Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Thornton, Geoffrey (O2016.3) |
| Interviewee | Geoffrey Thornton (GT) |
| Interviewer | David Hunt (DH) |
| Date | 17/03/2016 |
| Transcriber by | Stephen McEnally (using Otter.Ai for initial transcript) |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording No: O2016.3
Interviewee(s): Geoffrey Thornton (GT)
Date of interview: 17th March 2016
Venue: Whitacre, Hertford
Interviewer(s): David Hunt (DH)
Transcribed by: Stephen McEnally (using Otter.Ai for initial transcript)
Typed by: Stephen McEnally
Reviewed by: Mark Green
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
DH: This is David Hunt, interviewing Geoffrey Thornton at his house, White Acre, Port Hill Hertford on the 17th of March 2016. Hello, Geoffrey.
GT: It’s actually pronounced Whittaker.
DH: Whittaker? I beg your pardon. It’s Whittaker… not Whiteacre [the house is spelt Whitacre, not Whiteacre, and pronounced Whittaker] .
GT: There’s a little…well there’s some history behind that.
DH: Right.
GT: Well, I was born in in Preston in Lancashire in 1937. I - It’s my claim that in the first 18 years of my life I never spent more than three consecutive weeks outside Lancashire. And, since then, I've never spent three consecutives weeks in it. Not that I have anything against Lancashire. I'm actually very proudly a Lancastrian – umm - but it’s merely the way the world led me. I went to a local church school in 1941, initially, on mornings only, and - at - in those days the school leaving age was still 14. I was in - I was there till 1947 and then moved to Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Blackburn, which was a commute a - morning commute by bus – which fortunately the bus - we lived just outside Preston at a place called [?] Walton-le-Dale and the regular - there's a bus service about once an hour up our lane but I used that to get to Blackburn. I stayed there for three years. In fact, including taking my 11 plus while I was there. And then in 1950, I left and was sent to Rossall School which is on the Fylde coast. Very bracing and healthy. We used to play hockey on the sand and boarded there for five years, until 1955. I was channelled down modern studies. I think, what I would have liked to have done at school, would have been to combine history with maths and in those days, your choices were very restricted, you either did – well - the very, very bright form was a classics form, all of whom were scholars anyway – and modern studies, which were History, French, English or History, French and Spanish and German or Spanish or German. I was channelled down that, quite literally at the age of – err - trying to think – err - at the age of - ah – yes - it was when I went to Rossall – my first year there - I was straight into the - I took history as my favourite. So I - in the end did History, French and English at ‘A’ level. At the end of the - my father was an accountant in private practice in Preston. And the hope was I would become an accountant and join, take over, the family practice. I was heading down that direction. I got a place at Cambridge. I was offered a place at Cambridge in 1955. The rules then were quite clear. Unless you were terribly clever, and going to be a scholar or an exhibitioner, you were dispatched to do your national service first. And – I - again, with the aim of accountancy as an occupation, I went into the Pay Corps in which my father had served during the Second World War. In fact, funnily enough, after I was commissioned, my first commanding officer had been my father's Group Officer, many years earlier, and subsequently a local deputy paymaster for the Middle East, and did his final inspection before he was retired. He had been my father's CO during the war. I was commissioned into the Pay Corps - in the middle - this was all in the middle of the Suez crisis. I - my aim had been to get overseas and, unfortunately, I had taken three months longer than normal because I’d had to do one circuit of the officer selection course twice. So, finally, I had only a year to do and at that point they are looking for an overseas posting. I knew which postings were available and put for my first choice as Nairobi because I knew there was a place out there. The second choice, the Far East, the third choice, West Africa. Home postings, which you had to put in if you wanted to volunteer for overseas - they still wanted your home preferences. So I put down Germany as being the - as it was a strictly a home posting - to make a point. And having an interview with one of the senior officers, looking at this, he said well ‘How long will you have to do when you're commissioned then, I said, ‘well just a year’ - ‘Won’t be worth the army’s while sending you overseas - you might make Germany if you're lucky’. Three weeks later my posting came through to Cyprus - which I then went out, after a long wait - a long wait for a troop ship to be available, because, as I say, it was in the middle of Suez.
