Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Crowley, Paul (O2025.1) |
| Interviewee | Paul Crowley (PC) |
| Interviewer | Frances Green (FGG) |
| Date | 08/01/2025 |
| Transcriber by | Stephen McEnally (using Otter.AI for initial transcript) |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording No: O2025.1
Interviewees: Paul Crowley (PC)
Date: 8th January 2025
Venue: Paul Crowley’s home
Interviewers: Frances Green (FGG)
Transcriber: Stephen McEnally (using Otter.AI for initial transcript)
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
FGG: Right. OK. So, it's Wednesday the 8th January 2025. We're here in the home of Paul Crowley. And we had a little discussion before we started as to whether Paul [his surname’s pronunciation] is an ‘owl’ or a ‘crow’. And - err - well, it turns out it doesn't really matter - but - err - so anyway, he's Paul Crowley [as in crow], as far as I'm concerned, but other pronunciations are fine, I think, aren’t they?
So, Paul will be known to many for his wonderful photography of our home town of Hertford, and he shares a lot of it online. So, many people will have seen this. But there are a lot of other creative aspects and projects to Paul and the aim of today is to get behind the lens and learn a little bit more about Paul and his background and how he approaches what he does.
So, without further ado, I think, Paul, if we can take you right back to the beginnings and where were you born, when were you born? And start, maybe, talking us through your childhood?
PC: Yes, Sure. So, yeah, I was born in Hertford, back in 1970. So, a long time ago, now. And I was born at the Hertford County Hospital, the same as my brother, Mark, before me. But my oldest brother, David, was actually born in Enfield. My parents had lived in Enfield, initially, before moving to Hertford. So they moved to Hertford, I think, in about 1967. And their first sort of house - first area they lived in - was up, funnily enough, not far from where we are now, up in Leahoe Gardens. And - um - so, I was born at the County Hospital. My dad always said - which may or may not be true - that I was the only boy in the Hospital. And he said it was - it sounds inappropriate now to say this - he said ‘it was full of crying girls, and you were this little boy that was, you know, brought into the world’. Which is always a little joke my dad always used to say. And, yeah, and I left the Hospital when I was taken back home to Leahoe Gardens, which is where I - I sort of spent my first few years of my life, until I was probably about three. And - err - before moving on, you know, across Hertford. So, yeah, Leahoe is where, where I was -
FGG: So, a couple of questions, then. What brought your parents to Hertford?
PC: Um, I’m not quite sure. I think my dad had a job for the Career Service. And I think that they were based - I could be wrong - but I think they were based in Ware, where part of the Regional College, was Ware College. So he took that role, I believe. And I think we moved in this direction. Both my parents were not from this area. They actually met at a Catholic dance in Gravesend in Kent, both of, sort of, Irish descent. Um - but, yeah, they moved to Hertford, I think, for my dad and, subsequently, made it, you know, our home. And still is the home for me and my mother. Both still live in Hertford. And, yeah, it's just Hertford has been part of our lives, really.
FGG: And Leahoe Gardens, for someone who doesn't know Hertford, where is it? And describe it a little bit.
PC: Yeah. So, Leahoe Gardens, funnily enough, is up for sale at the moment. It's, - err - it’s the area behind County Hall, behind Leahoe House, which is sometimes called the Clubhouse, which used to be a clubhouse for County, for people who worked for the County Council up at County Hall in Hertford. So it's the sort of housing behind. And I think, initially, a lot of the housing was to people who were working for the County Council in some role. And some of the houses were rental. I don't think they were private, and maybe one or two were. So it was just - err- yeah, it's a little sort of run of houses, sort of, up above West Street, between West Street and County Hall. Between Wallfields and County Hall, actually. Which is the pathway which runs behind West Street.
FGG: Did you have a sense of the location as a small child? Because it's quite an unusual setting to live in.
PC: Yes, it was incredibly - in fact, my earliest, I mean, my earliest, earliest memory - and I was probably being carried, or, you know, someone was holding my hand, - is actually how close the sort of community was there. And the fact that my first two friends happened to be two sisters who were called Natalie and Victoria, I think. I even remember, as a child, the color - one had very red hair - Natalie, I think. Victoria had blonde hair. And I remember their hair through the sort of mirrored glass of the front door of their house. It's my earliest memory. And my memory of Leahoe was just a very tight, friendly community. And, in fact, when I was - we carried on having family friends living there when we moved - and it was a place you could walk down to Hertford Town Football Club from. So it was a place that was, yeah, sort of out of the way, but was very connected equally to everywhere around it.
FGG: Yes and you're sort of high up, in a way, aren’t you? You’ve got views down - to places -
PC: Yeah, hence, I think Leahoe. Leahoe probably might mean ‘view of the Lea’. I believe that's where ‘hoe’ - I think it's a point, a viewpoint, of a river. So I think that's why it's called Leahoe. And it’s - yeah, it's, in Hertford terms - it’s quite high. It's, it’s you know, it certainly didn't flood, put it that way. Unlike West St.
FGG: Up on the Hertford mountain!
[general laughter]
PC: Yeah!
FGG: So tell us a little bit more about your childhood, then, Paul, and growing up and schools?
PC: Yes, so we moved to Mandeville, the estate of Mandeville. And we lived on - we moved around a couple of times there. And - I actually really enjoyed my childhood - I loved growing up in that part of Hertford so a) living, effectively, on an estate of houses, where everyone - it was very, sort of democratic. And the children we all played together. And - but we also had very nearby Morgan's Walk School, and therefore the woods where Morgan's Walk is. ‘Granny Walkers’, as we called it, which is another local woods. There was lots of places to play. It was a sort of great place to grow up. And I still have friends now who are related to that part of my life. And my parents were very [pauses] social, so everyone had a kind of an event that they were responsible for, you know, within the group of friends. And my parents always did Guy Fawkes” Night. So we always, you know, used the garden and had, you know, great evenings where the parents probably get a bit tipsy, and [chuckles] and we, as children, would, you know, be sort of probably not - we shouldn’t be doing naughty things though - probably setting fire to things and whatever. But we had a great, sort of, exploratory, kind of, slightly free childhood that maybe, and hopefully, children, some children still have.
FGG: Yes. So this would, would be the 1970s, wouldn’t it? And then, I suppose there was still an ability to roam around and not to -
PC: - yes -
FGG: - to have that fear, and having fear of cars all the time -
PC: Yes, and that’s not to say that, that, you know, there weren’t periods when my parents called the police and things like that and saying, ‘Where are they?’ And they handled two occasions where - and then, ultimately, we were up Morgan's Walk, you know, climbing trees, you know, drinking shandy and sort of thinking we were being really naughty, which, of course, we weren't really. We were just children exploring and having fun.
FGG: I mean - well - for a parent to say, ‘Where are they?’ is a lot better than ‘What's he done now?’
[laughter]
PC Yes, I think they I think they came later, but – yes -
[more laughter]
FGG: So did you go to Morgan’s School?
PC: Yes. So I went to the Nursery next to Morgan's Walk, which I have memories of. I then went to Chalk Dell, as it was called then. Because Morgan’s School now - and it's about coming up to its 75th anniversary, I think, this year - it was called - so the Infant School was Chalk Dell, and Morgan's Walk was the, the Junior school. And so I went to all those. Absolutely, I loved it. I mean, my happiest memories, I think of my childhood are actually still at Morgan's Walk, ‘cause Morgan's Walk was, was quite a large junior school, you know, had three classes in the first year, as it were, but it had its own swimming pool, which looked - built by the parents - and so - which is quite unusual at that level. So of course, in the summer, and because we had a headmaster whose wife, Mrs. Stinton [John Stinton became Headmaster in 1966 and retired in January 1993] was was a - a [hesitates] a swimming teacher. So we were swimming every day, and we were winning all the swimming awards and things like that. So, we had this sort of quite - idyllic, I think, looking back -experience, I certainly did at that school. It was a really, really great experience, Morgan’s Walk.
FGG: It sounds a very happy time and experience, which is a good, sort of, starting point, isn't it, for any child? Were there any particular memories that - from that very early time in your life - that you think have proved to be relevant to what you do now?
PC: I think there are, there are - something - I think. I remember, as a child - I was talking to my wife about this yesterday - but I remember as a child being obsessed - sounds a bit - with living on Mandeville, which was a house - houses built in the 60s. But I remember thinking - even when I was, sort of, probably, say, ten - thinking, ‘Well, what was here before, before these houses?’ What was, you know, what was the landscape like? Which is probably - I don't know, not saying that's unusual but I remember thinking, looking back - I think that was probably a bit odd for a ten-year old to be thinking so intensely about ‘what was it like before this house was here?’ And I never got to see that, as a child. Never got - you know, I used to imagine what was it like, because Mandeville sits effectively in a big field, you know, it would be a big field, above Hornsmill. And - err - so I just remember thinking that a lot, remember thinking about, what was, what was it like before these houses were here? I just remember that being a sort of slight obsession when I was a child and, as an adult - having, you know, through various research and through the Museum things getting to see where you grew up - now as an adult, and looking back, I think it’s part of it as well, because I've now seen, you know, photographs and what it was like before we were there and, and I think that that interest in, you know, the history being,to some degree around you, I think is still true today, for me.
FGG: It's an interesting one, isn't it? Because it places you in a sort of time and context which is limited in the overall span of things -
PC: - yes -
FGG: - and so it's a curious one, yeah. OK, so, so you then leave your junior school and you go on to senior school. And where, where is that then?
PC: That’s right. So we, I just went, followed my brothers, really, to Richard Hale, and went into - there were five houses then - so went into the same house as my brother, which was Page House. And I think, like anyone, when you go - even though I had older brothers, which sort of helps, because you - apart from you get the hand-me-down clothes [chuckles] that are too big for you - you've seen and you've experienced secondary school through, you know, through your family. So you have an understanding of it. So it's not, sort of, a complete shock. But it always is a bit of a shock when you go to a, you know, an all-boys school, with 150 boys per year, or whatever it was. And so, and Richard Hale was, you know - I think it was an opportunity. I think it's not an opportunity I took personally. I think that I didn't enjoy secondary school so much. I think probably because I had such an idyllic - sort of, in my mind - junior school and pre-secondary school experience. And I also liked the mixed school environment of boys and girls. You know, I had a wide group of friends as a child, and I think going to an all-boys school and being called, you know, Crowley [pronounces it as in crow], or Crowley [pronounces it as in owl], became that very strict environment. I don't think it suited me as well as others.
FGG: And were you aware of that at the time, or is that something that, looking back, you can see was a slightly less happy time?
