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Transcript Title	Driscoll, Donald (O2025.7)
Interviewee	Donald Driscoll (DD)
Interviewer	Frances Green (FGG)
Date	10/06/2025
Transcriber by	Mark Green (using Otter.AI for initial transcript)

Transcript

Hertford Oral History Group

Interviewee: Donald Driscoll (DD)

Recording Number: O2025.7

Date: 10th June 2025

Venue: Hertford

Interviewer: FrancesiGreeni(FGG)

Transcriber: Mark Green (using Otter.AI for initial transcript)

************** unclear recording

[discussion] untranscribed material

italics editor’s notes

FGG: Oh, right, okay, looks like everything is working, and that's recording.

So it is Tuesday, the 10th of June 2025, and I'm here in the home of Mr. Donald Driscoll, who I'm going to call Don as the recording goes on, at his home in Priory Street in Hertford. And Don was suggested to us as a good interviewee because of his time working for Henry Norris, the building firm in Hertford, and his role as head carpenter. But I had a really helpful chat with Don a few weeks ago, and there's some interesting life before that that it'd be nice to talk very briefly about, and also what you've been doing Don since you retired, which is extremely adventurous.

So we'll get back to that. Let's start though by going right back to the beginning. And can you say where you were born and when, Don?

DD: Yes, I was born, Junction Road, Upper Holloway, London in 19….

FGG: Yes, and are you going to confess to a year to that?

DD: 1929.

FGG: Yeah, amazing. So you are now:-

DD: 95

FGG: It's incredible. It's incredible. I really hope that I am as fit and active as you are at 95. Yes, so you've seen an awful lot in your life, haven't you? Yes, because it has been a century of real dramatic change, hasn't it?

DD: Certainly has,

FGG: Yes, so going back to the beginning, tell me a little bit about your parents and the house you grew up in.

DD: Well my, my father was, er, a shoemaker and repairer. He had his own business, er, in Junction Road, and that's where I was born, urmm lived there for 10 years.

FGG: And I remember you saying when we met before that your father had served in the First World War?

DD: That's right, yeah.

FGG: And he'd received an injury, hadn't he really?

DD: He was gassed at Passchendaele and, um, periodically that caused problems. But he got to the age of 88 anyway.

FGG: Yes, and there was a very poignant recollection that you had of men coming into your father's shop, and how at the time, you didn't really fully realise what was going on. I wonder if you could just tell us about that.

DD: Well, yes, these were men who had served in the First World War, and they'd not had a job since being demobbed, mainly for various medical reasons. But of course, in those days, there was virtually nothing for somebody with a disability. And my father, having served, he used… they used to come in and er you give them a few, few pence or a few bob, something, help them on their way er, simply because he realised their situation,

FGG: they were really destitute, weren't they, living hand to mouth?

DD: Yes, that's right. Or, or if they were lucky… There was one, there was one …one man who used to come in on, mainly on a Saturday evening, as my father's shop used to stay open till about 7:30 ish. And um, he'd got the shakes, and all he could do was to sell, um, pens, pencils and the old exercise books that children had in yesteryear at school and er, he got a few few coppers for that, and mainly to er, give himself a night's sleep in what they called a doss house, which the big one was down, er, in Clerkenwell, um, Rowton House, was the name of the place. And that was, you know, the bottom of the pile, really. But then it was full of the same sort of men, unfortunately,

FGG: and every day would be a repeat of that cycle?

DD: virtually, yes, yeah.

FGG: And there was an occasion, wasn't there when your father and mother took pity on him, with his boots? What happened? I think it must have meant a great deal to him, given the quality of his life.

DD: I think, oh yes, yeah. This, this er chap, he came in one evening, on a Saturday evening was his day that he usually came. And um my father said um, how are your boots? He still wore a pair of army boots, which were, were good boots. Any ex-servicemen would tell you that, and he got holes in the soles of both his boots. All that held the feet the bottom of his feet from the street was a piece of cardboard, so my father repaired those for him, whilst he had a large mug of tea and a big wedge of homemade cake that mother bought in and er, whilst he was drinking and eating that, my mother had a large bowl of warm soapy water so he could soak his feet in. And you know, that's and that was about all you could do for him.