So I went - I went by troopship to Malta and transhipped to the Empire Clive for the journey to Cyprus. I'd been in Cyprus for three months, when they - em - when they actually decided they wanted to send me down - there was a vacancy in Aden and I was a volunteer for that. Not quite sure why? I didn't guess. And so I spent the rest of my National Service in Aden finally going down to – hm – er - on leave to Mombasa, where there was a rest and recreation camp, which is now a luxury hotel. And from there - while I was there - I then got a train up to Nairobi. So I finished up in Nairobi with the officer who had wanted to get posted to Leicester and had his arm twisted to take the Nairobi posting they wouldn't give to me. And, anyway, I came back - came back from Aden. I did continue my military connection. I was posted to the reserve, the army emergency reserve, but then decided - a – a - a year later, that I rather missed the army.
I had been planning to go out to South Africa for my long vacation, but it all fell through so I went and joined the Territorial Army. And I transferred - on the other hand, I didn't want to have anything to do with the Pay Corps anymore - and transferred to the Royal Engineers. And my military career carried on like that until 1965, by which time I’d transferred to the Parachute Brigade and had the distinction of going out to Aden again - and the point I’d like to make with you - Aden was regarded as a punishment posting. And the legend was, there is a volcano there, called Shamsan. And the legend is that if you don’t climb Shamsan you’ll get posted back there again. I didn't climb Shamsan, quite deliberately. I didn't want to cut out the opportunity of going back again.
And lo and behold, in 1965, and I was part of the very first, I think, 131 Parachute Engineer Regiment and I was part of, we went out on active service to Aden because the emergency was still running then. And we were actually the first Territorial Army regiment to go on active service overseas after the end of the Second World War. Coming back I - I had been - I went up to Cambridge with the idea of reading economics, and then possibly switching back to history at the end of my first year. And, anyway, I got to – err - the end of my first year and my Director - had a discussion with my Director of Studies. And we agreed it would make a lot of sense to carry on - so I continued with the – with - um- the economics for the full three years.
DH: Which college were you at?
GT: At St Catharine’s, which was rather better known as a sporting College in those days. It has subsequently .. err..still a strong sporting college… but also has a - has topped one of the tables - the Tompkins table [brief indistinct talking over here] - fairly high up in the academic league table, recently. It was - it was always regarded, I think, as a rather friendly, you know – err - happy College. It didn't have the - the sort of - the reputation of - err places like Trinity and Kings. The breeding grounds, of course, for all the Cambridge spies. I came down with a 2:2, but the end of that period - I also was quite active in politics at Cambridge - and I was Vice President of the Liberal Club. But at the end of it, the prospect of coming back - depressed, and, spending the rest of my life there, you know, after what I'd been doing in the previous five years - it just did not appeal. It also happened the - my girlfriend at the time, whom I was actively pursuing, was living in - lived in London. So I actually got myself a job in London, the Economist Intelligence Unit. Another three years, I actually finally persuaded her to marry me, which was 50-53 years ago this year. Anyway, I – we – I worked for two years at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
DH: Sorry?
GT: The Economist Intelligence Unit
DH: Oh..right.
GT: A subsidiary of The Economist, newspaper. And they - the pattern there - most people I worked with were basically doing industrial market research. Most of the people I worked with had not come straight from university, but had - err - worked in industry and, by and large, did two or three years there and then went back. And so that was the particular part that I was working in. And I did all sorts of interesting studies. And then I, we - we all tended to - after a couple of years - you started looking for jobs to see what was around. And there was a splendid advert in The Telegraph, a very large block, looking for engineers or semiconductor engineers, all shapes and sizes. And, right in small type at the bottom ‘we're also looking for workstudy engineers and an economist for production control’. I had found - of all of the studies that I had done at the IU - often studies came along with a fairly strong industrial, technical bias. And I found these much more interesting. I tended, you know, to put my hand up for those while most people who want to just - to be - to do economics and