PC: I suppose. I think looking - I was aware - I don't, I don't think I - I think as - actually as I went to the school, it became slightly more apparent to me. I think I don't really like this environment. To start off, I just thought, well, this is the norm, you know. But by the year, what would be now, the sort of 5th year, whatever they call it, you know, year 11, is what they call it nowadays. So, as you’re approaching your exams and things, I remember thinking, well, no, I haven't really enjoyed this, this school. It wasn't really right for me. But I probably couldn't explain at that age what was right for me. But I just knew I wasn't particularly enjoying it. And I think, looking back as an adult, I think I understand that probably even more, why, why, you know, I felt that. And I think I felt that because I think that I have such specific interests. And schools are very much - even perhaps more so nowadays, you know - they're very much about results, and, you know, doing certain things. But that, it doesn't necessarily suit the individual, you know. And that's understandable and difficult for schools to do that. But I think that I had particular interests, and things, and I just don't think I was – I didn't quite fit the school.
FGG: So what would you say were your particular interests at that stage in life?
PC: I think, well, I think that I was, like a lot of boys, I was obsessed with sports. So, you know, I was going to play for Arsenal. I would get it in my head, even though I didn't, sort of, play enough football. But I was obsessed about sport, as many boys are. But I also - and I loved drawing. I loved art, and it wasn't something I had to do because, you know, it was homework, or whatever. I was doing it all the time. And, in fact, it’s not to say I was the best at it. There were, you know, many talented boys at that school, young men at that school. But I loved it. And I think that, you know, when you were forced to make decisions about what you do, you know, for your exam, or you pick which subjects you were going to study. And you felt this guilt, because I really wanted to pick technical drawing and all the things I knew I could - not do well at - but just because I enjoyed them. But I felt this obligation to pick subjects and things that you feel like you should do. So I did British government and politics at one point. I'm thinking about…Now, as an adult, I think that's quite interesting, but, as a child, I think someone should have said to me, ‘Paul, you know, you’re sure that's right for you? You like doing this and you should celebrate that.’
FGG: So, and that's interesting, because, you know, what were your siblings and your parents and your teachers saying to you then? Were they reinforcing the choice that you did make and not allowing you to -
PC: Umm, I don't think - My parents were quite laid back about it and supportive. I think that, you know, my mum and dad were excellent, really, but I think that my brothers were smarter than I was, and they were sort of doing well at school. My brother was Head of House, the middle brother. And my oldest brother had probably left school at that point. And he was, you know, a smart guy and, even though, I don't think he really enjoyed school himself. But I think my parents, by the time they get to the third child, you know, it's the third child [chuckles] think they're just thinking, ‘Oh, let him get on with it’! And they realized that I was the kind of simple, happy one, kicking a ball and drawing. So, therefore, they kind of just let me, kind of, I think, get on with it. But maybe, looking back, I think I probably should have said, ‘well, actually, no’. I think it was down to me more than them.
FGG: It takes some confidence when you're younger to make those less-than-conventional choices, doesn’t it really - ?
PC: - yes, it does, it does.
FGG: - and err - maybe there's something about life. Things happen at the right time.
PC: Yeah, possibly, possibly. You know, maybe it makes it, maybe it makes it stronger, because you, you know, you didn't do it then or you didn't have that part of your life then. So maybe it makes it more enjoyable to, you know, do what you want to do later on. I don't know, but yeah, I think that's something I'd say to a child - and said to my children - it's very important. I mean, they both left school a long time ago, but I made it - they, you know, and they worked hard at school - I made it clear to them, make sure you do pick and do the things that you enjoy, because you may find that they influence your life, you know,
FGG: It's interesting, isn't it? Yeah. And were there any teachers - you know, as you were growing up and becoming a teenager and more aware of what you liked and what you didn't like and where your interests lay, whatever subjects you were pursuing at school - that had an influence on you?
PC: Yeah, I think not so much to do at secondary school, definitely, because I was probably thinking more about it. And I think there were teachers that were really, I mean, we met - going from the junior school, you know, it's very sort of a nurturing environment. Then you go to secondary school, where you are sort of [hesitates and pauses] going to what was a grammar school, but certainly wasn't any more. And you've got some teachers that come from that environment. And you've got teachers that come from a sort of secondary environment, and their teaching and their attitudes are completely different. So we had teachers that were just mind blowing, actually. We had, you know, for various reasons, they were just incredible characters. But to me, personally, obviously it was the, the art teachers in particular, that I sort of warmed to. And in fact, when I failed - which ultimately, I did - [laughs] my O-levels, and I sort of thought, OK, I've got to retake, you know. I, kind of, got lots of Ds. I just, sort of, missed out on everything because I didn't really revise. And I didn't because I was too busy playing football. The school, kind of, just were then going into the mode of, right, A-levels and, you know, these boys have got over five O-levels or seven, or what it was. Yeah, they're good candidates for AS or A-level. And I was sitting there thinking, ‘well, I've got to retake some but I'm, you know, good at art, and I love it.’ And John Norbury, who was the sort of senior art teacher at that point, I went and spoke to him. And he was quite an austere character, as a teacher, and boys were generally quite afraid of him, but I, I always liked him. And I went up to him, and he just said to me, he said, ‘You do what you like, Paul.’ He said, ‘If you want to do just a one ‘A’ level’, he said, you can come and be a student here’. He said, in fact, even if you –‘ the school says, you know, after doing some retakes we had to do, they kind of suggested perhaps you should move on. He said, ‘You just come here, anyway. You can use the facility’. He was, he treated me as an adult and respected my interests. And I don't think any other teachers did that.
FGG: No. And how did that make you feel?
PC: It made me feel grown up. And it made me feel confident and made me think, well, OK, if I'm going to move on and do something different, go to a college - which I did ultimately - and, you know, go and do something different, I felt like, well, actually, there is, you know, this is, this is valid, that I, I really enjoy drawing. And I really enjoyed these things. And I think he, yeah, he, he was sort of - looking back I'd say - he was the most influential teacher to me.
FGG: Yes, because it was just an acceptance of what you were and what you could do, isn’t it really.
PC: Yeah, he said he was putting in my report - I remember the word - he said I was - which I thought was a strange word - he said I was ‘receptive’. Which he wrote this on a - and I’ve still got my - I don't ever look at my reports, because they are painful. But he said - I can even see the handwriting saying I'm receptive and I thought what a strange word. And I guess I was. I guess I was taking on board things. And he saw that as a - As a teacher, you know, I guess you enjoy when students respond, so, yeah.
FGG: And doesn’t the word ‘receptive’, does it mean something in an artistic context that it might not, you know - ?
PC: [thinks] Possibly, possibly, yeah. I mean, yeah. I'm not quite sure. I've never, I guess, I - just a strange word, but - I just, I just think, he's, he was such, he was a bit of an unusual character, you know, and quite well known as a Hertford resident and living on the North Rd and things. But, yeah, he was just, he was just a little bit different. So the way he'd say, or - you know, he kind of ultimately had his own way of teaching, had his own, you know, his own way of, sort of, instructing us, you know, about drawing and passing information to us. you know he was quite unique. And I guess that was just who he was.
FGG: So take us on to the next stage of your life then, Paul. So we've, sort of, got you to this stage where you know really what you're good at and what you want to study. What, what happens after school?
PC: So after school, I wasn't quite sure what to do. So I went to the local college. My dad went, with me, there, and I went to the local college, which was Ware College, which is now, I believe, it's called Hertford Regional College. And having gone there recently, it's far fancier than it used to be [chuckles] I went there and looked at some of the courses. And you could do your thing, which I didn't do. But initially I was going to do a foundation, which is, kind of, one of those mix and match courses, where you can kind of, you know, try different types of, sort of, creative, sort of, you know, bit of art, bit of photography, bit of, you know, that sort of thing.
But actually, in the end, I decided to do the - join - the graphic design course, which is a two year course. And then it contains - so that was a National Diploma. But it also then contained something which one might remember, the City & Guilds, a very old traditional award for - which was much, much, which is actually very difficult - I don't think people realise. It was actually - and in doing the graphic design part I realised that the City & Guilds bit was much more practical and it was much more about, you know, costing things and understanding, you know, your value in what you're, what you're studying and what you, you know - you had to do a bit of research and things like that, into graphic design and work out, you know, how you charge for things and stuff like that. Which was, when you’re quite young, is, you know, from school, is, it's like entering the real world. So I think, yeah, graphic design was what I selected to do, really. And even though I was interested in the wider sort of, sort of, art, you know - and there's many, many outputs within that - I think the reason, probably, why graphic design was.. if i just hop back to school.. is that the other teacher at Richard Hale who taught Art was at the time, was Mrs. MacDonald , and she had set a task which was within six squares. If you can imagine drawing six informative sort of squares with information in - no words - but just, you know, drawing a process. You had to tell an alien how to make a cup of tea with no prior experience of anything you're showing them. Which is quite a bizarre task, you can, imagine. So, you know, they may not understand everything, but in those six drawings, you have to explain the process of making a cup of tea. And that stayed with me all my life. And as a graphic designer, it's kind of what I feel like every day. I'm telling aliens how to make cups of tea, [chuckles] And that's still true today. So I think that, obviously, that had triggered something in my brain. So when I was looking at graphic design, it was suddenly, once again, it was, you know, like honing down and understanding, ‘oh yeah, actually, I'm not just talking about art or pottery’- which I wasn't very good at. ‘I'm talking about graphic art.’
FGG: And what's it making you do? It's making you - I'm trying to think it through myself. - it's, sort of, making you rethink everything from scratch.
PC: Yeah
FGG: And laying out the bare essentials.
PC: Yes, exactly. And then when you're doing it, then [pauses to think] - I think her name was Davida [Davida MacDonald] I’ll say my teacher's name! You never say your teacher’s name! It’s always inappropriate. But she had, obviously, would come up to us and say, ‘Well, no. Well would they understand that?’ Or, you know, ‘You can't put that word on there, you know’. So, and I can't quite remember what I came up with, but I remember it worked, you know, in her mind, you know. I got an A, I think. But it was just the process of not just accepting something and going back and thinking through it again.
FGG: I'm really interested by this. But, you know, when they send these little things out into space full of, you know, stuff that represents our…I hope that your award winning six squares are in there, because then the rest of space will know how to make a decent cup of tea - and - [laughter]
PC: Well, hopefully, hopefully that's the case. But, you know, I'd be so proud, if that - I'm sure Mrs MacDonald would be even more proud.
FGG: So, by this stage, have you picked up a camera and started photographing?
PC: Yeah, at college, I picked up a camera, and - um - I kind of liked. Guess I like, sort of, even now I like kind of technical things. So I liked cameras. And, obviously, at college, as part of graphic design, you know, you touch upon all the different areas of it. So, you know, we had, then, film. And we had a dark room, and we had to process film. And anyone who's ever done that in life will tell you it's a very exciting, revealing process, isn't it? And it, you know, it's, it's something where you don't know quite what you’re going to get and that. It's - there's not many things quite like that in life is when you develop a photograph. it's very exciting. So I did that. That's not to say it took away from graphic design. I was really into graphic design, but that was something I had to do.