FGG: Unfortunately.

DD: Well, well that's right, because he got the shakes, as they used to call it in those days, but he had had shell shock, what they call PTSD now, three times, and each time he got over it, he was thrown back into the line, and he was an officer in In the infantry, so he had a charmed life in that respect.

FGG: So, but given what we know now about the effects of all these things, people were left just to cope with it.

DD: Yeah, that's right, if you fell by the wayside, tough. Sad.

FGG: Extremely. So in a way, we have the war to thank for you coming towards Hertford because it was the bombing and the Blitz wasn't it that took you out of Holloway?

DD: Oh, yes.

FGG: So what do you remember of that?

DD: Well, um, we moved from our shop down to Kentish Town where all the family lived, for what reason, never did find that out, and that's where we were bombed out in the London Blitz. And of course, that's always um a reminder, because that was on the night of my 11th birthday. So you know, [chuckles] there we go again.

FGG: Do you remember? Were you frightened? Can you remember how you felt?

DD: Well, not really we, it's a strange thing that people often hear on the radio and television about war and so forth, and the one [bomb] that never gets you, you never hear. And that is true because we didn't hear so, um, suddenly we're being pulled out of the wreckage our home. The neighbours next door, unfortunately, were killed, and they, they pulled these people out, and they were lying on the pavement as er, my sister and I and my mother and father, we walked past, you know, erm, and it was just another event, you know. People say, you know, that must have been a mem'ry, a memory, but it wasn't. They were lying there, and you, you know um, that was it. We, we walked out of that place, or pulled out of it without a scratch between the four of us.

FGG: So also a charmed life, really.

DD: Well, exactly.

FGG: So you then moved to Cuffley. Is that right?

DD: We had a year, um, at Dunstable, staying with my mother's youngest sister for a year. But of course, you know, sisters don't always get on. Do they? [laughter] Um, and then we moved to Cuffley, when what was left of our home, um, also came, um, and that's where we stayed. My mother and father, they were there till 1963 so that would have been from, er, 19, 1941 um, when we all got there. And of course, that was, that was very nice.

FGG: It must have been very different for you. What do you remember experiencing in terms of that difference?

DD: The quietness, you know, um the sounds that you never heard before at night, like animals or even an owl or something like that. But by and large, it was, it was pretty good, and I was in the scouts there, and that was er, you know, a major part of my younger life.

FGG: So you made friends and went to school there, yes, so it was a more rural location than having lived in Holloway. Very different. And we are going to talk about your, your work as the carpenter, but given that your father was a shoemaker, how did it come about that you went towards carpentry rather than following your father's profession?

DD: Didn't have any interest at all. [Laughs]

FGG: Was he disappointed?

DD: Not really. He never commented really, other than, well, if that's what you want to do, do it, and that was it.

FGG: And how did you know that carpentry was what you wanted to do?

DD: Well, according to my mother and father, I was always banging nails into pieces of wood. [Laughs]

FGG: There's a sign in there [laughs], okay, and so I don't want to jump ahead a bit. So at the moment, we're in Cuffley. And are you already banging nails into bits of wood at this stage? So you're a teenager now, aren't you?

DD: Well, up to the age of 14, you mean, well, I used to have a, a thing about um modelling yachts, small, small boats, you know, sailing boats, and er make those and the sail as well. And I thought, well, I've made it. I've made this one. Where do I go to sail it?

FGG: Yes, where did you go?

DD: So, one of my school pals, he said, well, my, my brother is like you. He makes model yachts and so forth. And he said, we go down to Broomfield Park at Palmer's Green, you see, so you can walk all the way around that, or you could do then. And so that's what I used to do, make a yacht and go spend a few coppers on the train with the yacht under my arm and hope for the best.

FGG: No, it sounds great fun. So you're in Cuffley. You've gone to school in Cuffley, but you also served two years in Royal Engineers, don't you?

DD: Oh, that's after. That's 18 onwards.

