this weakness in his chest. What did he, what was he?
EW: He was a gun layer.
ES: Gun layer?
EW: He used to put the, I suppose that's what it meant, put the shells in the guns.
ES: Oh right, he used to load them, yeh. And where did, whereabouts did he go? Obviously abroad.
EW: Well he was on, he was on destroyers.
ES: Oh right. You must have had a very anxious time?
EW: I, I had a very anxious first, beginning to my marriage, I mean. But bless him he done everything he could. He was one of the nicest men. I'll show you a bit of paper what they wrote about him in a minute. And ah, he got the Queen's Coronation medal. He got the Imperial Service medal. And, ah you know, and there's letters to go with 'em which they say are something, you know. Which, well my boy would never part with 'em. I've only got one son and one grandson.
ES: When did you have your son?
EW: I was nine, oh it was nineteen-forty (laughs), I was forty when I had him. He's 54. He works for, he's assistant chief of Stevenage Borough Council.
ES: Um, done well.
EW: But, I mean when I went to school, I done well at school, because my mother. I was the only one to win a place at Grammar School. But my mother no said she can't go. Her sister, my mother was a bit unkind really, although she couldn't afford it, bless her, I wouldn't blame her in anyway. The ah, I was the only one to get a place at the Grammar School at that school, and, and had ever got a place there. My mother said well she can't go. I can't afford to send her. So she'll have to go to service like her sister did. And, ah, but the school master said, “Well I'll pay for her, I'll pay for her she's the only one who's got there and I wouldn't”
Oh no, she said no you're not. She's not being made, one made fish and one fowl, so she'll have to go to service. So my mother was unkind in that way to me but I suppose it got me into, do you know what I mean?
ES: I do. But this is, we hear this so often doing these recordings of people who got into, you know, Hertford Grammar School but couldn't go, couldn't afford the uniform and…
EW: That's quite right. I can tell you that, because when my boy …. he got to Hertford Grammar School and ah, and you'd gotta buy all this uniform. But Mr Mansfield, he was the, something in Har'ford, like, more like what's his name is..
ES: Peter?
EW: Um.
ES: Ah, Stan Mansfield? Was it Stan … Mansfield? Wasn't he
EW: No no. He didn't own that, he wasn't the one in, this one was, he's got a daughter. Mrs Saggers is his daughter who live up
ES: Oh, OK, you mean he's a councillor.
EW: Yes. So he said, ah, he can have…I'll get him the something.
ES: What like a scholarship?
EW: No, no. Something award, some award. He said, because he'd done well and I'll get him the ah. I'll get him a, I think it was about ten twelve pound a year, but it was enough them days to buy him his uniform. You know what I mean, don't you?
ES: Yes.
EW: The jackets they had to wear and that. And so that is how he got to…
ES: So he got to the…
EW: He went to the grammar school..
ES: Did he do well?
EW: Yes, he done well. They would have got him to university. But I said I can't afford it. I can't afford it, you see at that time, my husband, when I was 27 he was 37 and Billy weren't born till 40, 1940, after the war. It would be 1940?
ES: He was born … 1950.
EW: Yeh that's right, that's right.
ES: If he was born after the war.
EW: That's right. 1950 he was born. So, he got in at the County Hall as a…he had to do his [xxxx] you know?
ES: Did he have to sit an exam to go to, to get into local government?
EW: Oh yeah.
ES: Yes
EW: Oh yes. He was, he had to go to the college and up to London. He got the highest marks all over England in one thing he done. He was quite bright. Well my husband was very bright and I don't know that I was a dolt. (Laughs)
ES: It doesn't sound like it. Ah.
EW: And so he went there and he was up the County Hall till he was twenty-two. I think he went through the fire service and some other, he had to pass four things. Well then there was a, I think they have a paper come round, something to do with, I don't, I can't remember now. And he put in for a job at Stevenage. For a [xxxx] job I suppose it was. And ah, he's been there ever since. And he worked his way up to what he is now.
ES: He's done well.
EW: Yes.
ES: But there were huge inequalities weren't there, I mean the fact that poverty stopped people going to uni,in a way you did what your mother did. You said, you know, I can't afford him, for him go to university.
EW: Oh no, and that is one thing I'll say, I don't owe anybody a penny and I never have because what we couldn't have we went without. But then we didn't go without because we managed on what we had.
ES: But so going back, to, ah, your earlier life, you met your husband, so where did you first live?
EW: Where?
ES: Yes.
EW: What?