economic studies, they would run a mile. So I usually would finish up sitting all by myself. And did all studies into things involved in ship design, cargo handling - you know - car batteries, office machinery. And - one of the things that - I got quite a feel again - having been in the world at that stage, I was still in the TA and Royal engineers, so I was doing a lot of military engineering as well. And I thought semiconductors seemed interesting because the idea of electrons moving around was something I hadn't managed to get my brain round. So I thought I'd try that and I got the job and stayed with – well - err - I stayed basically with the same company. It went through various changes. I started in production control and then somebody discovered that I’d been working in market research. I was given the job of running the Market Reseach Department of the components activity which, I was then working in Foots Cray in Kent. I was then promoted to a marketing manager's job in Devon. So we moved down to Devon in 19 - I joined STC in ’62 - we moved down in the beginning of ‘66. My - when we - when we got married one of - part of the negotiations - I was going to stay in the TA, and, anyway, son arrived - err - about nine and a half months after we got married and we were decided we wanted a second one, looking at a sort of two year gap. And in fact our daughter arrived 22 months later. But I add that fairly late on in this I was offered this job in Paignton and we actually - we actually - moved, five weeks before my daughter was born, down to Totnes, spent about three and a half years there, and, in the meantime, the headquarters I'd been in in Foots Cray had been moved to Harlow. But we let our house in Blackheath. And - but we came back to that and I commuted to Harlow for about three and a half years after which, and doing various jobs – and - but after the - I was then offered a job in Brussels with a [? one of the] components units, which sounded like fun. We went out to Brussels, and spent four years there. When we came back, I was back - back to Harlow again. And the - the commuting from Blackheath and then - DH: Via central London presumably? GT: No, I, I drove Blackwall Tunnel, Blackwall Tunnel and we had an interesting study on where you cross the River Lea and how many bits of water you have to cross to get - but when - at that stage we decided, you know, we were likely… likely to be in Harlow for a long time and decided, really, to move over. Sorry, that's a long story. But that's how we came to be in Hertford. We looked - I decided I didn't want to live in Essex. Because it was a bit flat. And we looked - we decided we wanted a period house preferably Georgian, or Regency - because the house we had in London, in fact, was a rather sweet, white-rendered bow-fronted Regency house - and we wanted to be within - we want to be within - ideally about six miles of Harlow and, again - with decent schooling. And we - we started to - we decided - we'd moved over in - we came back from Brussels and started in Harlow in 1976. And I - we started to look around. In fact, the – the - we only looked at - we only looked at two houses, one of which was over in Quendon, just north of Stortford and was - I think - it was in fact a Queen Anne house. Then - in Country Life - an advert appeared for, what was described, I think, as a small country house which sounded very interesting. Just like our house in Blackheath, it was white-rendered [cupula??] above, double-fronted, bow-fronted and we looked at it - and decided - which happened to be in Bengeo. And that was - we decided – good - this was where we wanted to come. So we - we actually - this had appeared in Country Life, I think, in about February. So it was, you know – sorry - the first advert we saw was in The Times and we rang up the agent and then discovered they had made a mistake and, somewhat to the annoyance of the owners of the house, they wasn't supposed to being put on the market, you know, for a bit - a bit longer. And anyway, we decided we liked the house had a negotiation and settled for a price that would - bearing in mind this was 1977 - would sort of make your hair curl now. It was said at the time that what we paid for this house was more - was the highest price anybody would ever pay for a house in Hertford - and so, anyway, we - that was - that was what brought us to Hertford. We didn't come to Hertford because we wanted to come to Hertford. We came to Hertford because we found a - a - nice house that we liked in a place that appeared very attractive. And certainly - certainly I have no regrets about coming here at all and this year – well - next year - we will have been here for 40 years. Does that - ?
DH: That sounds excellent - yes
GT: Fair, fair background. Do you want to talk to me more about the house and the background or what - or - ?
DH: Yes, yes. As far as your work was concerned you continued in Harlow?