And, I think, at the end of that course, we happened to go on holiday, as a family. Where the photography came - thing came from was - my dad always quite liked photography. And so we always had a camera in the house, and we always made little films and cine films. We made cine films, as a family, and animations and stuff at home - is that we went on holiday to Egypt, with my parents. And I took lots of photographs and, unfortunately, two of the films, for whatever reason, didn't, you know, come out. They'd been exposed, or whatever. And my dad said, we're quite good - it was an East German Praktica camera - and my dad said, Oh, you can have the camera at the end of the holiday. And I think that that triggered a bit of - I thought, OK, well, I've got this camera now. I better, you know, start using it and see where I go with that, you know?
FGG: And was there any spillover? I'm still thinking about these six squares. And you're distilling complicated processes down into their essence. Is it something that reads across into your photography when you look at what your photographing?
PC: No, I wouldn't say - it could do, it could do. If you, I think if you were inclined to, maybe some - I did, sort of, studio photography. Or we did do different types of photography where we did actually have to do - err - explain processes, actually. So we did, we were actually given a task, a bit like that, where we had to photograph the order and put, you know, and put certain photographs in an order that people could understand with asking them to do something. So that was, perhaps, teaching, you know, how to form a narrative with something. But not for me personally. No, I was just more interested in just, just taking photographs, really, you know, taking a nice photograph. Initially it was like, you know, sunsets, or whatever, and then it became more, you know, streets and different, sort of, types of photography.
FGG: OK. And we'll come back to that, maybe and see how you’ve evolved as a photographer. So, I know that you moved away from Hertford for a while, and, obviously, because this is the Hertford Oral History, we want to just cover that period and then bring you back to Hertford. So, just explain what took you away and then what brought you back again.
PC: Ultimately, my wife took me away [laughs] So, at college, I met my then girlfriend, as she was, at the end of the sort of course. And then I was going to go away to Southampton Institute, in Southampton, I was going to go and do an HND. And I, sort of, looked at the places like Bournemouth, which has a very well thought of HND course. But, ultimately, I went to Barnet because of - I now had a girlfriend after Ware - and I went to Barnet College, which is part of Middlesex - was part of Middlesex University. And she had been on the same course as me, Julia, my now wife. So we - you know, because she was my girlfriend - I thought, actually I don't want to go so far away now. And she'd started work. She hadn't carried on in - she'd gone off from a different career. So I, I sort of, started to be around Barnet, and then ultimately around Enfield. And then we bought a flat. We got a flat together. We lived in Enfield. We ended up having children. So therefore we got into that life cycle in Enfield with my two children, Jack, who was born in 1994 and Alice in 1997. So I was also quite young, relatively young father. And so they became the centre of what, what we were doing. So we were living in Enfield. We were still visiting Hertford, because my parents, my siblings, had all gone. My sister, I think, had gone by that point. We, we were coming back to Hertford, obviously, you know, to see the grandparents, and we were doing that for probably 20 or so years, I guess, yeah.
FGG: And how were you employed at the time? What was your - ?
PC: I got a job, initially - I took the graphic design industry route. So I finished, after I finished studying - as I was very much a graphic designer - there wasn't a lot of opportunities. There was a bit of a dip in the market. So, initially, I became…. an instructor of - because the world, then was turning towards what was DTP, and now, you know, Apple Macintoshes, and the whole
digital -
FGG: - desktop publishing.
PC: Desktop, yes, sorry, desktop publishing and the whole digitalized sort of world print. So design, you know, and outputting to, you know, brochures, etc. So there were lots of printing companies who were investing in digital equipment. So, I got a job, with no prior experience, really - apart from the fact I was a graphic designer - to sit and basically demonstrate and teach printers how to use computers. People in the printing industry.
So I effectively became a bit like a sort of instructor or a teacher, I guess. And I did that for a year, and that was quite - for a first job, I mean, you know, I was traveling all over the country from nothing, really - no prior experience. I was like, they were flying me to Glasgow to go to a very, you know, trendy advertising agency, and sit there. And, as well as, you know, the print industry, there was the design industry, as well - going to computers to sit there and show them how to, you know, how to use an Apple Mac, which I, kind of, thought, well, I'm showing these brilliant designers - this guy just, sort of, finished studying it. So I felt a bit of a cheat. But, you know, my job was not to do the design. It was just to show them how to use the equipment.
FGG: But you traveled around and saw some interesting places.
PC: Yeah, I did. That was great. I mean, my first mistake arriving at Glasgow - had never been to Glasgow before - was referring to Sauchiehall St [pronounced sockyhall] as ‘Saucy Hall’ St to a taxi driver, which, he almost refused to allow me in his taxi. It was my sort of quaint little English accent. I said, ‘Saucy Hall’ St.
FGG: You’re still alive, Paul!
PC: [laughs] Just!
FGG: That’s an achievement!
PC: They did take me to a Glasgow Celtic game as well, which was quite an experience as a sort of treat. So, you know, I was, you know - all those things are very eye opening for a young, young man.
FGG: Yeah, absolutely. All right. So what brings you back to Hertford, and where do you land when you come back?
PC: Yes, so, so I was living in Enfield until …. We came back in 2014. So in those years, obviously, my children were grown up. My eldest son had gone to university. And we thought, OK, he's gone to university. My daughter was in the sixth form at Enfield County Girls’ School, where she's now a teacher. So I, I thought, OK, I spoke to my daughter about it. In particular, I said, is that OK? We're thinking of moving because my dad had passed away in 2011. And so my mum was living alone. And she was living in our house we grew up in until 2012. So I was thinking at that time, you know, around that period of our life, thinking we're probably going to move back to Hertford.
So we thought about that over a couple of years. And in 2014, so 10 years ago, last year, we moved back to Hertford. and my daughter carried on going by train to sixth form. And she was fine before she went off to university. And I just thought, yeah, I'm just going to, I felt like I was coming home to some degree. But we'd always been connected with Hertford. But, you know, visiting to see your parents is one thing. You very rarely go to the town, because you're always going to the grandparents’ house and things. But then, of course, you're living in Hertford, and then you're going, ohh, this, you know, music festival. All these things have been going on for the last 20, whatever, 20 years, I think it was… And I just thought, yeah, OK I'm back. And that was a slightly, slightly strange experience. And I think that's probably quite influential. It’s that when you come back somewhere, because everyone thinks you won't know it so well. But I think, well, you know, you never really know anywhere as well as you do when you're, as when you're a child. Because when you're an adult, you travel around a bit. When you're a child, you know, and you grow up somewhere, you know, you know the dents in the road, you know the gate post that's falling off three doors up from your parents. You know, you have all this detail as a child, because it's so intensified. So when I came back to Hertford, I had my neighbours, sort of, saying, ‘Oh yes, and down the end of the road is the Cole Green Way.’ And I'm thinking in my head, I'm thinking, why are you telling me? I was playing down there. I was climbing trees!
FGG: It’s in your blood!
PC: It's in my blood. Yeah, I was climbing trees. I was - and I wasn't being rude to anyone – but I was kind of thinking, because I grew up here, I think I'm - I - in a youthful, sort of, sense, I know Hertford well.
FGG: There’s a poem I remember reading years ago. And I can't remember it wholly but there's a couple of lines in it that says, We look at the world once in childhood, and the rest is memory.
PC: Yes, and that's so true, I think, and that's probably, that's part of my problem. There's so much memory looking back, and probably, you know, you need to remember to move forward with your life, don't you? But, there's a lot of reflecting on you. Certainly in my mind, I think, for a lot of people,
FGG: For sure. And so where did you live when you first came back to Hertford?
PC: In this house.
FGG: So here we are in West Street. Bridgeman House.
PC: Yes, Bridgeman House, 37b. So this is, yeah, we, we looked at houses. And ‘cause we lived in a sort of Edwardian - we quite like houses, my wife and I. And we lived in an Edwardian house, in Enfield. And we'd lived in a sort of modern flat, and I'd been brought up in a 1960s house. So we lived in different sorts of houses. And we didn't really want to, sort of - in looking at Hertford - I mean, you know, you're lucky enough to buy a house and Hertford’s not the cheapest place in the world. That's one thing. But I thought we wanted to live somewhere a bit different.
And it's weird, because my wife is saying, ‘Look at this house on West Street. Look at West St’ But of course, my memory of West Street was once again - but when I was younger, and West Street was - there's nothing wrong with West Street, but West Street was perceived in a slightly different way in the 70s, I'd say, because it was very out of fashion. It wasn't in vogue to live in an old building. It was more, you know, it was modern buildings were in fashion. So we looked, and we wanted an old house. And then my wife kept saying, ‘move to West Street’. And then we saw this house and, and it's an old, old house, so it has, you know, there's certain issues and things you have to deal with with older houses. But yeah, we, we thought that would be an interesting place to live. And we sort of moved in. I think we were, sort of, in - it's quite an historical house. So we were kind of embedding ourselves. Not only were we moving back and there I am, I'm obsessing about my, you know, when I'm going for a walk at night with the dog in Hertford and now I'm thinking, Oh, I remember this road. And you know, I have these feelings about Hertford. We had also moved into a house that is, kind of, historically part of Hertford as well.
FGG: Absolutely. And so you're coming back to Hertford and, as you say, you, sort of, know it innately from childhood explorations. But were you aware of any changes in feel or mood or anything about the town when you came back as an adult?
PC: I think it, it’s very easy to generalise, I suppose. But it felt, [pauses to find the right word] it felt wealthier, if that’s the right term. It felt different. It felt more diverse, and sort of - not in terms of the ethnicity of people or anything like that - but it felt diverse when I was growing up in terms of the - or maybe because you're a child, you know your perception of, you know, that this area is better, or these people have money, and then, you know, you know, you've got your friend who lives down, you know, another road, and it's a bit different. So it felt very diverse, in that sense.
But coming back, it felt a little, sort of, slightly well-heeled now, and just different in that sense. And obviously, a lot of people moving here, maybe it's true on our road. And anyway, you know, a lot more diversity in terms of people moving from London, and from other places to live here. So it's changed. And that's not a good or a bad thing. It's just a change. And now you see it when you walk round, and we always, sort of joking, in a nice way my wife and I, we see so many - seems to be - 30 year olds, you know, with a dog and a child and a buggy and whatever. So the, the sort of demographic, or the, you know, the population, is, has definitely changed. Yeah.
FGG: So you acquired this house on West Street, which is a really interesting house, isn't it? And anything about it of interest?
PC: We’re talking ghosts!?
FGG: Oh yes!!
[general surprised laughter]
Paul and I met before today and you mentioned odd goings on. So, yeah, just, kind of, touch on this Paul! [laughs]
PC: Yeah, sure. So yeah, it's an old house. So, so when we bought the house, we were given - it's part of, it's a, it's a larger house that has been, you know, as they often were, split up into four houses. And we live in the central part of it. And I think the Andrews brothers actually ended up – both of Museum fame - and it brought – bought - the house, and they divvied it up, I believe, as many houses were, you know. We all have, now, what was an outside toilet, that everyone would get, and, you know, the bathroom downstairs on the back of the house, you know. So the house has changed in that sense.