ES: Where were you?
EW: Born?
ES: No, Where did you live when you were first married?
EW: Here.
ES: Oh this has been your home all the while?
EW: Umm.
ES: Oh, I see, right.
EW: He was her with his mother till she died, actually but she was.
ES: Oh, so he'd already got a house.
EW: Oh, yes this.
ES: And, so when you came here you had his mother and his father.
EW: No, no, no, no, he didn't have a father. His, who he called his father, well he belonged to his mother's sister really, she fed him from day one. She had him from day one because she lost a baby at the same time. I hope this is not going in the papers.
ES: (coughs) No, no.
EW: But she lost a baby the day he was born.
ES: Yeah.
EW: Well he was born in Leytonstone Workhouse, well what they called the workhouse.
ES: Yeah.
EW: And his, who I say lived with him or he lived with, she had him, she fed him.
ES: Yeah.
EW: Because she'd lost her baby and so she fed him.
ES: But he wasn't hers.
EW: No
ES: But did he know who his real mother was?
EW: Oh yes because that was her sister.
ES: Oh right.
EW: That's how she come to take him you see because his mother actually was single. There was a lot of this went on. As I said I wouldn't like this to.
ES: No, no it's not going to be printed.
EW: But his mother was in service and I think he was a gent. He belongs to a gentleman. But of course them days they paid maids off like that, because I've known it happened in my time, and ahm, and so, ah.
ES: I thought that's what you were gonna say earlier.
EW: Yes.
ES: That some gentleman had tried to have his way with you.
EW: Oh yes.
ES: 'Cos there must have been an enormous amount of that going on.
EW: Oh there was. There was no end if it, that was how all these babies come about. And I mean if you look at a lot of 'em, you can see, 'cos there's somethin' different about him. And he had, ah, I don't know what to say to you. He was ahm, I mean, as I say, he never said a word out of place to me before we were married, not a word.
He was so ashamed that he was like that, that when he went in the navy, they asked him, when he first went: Who's your father? Who's your mother? He said… well I could name… well I lived with my aunty. He said So who's your mother? Well that's my mother. He said who's your father? He said I don't know. What do you mean you don't know? He said, well I don't know. So the captain, I think, on that ship wrote to his mother but she wouldn't tell him. And she never till the day she died she never told 'em, never told anyone. So they all concluded that that someone… and they'd shut her up, like they did.
ES: It's extraordinary tough - the change that's come about I mean.
EW: They're so proud of it now.
ES: Exactly! It's odd isn't it.
EW: Mind you I don't like the way it's come about. I mean there's a girl up her, she was 16, never bin to work. Then she, this boy come about here from the East End. I'll not run the East End down, I think it was a rough part one time, I don't know. And ah she, I mean he come here and her mother let him stay and she had a baby soon afterwards. And ah, I mean, that, she'd never done a day’s work. The child is crying half the time or it was, and she put in for them to get a flat 'cos he's supposed to be dyslexic or something. And so they got, they were there, because there was only her there. I mean she cared no more about that child than the child cared about her, I don't suppose, 'cos…
Tape ends abruptly.
Side 2
EW: And I mean he won't got ta work, he just, and yet they get, ah, this allowance, that allowance, the other allowance, don't they? I mean it's not fair on hard working people, I don't think, for them to get all them allowances for doing nothing.
ES: No, (coughs) Excuse me. It isn't. It's, it's very difficult and then you wouldn't want to turn the clock back to the old days would you? Ah, where people were too poor to, you know…
EW: No but I don't think that they should give them enough money. I mean he says, “Well I don't, No I can't work,” he says. There's nothing a matter with him but he's supposed to be dyslexic. But I don't think it's fair that they give them more than they'll give me.
ES: No.
EW: They won't give me it. I mean the children don't, they can't help it can they.
ES: No. Well it's obviously swung too far one way.
EW: I think so.
ES: And it'll, I imagine come back to what we all consider to be sensible.
EW: Well I mean you, well,of course, they get all sorts of help now.
ES: They're sort of encouraged, aren't they?
EW: They are.
ES: Anyway to get back to your life. You came live here.
EW: Yes
ES: And you lived all…
EW: Yes.
ES: And did you ever have another job once you became a mother? Did you go out to work again?
EW: Yes, oh, yes. I had, I had a baby, ahm. Billy was born in 1939, February, no.
ES: '49
EW: No, no, '49. I had one, no I had one in 1949.
ES: Ahm.