GT: Ahh - funny you should say that - we - I was - err - I was brought back with the idea of taking over a particular job, which - which didn't materialise so, no, I came back originally I was - in ’77 - I came - I came back - I was going - that job didn't materialise, but I was then given a job which I thoroughly enjoyed, running one of the divisions, the component divisions in Harlow, but the – subsequently – they - I was – I was - offered a job in the submarine cable division, which happened to be in Greenwich, which was about a mile and a half away from the house in Blackheath we’d been living in when first got married. And I actually - I went there in 1987 and commuted – well - commuted to Greenwich until I took an early retirement in 1996. It had finished up in the meantime - going back in history, had been a subsidiary of International Telephone & Telegraph in an early American - big American conglomerate. It was then, as a result of the various changes in ITT and decisions that had been taken by STC, it was decided to float STC on the London Stock Exchange, which it did. So I went from working for an American company to a British company. We were, I think that was – after about eight years - I think it was - the company went through a very bad spell and was bought by a Canadian company, Northern Telecom, who subsequently went bankrupt. But the Division I was in, the submarine cable business, was one that Northern Telecom didn't understand. And when they were in trouble they - they decided to sell it. And our French, French rivals had for a long time wanted to get their hands on us. So we were bought. So I actually went from working – working - for an American company to a British company to a Canadian company to a French company which was all part of the same pension fund. David, have you ever heard of - Lichtenberg’s knife? DH: No.. no! GT: I break the blade so I put a new blade on. Then I break the handle and I put a new handle on. Is it the same knife? If it isn't, when did it stop being the original knife? And I have actually answered this. The answer is it doesn't matter a damn provided it is all part of the same pension scheme. Anyway – the - I was the latter part - well first of all it was a very international business, I mean, there were only about four companies - in those days only four companies in the world doing that. And it meant a lot of travel. And, having been bought by Alcatel, I finished up my last couple of years working - I was commuting half a week, I was spending half the week in Paris, which actually - half is not bad, because it's six o'clock in the morning, you get the first flight from Stansted to Paris and, you know, be in Paris by nine. But I then - I think the - after Alcatel had taken us over, there was enormous duplication. And they set up - they decided to set a redundancy scheme up and I put my hand up to the voluntary redundancy, three years before my normal retirement date, and then proceeded - at that time the submarine cable business was just - really took off. The internet was going wild. And I did - I went on doing consultancy work within the industry for - for another 12 years before finishing up altogether and spending - spending more time, among other things, with the Civic Society. But - DH: Brilliant, yep, thank you very much
GT: Whitacre, the house we live in. It's very curious because we are we’re - we're up at the top of Port Hill, and the number of people who come - and it's not – not – it is visible in winter from certain quarters, but not very many, other than from the air. And, I mean, I can - I can - I know two or three places where you can see it. It's - it's difficult to see and somebody can’t see anything because there are trees all round. We’ve – it was - Bengeo was a separate community, not part of Hertford, not in fact, till 1892. And there was - Bengeo had a cluster around - right at the top of what is now the village. But there was very little as you came out of Hertford, in the direction of Bengeo - there was not much building - certainly about 1800 probably only two major houses here, the Port Hill House, where er – you know? – the inoculation man? Dimsdale?
DH: Dimsdale!
GT: Ah yes - Dimsdale lived, and also the old Pest House which was where, I think, where Dimsdale had his surgery, or whatever. But otherwise, there was the odd cottages but not very much really beyond Cowbridge and the - the Pest House is late seventeenth century, the Dimsdale is eighteenth but frankly not very much there. If you look at the map of the land ownership of the - if you think of yourself going up Port Hill, to the right hand side, the land - there were cottages, old cottages there - behind that - the land ownership - at the time, for example, in 1835 and the tithe map - was still - and you can see the old mediaeval strip pattern, you know, where - where, you know, you had the big field divided into strips and a man – a man called George Darby started in 1815. He bought three - three separate strips of land along the side of Port Hill from a man called George Cox and, subsequently, in 1827 bought - bought some land from the Dimsdale Estate. He started - he built - if you - coming off - coming off Cowbridge, if you start - avoid the right hand turn up Port Hill but carry straight on down Portvale. George Darby finished up owning the land from the right hand side of the road. All that behind - the big house at the bottom and some of the smaller cottages on Port Hill itself, from - he finished up owning the land from there, right back to where Christ Church was and where the Company of Players still have the old Christ Church Hall as their Theatre. And he started to build on that land. He built the whole of Port Vale, basically up to just short of where the barrier is now and George Street and Russell Street