But, it, when we moved here, the people who lived in it before, had done quite a lot of work by building an extension and things on the back. And they showed - we had the information, showing all the stuff they had to do, you know, to do that. And they had to research the house, and things like that. So that made us look into the house, made us go to the Museum and look at photographs. Because in the Museum’s, photographic archive, there are photographs of West Street, and therefore, you know, there are photographs of our house. And the house, it's called the Bridgeman House, because Charles Bridgeman was a, a sort of musician, a musical teacher, an organist, Glee Club member. He was in, in Victorian, you know, Hertford, and I think that that was a massive role there, a very important role. So maybe, nowadays, someone wouldn't quite have the same status by doing those things. He certainly did. And he was a world record-holding organist, as in - he was -
FGG: - at All Saints’
PC: All Saints’ Church.Yes. In the previous version of All Saints’ Church, before the grand, you know, Lancaster stone version now [it is actually Runcorn stone chosen by the architects Paley, Austin and Paley, who were based in Lancaster], the previous version. So, you know, you do, sort of, start to look at your house and think, well, that’s quite interesting. And then part of that was, you know, we got books - that were - that mentioned the house. And then one of them is Ghosts of Hertford. So the house has three ghosts, apparently [laughs] And just to say - this is just for an example - the story of one of them is in this book - is that the, the fireplace has been boarded up. And then a previous occupant or owner had removed this, probably, 70s kind of, you know, paneling - you imagine the 60s paneling - that tried to give it a more modern look. And in removing and exposing the open fireplace behind, a small child with blonde hair exited the fireplace and ran upstairs. And this child was subsequently seen by the owner as he came home - I think, from County Hall, where he was working - as he came to the back of the house and would see this small blonde child at an upstairs window. So that's, kind of, one ghost of which there are more. I haven't experienced - I don't have an opinion one way or the other, really - but I haven't really experienced anything of that magnitude or of that level of, you know -
FGG: There was an occasion, though, wasn’t there, where something weird happened?
PC: There was always the night we moved in. So the bedroom was empty, and we, my wife and I, have a bedroom upstairs – which is kind of quite a big bedroom with a big - it was once a flat as well. We looked back on certain records. We found out it was someone's flat and the house was split between flats. So it's got a big fireplace. It's like a front room, again. But it's our bedroom. And I put my mobile phone on the - just dropped it and put it on the floor. I remember where it was and I went to sleep that night. First night in the house. And in the morning, when I got up, the phone was right across the other side of the room at, like, 45 degrees and sort of perched against the wall in quite a weird position, right in the corner of the room. And, you know, our dog certainly wasn't in our bedroom. No one, you know - we'd gone to sleep. It was only my wife and, I think, my daughter in the house that night. So that was a kind of, a very subtle but strange experience. But we were, kind of, hoping more from the sort of screaming banshees, or whatever, and we haven't had any of that, or the creaking, or, you know, the crying of the child. We haven't had those experiences.
FGG: When we transcribe this tape, there's a third person!!
[laughter]
FGG: Whoooo! [makes a sound like a ghost]
PC: Yeah, could be, could be!
FGG: Oh, interesting. So there are a number of maintenance challenges with a house like this, aren’t there, I think? Is it a listed - ?
PC: It’s, yeah, it's a grade two star. So you know, you know, you have grade two, and then you've got, you know, Hertford Castle and Buckingham Palace, grade one, I guess. You know, this is grade two star. So it has, I think, that just means it has certain things of certain historical importance. So, in the house - and it's not the thing - because you come into our house and it's, yeah, you know, it's not that amazing a house, really, but it does have quite a grand, big old open fireplace. You think it might be that. But actually, the - I think the key thing in this house is its upstairs. It's got what are called dragon beams, which are - so rather than beams that go, you know, down the room, that sort of, you know, go across the roof, that sort of standard, you know - spaced out beams that you imagine in houses. We have these, sort of, diagonal beams that go corner to corner and, apparently. these are - from an architectural sort of standpoint, - these are interesting and they're significant. So the house has - It does have some quirks like it's got four small attics. And it's just got things that are just, in some ways, interesting, in some ways annoying. [laughs] But it's certainly not a dull house,
FGG: No. And you have a very interesting front door that, sort of, folds in half - down the middle -
PC: Yeah. We’re not quite, quite sure. Yeah, the door folds in half. We're also wanting people not to stick your fingers in the door, because, yeah, it folds vertically right down the middle, as there's sort of two hinges. So you, that's really so you can open it in a tight space, you know. People can get by the front door. You can carry things in. Because if it's swung open as a full front door, I think that, you know, you, you just - it sort of - you'd be walking into it all the time. So, yeah, it's, there's little quirks in this house. And there is also some graffiti from previous owners. And some of that graffiti is very old, you know, hundreds of years old, I’d say. So, because the house, I think, was, I think was - well, originally the first version of this house was started in 1620. And then they suddenly - well I think they gave up. Or they knocked it down as it wasn't quite right, and they started again in 1640, I believe, about that time. And this is the house that stands today.
FGG: Right. Very interesting. Yeah, yeah. So, Jean Riddell, who has done a lot of work for the Hertford Oral History Group, obviously she's written a lot about West Street.
PC: Yes. She did - umm - a talk on Charles Bridgeman and the descendants and the family, the wider family, from this house. So we went along to that and, err, sort of sat there silently at the back while they, sort of, said, Is it haunted? We're thinking, ‘No’, my wife and I. And we were getting away with it. Until my wife, my mother, rather, as mums often do, said, ‘Oh, that's my son's house!’ right at the end. That's what mums are there for [laughs]
FGG: And the whole audience turns!.
PC: Yeah, and then the go ‘’Ooh’. They ask questions. But, yeah, that was, yeah, that was, that was quite an interesting evening. Jean, yeah, it's fantastic, it's wonderful, actually, that people are interested, clearly, as Jean, is to put the effort in because of their own interest because they love it, I guess. But they relay, such a - you know. For us, it's fantastic that people are willing to put the effort in that we so easily can, you know, pick up wonderful information about where we live, and, you know, that sort of thing. So, yeah, very lucky.
FGG: And how would you describe the community on West Street? Is there a sense of community on West Street?
PC: Yeah, there is. There definitely is. So when we first moved in, you know, yeah, we got, you know, things you get - neighbours gave us flowers and sort of said hello. And there was, like, that nice sort of thing going on. But because it is separate from the town, because of Gascoyne Way, or the A414, it's, you know, forced to be separate from the town. And because it has a pub, and because it has the Football Ground at the end of the street, sort of thing, and the Brownie Hut. So it has things that causes problems and everyone knows that West Street, it's all about parking and cars. But this, despite all that, there is a good camaraderie in the street. And there's quite a diverse, sort of, range of houses so, you know, you have the lords who live up the far right end. [chuckles] And then you have the kind of more, sort of, nice, sort of, lovely family homes at the other end. And then you've got flats and things in between. And historically they were obviously, they were, like, sort of slum dwellings, if you go back in time. So it's, it's, it's a bit like a, you know, it's a village or a small town to some degree in its own right.
FGG: Yes, completely see that. Yeah right. So now let's, sort of, place you in the context of, you know, what people will know you for, your photography, your other design work. So let's pick up the story about the photography a bit. So we'd spoken about it when you were much younger, and you were really, you'd inherited the camera from your father, and you were going around and taking photographs. And - so how does that evolve then?
PC: I think - so I always enjoyed taking photographs, you know, and as a designer, I'm often - or I was - not so much now - but was always commissioning photographers on a job to go and photograph someone or something as part of a project. Or I was part of a team that was doing that. And so I suppose it became very much a function photography of what I do. So, you know, you do, it's just part of what you do. Not that I'm going out and taking those photographs necessarily, maybe employing someone who's very good, a professional photographer. And so I wasn't that. I was a graphic designer, but I always liked photography.
So I, I think when my dad died in 2011 - I'm trying to think, why this, why this photography thing started - I think that because I used to talk to him about it, and he was someone who’d always say, ‘Oh, that's a great photograph, Paul’, you know. That when, when he died, I think that there was a sudden realisation to me. I just thought, ‘Who am I gonna? Who am I gonna share the photograph? Because this is pre, kind of, social media. Just to me anyway - being a slightly older individual - that I kind of thought, ‘Well, who am I going to share, you know, these with?’ But I carried on taking photographs. I carried on, you know, like, photographed my children, things like that. And then what happened in particular, I suppose, that really kicked it off was in 2016 I was working in Kings Cross. And I used to get off in Islington, - sorry Highbury and Islington, or Essex Road train stations - and I used to walk to work. Used to walk, partly because it's good for you, but also because I used to like photographing every day on the way to work. So - and that was particularly street photography - so I just - it's literally every day I was taking maybe 30 photographs. And because of that, I am, I just really got into it. And I entered some competitions. And there was one particular competition set in Islington that ended up having, like, a gallery, showing things. And out of these seven photographs that were the top ten, I think, I had seven. Ended up getting these top ten photographs. And I turned - I was about to turn up to the Awards, and then they said to me, they said, ‘Yeah, great, you're coming along. And just confirm you are under 30’. And I hadn't noticed. It's a bit like Any Fools and Horses. Remember the episode in any Fools and Horses where Del wins a holiday with Rodney’s drawings, and he has to pretend he's a child. I stand up [laughs] I’m not! [laughs again] - I was at the time, I was, - whatever - I was 45 or something! So I had to say, Yeah, I'm not. I'm not 30. I'm really sorry. I’ve really, kind of, screwed up your competition. And, kindly, they said, well, that's OK. We'll create a, sort of, parallel old man's comp[etition] [laughs]
FGG: Old man’s! [laughs] And you were the only entry!!!
[general hilarious laughter]
PC: Yeah. And they did! ‘So we really like your photographs’. And they said, Well, don't worry, come along to the evening of the Awards. So I, sort of, I rolled up in, sat in the corner, and - which is, you know - it was funny at the time. And I felt really, I felt really silly that I hadn't noticed a little disclaimer. I did think it was a bit like, you know, if it was students, I get it. But 30. I mean, come on. And so they said, ‘We really like your photographs’. So then they were part of a, just part of a company that were also doing galleries and promotions and other things. And they said, ‘Can you take - go and photograph – err - Maidenhead’, which they did.
So I had to go and photograph Maidenhead. But they wanted me to do different, sort of unusual, taking a different look at Maidenhead. Which is, you know, not, it's not the most obvious place to go and photograph. There's nothing wrong with it. And then also Greenwich, and also East London. And so I got to go out and, kind of, build a portfolio, images - that wasn't part of my job, but it was just purely creatively for just taking photographs. And that was kind of like the beginning of right, OK, but that interests me. And so, initially, it was black and white photography, and then as I probably moved around less and settled in Hertford as, you know, more, it's become just wider photography.
FGG: It's interesting, photography, isn't it? I mean, they say the camera never lies, and yet it clearly does. I mean, you can portray an environment that people might think they know very well in a very different way, depending on the angle, the lighting …When you go out to take photographs of Hertford, do you go out with a plan in your mind, or is it really a reaction to what you see on that day?