EW: And that was born dead. A great disappointment it was because as I say I was married. It must have been '59 was it?
ES: You were, if you were…
EW: Oh I don't know where I am.
ES: You were born in 1910.
EW: Ahm.
ES: You said Billy was born when you were forty.
EW: 1950, that was 1950.
ES: Yes
EW: The first one was born on 1939 [1949], 19th February, and Billy was born in 1940 [1950] on 13th, 19th February, both born on the same day. But the first one, ah, Dr Klein, oh I don't know whether you knew her or not, she lived along, oh well never mind, along North Road and she said that I could have this baby at home. And she messed about and messed about. And they had to take it away in the end, that Dr. Medlock, and he did work hard but he said it's heart was fed up so much the child could take no more and it died being born. They had to force it away.
ES: Horrible.
EM: I was so disappointed My husband said, “Well we're not having any.” “Oh Bill, we cannot go with no children,” I said.
ES: Ahm.
EW: But you see the war had come in. The six years of the war had come in between. And then being ill and I didn't want to have a baby the day I got married. You know what I mean. But the time went on.
And that is, so I really would have had two children both boys. I never saw the first one but my husband did. And that was 10 pounds, and they said I was small built and small set, in my bones, well whatever it is, oh I don't know.
ES: So you were lucky that Billy came along. Because I mean even today it's not so easy to have a baby when you’re 40, is it?
EW: But I had a caesarean.
ES: Oh, yes.
ES: For the first one. Well, I mean for Billy and he was 10 and a quarter.
ES: Whopping baby!
EW: And they said you're only a little woman really, you know to have big children. However, he's a big lad, he is a big lad.
ES: I wanted to ask you, what your grandparents did?
EW: Oh, my grandparents. Well, I never knew my grandmother because…
ES: Is this your mother's mother you're talking about,
EW: Ahm
ES Yes
EW: My father's people both died when he was young, so I never knew them but I knew his sister, Aunt Emma and her mother, Aunt Harriet. My mother's name was Harriet so it was a bit of a, but ah, my other grandmother, I really didn't know her because she come when my mother, to look after my mother when my mother had my brother who's younger than me who I tell you is dead, [xxxxx] He lived to 54 and then he died at the wheel of his car. And my grandmother was there with my mother when she had him, because they used to have all the babies at home, there weren't hospitals in those days.
ES: No, no!
EW: And ah, she went home the night my brother was born and she died that night. So that put my mother back quite a lot.
And then my grandfather, but I think, actually they did keep a pub. I think they did. And, ahm, then my grandfather went away to live with my mother's brother and my mother never, they took everything, and ah, 'cos my mother was in bed with my brother. They used to keep you in bed for nine or ten days, didn't they? And ah, and so, then there was a bit of an upsh.., upstart about things, 'cos I don't think my grandparents were too badly off and ah, but this uncle and his wife they took everything and they had him. And then when the aunt, my mother's brother died some, I was in service by that time so you can tell it was a long time afterwards, or some time afterwards. Ah, they sent and told my mother. My mother rang. So I said to my mother, “Well I'll come with you mother if you wanna go.”
She said, “Well, I don't wanna go but I'd like to see what it's all about.”
And, ah, we went. They lived in Wisbech. We did go on the bus. And, ahm, you know, ah, she, she would be my aunt, wouldn't she? Yeh.
ES: Umm.
EW: She would be. She said, “Ahm, oh your daughter Harriet's come to see you,” And he said, “I never had a daughter Harriet.” She said, “No, and I never had a father then.” So she said, “Well we'd like you to take him Harriet now that Albert's died.”
“I said you won't, my mother's not having him. You've had him till now you can keep him. You've had all the money, you can keep him” 'Cos they said that, my mother always said they were pretty…
ES: Comfortably off?
EW: Yeh, so, ah
ES: Ah, well that's not a nice episode is it.
EW: No, no it's not.
ES: But people of course do behave very strangely, don't they?
EW: Where there's money. They do where there's money, I think, they do behave strangely.
But, ah, no, no, oh well, I wouldn't say, oh, if anyone said, and he, my husband always had that in his mind people were saying he was illegitimate and that, but I said Bill, “Don't worry I'll stand up for you.”
But nobody never said it. He was always, that was always… I mean he had a chance to stand up in the post, higher up in the post office but he wouldn't take it, He said, “They'd always say who does he think he is or something like that.” You know. But I…
ES: He obviously felt it much more, than other… than he should have done.