off it and on the land behind, he built Grove in about 1827. And subsequently, yes – sorry - coming back - I should explain at that stage the - Russell - George street ran straight up. And at the top of George street he built a large - a large pair of larger houses, semi detached, which is still there, but later on in the 18th - I think about probably - about the same in the 1820s, 1830s - in fact the most of those are on the - on the 1835 tithe map. But he - in the 1840s when the railway boom got going, they - the plan came up to build a railway line from - which was basically to connect from Hertford to join in with the main line going - the main north eastern line – it went straight to Welwyn Garden City. Of course that line is very much - a lot of that is still open as a footpath. But what it did do of course was to carve right across - Russell St - George Street and Russell Street. And they - that cut off the top of George Street where there were this pair of semi-detached houses. I, counting on the tithe map, I think probably three houses on each side were demolished as well. Of course the railway cutting is still there but, of course, the houses at the top were cut off. And what is now Grove Cottage. The interesting thing was that at this point there was no access. And if you like to take a - to follow around to the bottom of Port Hill, if you go over the railway bridge and keep looking to the left, you will see just before the old - the old Quaker burial ground there is this terrace of three houses and if you look, the first two - the two to the south are double-fronted and the third is single-fronted and then, alongside that, there is a track, the driveway into Grove Cottage. And the interesting thing there is that when this railway plan was put - was going through - the owner - I can’t remember whom – those - those three cottages came up for sale. The end one was owned by a man [?? called and by] a lady called Mrs. Murray. And if you look very carefully you can see exactly what happened. He bought the house chopped the end – the - the right hand end - and so it's made into a single fronted house and he gave enough drive room to make the driveway to the access and that came into the ownership of the Grove and that was, I think, the - I shall come back. Darby’s building went on with what is now our house at the top. It’s curious. It’s pure Regency. The - we have a cast iron balcony, which I've discovered - I've seen going round places like Brighton and Bristol. This was obviously top of the range from B&Q in 1840 is identical slightly crossing arches which I will show you from the outside. But the look, the - the appearance of the house is interesting. Everyone looks inside..‘Oh this is just like the teahouse, the Louisiana, in the deep south which is not actually true because when - -when you go round - I've been round - New Orleans - and you find that balconies there are not attached to the front of the house. If you look at this front the balcony is in fact a projection of the roof cantilevered out over the - over the balcony. It's not - it's not an attachment. Again, you’ll find if you go, you know, round Bristol, Clifton, that sort of area, you find the same thing that the balconies, the typical Regency balconies, are sort of stuck on the front. Most of them oriented like that. But I have in my travels, on various submarine cable exercises, discovered the identical structure that we've got here i.e, cast iron pillars and projecting balcony - projecting roof over the balcony. In each case, built by the British Army in - in - Jamaica, and in Bermuda, built - the one in Jamaica was built as a Naval Hospital and the one in Bermuda, I think, was a barrack park but the - the appearance is the exact same effect. Now there is a rumour – sorry - more than a rumour. I think there's evidence, from somebody else's oral history, that George Darby had a son. He had quite a lot, as they usually did, but one of them went to America. So one could - one could speculate as to whether, you know, this is not - it's not a typical - the detail is not a typical early Regency house. You can speculate that his son might have sent drawings or something back. There is - I’m not - I don't even know which bits of the States he actually went to. Certainly it’s on record that he was out there. And it is a possible explanation.
DH: What is the date of this house?
GT: As close as we get, 1840. It was on - on the tithe map. It is referred to but is not drawn in. So when you actually look at the plan, there's no house here. But there is a list of what - there is a description - of what in fact was built - which is rather odd. And it was - Darby again - those days - a typical, typical entrepreneur builder would build two houses, live in one of them himself - and rent - rent the other one out to somebody else. It’s - it’s quite interesting. Darby obviously couldn't write. Because when he sold the house - these are all going through the papers in the county records office - I can’t remember the man’s name but he - Darby sold it to a man called Smitheman. And it's quite interesting because he - I think - there is no Darby signature anywhere. And the whole correspondence argument - because what Darby had done is - the original entrance to the house was in Port Vale, the only entrance, and, I think, because this was the bigger house rather than, they had built the Grove already - but he gave the drive to - to be part of what was - initially - it's referred to - in the earliest census, as Port Hill House, you can find two versions. You can find Porthill House. ‘Porthill’, one word, referring to the Dimsdale place. Port Hill House, two words, referring to this, going through the census - but it - he sold it to this man, Smitheman
DH: Can you spell his name…sorry?
GT: Yes…SMITHEMAN.