PC: Erm [thinks] - I think it's - I always - much to the annoyance of everyone around me - I always every day, every day have a - I don't carry a mobile phone, - I carry a camera on me every day. So it doesn't mean - most days - it doesn’t necessarily generate anything with that camera, you know. I may take photographs and just think, well, that's not very good. But I do it every day. And the reason why is, - and this is actually, it's a sort of philosophy, I think, of Daid? Moriyama - I think his name is. Moriyama, is that his name, I think? He’s a Japanese photographer. There's a basic as a Japanese photographer, and that's the sort of whole idea, you know, that you just keep doing, and keep doing it. Because if you keep doing it, it's not just that you will see something you know, you will see something different you didn't expect, as well as seeing the things maybe that you plan to see. So both those things are true. And I think that, as you, as you pointed out then, when you go at different times, as well, as obviously, there's different weather, isn't there. There's different atmospheres. It's never the same.
And Hertford is quite a small muse or model, isn't it, to photograph. And I spend about probably, repeating itself, becomes probably, slightly a bit of a problem. But - because you end up repeating yourself - but yeah, I think you're just, I don't think you'll necessarily planning on seeing anything, but I think you're just, you're ready if there is something worth, worth seeing, you know, or when you think it's worth photographing.
FGG: Yes. And I, I do know that anyone wondering the churchyard and gravestones of All Saints’ Church late at night needs to watch out.
PC: Yes. So that was a - that was another - that's a sort of niche thing where you think, I always think, well, night time is a challenge, because nighttime is difficult. And it's not just nighttime, and it - initially - maybe it was nighttime slightly earlier on in the evening. And certainly in the winter, because it's dark enough, right? But, yeah, you somewhat - I was always concerned of the fact, people saying to you, ‘aren’t you afraid’- when I was taking photographs, in particular, I was going through a period of going to graveyards in villages or in Hertford and taking photographs. People saying, ‘were you not worried about, you know, upsetting anyone?’. I suppose I was because, because, I think the, you know, I wasn't worried for myself, even though sometimes it does get a bit spooky - is that, worries that, a dog walker would, sort of, you know, be out taking little, you know, so and so for a walk, and then suddenly see me lumbering, or, you know, looming out the darkness or something, hopefully, with a mobile phone lighting up my face. You can see that I'm there. But I'm usually hovering in the darkest, darkest quarters of the graveyard. Partly because, though, because everyone thinks at night, photographs, yeah, they'll say, ‘Oh, the Castle, the Church it’s lit up. It's floodlit. Isn't that great?’ And it's like, no! Because that's like making a decision. For the best way to take, I think, photography at night is ultimately when lights are off. So therefore the later you go, the darker it is, the better it is for the photography. I think.
FGG: Well, I, so I sing with Hertford Choral Society and, err, I remember, early on, seeing some of your night photographs of All Saints’, which is where we have our concerts. And - err - I remember contacting you through social media and saying, ‘Is there any chance we could use that photograph?’ And you were incredibly generous. And you just said, ‘Yes, you know, if you can get it from the social media, it's there’. So, and - but it was a stunner of a shot, and it was a very low angle view of All Saints’. And just the little lights from inside the church, but you could see the moon and the stars, or, you know, the night sky.
PC: That’s right. Yes.
FGG: Fantastic.
PC: Well it’s very kind of you to say so. Yeah, I think - but I was drawing, and this goes back to school again, you know - I was drawing. I was drawing All Saints’, the tower of it quite a lot as a child. So I've always been, had quite a lot of interest. And I think I've probably taken photographs of All Saints’ because I go for a walk, I used to go with my previous dog that we had - sadly passed away last year. We, we - I was always taking photographs of All Saints’, you know, particularly of the tower. And then was very excited when I got an opportunity to, you know, get on Heritage Day to go to the top of it. Whilst everyone else was just walking around, going round the edge, I was kind of going, Ooh, I'm, you know, I was getting very excited. Disproportionately so.
Or when I went inside and got to photograph and film the bell ringing, you know, going on inside. So those sorts of things. And it's a chance to touch, I think it comes back to the thing, once again, the thing you used to see in your childhood. Now, if you ask, and you're polite and whenever, you get to interact or see or photograph something that was significant to you as a child. And I think All Saints’ Church has always been a very, yes, fantastic building. I think we're very lucky to have it.,
FGG: Yeah, it’s a stunner isn't it? Yeah, and then there's so much of Hertford that has got interesting angles and looks and perspectives -
PC: Yes
FGG: Little vistas that you come across and -
PC: - and building and change opens up. So when Lea Wharf comes along - and you can have an opinion about Lea Wharf - but it gives you a different view. Or when, when I, when I lived in Hertford, before I moved away, you couldn't, I think - I'm thinking back now - you couldn't - McMullen’s hadn't sold his land - if they sold it to Sainsbury's - and the Folly wasn't connected as it was. So the vista or the view you get when you walk to Sainsbury's on that little sort of bridge pathway bit, and you look back towards the Theatre, it's a view that never existed. Well it existed, but it never - we didn't see it, you know. And that's really interesting as well. What does the future hold? Yeah, I'm not saying I'd build a skyscraper in Herford, but what does the future hold in terms of, does it open up something that we didn't see before?
FGG: Yes, and it's a little bit back to that very early question you asked yourself, as a sort of ten-year old boy. You know, what was here before? And with photography, we can answer that question much more readily, can’t we, really - so -
PC: Yeah. And I think that - so that’s just sparked a thought, if that's OK - that as a child, another reason why that .., as a 10 year old, I was interested in the field that we might live in. It's because there was a - my brother gave me a comic book called Raw [an American comic book published in the 1980’s] - just come back to me now. And I can't remember the name of the artist. I can't remember his name, but he had drawn cells of a sort of cartoon strip. You can imagine that. And each cell was exactly the same room. So the first one was of a room. And I think it was, was in America, in America. It may be the 60s. It was the corner of a room very simply drawn. And it said 1960. There’s a family watching TV. And then in the next cell that he's taken away and revealed, like cut through time, to reveal, you know, another part of history. It was happening in exactly the same shot. So there was, I think, a native American Indian chasing a buffalo, say, or something, you know, in 1850. And then in 2020, in the future, as far as this cartoon was concerned, there was a mouse, and there was a bit of crumbled wall in that area of the picture. So had the house decayed? What was there before? So there was this layering of history, and I think that, that's really interesting. And that's, that's very interesting in Hertford and for all of us, because it's changing, you know, all the time.
FGG: Absolutely. Very interesting. So, and of course, you're not just a photographer. There's a whole heap of other stuff.
PC: I'm not photographer at all, really [general laughter] Regrets? Yeah, I'm an ‘information designer stroke graphic designer suppose [information designer/graphic designer] that would be my job. And I run a small design agency. That's what I do. But I'm particularly interested, yeah, in information design - and [pauses to think] having worked, you know, on transport information, stuff like that - you know, the kind of stuff that people navigate information in my professional capacity, I kind of thought, OK, well, I'll have a go at doing that in Hertford, for fun.
FGG: So for the person listening in 500 years’ time. Just - err - information design. Just explain what that means.
PC: To someone in - !! [laughs] I suppose [thinks]
FGG: Well, maybe just explain it to me! [laughs]
PC: So [pauses to think again] this is interesting, because we're at a point in change as well when we’ve become more digital and in 500 years’ time, you know, people will be, it will just be consumed directly into their brains. But if you go back in time and you, or you think of the tube maps, the tube map is a classic piece of information design. So that is not representing, you know, it's representing London. It's representing connections of the underground and transport connection - onward transport connections. So it's doing that, but it's not doing it, even though people sort of believe, well, the Thames does run through London that way. And you know, that station is north of the river, and that station is south of the river. All that is true.
But Information Science sometimes simplifies things down. It lies a bit. It gives a uniform look to something. So you can navigate information. And that could be a bus timetable. It could be a route map of a bus showing you that it goes from Hertford to Ware and - what's - where it stops on that route. And where you can change to a different bus, where you can get on a train. That's transport information. That's a big part of information design. Information design could just be taking the whole history of Hertford and putting it on a poster in some fashion. It's taking information and visually representing it in a way, you know, in a graphic way.
FGG: And I've read somewhere that, you know, as human beings, we can respond very instinctively to patterns in our environment. So, presumably, it sort of taps into that?
PC: Yes, I think so, yeah, it definitely does. And I think simplifying and taking things away and representing - yeah - or using language that we've learned from somewhere else, visual language, and then adapting it to somewhere else. So we we’re kind of, we intuitively pick up on certain things, and the same as young children now probably, you know, pick up iPad, you know, understand digital very quickly. In the past, we had to, sort of, think. It was probably, initially, a bit of a jump for people to understand, like a thing like the tube map, when it came along, but obviously its success shows that it works for a lot of people. It makes sense.
FGG: Absolutely. So let's just talk about those interests in the context of Hertford, because you've been involved in a number of projects like the 1000 Words and the Tube Map and the Periodic Table, so you're obviously bringing your graphic design skills, and then you're thinking ‘Hertford’. But just talk us through that process in your head and then how it appears.
PC: So, I think - when I - when we moved back to Hertford, I passed - right back at the beginning of the, sort of, that process, I think - I was passing the Tourist Information Centre. And I thought, yeah, some of those things - not knocking them - I think some of those things were for sale 20 years ago. And I thought, ‘Oh, that's interesting’, I thought. So I said to them, ‘Have you not thought of, like - ?‘ So initially, I just drew, like, a thing of Hertford and it’s not - it could be better, or whatever, but I drew in some scenes from Hertford, the sort of scenes we were talking about, like a photograph. But I just sketched them out as drawings. And they said, ‘Well, they're great. We can sell those’. So I said, ‘OK, have them’ I said, ‘I don't want to be paid for them’. I said, ‘You know, if the money's being put back into the town’ or whatever. So that was like, you know, Paul the Great [laughs] Charitable Paul! So I just said, ‘No’, you know, ‘just have them, because I don't really want to make money from them.’ Probably because I was a bit like thinking, ‘well, and they may not sell, and I don't want to be, you know, necessarily associated with these, because I do this for a job’. But they did. They were very popular and things. They appeared to be, and people liked them. And then, during COVID, that's when it really kicked off, because - we were walking into town, and my wife said, ‘Well, you know, Rainbow has become the symbol of, you know, Hertford, you know, brighter days are coming, sort of thing. The rain will end and, you know, COVID will pass’’.
FGG: Yeah. So this is the 2019/20 pandemic.
PC: Yes, yeah. So this, really, this was the summer of 2020, I think - no the spring of 2020. - this really kicked in from the design point of view. So, it had already been running since the start of that year, and it effectively - and as we approached the sort of spring, then Emma, one of the curators at the Brothership Gallery in Hertford, said, ‘Well, you know, that's fantastic. You’ve drawn something from Hertford. People have asked about it’. So I said, ‘Yes’. So - we could go into that. I guess that goes down its own path, you know, talking about that - But basically, I , we, we started selling those to raise money for the NHS charity - which there is a charity for the NHS - and we were doing that. And then other towns were asking. In the end, I ended up doing about 20. I was spending my weekends drawing Broxbourne, Hoddesdon, St Albans. Every town was getting a Rainbow print. And it was for - yeah - for charity.