FGG: Yes, yes, so let's move ahead to that stage. How did you come to join the Royal Engineers?

DD: Well, that's what you were drafted into. You had no choice, yes, whatever, regiment or core,

FGG: Yes. So at that time, it was still mandatory to join up post war, wasn't it? And what years would this have been? You'd been about 19 or 20?

DD: 1948. I went in er January, 1948, and I came out er about a week before Christmas '49 so enough, two years. Well, yeah, so 18 I went in, and I was 20 when I came out.

FGG: And what did you do? Because the war was over, obviously, but what were you doing when you were in the Royal Engineers?

DD: Well, after training, um I was drafted out to er the Far East, Malaya when, of course, at that time, there was all the trouble in that colony, and that got a bit hairy. But it did, the thing was, um as most, most youngsters, I suppose, at that time, um they'd never been on the boat before. You see, because military personnel in those days were transported around the world by, by ship. You see, there's none of this flying, other than top officers, probably, and you know, going from one end of the world to the other would be absolute days and days of flying, but that took um a month to get out to Singapore. But that was that, in itself, was an experience, because the troop ship that was pretty relaxed, really, you had things to do and so forth. And as I say, the first time anybody really had been abroad and coming to, to Port Said and then down the Suez Canal, you know, and um saw, you know, the different things.

FGG: Some sights, amazing sights.

DD: Oh yes, And there were, I always remember that the early, the early morning, probably about 6, 6:30ish, as we were coming down the Canal and on the Sinai Desert side of the Canal, there were three, what I would call coastal, coastal boats tied up, and there were people on there, and they'd all looked, you know, rather gaunt and so, so forth.

And there was a crewman. He was leaning over the side, so next to me, and he was telling me that these were Jewish people who had come out of the concentration camps, and they had been on a boat, or a similar type of craft of what was there tied up, um that had probably been taken down to somewhere on the Mediterranean, like Italy or somewhere, and then the coastal boat would take them over across the Med to Port Said, and then down, down the Canal. And then, I suppose that that stage of the birth of Israel, they were waiting their turn to get in.

FGG: Right. Oh, gosh, okay, that's quite a memory. Okay, so some very different experiences for you during those two years, sights and sounds and encounters that you certainly wouldn't have had to then. So you you come back from your stint in the Royal Engineers, and where do you come back to? Still Cuffley?

DD: Oh, yes. Cuffley, yeah.

FGG: And what are the circumstances that bring you to Hertford then?

DD: Urm...work.

FGG: So had you met your wife and got married?

DD: Oh no.

FGG: Okay, so you were still single?

DD: Well, I was only, you know, 20 plus.

FGG: Still enjoying life, yes. Okay, so, all right, so you're in Cuffley and you apply for a job at Norris'. Is that what happened?

DD: Yeah,

FGG: OK. And what is it that you had seen about Norris' that made you think that was where you wanted to work.

DD: Well I wanted a job. I was working in London, and the job finished, and er I thought, well, go to the labour exchange, as you used to back in those days, and they said, well, we've got a job on the on the books in Hertford, because this was the labour exchange in Waltham Cross. And said, well, I'll go there. And er that's how I started at Norris'.

FGG: OK so it was just that the opportunity came up. I think when you've been working in London, you'd been doing a lot of repairs following the bomb damage and the Blitz, hadn't you?

DD: Oh, yes, that was my, my early times before I went into the Army, you see, because leaving school at 14, you see, so I had four years of working in London, and er that was during second half of the war, really, and that got a bit hairy, but I loved every minute of that part of my working time anyway.

FGG: So what did you love so much about it?

DD: Well, I suppose seeing different people and, and the work and seeing how other people were living actually, because we were going into people's homes, repairing windows and, you know, doors, roofs, the whole thing, you know, to make things habitable again whilst the people were still living there, because there wasn't anywhere else to put them, you know, whilst work was done.

FGG: So you got to know the families. Yes, that is interesting. So when you got the job at Norris', this first job, you'd already got an awful lot of carpentry experience under your belt. So did you when you joined Norris'… did you have to qualify for anything, or did they just say, please come. We want all your skills.