DH: Oh? Right…thankyou
GT: And he – and he - there’s a long debate because Darby in the meantime bought another strip of land, behind our house, which is now our - our main drive, which was a slice of land off the Port Hill house Estate after the - all the – the lawsuits over the Dimsdale succession in the 1830s. The final settlement - the Estate, when sorted - was sold off and he just bought that strip of land which gave access - it - does access now at the top of Port Hill. But it was - he - the interesting thing was that the - at that stage - there are all Smitheman’s arguments in the - in the - in the correspondence about saying, well look yourself, that's got two – sorry - to say this - not - Darby, that’s right - what Darby wanted to do was to keep the drive, which is now the drive basically to the Grove and - for the Grove, and his argument was, well there's a drive down there but Smitheman said no I want the lot, which also included the - bear in mind this is also all before the railway came - included all the land to the right and to the left as you come off Port Vale, to the left hand side of Russell Street, was also - all part of - all part of that, the plot. So it – anyway - the interesting bit - in one of the conditions of sale but, obviously, the - the whole prospect of the railway was already around because one of the conditions of sales was that if - the Act of Parliament authorising the - the building of the railway - all these - all the railways built had an Act of Parliament which, I think, gave you the power to, basically, to get hold of - buy the land immediately. But if the Act had been passed within three years of the sale, Darby would retain the right to all the spoil from the cutting through. In fact, it didn't quite go through in time - because he never - he never got it, partly, I think - I don't think the Act had gone through, anyway and Darby died about this time and it was an interesting twist, which of course, here we are still - still living with, because, of course, the railway line has been sold off anyway now. So, you know it’s sitting there and you’ve got all sorts of complications about who is responsible for the bridge because, obviously, the railway line went under - went under the drive. Anyway, Smitheman dug his toes in and so [??the sale] went through. He and his wife lived here. Well she - his wife died in 1875. He died in 1877. Now that stage got interesting because at the time, the owner of The Grove was a man called Admiral Thompson [Admiral Thomas Pickering Thompson, 1810-1892] and he decided - he decided he would like to move up the hill, thank you very much. So he actually moved from The Grove to here. He came here in 1877. He was - he died in about 1891 - his much younger wife - and she - she stayed on here till - she died in 1923. And it's quite interesting because when – I mean - we’ll sort of stay with this theme for a minute - the house was left without, a was obviously in not a very good condition - she lived as a widow - probably not, you know, looked after it - it went - the house was split - split between [??four] cousins and one of them bought all the others out and then proceeded to refurbish it and bring it up and sold it - and sold it on in 1927 to the parents of the owner of the house from whom we bought it. So we are actually the fourth family to live here. The - we had - partly because of the relatively few changes done to it, there have been remarkably few alterations to it. Originally the - the servants lived down in the - in the cellar and the kitchen was down in the cellars and the cellars are the most of the house and he - but they're all… but…again, the cellars have got lath and plaster ceilings and - and one of them has got – coming, skipping forward briefly - one of them has got rather interesting structure because it serves as the main sitting room and the whole floor is supported by about a dozen huge beams. Vertical beams, which - I looked at that and said, I know what that is - that looks like our wash house at home. It was an air raid shelter. Scond World War. You - so I mean - you've got the whole house - the whole house - I mean, you look at - you look at exactly what's holding the floor up there. And then you could you could drop tons of stuff on it. And - but - that leads - that’s actually an interesting historic feature, I think. I'm sure that can be the only reason I say it, But it reminded me so much of our wash house at home and where we actually had a couple of bunk beds built into it as well but the whole - the whole basically - the whole - the whole room was propped up because in this case it actually - we didn't have a cellar at home. In this case it’s down in the cellar. Coming back the - at once, I think, we had - we had various theories. We know that they, when Admiral Thompson bought it, he bought - he must have put a little annex on - on the sitting room, which is typically Victorian addition. I've got - I remember my grandparents house in Preston. Yeah, it was - you got the sitting room there but you’ve got this funny looking alcove - we’ve got exactly, exactly like that. The other thing he did, I think, because the - in the interregnum - in sort of - the 1880s the servants were getting stroppy expecting more than they had before, he built - he actually built an outrigger in the back corner, a single storey outrigger which - which brought the kitchen up there and in fact the range is still there behind boards. And subsequently, the kitchen has been moved again to where it is now in the back corner of the house. And we had always assumed that that had been done by [the Thompsons] Oh, and the other thing that’s changed is that you had on the - at the front half of the house, you had six bedrooms, originally, a six bedroom house. And at some point, the three on one side have been turned into an ensuite so that the two - two rooms are being put - put into one bedroom with the room behind being turned into a bathroom. And we we had assumed that this was something being done by the Thompsons who bought it in 1923. Again, the house was - the house was sold in 1923 for £2,000.
