Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Garratt, Betty (O1999.13) |
| Interviewee | Betty Garratt (BG) (and Mrs Garratt's daughter, Bridget) |
| Interviewer | Peter Ruffles (PR) |
| Date | 06/08/1999 |
| Transcriber by | Jane Page |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O 1999.13
Interviewee: Betty Garratt (BG) (and Mrs Garratt’s daughter, Bridget)
Date: 6th August 1999
Venue: North Road Cottage (adj. North Road House), Hertford
Interviewers: Peter Ruffles (PR)
Transcriber: Jane Page
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
BG: I think her parents were friendly with the Andrews, and I know Nell Andrews, the daughter of one of them, and she was married to somebody who worked - I can't think now -abroad.
?? A diplomat?
BG: Yes, that's right.
PR: From what Nell Morris.
BG: Nell Lloyd, she was Nell Andrews.
PR: I'd forgotten. Yes.
BG: Well, I never really knew her. It's only that I used to hear through my friend, Joan Elsden, because when they were very little they had private lessons together.
PR: Well, that's an important Hertford name as well, Joan Elsden, I can put that into your collar, or somewhere, and forget it.
BG: Yes, Elsden, he was a brilliant photographer.
PR: And started just here in North Road.
BG: In North Road, his father, I think.
PR: Probably, yes. My trouble is I'm very interested in Hertford, but I'm not an historian, and I don't sort of - I haven't stored things away in the way that better qualified and brighter people might have done.
BG: But it was when Joan, because she was a school friend of mine and a friend right through our lives, well, until she died. When her mother died, and they gave up the home, she gave up the house. Then the whole lots of plates and photographs that belonged to her father and it really was a great shame she parted with them. I forget who she gave them to, but I believe that they could be, I've heard from/via Russell that they could have been priceless.
PR: I would have thought so, yes.
BG: From a Hertford point of view.
?? What was his name? Mr Stalley, that's who she gave them to.
BG: Yes, that's right, he being a school master in Hertford.
PR: Well, they are probably perfectly safe.
BG: They are?
PR: Yes, because Mr Stalley's deputy at the Cowper School, was Len Green, who now lives in North Road.
?? Yes, I've heard of him.
BG: Oh, does he?
PR: And I think he is the - Well, he's always lived in North Road, near the station until about 2 years ago, and then he moved then to a flat between here and the hospital.
BG: Oh, I know.
PR: And, if he doesn't have them at home, and I think he probably doesn't, they will be in the care of the Camera, Hertford Camera Club.
BG: Oh, they will, because I know after she had done it, she rather regretted it.
PR: I think she actually did make a good decision as it happens.
BG: She did, oh good.
PR: Because - it's a pity you can't tell her that - because it would be, they'll be shown, not stored away.
BG: But, I think they have been shown, but she was never notified or invited to go.
PR: Oh, that's a pity. I've lost the other end of the cable, which I'll fiddle around with for a minute. Yes, that is a pity, because you do these things in trust, sometimes you have to do it fairly quickly, I'm never quite sure whether you - Ah, there it is.
BG: She was a little bit impetuous, wasn't she?
?? What Joan? Yes.
BG: She sort of wanted to get things fixed up at once.
PR: Well, yes. You often do, don't you? You come to a point when suddenly things that have been steady for a long time, become urgent in your mind and then you react a little too quickly. (Aircraft noise?) Now, I'm going to get a recording. Can I turn that on? No. You need to do nothing. If only, ah, that's it. I'm going to say a little thing into the set myself to kick the tape off.
BG: Oh, dear.
PR: To say this is Peter Ruffles, recording for the Hertford Oral History Group, and Hertford Museum at, now this is called North Road House.
?? North Road Cottage.
BG: Yes.
PR: North Road Cottage, which once was The Medlocks, a long time ago.
?? North Road House was.
PR: North Road House was, and I'm in the company of Mrs Betty Garratt, who I have wished myself upon without much ceremony on Sunday. I called in to see Simon (sc. Garratt), just in passing, in the shop, and he said that you'd spoken fairly recently to someone who was looking into Bengeo.