DD: Well, you know, you would apply for a job, and you went there and you started, er if you didn't fit the bill, they'd say, well, I'm afraid, er you know, you're not what we want, and you was out

FGG: Back to the labour exchange?

DD: or somewhere else, yeah,

FGG: Alright, so this very first job at Norris'. What were you doing?

DD: I, well, I think we were, we were doing work for Haileybury College. We did, evidently, Norris' did a lot of work there er immediately after the war, because everything, like everywhere else, that sort of thing was neglected. And so there was doors and windows that had to be made. So, you know, cut my teeth on the on the work that was available.

FGG: And so in terms of what a day was like for you, a working day, would you go straight to work and all the tools and the wood would be there, or did you have to organise all that for yourself?

DD: Oh no, well, the tools were your tools, you see. So if you went from one job to another, um you'd have a large toolbox or a tool bag on your back. You see there wasn't any cars or nothing like this to transport your stuff around with.

FGG: And where were you living in Hertford at this point.

DD: Well, I was still living in Cuffley.

FGG: Right. So you were travelling, so getting to Haileybury is not that straightforward, is it?

DD: Well, most of the work for Haileybury was done in the shop, the joiners shop.

FGG: OK, yeah, all right. So for people in the future, or even currently, maybe, who don't know where Norris is, was in Hertford. Can you just describe where it was?

DD: Well, Priory Street,

FGG: Which is where we are!

DD: Yes, yeah, the Joiner Shop. Well, the, the offices were in Priory Street, which is now private accommodation the Joiner Shop, which was halfway down the street, and then the timber racks were right at the very bottom of the street, bordering on the river, and then also there was the builder's yard, which is now small industrial units. So that was the makeup of the area of Norris'.

FGG: So it was a big site.

DD: Oh, yes, yes, yeah.

FGG: And was it a noisy place to work? If you were sort of going in, you know, trying to imagine the place. What, what did it sound like?

DD: Well, the sound of circular saw and other machinery going so it was, it was pretty loud in the mill, because the Joiner's Shop was up on the first floor. But even so there, there was plenty of noise,

FGG: lots of chatting, I should imagine as well?

DD: Well, there was a bit, quite a bit of shouting.

FGG: Yeah, to be louder than a circular saw. So can you remember, did you have a governor in your job?

DD: Oh yes. The joinery foreman, Mr. Green. He was Mr. Green to everybody, including the bosses. You know Mr. Green, although his, his Christian name was Harry, but nobody ever called him Harry, unless it was behind his back. [Laughs]

FGG: And was he? Was he a good boss to have?

DD: Well, he was a Mancunian and er things had to be right, because he was one of the old school. And if it wasn't, and you made a few mistakes, he'd say lad, if you don't improve, you're going to have to go. You know, that's how strict things were back in the day.

FGG: And what sort of things could you get wrong as the carpenter… presumably, measurements?

DD: oh, yeah, virtually anything, really, you know, with a particular job,

FGG: what about the wood that you chose? So I'm just trying to think you've got this very large wood yard where you've got all the timber. If you were doing some work at Haileybury. How would you know what wood to choose?

DD: Well, all of that up there would have been soft wood, and that came in boards which would be for anything from the thickness er from an inch or 25 mil, as they call it today, in thickness, about I'm just um collating Imperial to metric.

FGG: Oh, don't worry, [laughs] I'm quite happy with Imperial.

DD: Usually about 200, 225, which would have been nine inches back in those days, and the thicknesses of the same that we had in stock would been from 25 mil, um 35, 38 mil, which had been inch and half, 50 mil, or two inch, er 75 mil, the three inch. So you know um that would all be converted in the mill to whatever you needed or what was required.

FGG: So if Mr. Green said to you, right, Don I want you to replace those windows at Haileybury in this particular area, would you then have to do all the measuring and…?

DD: no, he would have done that.

FGG: Okay, yeah, yeah.

DD: And he came back, set the job out, and then er the cutting list for the timber go down to the mill. And then when that was done, then you would er set it out for machining.

FGG: Right, so you make the window on the site,

DD: Afterwards, yeah.