EW: He couldn't get it out of his head. But then he said, “Oh well, I've got you to stick up for me now, Ethel.” And I said, “I'll stick up for you don't worry.”
ES: Is your name Ethel?
EW: Yes.
ES: Right. I hadn't asked.
EW: Yes. That was the only name, my mother said she was fed up of finding names. I've only got one.
(Laughter)
But my sister. I've only got a sister. she's 90, 97 come 98
ES: Where does she live?
EW: In Castle Acre where we were born.
ES: Castle Acre, yes.
EW: Yes. We've got a bungalow there. We had a bungalow built there, because when my husband sort of went a bit ill, I thought, oh well, my brother was alive then and I thought, oh well I could look after him. Ah, mind you I didn't know what was going to befall me. Ahm, and I thought I could look after Arthur, poor old Arthur. I thought the world of him. He was the one my younger than me, the one with the [xxxxx].
But, he lived there, my mother died, she was 90..96, my old grandfather was 100, My mother was 96 coming 97, and Aggie is 97 but my other brothers died in their 70s.
ES: But a very long lived family then
EW: Really, yes, yes
ES: So just…
EW: But then I had, I had a hysterectomy. I've had a lot of operations. I had to have me breast off because I had breast cancer. I had to have both my wrists cut because me hands wouldn't work. Then them two fingers have gone wrong and Mr Waterfield, oh I could kill him, (laughs), cos I, because he said he could do that and there'd be two stitches in my elbow. And he done it up here and ah, sent me out the same day, he done it, dinner time and sent me out at tea-time. And I went who was my daughter-in-law, but my son is divorced 'cos she wanted to do something else.
She still come and she brought him. Oh no he's got a partner, which is fair enough.
I think Liz, who was my daughter-in-law was gonna help me, but she was going, going somewhere and she asked her mother who lives in Nazeing and when I got there, she said, “Oh, yes, she said, I'll have her.”
And when I got there she said, “You'll have a cup of tea won't you?”
And I said, “Yes I will. I haven't any yet, since yesterday.”
And ah, she said, “I've got a meat pudding.” I can hear her now saying it to me, “I've got a meat pudding and I'll, we'll have that for tea so you'll have a good tea.” And with that I drunk part, and I don't know whether, what happened the rest, but I passed out. And they were so worried they thought I was gonna to die.
So they sent for the ambulance and they took me to Harlow, because Nazeing… Harlow was nearer than here. They took me to Harlow and ah, they kept me in there nine days.
ES: What had happened then?
EW: Well when, then I had to up here, they made me go up here to have the stitches out. And when they, but they knew at Naze… they knew at Harlow what was the matter.
Instead of two stitches, I've got 19 right up there, right down my arm and that never done a bit of good., look, my hand is still funny.
ES: Let's have a look.
EW: You can feel it look, can you feel the…
ES: Oh yes, that.
EW: And, and there's no, there isn't a lot of feeling in that hand, if you know what I mean. But I mean the, the arm and don't know whether you can see properly, but you'll see where he's cut it look.
ES: Yes, yes, yes
EW: He cut it up there somewhere and down there, oh, under there it is, look.
ES: He didn't make a very good job of that, did he?
EW: Can you see it.
ES: Uhm.
EW: No he did not. So he said, when I had to go and see him afterwards. he said Oh well I couldn't do nothing about it they were tied up like an old trees of an old root, roots of an old tree. And that was, I said thank you very much, I said, I'll see that you didn't operate on me any more, I said. I did, because I don't mince my words if I feel like it. I didn't care if he was a doctor, surgeon or what he was because I mean he really did chop my arm. There was 19 stitches. And when they took the stitches out they said We have got into trouble over that. The other hospital said you should have never been let out.
ES: Right,
EW: I mean I've had (laughs) I've had my breasts, I've had both my eyes done.
ES: You're look pretty good to me.
EW: And (laughing) I've got an ulcerated ankle and I, I went home to my sister and I was there one night and oh my knee did hurt me. And I said, “Oh Aggie I must go to the doctor's when I get home, my knee.” So ah, anyway, I couldn't get no sleep that first, I was only there for one night anyway. I couldn't get any sleep, this blessed knee. So the boy up the road said oh, send for the doctor. Oh says Aggie I never have a doctor in this house, I'm not gonna have a doctor here. She'll have to wait while she get home. Cos she's pretty harsh 'cos she's never had a doctor, till now.
And, ah, so he said Well put your coat on then, I'll take you to the doctor's. I've made an appointment to take you.