And so, from that, in doing that and, you know, on the Lussman’s building, the Egyptian building - or it used to be Lussman’s restaurant - in Fore Street. When we put up, I drew the hoardings. We put rainbows on the front of that. From that, I thought, OK, I'm quite into Hertford. I'm obviously photographing it all the time. I'm now drawing it all the time. So I thought, what am I going to do now - more for myself? That, you know, that was fun. That was, you know, it wasn't a fun time, but it was a fun to be actively doing something with people. And that was really a very, you know, a positive from COVID for me, personally. So I thought, OK, what else can I do for Hertford? I thought, well, actually, I'm not particularly good at drawing. And that's not really what I'm that good at. I thought, I'm actually better at information, and that's what interests me more. So I just started picking through some ideas. So I decided to draw a tube map of Hertford. And I think that that - sadly, we're going to go back to that same layering of history. ‘cause it's the same idea again, where, you know, you, you think, what are the key things in Hertford? Where? Where does the, you know, the Beane the Lea, the Mimram, the Rib, where do they run, the rivers that run through Hertford? And how does it all, sort of, lay out together? So initially, I was just kind of thinking in my head. And then I didn't want to be too obvious with that. I didn't want to just say, you know, Corn Exchange, you know, here is County Hall, here is - and doing a kind of actual literal, you know, interpretation, a map of Hertford. I wanted to layer in, again, some little personal things within, within that, and play a little bit with history again. So, just to keep that …what I did…So I drew, basically drew things that people knew and I added some more, sort of, local sort of jokes or little nods or winks that people may know these places. So at St Leonard’s, you know, the graves have the skull and crossbones on. So I put pirate graves on there. And I made a play on George Ezra. He went to Bengeo Junior School. So I called that Budapest. So I played on these little - nodding, you know. If you're a Hertfordian, or you live in Hertford, if, one day, you define a Hertfordian, they're things you‘d get. And I think the - probably the extreme version of that within that Tube Map is in the bottom right hand corner. I haven't called Brickendonbury - the House - which is, you know, was the Malaysian Rubber Company. I think it's a wedding venue now as well as the Malaysian Rubber Company - I've called it Station 17, because, during the Second World War, that was a special operations executive Station 17.
So, that to me - I didn't know that as a child, because no one took - you know I lived in Mandeville. It’s where I walked every other - and no one - it would have been lovely if someone had said to me, ‘They trained spies here’. I’d have, you know, flipped my wig, you know, if someone had told me that! But they never did! So that interests me. But what was even more extreme about that sort of thing - so we went to go - and my wife previously had been there for the Heritage Day - to go to Brickendonbury and look around. And there's a plaque saying, Station 17. So, you know, the heavy water plant, destroyed in, you know, the Heroes of the Telemark and, and, Heydrich Reinhard. Reinhard, I think, who had been killed by Czechs who'd flown in. And, you know, he was the guy who started the Final Solution for Hitler, you know. He was murdered by, he was bombed by two guys, Czech guys, who’d been trained in Hertford, at Brickendonbury, you know, at the House. So this was incredible. So putting that on the Tube map only is just a name - calling it Brickendonbury. Instead of Brickendonbury, calling it Station 17 is, to me, is - that's the level of - you know what I mean? It's that layering of history. But even more extreme than that. Someone who grew up in the 70s remembered watching reruns of Catweazle Series 2. And when I went to go and see Station 17, as it was - we went into the Open Day - there was Catweazle himself –
FGG: - What!!?
PC: - or Geoffrey Bayldon, not himself, a statue of Geoffrey Bayldon who, if anyone is old enough to remember Worzel Gummidge, would know him as the Crowman. And he was Worzel Gummidge after that. But he was Catweazle. So there's a beautiful sculpture of him in the grounds of the House, because Catweazle 2 was all filmed at that house. It’s where the boy lived in the series who hung around with Catweazle. And Touchwood, the toad, is, is on this sculpture. So not only have you got Station 17 and you've got the killing of a Nazi, you've got a 70s, early 70s, kids TV show on the same spot where I grew up. And that, to me, that sort of summarises my whole feeling about Hertford. It’s that, if you peel back, there's these layers, and they're all kind of on top of each other. And I think that, that is what the Tube Map’s doing. It's like hinting at, sometimes saying, where things are, but it's also saying, ‘Hey, did you know? Did you know, you know this was here? ‘
FGG: That’s really fascinating.
PC: Yeah. And that's, and that's what I think information design can do as well. It can relay things - we think, ‘Oh, I didn't know that’, you know - in a slightly different way.
FGG: But have you had people look at your Tube Map and say, ‘What's he mean Station 17?’
PC: I've had people, quite kind of - because I did - subsequently I did a pub version, you know, which was - I've done like - I can’t remember - a 100,118 pubs here and there in Hertford. And, and whether you do that, or the Tube Map, where you make the decision to show something. Initially, because they were in, actually up in the Old Cross pub. And they were in the White Horse pub, at a point. There's people come up to you. And I don't go around saying ‘I did that’. I tend not to say anything.
I've actually sat next to it and had a drink with my wife, when at the White Horse, when it was up on the wall. And sat next to a woman, where she was telling me, not knowing I was sitting next to her, where I got things wrong. [laughs] And I think it's kind of funny, because I don't think I did get it wrong. But I think it's just, you know, I think it's really interesting that as soon as anyone has any interest, and they say they want to have an opinion, I think that's fantastic. In fact, when it was put up in the window at the Brothership, the first time, when they put it up big, that evening, they had three people walk in and visit; one, to just have a look at it, because they loved it; one to complain about it; and one to ask, why didn't we, you know, do this? And I've also, when I first put it up on Twitter, or X, as it’s named now, I had people saying to me, ‘well, that's no good to me. I, you know, how am I going to get to work?’ They started to take it as - I think they were teasing me - So I actually made changes.
So, for example, Rob Gwyn of the Hertford Music Festival fame, the one named Hertfordian, he said - he lives out in Waterford - he said, ‘How am I going to get to - I can't get to - I have to walk the first section there’. So I actually added - if you look at Waterford - purely for him. So I actually made actual changes to the network so they could get to work on this tube map that doesn't exist.
FGG: That's really funny. And it’s sort of - it's almost Alice in Wonderland sort of madness, isn’t it really. But it is your mind map of Hertford, isn't it?
PC: One hundred percent. I think that's the thing. If you were - I think this would be interesting to set a project, I think, maybe for kids or something. And maybe this is a plan for the future - so if you're in a school or a college where you say, you know ‘it's not because it's right or wrong, it's because it's yours and it's your memory, and just explore that idea’. And I think that, and I think the more you play to what people want or expect, the more boring it becomes. So I think it's very important you use, put your own, your own ideas and memories into it,
FGG: Yes. And as you say, let it find its own way and create the effects, good or bad.
PC: Yes, And good or bad are both good.
FGG: Yeah, exactly. So the 1000 words. Obviously, that's a slightly different approach?
PC: Yes
FGG: And explain that a little bit.
PC: So that was [pauses to think] I just thought, you know, you get these things called, you get word clouds, which can look quite naff. Where, you know, you get an object, you know. You get an object or something made from lots and lots of words. And you can, you know, you can get most of those, you know, you get a poster that says ‘Love’. And you look at it and it's made of lots of little things that make up the idea of ‘Love’, and make the words ‘Love’ as a big lettering.
So what I wanted to do was re-, to draw more of something in Hertford. So I chose the Stag of the Memorial in Parliament Square as a recognisable form. And then I sat - a bit like a jigsaw - kind of, you know, just basically sat to the side and thought about memories of Hertford. And I wanted to find a thousand things, and then just slowly put those in and construct them, kind of like making a jig- There wasn't a plan, there wasn't a sketch or anything like a jigsaw, but just moving them around until I started to form the Stag. So I did that. And I think, within that, there are some rather obvious things where I've compromised, and I've put, like North Road or West St in there. But also there are references to family, friends, my best friend, who died last year. There are little things. There's even criminality in there. When we were younger, you know things you wouldn't, you know, you were told off for, for smoking, things you do when you were younger. There are little hints. And I think it's a test for me to remember those things. And it was a nod towards my friend. I did it before my best friend had died. But I realised, in that there are lots of references where he could sit down, he could pick out ten things that would make him laugh. He would be able to do that - and someone else may be able to - and I think that, for example, the way that works, is two examples of when people had seen that, and they quite often, they don't know who I am. They don't know I did it. But they know me. So a gentleman of Hertford - I won’t say his name - was mentioned on there. And he came up to me and he said, ‘I'm on your, your 1000’ - no, sorry, didn't say ‘on your’, he didn’t say that. He said, ‘I'm on this poster called 1000 Things. And I said, ‘Yes, I did it’. And he sort of ignored that bit. And he said, ‘No, no, no, no, I'm on it’. And I was, like, going ‘yes, I did it’ [laughs]. It was like, and it just went totally over his head! So I let him go. And then another thing, at my mum's birthday, a family friend, who I actually grew up in Leahoe with, turned up to my mum's 80th birthday. And he came up to me - and he knows what I do, some things I've done - and he said, ‘Ah’, he said, ‘I love that 1000 Things. That's such a great idea. It was lovely to see, you know, my dad was on it’.
And his dad was my dad's best friend who died a long time ago. So of course, he was on there. I said, ‘Well, you're on it too’. And he said, ‘No, I'm not’. So we spent the whole of my mum's 80th - where we should have been, you know, celebrating my mum - we were sitting, you know, in the corner on my phone, going through, zooming in, and taking about half an hour to prove the point that him and his brother were included on mine!
FGG: He must have been blown away!
PC: And he loved it! But it's not as if I'm, you know, that I'm this, you know… try to touch their lives. I'm just someone who just - once again, it's a personal thing - I just put it down what people want to be, you know. If they see it, and they like the idea, they want to connect with it in some way. And I think that, that's, that's a joy in itself.
FGG: Yeah, and then the Periodic Table that you mentioned when we spoke before. So that's a different visual presentation.
PC: Yes
FGG: Was there different thinking into that one?
PC: Yes, so that was, I didn't fit - I just thought, OK, what is it that I don't know. Because, remember, I was rubbish at school, if you've listened from the beginning [laughs] So periodic tables, were straight over my head. My brother, Mark, would be able to, you know, decipher one, you know, in every, yeah, from every angle. But I just looked at the periodic table and, OK, I could see these elements, and I could see their shortened form of how they're named, and I could see they’re categorized into groups. But what I didn't want to do is, I didn't want to break the periodic table. So the periodic table has 118 parts to it, and it's categorised in a very specific way. Not only how they sit, you know, in groups, but also the, you know, they’re categorised by colour.