FGG: And then how would the window get to Haileybury?

DD: on the lorry,

FGG: Right, ok, and you'd be…

DD: oh, then that's um chippy is on the job. They would do all the fixing.

FGG: Okay, yeah. And did you learn anything positive and useful from Mr. Green?

DD: Oh yes, you're, you're always, always learning. You never stop.

FGG: So you, did you pick up his focus on precision and deep...

DD: Oh yes. Well, I think we all did actually, you know, things have to be right, and that was it.

FGG: So you were working to a high standard. And so, you know, it's a good start for you at Norris', you're getting lots of experience. Did you also work around the town as well?

DD: Oh, yes, various things. Or if work was a bit slack in the shop, you go out to a site where we would we were building houses. There's an estate in Tewin, which er right at the beginning of the 50s that we built for a local authority. Then, I believe before my time there, there was quite a bit of building that went on at Hertford Heath. And then, as time went on, then the other side of that will be individual houses that we built too, for various people.

FGG: So there's a lot of your work all around Hertford and the villages, isn't there?

DD: Oh, yes. Yeah.

FGG: So at what point did you meet your wife to be then?

DD: In Hertford, she was a friend of one of the, one of the joiners, you see, and that's how we met,

FGG: Right? When you say she was a friend of one of the joiners…?

DD: No, she was a friend of one of the joiner’s wives.

FGG: Right, I understand, yes, I wanted to make sure you’d not done a bit of poaching there Don [laughs] could be a nasty incident with a chisel. [laughs]. Okay, yes, so did you meet her and think she's the one?

DD: Yeah, we got on pretty well together and, well, we sort of stuck together, I suppose, you know.

FGG: And what was your wife's name?

DD: Joan.

FGG: Joan, excellent. And can you remember when you got married?

DD: Oh, yes, yeah,

FGG: Go on then!

DD: Well, that was, that was the day before my birthday, actually,

FGG: Yeah, so it's a good trick to do that, then you never forget an anniversary, do you, I see what you were doing there [laughs] Where? Where did you get married?

DD: Well, we were married at St. George's Freezywater. That's, that's near Ordnance Road in Enfield,

FGG: right? Okay, yeah, yes, yeah. And so, how come you got married there?

DD: Well, that's where she lived.

FGG: She lived there, right? I understand, so she wasn't a Hertford girl?

DD: Oh no, no.

FGG: Okay, yeah, yeah, okay, and this house that you're in living in now Don, how long ago did you move here, then?

DD: Phew, about 60 years ago. [laughs]

FGG: But I mean, this house would have been super convenient for your work. Were you just really lucky that this house came available?

DD: Yes, yeah.

FGG: You thought I've got to have that. Cut your journey to work. Yeah, very good. No, it's perfectly located. All right. So you, you've done, been doing your first job at Norris'. And obviously we know, and you know, that you ended up as head carpenter. So what steps were there between that very first job and becoming head carpenter? How did you make all those jumps?

DD: Well, I suppose 18 years, [chuckles]

FGG: but I think you must have been skilled at your work to get the job as well.

DD: Oh, yeah, yeah.

FGG: What are the particular skills that you need as a head carpenter?

DD: Well, I think being reasonable with people, you know, you got to take people with you. You see, you could be all authoritarian, and everybody would walk out the door.

FGG: That's true. That's true. And as Head Carpenter, how many people were working to you?

DD: Well, I suppose there would have been about a dozen.

FGG: Right, okay, and had that always been about the size of the team?

DD: Roughly, yeah, yeah, yeah.

FGG: Okay. And so the job of Head Carpenter, were you still getting your hands dirty, doing carpentry, or…?

DD: Not so much. It was going up, measuring, er, coming back, setting out, and then organising the job.

FGG: So a bit like Harry Green had been doing when you were younger, yeah, yes, yes,

DD: oh yeah. It all, it all comes, comes down to that, that same structure,

FGG: yes, it does. And had the actual nature of the job changed from when you started to when you became a Head Carpenter?

DD: Oh yes,

FGG: What sort of things?