He said well I can do nothing with that knee, he said, but you'll have to go to the hospital at once. And when I [he] said at once, I said Oh I can't go, doctor, I've gotta go home. He said, I said you'll have to go to the doctor's, you'll have to go hospital at once. So they took me to [King's] Lynn hospital right away. They took me into Lynn hospital right way. And I was in there two months. Because, that knee well it hadn't broken open then but I was in bed and I think I went in on the Saturday and on the Monday morning I went to get out of bed and me knee shot open and the puss blew out.
ES: Oooh!
EW: So I called the, I said Nurse! she said What's the matter. I said oh I don't know, I said something's happened. She said Well I won't be a minute, I must just finish this bit I'm doing then I'll be there. Oh gosh she said I must send for the doctor to come. And he come and he said Well There's only one thing I've gotta say to you, I'm very pleased it has broke there, because if that had broke under there that had a killed you. That'd have got into the main artery and you'd have been gone. So I was in there two months with that.
ES: Right, so you've diced with death a few times, haven't you?
You've still got quite a Norfolk accident.
EW: Oh I never, I don't know why people lose their accents. Do you? I think they must try to but I never did nothing about it. Everyone says where do you come from. You come from Norfolk don't you?
ES: Well it's rather un…, it's unusual but it. it's very attractive. Well now, is there anything else that we ought to talk about? I have enjoyed it.
EW: Have you?
ES: Yes very much.
EW: Ah, well that is, ah, sort of, the life of me. And then, as I say, since, my husband has been dead, I worked for these people up there and…
ES: Which ones were those, when you say these people?
EW: These two which had, were relations of the Botsfords.
ES: Oh yes, yes.
EW: Yes, Well I worked for them for about 40 years until she died and they had no children so I had, ah,
ES: But ah, what has your life been like in Hertford, apart from working did you belong to clubs or associations or anything? Did you socialise much, you and your husband?
EW: Oh no. We used to go away and that. And we had - my husband had met this very nice man in the army and they lived in Portland, not in Portland, in Portland Road from Weymouth to, ah, Portland.
ES: Weymouth to Portland, yes.
EW: They lived in a road there. Portland Road they called it. And they got to a, and they asked us. We used to go there every year and they'd come up 'ere. So we used to get a bit of, we used to go about.
My husband drove a car. We had a little Austin. (laughs). And, ah, I think there was that and one more down the road and that's all the cars there was on the estate, on the
ES: What, did you go to church?
EW: Yes.
ES: Which church did you go to?
EW: Bengeo. I used to sing in the choir.
ES: Oh, really, ehm.
EW: For some years, yes, oh yes.
ES: Do you go still?
EW: No, I can't walk very well.
ES: No.
EW: No, no, I can't walk very well, but, I go to, oh, I go down Marsh Lane.
ES: What's down there?
EW: Well, disabled people.
ES: Oh!
EW: I have got a disabled card.
ES: Ahm. And is that, what is it? A club for the disabled?
EW: We only go Friday afternoon for a couple of hours.
ES: What do you?
EW: They play a game of Bingo.
ES: Oh, it's quite nice is it?
EW: Yeh, well , I mean, yes.
ES: Meet a few friends.
EW: Well there's, there's a lot of funny people down there, but I mean I sit with people who I can have a chat to, some of them are alright. Well they're all alright as far as I'm concerned. Folks can't help being wrong in their heads, can they? I might be wrong in mine for all I know.
(Laughter)
ES: Well we're all wrong in some bits of us, aren't we?
EW: Well that's it. And I mean, and they come and fetch us and bring us back. And then what do I do? I go to disabled club in Her'ford once a month. I don't know what.
ES: Apart from the neighbour next door, have you got friends around here?
EW: Oh, yes, I've got ever such good. There's a chap up the top of the road, on the bend there, next to them people who are making all this noise and all their furniture’s out in the garden, one thing and another. And, ah, he's excellent to me. He's as good as a son. And the boy, well boy, he's fifty, I think, and the one up there, they're all men you see. (laughs) They, they always come over to me, and one'll bring me mi dinner one time and something else,you know. They're all I [xxxxx] for myself. And I bake for them, very often which…
ES: Well that's nice, so you, it's a bit of give and take, isn't it.
EW: Yes.
ES: Oh, well then you're fortunate.
EW: And there's a woman about three doors off. And I'll do my washing in the machine but she'll come and hang it out. I can't, if I look up I'm going over, do you know what I mean?