BG: Yes, writing a thing on Bengeo.
PR: And of course, I seized the opportunity.
BG: What was his name?
?? I can't remember. I can tell you who it was.
BG: He was very nice.
PR: So that meant I knocked on your door, and you were just off to lunch.
BG: Yes, I was going up to my daughter's, married daughter.
PR: Yes.
BG: Because Bridget was away.
PR: Bridget was away, so that has led to Thursday morning, the 6th of August, sitting in the conservatory at the back, just about to ask you some very straightforward little questions, like "Were you born in Hertford?"
BG: No.
PR: Easy answer to first question. Where were you born?
BG: I was born in London, in Tooting. Then we moved from there. I didn't of course remember, but I was apparently about 18 months when we moved to Clapham, and that's where we lived until I was 10, and we came to Hertford.
PR: The family?
BG: The family, yes. We bought, well we rented it then, Farquhar Cottage, in Bengeo, 1 Farquhar Street.
PR: So that is up the very steep bit of the hill from the cross roads towards Duncombe Road.
?? Yes
BG: Yes, well, do you know what we called the twitchel.
PR: Yes.
BG: Well, it's on the right hand side, is it?
?? Yes
BG: Of the twitchel. Number 1 is the very first house in Farquhar Street.
PR: And that's a very confusing situation for postmen, because there's number 1 Duncombe Road next door.
BG: Oh, is it?
PR: There is now, it may not have been then.
?? Yes, it was then.
BG: Well, you see, of course, those houses weren't there when we were.
PR: No, no.
BG: That was all garden, from the house on the corner of Cross Road.
PR: Oh, was it?
BG: Mm.
PR: Yes, well that's a…
BG: I can't think, oh yes, a Lady Jordan lived there.
PR: Mm.
BG: And then I suppose she - I don't really remember the details, she must have - she died, and the house, I think, was split into two.
PR: So that was your beginning.
BG: That was my beginning in 1918. Yes, it was the year the First World War ended. We moved there in January, and the armistice was signed the following November, and I was 10.
PR: What happened about schooling, education?
BG: I went to Ware Grammar School.
PR: From the age of 10?
BG: Yes. I'd been to - in London I'd been - I had a brother, who was about 18 months younger than me, and he and I went to a private school, near, not far from us, in Clapham. I think it was a road called Cavendish Road. And there used to be just 12 pupils. We all sat round the dining room table.
PR: Gosh.
BG: A Miss Quick, and as I look back on her, she was a right, old spinster.
PR: You've got wonderful recall. This is a long time ago.
BG: Well, you'd be surprised, when you get to my age, all these things from your young days come back to you. You more or less live in the past.
PR: Well, that's all very well if it's a good past, and you obviously…
BG: Well, yes, it must be rotten if you've had an unhappy childhood, but, no doubt, it comes back. You don't forget it.
PR: When you were at Ware Grammar School, was that Miss Brough?
BG: Yes.
PR: My mother went to Ware Grammar School. She was at the very end of Miss Brough, and the beginning of Miss Woodhead.
BG: Oh yes, of course, I never knew her. No, it was Miss Brough when I was there.
PR: That puts you in a very special category at Ware Grammar School Old Girls, to be a Miss Brough person.
BG: There used to be a great, big portrait of her, over the platform in the assembly hall. She wasn't very tall, but she was very mannish.
PR: Ah. There is a portrait, it's now, of course the school's moved up the hill to Presdales Mansion.
BG: Yes, it's Presdales now.
PR: And her portrait, and it's bound to be the same one, is just in the entrance hall of Presdales Mansion.
BG: Yes.
PR: I've seen it there.
BG: But she didn't teach us much, she taught the sixth form. I never got there, but she always used to take us for poetry, and she was a wonderful teacher. She used to, oh, explain and go into all sorts of details of things, and I always liked her. She was very just, I thought. If you got into real hot water, you got sent to her, which you didn't really look forward to.
PR: Mm, yes. So they were good years.
BG: Yes, very.
PR: And you left when you were 15 or 16?