But the arguments about the - the estate had not kept it - the house up to the standard it should have been. They actually had to - I think, the estate was raised for 300 quid, you know, which is very likely [??indistinct] because that was what was needed, or should have been needed, to spend. So effectively, in decent shape, it was valued at £2,300. And it was sold in 1927 for £4,600. They’d added another - we thought that that was probably when they brought the kitchen upstairs but Marilyn Taylor actually lent me a copy of the particulars of sale, when it was put up for sale in 1923. So, of course, we have - we have a very detailed description of what the house was like in 1923. And you know, obviously, all - these changes had already been done. So, I think well Admiral Thompson and the outriggery thing but the - the upstairs thing also was like in 1923, already, so he obviously - had obviously done that as well. But anyway, - but this decoration of this room is about early - well, the - Melville family bought it in 1927. They’d come up from - I think they’d been living in Highgate. The story goes, I'm told - well - one thing. At that point the house was known as Bryn Allt.
DH: As?
GT: Bryn Allt. It’s Welsh for high place.
DH: Right.
GT: And I understand – well - obviously his parents changed it when they - when they bought the house. I said why - how did they change to Whitacre? Now this is - you can see Alan with a twinkle in his eye, saying but Whitacre was actually the village in Warwickshire - or was it Worcestershire - not sure - I’ll check. Where his mother had come from and his father hated the Welsh. [David laughs] But, there you go. The trouble is, you could see Alan saying that – the problem with Alan - you never actually knew [Geoffrey laughs] when he was joking or when he was serious. Probably a bit of both.
Anyway it's been - it's been Whitacre ever since. But we haven't again - don't like - it works as a house. I mean, it's, you know, it's got - it has a lot of relics of, you know, the social life of a 100 years ago. As the bells, I mean - there’s a bell system - not much which is working - but it was pre you remember the Victorians did these signal box things, you know. We got an electric - an electric bell system and a flap away [??powers/??panels] and you have, you know, ladies bedroom stuff. The dish - the system here, which I assume was the original, was actually pre-electrical and is all wires and - bells. The bells were all different frequency. Most of the bells are still hanging there. One of them still works. But, obviously, at some point, I think, somebody had decided to bring electricity across. There’s a buzzer there - But anyway, that was - that was -
DH: Thank you very much. Have you any special thoughts about Hertford itself? Have you enjoyed living here?
GT: We're still here. But we're still quite happy to stay here. I have a pet hate [laughs]. Can I put a pet hate down. Can I put a pet hate in his?
DH: I'm sure [laughs]
GT: One of the controversies that keeps cropping up every now and then is this question of Hartham and Hartham Common. The - as far as I can tell, the idea of calling it Hartham Common is the construct of East House District Council. They - it was never - the argument was always whether it was - I mean, it's common land, obviously. But it doesn't have to be called Hartham Common. And if you look everywhere now, you know, it's always Hartham Common, Hartham Common. You see all the boards they’re putting up. And Peter Ruffles and I have talked about this. I have - I cannot find any evidence of it being called Hartham Common. Well, that's really, you know, before the - when - when we came here people - we came here in ‘77 in general people used to talk about - about Hartham. And have you seen the boards that the Council are putting up on Hartham? The various information boards…
DH: No, I haven’t
GT: they are actually very nice - there's one by the pool, there's one as you - as you come off the carpark coming off Port Hill. But that's the one - that's the one I like. It's right next to one big sign with Hartham Common written on it. And there's a quote - there’s a thing about Alfred Russel Wallace. And there is a quote from there. I can't remember exactly what - from… from Wallace - something about Hertford benefiting from this serene place called Hartham - not, you will note Hartham Common, but Hartham, so - so they are actually […]. And just to show how informed and tidy they are, they can’t even spell his name properly.
DH: With one ‘L’ yes
GT: They’ve put it with two ‘L's’ which -
DH: Oh dear - So is it the District Council that's responsible for the ‘Common’?
GT: I believe so? Yes.
DH: And that came into being in 1974, didn’t it?
GT: It was 74? or 75? It was ’75 actually? The GLC was ‘75. Yes, that reorganisation. It was certainly then.
DH: Good. Well, thank you very much.
GT: It occurs to me
DH: Shall I stop it there or do you want to - ?
GT: Well let’s stop it for a bit. I’ll have a think
End of recording