DD: Well, the different materials that you started to use,

FGG: Like, what's an example?

DD: Well, like um things you don't hear much about now, blockboard, which was a laminated board, and that lasted for a long time, and chipboard came on, and then MDF board that came on afterwards,

FGG: Formica?

DD: and formica. And warerite,

FGG: Yes. And so for the person who doesn't know, by which I mean me, formica is, I just remember that term from when I was a child, my parents saying it's a formica table on top. Yes. So was formica a finish?

DD: It was a plastic finish, and that was in sheets. We were lucky here, because there was a firm along Ware Road. They call it the industrial Win, Windsor industrial estate. That's where the, the A10 goes over the, over Ware Road that small estate there. And there was a firm there, Almatec, and they, they specialised in in manufacturing various things with either warerite or formica, and they also sold all the different colours and whatever, you know, with the sheets. So yeah, they did a cutting service. So, you know, whatever you wanted, just phone them up and, you know, just go down there and collect,

FGG: Yes. So that was a good partnership to have. That worked well then?

DD: Oh yeah. Or else when, er, the um, what's the name now, the formica, um, they were the first virtually the first, um, dear, oh, dear. Sometimes the things slip off your tongue.

FGG: Tell me about it. Yes, I know it'll come back, probably.

DD: Oh dear, oh dear,

FGG: Don't worry. Was it a process or a material?

DD: Oh no, no. It was, um, a supermarket chain…

FGG: Tesco?

DD: No, no before Tesco, yeah, oh, dear, oh, dear. Isn't that funny? They were based in Welwyn Garden City,

FGG: Right, not Waitrose?

DD: No, no, before all of those, actually, in 19 that would have been the 1950s but, a, um

FGG: Don't worry. What we can do is, when we do the transcript, we'll we'll do some research, and we'll add it in, so we will talk about something else, and then it will probably come to you. Yeah, and what you had to refit all their shops for them, did you?

DD: Well, no, we, we, we used to manufacture all the, the displays, of course, virtually kitting out the shop, because it in those days, supermarkets were in the front in the high street, you see, rather than being stuck on, on a piece of land outside the various towns. And so we would supply all the necessary in terms of display stands and so forth, and the checkouts, we used to manufacture those which were a lot, lot simpler than what they are today, because they, they were all made of blockboard, and they were all and then they were all surfaced with formica, which we'd have to stick on various ways.

FGG: Exciting, though, isn't to see a whole thing come to life, like that? Very interesting. Okay, so you were, you'd worked your way up at Norris'. You've got married to Joan, and you have a daughter as well, and her name is…

DD: Alison.

FGG: Alison, yes, yeah. Okay, so you're really well settled in Hertford, aren't you, yes. Did you ever think, oh, I'd like to work for another firm, or were you always very happy?

DD: They treated people very fair.

FGG: Yeah, so it was a good employer.

DD: Oh yes,

FGG: You got to know the town because you were working in it really weren't you? Yes. So take me through the sort of closing stages of your career with Norris's what, what happened between you working as Head Carpenter and retiring.

DD: Well, unfortunately, the firm went bust in 1985 so that was 10 years before I actually retired and I stayed on with the other company that took over Norris and then, at 65, called it a day.

FGG: Yes, do you, I mean, what do you know about why Norris's went bust? I mean, it sounded like the building trade was still thriving?

DD: Yes, well, you know, we don't really know, you know, I would expect various, various things.

FGG: Yeah, no one cause.

DD: Well, it had been going, um, nearly 150 years, I think, the company, and there wasn't anybody to carry on the business after the two proprietors, you know, coming towards retirement anyway, so...

FGG: The end of a line, yes. Can you remember how you felt about that at the time?

DD: Well, you know, what have we done wrong? What did we do? What did we do that caused this?

FGG: Look, it must have been very hard, because, as you were still 10 years off retirement. So it's quite a shock when…

DD: Fine Fare! [the supermarket Don as trying to recall earlier]

FGG: Oh yeah, Fine Fare, I remember Fine Fare, yes, well done. I knew this would happen. [laughter] Yeah, that is the supermarket we were talking about. Yes, yes, Fine Fare, yeah, yeah.