And so, I took that literally, exactly as it is, that structure. And then I just changed the categories to things about Hertford. So I did one. So I did history - I can't remember them all - but I did History TV, Local Hero. So I categorised people. And then I thought about people and looked into people, with a lot of help from the Hertford Museum and online. And then I started - and then I - so, for example, I would take my father, because I put my father in there, and I shortened him down. I think I called him - now, I forget what I called him - I called him just D for Dad. I think I called him - probably wrong with that - but I basically I gave him one - just an initial letter. I explained who they were, and I gave a little, sort of, description of who they were. And then he was categorised as [thinks] good question [can’t remember] He might have been local. I think he was a Local Hero. He might have been Music - my dad was a musician. So I then would drop him in, you know, into that, those 118 elements. And then I just slowly started to fill it up. So, for example, Peter Ruffles is on there, of course, and he's Mr. Hertford. So he's probably MH or whatever, you know. So I just constructed it completely for - it took ages - I'm not quite sure now how I did it - and I can't find anyone who understands it or likes it - but it's just gone over a lot of people's heads. But it felt like something I had to do, and because my best friend had died, I wanted to, sort of, put him at the centre of it as well.
FGG: Yes, and it’s -
PC: - memory
FGG: Completely see it. It's like anything that anyone creates, isn’t it? It’s of the time, and it's yourself in it. And it's just that, you know, rather than creating a piece of art that's in front of you and straight in your head, you're interacting with your environment and your town. So there's a kind of warp and a weft, isn't there, of you and your environment going into it? Very interesting.
PC: Absolutely. I think it probably reveals some sort of form of desperation on my part too. Rather than just - true artists go away, don't they? You're an artist yourself so, you know, you go away and you create something. You commit to it. I don't do that. I play to the crowd. So there's a bit of ego going on there - clearly - is that I keep including, you know, I'm playing to a crowd. I want a response, I suppose. So that, that is part of that layer. As you say, that's that layering together. You know, the two things and Hertford is - why not - why not?
FGG: Yeah, well I think it’s, it’s a sort of, form of performance art, in a way, isn’t it really that you're engaging in -
PC: - It’s there to there to be seen -
FGG: - Yes, exactly -
PC: It’s there to be - and the desperation is for it to be big and it to be seen. And, you know, my ego gets massive because I want people to get ‘that's really interesting’, you know. I walked into the pub when they put The Tube Map up in the pub. I can say it now, now, my heart was racing. I thought, ‘Ah, people are going to be really annoyed, they’re like that. And that's quite exciting. So -
FGG: Yeah, yeah. No, it's very, very interesting. And so what else is it that you're doing that tells us a little bit about how you see what you do and your environment? I know you make films as well.
PC: Yeah, I suppose that would be the next thing - is that I and, you know, through work, it's the same thing. I'm not a, you know, I'm, I'm a photographer. So I suppose I'm a sort of photographer from an artistic point of view, or I'm a designer or an information signer. from a sort of artistic point of view. I'm not, I'm not [pauses to think] constantly, you know, a professional in that field who's earning a living out of it all the time. I'm a graphic designer. And I think biography … and filming are the same. It's something. It's an interest, and it's another related interest. So, what happened with that. I guess the first thing that really - because it's a spin-off of photography, of course, to some degree. I'm a fan of Hertford town. I grew up in Leahoe, used to go to Hertford town with my dad in the 70s, in the 80s, I moved away.
And when I came back, I was walking past Hertford Town Football Club, and I had actually done, I think, a video before then, for I Love Hertford, the social channel where I've done a thing about Hertford, and I'd asked Brian Jennings. I know he’s been interviewed. And I know him as Mr. Hertford Town Football Club - and we don't really know each other that well - but I chatted to him. He's outside the club, and I asked to film him. And he said yes. And then I was passing again, just walking my dog, and I walked in on a Tuesday. And I thought, what's going on at the Football Club on a Tuesday? Because there were people pottering around and, and I realised there were all these volunteers which were a big part of the non-league game and they invited me into the kind of board room, which is, sort of, more like a sort of staff room, if you like.
And I sat down, and they made me a cup of tea, and I chatted to them, and they were just so friendly and so kind. But I thought, I just said, ‘Can I film you guys?’ And they said, ‘Well you have to speak to Colin and Ben’, who were the Chairman and the Manager of the Club. They said, ‘Yeah, yeah’. So basically, over a period, and it was a very - it was - once again it comes back to that changing point of Hertford’s history, because they were laying a plastic pitch, which may not, you know, mean a lot to a lot of people. But in terms of the history of the Club and how it's affected West Street, for good and bad - it, it changed that kind of emotionally when they swapped their pitch, because then they could be operating nearly all the time. Because anyone knows that Hertingfordbury Park at the end of West Street, you know, it's under water a lot of the time.
So I decided to film them at the point they were going for this transition to changing the Club, and they were closing the pitch for a few months in the summer. And I was there really to film the volunteers. But the pitch was a big part of what was going on. And so I just filmed them. And a bit like today I'm being recorded. And - I just went and said, ‘Who are you? What do you do?’ And, you know, so I met, say, Graham, who's a volunteer down there as an example. And I said, ‘Graham, can I film you? And can I - ?‘ And he said, ‘What do you want to film me doing? I said ‘What do you do?’ He says, ‘Well, I fix things’. So I said, ‘brilliant’. So he's, you know, he's out there fixing a part - there's always something to fix in an old football club. And I said, ‘Can I record you and say why you're here?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ So I gave him a remote voice recorder, and he went into the stand by himself, and he recorded to say why he was at the Club. And then he passed it back to me. I stopped… I just checked initially to see had I recorded it. Stopped it and went home. Got home and listened to it, and it made me cry, because he was talking about - he was at the club and the reason why he was there was because his wife had died. And I asked him if this was OK to record and use this and he said ‘yes, of course’. And he said that he really didn't know what to do with his life. And he wandered into Hertford Football Club, and he said he just found this camaraderie. He found something to do every day because he’d sort of retired. And, and then, in recording other people at the club, I found that it meant a lot to lots of different people. And of course, there are people more just talking about football and coaching, and that stuff. But there are lots of characters within it. And so I weaved those things together. It was like a little film, which, you know, just for the sake of doing it, really. The club loved it. And it's the sort of thing maybe one day, you know, in the digital archive in the Museum, or something, maybe they could have that to remember the people when we're long gone, saying that they were there and they were volunteering there. And - but it's a big culture in non-league football, volunteering - and it's very much about Hertford as well. So that sparked the idea of filming things and that way of doing it. And then, subsequently, I went, and I've made, just for, kind of, my own ego [chuckles] for fun, I've made other little films and am continuing to do so.
FGG: And if people want to see those, where can they find them?
PC: Probably on - they’ll probably be on YouTube. Probably a search on YouTube for Hertford Town. But I mean the ones that have gained more traction - to use a marketing term - that have been watched by more people. I mean, the one in the last year, which was I - I got in contact (with) - my - he’s actually my daughter's partner's dad, Chris House, who is a lovely gentleman - you probably know him walking round Hertford, always beautifully dressed. He is a - he lives in Hertford, and I was thinking about doing a film, just a wider film, about Hertford, just different things in it. And, basically, it's an excuse for me to get into buildings or see things.
Once again, it's those places, you know, you can get into. And so I'd contacted lots of people during the year, and I'd, I'd said to, for example, the previous Vicar or the Canon, Jo, at All Saints’ saying, ‘Can I film you at the top of the tower?’ And she just said, ‘Yes, of course, you can. You can film me at the top of the tower’ I said, ‘I want you just looking out over Hertford at the top of All Saints’ tower’. So I had these ideas in my head, and I went out and, kindly, she said, ‘Yes’. So I managed to film that and film a number of other things, in St Leonard’s and various other bits and pieces. And then I wanted to pull them together as a poem. And then I spoke to Chris House, who's a wonderful poet who's won poetry competitions at the Museum, and they run a poetry competition. I think he won a couple of prizes, and he created this beautiful poem far more beautiful … than anything I could have pulled together. And I just pulled that footage together. And that has been on, I love Hertford and various things. I think it's had like fifty thousand views, and, and, and that's just purely for the sake of celebration of ‘here we are at this point in time’. That's all it is.
We're all here in this town, you know, for good, for bad, and there's - but in the poem, we did have to remove some of the content that was getting a little bit negative about buildings and things. And I said let’s swerve certain things that we're all aware of, that at this moment in time, that are going on in Hertford to do, you know - that people are disappointed about - certain developments. But we were in to include things like the Bengeo, you know, the tree in the Bengeo field. And the campaign, which, you know - some of these things are slightly political, but I think we all - the poem and the way Chris constructed it, was interesting in that he's questioning, as well, that we need to move forward. But how do we do that in a way that keeps people happy, as a town? And I think that, you know, that was a really enjoyable project as well.
FGG: Yes, and having seen it, it's a really splendid, kind of, almost like a fly round the town, isn't it? So you see so many angles. And at different times of day - times of the day you might not, as a person, normally see really early in the morning,
PC: Yeah, exactly, yeah, early in the morning is a big thing. Like at night the, the - And hopefully, things that people see, but they relate to, as well as, as someone who is - whether they're a recent, you know, person who moves to the town, because sometimes they have and they go, ‘It's really interesting’, or they've, you know, someone who's, you know, someone who's a society member, or someone from the Museum, who's really into the history of the Town. Hopefully that they can see and relate to and agree or disagree to aspects of it. And I think that that's a bit like everything else. But it's just the same idea, but in a kind of moving, visual form.
FGG: So do you feel optimistic about the cohesion of Hertford as a town going forward?
PC: I think it's probably going through a, you know, a slightly challenging phase, because I think that, you know, with some of the developments - Lea Wharf and the Theatre - I think people have all got their opinions, so I won’t go down that path. But I guess that everyone's so invested. And the next thing is always going to be the next thing that kind of not saves the town, but sort of sets it, you know, on a straight course into the future.
But I think there's always going to be that - there's always going to be these challenges going forward, because it is a nice place. It's a great place to live, and it's where people want to move to. And there are obviously challenges within that, you know, where housing and all those sorts of issues. And I think the town, historically, is quite ring-fenced, protected, it seems, compared to some of the towns around it. Maybe because they're newer towns, or towns like, you know, if you go to St Neots, you go to Bishop’s Stortford, they've taken on a lot more housing, a lot of change. Whereas Hertford is quite aggressively protected, it seems. And there's a good part to that. And then some people might argue there's a slightly, you know, a slight negative part to that as well.
So hopefully it will find a way to just, you know, move forward, because we always need to move forward, but do it in a way that at least keeps the majority of the populace, you know, relatively happy. But I think it's a very difficult balancing act. And anyone who makes those decisions about, you know, what you do for the Theatre, etc. I mean, it's very easy to have a comment or an opinion, but you can imagine the weight of making those - those decisions are enormous.
FGG: Exactly.
PC: And if you want to be a Councillor, you know, or be the Mayor, you know, you, you've got to be quite - you've got to have - you’ve got to have quite broad shoulders, I think.