ES: I do, I do.
EW: And, ah, so she'll come and hang it on her line and then she'll iron it and put it in her airing cupboard and bring it back, so I mean.
ES: So by and large you're fortunate.
EW: I am, I'm very fortunate. And they're all right next door. Do you know them next door at all?
ES: No, what's their name?
EW: Ahm?
ES: You knew I was going to ask who they were.
EW: Eh?
ES: You know I was going to ask who they were and you've forgotten!
EW: I don't know. Oh, God. Fielder. He's, I don't know what he is. But they, funny to say that they can get everything under the sun. They can get every help under the sun.
ES: Uhm.
EW: And I mean, I think he can walk better than I can walk but he has one of these wheelchairs which you ride up and down in. And he gets a pension from here. They get carer's allowance. They get, ahm
ES: Well, of course, it's partly knowing the system, isn't it? I mean, there, there are loads of allowances available, but it's hard work to find out what they are.
EW: I know.
ES: Ahm
EW: Well, ahm, they said I could get, but Dr. Eames
ES: Yeh, he's my doctor.
EW: Is he?
ES: He's a nice chap.
EW: Dr Eames. I worked for the people. Oh, she was a school teacher and he was a, what do you call these men who go round with samples, [xxxx]
ES: Oh, what, a representative?
EW: Yes.
ES: A salesman, yes.
EW: Yes. Well they had no children and they lived up in Ware. And ahm, I don't know what I was going to say to you now. What was there?
ES: Oh, we were talking about Dr. Eames.
EM: Oh yes, and he come and he signed a paper for me to get my bed downstairs, but they wouldn't give it to me. And then, ah, but I do get attendance allowance. 'Cos I said, when the woman come and asked me, I said, “Well don't ask me because I'm not gonna get anything only the old age pension, I know that.”
And she said “Why?” She said. “You can have it
I said, “because I got more than £16,000 which they say”. So, ahm, she said,”That's nothing whatever to do with it.”
ES: Oh!
EW: Nothing whatever to do with it,” she said,”You can have a hundred thousand but you can still claim this attendance allowance.” So she got that for me with the old age pension.
But when Dr. Eames said I could get £10 off, I had to pay the full Poll Tax.
He said well you'll get that off. I said, “well they said. He filled it in, he has.
But they come and see me and they said, “Oh, how much money have you got here and how much have you got there, and how much
I said, “Look, if you want to know all my affairs, I can do without the £10.” I said, “And that is that! You are not knowing it.” So he said, “Oh, you're not willing to tell?” “No I'm not.”
He said want to know your bank account, if you've got any savings.
I said, “I'm not telling you. That's that” I said, “You're not giving me anything and I'm not telling you.”
He said, “Well have you got the form.” I said, “Yes and I've torn it up.”
ES: (laughs) No, I mean, I, I agree with you in a way. It's very hard won if you've got to tell them everything, isn't it?
EW: Well why should have to tell them everything. I've had to work hard for it.
ES: I think we've finished with this, I think. Shall I turn this off?
Attempts to turn recording machine off. [I have continued to transcribe as the discussion throws up interesting information about Ethel's early life.]
EW: No I felt sorry. When she was old I thought; 'Oh, I must help Mum.' And I used to sort of think, “Well I'll have to give her a little bit. And I mean, (laughs) I got nothing really.” (coughs)
But she'd been a very good Mother to us, very good Mother with nothing. And I can remember her, Saturdays she used to make a stew, I don't suppose there was a lot of meat in it but it was stew and then she'd make some dumplings. And she'd put some in a basin and a dumpling, and then wrap it over and put it in a milk pan what we used to have and she'd say, “Run down to poor old Mrs Church she's got no dinner.”
I mean my Mum's got nothing to give away but she was, well she was a wonderful nature my people were. My father was a Salvationist and, I mean, they neither drunk nor smoked.
Well they didn't in those days, I don't know what they do now. Well my Mum…
ES: No I don't know but they don't I'm sure.
EW: But they never wasted, they never went out and left us. They were wonderful parents. And they would help anybody else. Anf if someone give us a ha’penny for running an errand we run home with it.
ES: Well I suppose needy people today would act in that almost, heroic way but, of course, they're not asked to. They don't have the opportunity. And unfortunately what you mostly see is people just buying or spending or people behaving badly like your neighbours, and not giving a toss for anyone. Anyway let's just do this.
ES: But I mean, when you see, how much do people owe? Millions
Tape end