So quite a shock to really get the notice that there was going to be no more Norris' is in the way you'd known it. Yeah. Okay, so it was taken over and so by another group for the last 10 years, and then you got to 65 and thought that's it. Okay. And so retirement, for some people can mean great, it's time to take things easy, but I'm only looking around the room at the photographs on the wall and realising it wasn't like that for you, was it?

DD: Ah....No, um.

FGG: Just tell the listener a little bit about your trips.

DD: Well, I've been I've been climbing in the Alps for a number of years, and it was only me going down to the Olympia. When was that? That was 1999, to a holiday show. It was the, I think it was called the outdoor holiday show, and went there without any thoughts about anything really, just seeing what was, what you know, and no, no idea in any shape or form.

And I was just sitting down having a coffee, and there was these small kiosks with holiday companies and so forth, only a very small area on this one, although the actual show took a big area, because it's a big place. And there was this one in the Himalayas, and it was, I don't know, something, something drew my mind or my eye to this one. And there was other various places in Africa and in other parts of India, but this one stuck in my mind.

And after I finished having a coffee, I wandered over there and, and started talking to this chap, a Yorkshireman. And I suppose I was talking to him for about an hour, you know. And anyway, he said, I'll give you some brochures and so forth. And he had other photographs of his own various places. And the old bug got, it found, it found a spot anyway. So my, my first trip to Nepal was in 1999 when I was 69. People look at me a bit, bit strange going out there that age, but I was still, I was still pretty fit and so forth. And that was an eye opener, really, you know, to another, another world.

FGG: What can you remember being the most surprising things when you went out there?

DD: Well, I suppose the, the absolute, absolute grandeur of the, of the mountains, because I'd already been used to mountains in, in the Alps around Chamonix, where I've been climbing with an old friend. But they are the Himalayas are, you know, something again, and so…

FGG: Do you remember feeling daunted at all when you first saw them?

DD: Oh no, no, you know, just the admiration, the absolute grandeur of the whole spectacle of it. Yeah, yes.

FGG: And how many times have you been back to Nepal?

DD: Well, I think it must be about, about six times. Various, various treks that I've done.

FGG: Yes, so the bug really did bite, yes, yes. And I think you said you're still friends with the chap?

DD: Oh yes, yes yeah, yeah,

FGG: Fantastic. I mean, it really is a… obviously the listener can't picture this, but I can see many photographs of peaks from the Himalayas and groups of people. So you must have made quite a few friends?

DD: Oh yes, these trips, some very good friends on the Isle of Man on one of the trips there. That was the Annapurna Circuit, and that's that one there. Yeah, that group. That's the group from the Isle of Man, unfortunately, one, well, there was 1,2, 3, 4 ladies and one man. But unfortunately, two, maybe three of those ladies have already passed away, you know, so I've been to the Isle of Man a few times, and now the amount of people I can knock on their doors are very limited now, yeah,

FGG: yeah, okay, so we're coming to a close now, Don, and this has been really interesting, but I want to just bring you back to Hertford and ask for your impressions on the town itself, because you've lived here for a long time now. What changes have you seen in the town, and how do you find it now?

DD: Well, I think the biggest, the biggest change, was Gascoyne way, you know, I think that really ruined the town, as a town, you know, more or less in two parts. I suppose you could say

FGG: the Great Divide,

DD: yeah, yeah. And the incessant traffic now that comes through the town doesn't do the whole the whole thing any good at all.

FGG: And what about the people of the town?

DD: Well, of course, they… I noticed dialects when I first came to Hertford, the dialect of somebody born and brought up in Hertford is different to somebody born and brought up in Ware, you know, you know, it may sound a bit silly to some people, but you know, you knew where somebody came before you actually knew of them, you know, just simply their speech, yes.

FGG: And now, do you, you don't notice that, or it's so varied now?

DD: oh yes. I mean, every other one, there would be a foreign language where a Hertford dialect is virtually non existent. I've not heard anybody you know who's a real born person. But then even people who have been born in the two towns now, they don't have that dialect.