FGG: Yes, I think it's increasingly unforgiving, isn't it, these sorts of posts. But I think, you know, about the work that you do, Paul, I mean - I think, sort of, having heard you today, I think, you know, my sense is that, you know, very much people do like following maps and patterns that are given to them. Hence the popularity of the Tube Map. But then I think you - what you're doing is a sort of, you know, in different formats, you're giving people new maps or new plans of Hertford. And I think these things are very powerful. People internalise them, don't they? And I think - look how easy it is for people to internalise negativity and, you know, horribleness on social media -
PC: - absolutely -
FGG: - it’s awful really. And you don't see any signs of that getting better any time soon. So countering it with positivity and other ways of seeing places and other explanations is really an important contribution, I think, into the landscape, the kind of mental landscape that people have,
PC: Yeah, that's, that's, it's a really, yeah, it’s a great way of looking at it, I think. You know. I’d be very pleased if that's the case, people feel that way. I think that, yeah, I think you have to be honest don’t you. It's like you have to, sort of, talk about the, you know, when they built the A414 through Hertford back in 196? whenever it was, you know. You have to touch upon things. Can't avoid some things, but you have to say, well, that's part of who we are. And you take that and you move forward, but you kind of carry it with you, and you use it to influence your decisions going forward. But we're all - Hertford has its, you know, good, like anywhere, it has its good and bad points. But I think we generally - it's a, it's a, you know, it's a great place with a very strong community. So I think we're very lucky.
FGG: Yes, I think that's true. And so here we are at the beginning of 2025, what do you think your year will hold in terms of what you might be producing, visually, artistically?
PC: Wow, I've asked this. I saw - there’s someone in particular who asked me [FGG chuckles], because he’s a friend of mine. And he says, ‘Oh, what you're gonna be, what you’re gonna be doing’ And, and, and [hesitates] and he says, ‘Oh, you know’. The good friend of mine says, ‘Oh, you’ve got to, you know, what, what you - ?’ And I go ‘I don't really know till it lands’. And to counter that, I have people like Vicky Green, I said, I’ve met who said - rather funnily she said, ‘Does anyone in - you like doing all this stuff of Hertford?’ she said. ‘but has anyone asked Hertford! It’s great. It really made me laugh. Something I've never considered before. So I was just sort of car crashing forward with my own ideas, well, whether Hertford likes it or not!
FGG: Well you mustn’t let that affect you!
[general laughter]
PC: Um. I think, yeah. I think - I just think, it’s really, ultimately - and as much as we can tell - it’s good for Hertford and it’s been great fun to do, you know. You know, it's kind of - mum - you know, as and when it happens it's like, well stick it on the fridge, Mum, you know. That's, kind of, part of the feelings to it. Is that you want to enjoy what you do. And you want people to - you note it - well, that's great. And, you know, my friends, my friends, who are really - always really, pleased to see it - and they like it. So I'll carry on doing stuff. I'm sure I’ll carry on doing something. But what that will be, I don't know.
I've got, like, a little plan. I suppose, because I'm interested in it, I want to go and film, not one person, but just film buildings. And, so I've got an idea about, in the coming year, to be filming stuff, hopefully so picking out - and if I cover, I contact the right people - interesting locations in Hertford that have - but revealing something about those buildings, maybe that people are unaware of. But doing it in terms of a video with a sort of, a poem, or a voice over at the top of it. So it will be, you know, filming a certain location, just filming it, without people in it, but just the space and inside, and then just maybe adding, layering in, some interesting little facts, or, you know, something within that, that's - that maybe people aren't aware of. That's kind of what I'm hoping to do. And apart from that, I'm sure, you know, I'll be, at some point, drawing something. But I think I've probably, at the moment - it feels like - I've sort of used up a lot of goodwill, a lot of the possible devices and ideas that I've had. So, well hopefully, there'll be, you know, something else. But I'm not quite sure what it is at the moment.
FGG: No, but in a way, that's, that's the interesting bit, isn't it? Things lead on to other things and -
PC: Yes.
FGG: It sounds like that terrible COVID pandemic when we were all locked down. And it was dreadful. That, that was quite a prompt to a lot of creativity.
PC: It was, yes.
FGG: And so, you know, that, that's happened, and now it's time for then, the next, sort of, set of explorations, isn’t it?
PC: Absolutely. I wouldn't have done any of this, actually - I probably would have moved back to Hertford. But I wouldn't have done, got on with doing some of this stuff, you know, which I’d have done for my own pleasure, ultimately [pauses to think] For - without - if COVID probably hadn't, you know - for all the awful things that it brought, it did bring a space. And you thought, well, I might as well have a go at this, you know. And it opens up. And I'm sure for lots of people, maybe people who, you know, whatever it - who want to go and try something different, that want to be creative, or they, you know, want to take up skiing. Whatever it may be. They thought, well, actually, now I'm gonna, now we're out and about roaming around again, we must get on with these things. And I think that's very true. I think that COVID really did - and also, because I was kind of forced to do - wasn't forced to - I did something. And then someone said, ‘Oh, I like that’. And I was, kind of, quite shielded about it. So I was getting on with my job. And then someone else said, ‘Oh - ‘ And then it opens the barriers. And you think, well, OK, you like that? Let's have a - you know, - let's have a go at this, that and the other. And hopefully someone, you know, enjoys it or likes it. So, yeah, I think that's very true.
FGG: Yeah. No, very interesting. Anything that we haven't touched on, Paul, that it would be good to capture?
PC: Umm, [thinks hard, looks down at notes]
FGG: Paul's consulting his mental mind map!
PC: Very, very roughly [laughs]
FGG: Oh, it’s a tube map of our interview!
[both chuckle]
PC: [thinks hard] Not really [thinks again] I think that. I think you know that was, yeah, I think you know that's covered. And I think you're, you know, in discussing this, some suggestions, what we could include, I think was great - to go through that process. And I think that most of us there - I suppose the only other thing is I haven't really touched upon is that, you know, that [pauses] I suppose, as someone who lives in Hertford, and my parents, you know, lived in Hertford, they're a kind of key part of this.
And I think my mum and dad, when I'm unsure about something, or I think I've got a piece of information, or I, you know, I'm trying to join something up and realise that my parents have been here, or my dad - passed in two thousand and.. - but that parents had been here and lived here long, you know, before I did. And it's very easy to forget. Sometimes I talk to my mum, and my mum will say, Oh, that's so and so. And she'll sort of weave together, you know, these connections and, and I'll say, ‘you know that person, Mum, you know that person?’ And she'll know exactly. And she'll know exactly now.
And I think that my parents, by being here for that period of time, really helped that process. And I think that also my dad was a sort of musician and stuff, and my dad is installed in the Museum. Obviously, not him, personally, his one-man band! It's up in the Museum, and in the sort of Hertford People section. And I think that, that opens certain doors, because there are people from music and folk, and things like that, that would come up to me and say, ‘Oh’, you know, ‘your Tony’s son’. I think that that's been, that's been nice as well, because it's a reminder of my father. But it's also nice to know that my mum and dad were good parts of the community, and are - my mum is a good part of the community - and who have invested and built links that are recognised. And I sometimes manage to get away with things or get, get sort of information, because of my parents. Because of, you know, they’re perceived to be good people of Hertford. And I think that that - that's nice too.
FGG: Yes, it's a bit of a passport to getting into places.
PC: Yeah, it’s a passport. Exactly.
FGG: Which is nice. And it’s very good. Do you think your children - well, I suppose they didn't - they, apart from visiting grandparents - Hertford isn't really their -?
PC: Well, my daughter lives in Hertford now. So, she, they were saying ‘why are we moving there?’ And when we looked at the house, my daughter went with us. She stood in the garden and cried. Well, we looked at the house the second time, I said, ‘What's wrong with it?’ And she said, ‘It looks like a pub!’. That was our house! [laughs]
So children are there to keep you, you know, on, on track. My wife is very, you know, much, you know, very stable and steady – and I think is a very good influence on me - I think my children Alice’s enjoyed moving to Hertford, and, you know, has enjoyed getting more involved, I think, you know, even though sometimes she thinks, I'm sure, that she's in, you know, a village. And everyone, everyone male and female, is the fishmonger’s wife, you know, in Hertford, a little bit. But my children, my son, doesn't live in Hertford, and sort of thinks and kind of laughs it off a little bit and says, ‘Oh, you're all mad’, and said ‘you're all, you all drink too much. ‘You're all, you know, like that in Hertford’. Which is kind of true. ‘You all listen to music and drink too much’ - my daughter -
FGG: - does he not see a downside? [laughter]
PC: Yeah exactly. I don't think there’s any. He still comes. He likes, he loves The White Horse, likes the pub, you know. But my daughter lives in Hertford and has - about to move - she's in a flat and about to move to a house, actually not far from here. And her partner is a Hertfordian. So - and he knows loads of people. So therefore she's sort of tied into it. And I think that she likes it. And she's beginning to - Initially, she was like, yeah, yeah, so I’m living on the, you know, London, on the fringes of London, but I think that she sees it as a good place that she's setting her life in Hertford. I hope so anyway, and - going forward - and she likes the culture. She likes the - all those things that we, you know, the pub. And you build those things that we kind of lost. One aspect of Hertford that I certainly relate to is, you know, the sort of pubs and the musical culture and the warmth and that sort of stuff of it. And she, she really likes that too. So, so yeah, I think they're bedded in here. Certainly my daughter is, I think, anyway.
FGG: Very nice. Yes, excellent. All right. I think we’ve probably covered most of the things.
PC: Yes, I think so!
FGG: There's always scope to do a second recording [both laugh]
PC: [laughs] No I doubt you can survive that - !
FGG: No, that was very, very interesting, I think, because it's, you know, you're, you're interacting with the town and seeing it in a way that very few people do, I think. And you're producing things that are then, themselves, part of the Hertford landscape. And I think, you know, seeing a photograph of a place, you see it with a different eye, don't you, once you, as the viewer, have seen something, you know it’s -
PC: That's right.
FGG: It's not a view you may have seen, but it's just taken in a way that opens your eye to a different perspective.
PC: That's very true. In everything we do, that's everything you know for - whether I'm doing it and it's a, you know - that's because that's a call to action, to anyone, you know - that, you know, your, your view is valid, and it's different and, you know, it adds to the, sort of, wider, you know, knowledge of something. So, I think, yeah, that's very true. It's very important.
FGG: Fantastic. All right, well, we'll draw it to a close there with very many thanks for your time. Itching to get out in the freezing weather with your camera.
[General laughter]
PC: Maybe not today. If you see one, if you see me now, I'll have to be carrying one, because I've set a precedent. I could be lying. So, I will be out with it - if you see me in the town, I'll have a camera.
FGG: You're on record now!
PC: Or a small one in my pocket, but I will have a camera in there. I can assure you!
FGG: Brilliant. All right. Thank you very much, Paul. That’s been really interesting.
PC: Thank you.
End of recording