FGG: Yeah, it's true. And how are you? You're widowed now, Don so how long have you been living on your own?

DD: That's 11 years,

FGG: yeah. And obviously, where you're living here in Priory Street is quite central. Do you find that? You know, there are friends and neighbours around?

DD: Oh yeah. I've got very good neighbours. You know, they're not always knocking on my door, nothing like that, but being at an advanced age, they've always said, Well, anytime you need a hand just, you know, bang on the door. Give us a shout. And you really can't expect anything more than than that of a neighbour.

FGG: No, I think if people are looking out for you, that's cheering, isn't it? Yes, yes. And you, you get out and do your shopping?

DD: Oh, yes, I do everything myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

FGG: And the front garden is looking really nice now. It was pouring with rain when I arrived, but I did look at the flowers.

DD: Well I do all my own housekeeping and so forth.

FGG: And do you? You said that you sometimes go out to social groups?

DD: Oh yes, I go to what they call the chair based exercise group at er All Saints Church is around the back in the in the church hall,

FGG: oh, St John's Hall. Yes, yeah, yes, okay.

DD: And then once a month, I go to a luncheon club also at St Andrews.

FGG: Oh, St Andrews, which,

DD: you know, gets a bit sad now and again yeah, well, some somebody's fallen off the perch.

FGG: Well, there's more lunch for you then, Don, [laughter]

DD: yeah, yes, yes,

FGG: but it seems that you're still very interested in things and very engaged and, yeah, it's excellent. Okay, Don is there anything else? You know, we've covered like, 95 years at a rate of knots? Is there anything that you'd like to add while I'm here to the recording that you feel we haven't spoken about?

DD: Army life.

FGG: Yeah, go on. Anything more you'd like to say about that that'd be fantastic.

DD: Well, I went into the Army January 1948, came out about a week or so before Christmas '49 I served all the time in Malaya, or Malaysia, as they call it these days, which was a bit hectic, But I wouldn't have missed that time in the service.

FGG: And when you say it was a bit hectic, what sorts of things were you…

DD: Well, it was a shooting war. And, and in the time that I was there, which was about 18 months, out of the two years because and the other six months would have been in training, and then a month going out there, month coming back, you see. So it was a roughly about 18 months’ service in Malaya.

FGG: It was then frontline combat. Wasn't it?

DD: Well, it was, it was, I suppose, an unseen enemy. You never really saw too many of them, you know, but, but then you never saw your danger as a young person.

FGG: But what were you in? You're were in the Royal Engineers, and you're out in Malaya. So what were you what? What would you actually be doing, working with the guns and,

DD: well, probably road patrols and so forth, and being engineers looking for booby traps and this sort of thing.

FGG: So while the rest of us in, you know, in England, were recovering from the war and enjoying the peace, you were having to deal with the fighting, yes, yes, but you obviously enjoyed it?

DD: Yes, oh, yes, I wouldn't have missed that experience at all, no.

FGG: Yes, and have you got friends from that time that you've kept in touch with?

DD: No, it's funny thing really, being in a regiment that you, you had people from here, there and everywhere in the country, as opposed to, you know, like the Beds and Herts regiment. So you, you know, they were infantry. But of course, you know, you may recognise somebody, or you would know somebody, or he comes from Ware, or Bishop Stortford, or

FGG: you'd have heard the accent, wouldn't you?

DD: All that is missing because you know dialects from all over the country,

FGG: but I think you've had, you know, an early exposure to very different parts of the world. You obviously really engaged with all of those and enjoyed them. And you carried that on with your climbing in the Alps and then going to Nepal. And so you've seen a lot of the world, haven't you?

DD: Reasonable. Yeah.

FGG: fantastic. Oh, it's been really good talking to you. Don anything else at all that you want to say? Or do you think we've covered most things?

DD: No, I think it's about all I would think, yeah,

FGG: I could always come back and do another recording. [laughter] All right, thank you very much. We'll…

DD: You'll have to bring Peter [reference to Peter Ruffles] with you. [laughter]

FGG: I don't think I've got enough tape for all that!

END OF RECORDING