BG: I left when I was about 17.
PR: 17, to do what?
BG: Well, you see I was one of five in the family and we were a bit spread out. I've got - My eldest sister was 12 years older than me, and then there was another sister, and then I had a brother, another brother, and he was 7 years older than me. Then there was a bit of a space. My mother had miscarriages, she seemed to have spent her life having children, and by that time, you see, my mother was getting on. By the time I left school, and she wanted me to stop at home to look after, cope with her, cook, and things like that, because my other two sisters had jobs.
PR: That was the lot of the youngest child very often, wasn't it?
BG: Yes had to do, and then my other two sisters married, of course.
PR: So, you became in the fullness of time, Mrs Garratt. How did that come about?
BG: Well, my eldest - in those days they were - do you remember just coming from the mill on the left hand side, there were two Victorian sort of very tall houses. What is now the St Andrew's Rectory was a house called Froom, which Douglas Garratt had built.
PR: Yes.
BG: And these two houses were opposite there, and one of them was made into three flats, and Mrs Webb - Do you remember there was a shoe shop, Partridge and Webb, in Hertford?
PR: Yes, I do remember the Webb family, yes.
BG: That was the Webbs.
PR: They had St Andrew's links I think, they were probably just members.
BG: Yes, yes, Mr Webb was treasurer or something.
PR: Mm.
BG: He was a very keen golfer.
PR: He was a friend of my grandfather's I think, but my grandfather died 12 years before I was born, so that's just hand down knowledge, but I think they were.
BG: Yes, Harry Webb, but Mrs Webb was really a very go-ahead sort of business woman. She was really well before her time. Women didn't take charge of things in those days, not like she did. She was the boss, and this house, they bought these two big houses. They lived in one. That was after they'd, she'd more or less retired and given up the shoe shop, which was in Fore Street. Do you remember Bates?
PR: Mm.
BG: Well, it was - and there's the Midland Bank, well, it was the other side of the Midland Bank there. Partridge and Webbs, a shoe shop.
PR: Yes, oh, I think I've seen advertisements for it, but I'd not - in old magazines, probably church magazines or newspapers, I hadn't linked the two names, so that's interesting.
BG: Anyhow, yes, she sold, she bought these two houses when she gave up the business, and turned this one into flats, and my eldest sister and her husband had the top flat. And Jack, my husband, he was the only child of Douglas Garratt, and he used to go across and visit my sister at odd times, you know, just as a neighbour. And in those days, you see, when you moved into a place like that, your neighbours and people would call on you. Of course, Mrs Garratt called on my sister, and then she happened to be talking to my sister one day on the pavement outside, and Jack came along and, obviously from the mill, I suppose, to go home, and he was introduced to my sister. And I think he used to think, by then he was about, I don't know, in his twenties, early twenties. He used to go and visit her, and it was through that, that I met him, because I used to go down and visit Jessie. And it was one Christmas time that apparently Jack was going with a party of people on the Boxing Day to a meal in the evening, and then on to a village hop. I can't remember the name of the village. Because, oh, some of these - did you ever hear the name of Dixon, corn people in Ware?
PR: Yes, in Ware, yes.
BG: This Guy Dixon's wife, her father was an agent for some Lord somebody or something, I think it might have been Knebworth. And we went to this village hop, with all the villagers went. They got up a party. Well, the girl that Jack was going with went down with 'flu, and he was over at my sisters and sort of saying about this and he'd got to find someone to go with him. So Jessie said to me, would I go at very short notice, and that was the first time I ever went out with him, in this party. And then it sort of, I used to see him, and I might bump into him in the town, you see, because he was working. He was at the mill. And it rather went on from there. He took me out to dancing once or twice. You used to go out to dinner and have a dance. It was just sort of on the odd occasion. And then sometimes he used to go out on odd days, visiting bakers. In those days there were bakers all over the place. And, also, there would be corn markets in different places. I think there was one, I'm not sure whether there was one at Bishop's Stortford, but there was one at Hitchin, and Jack always went there on a Tuesday. And sometimes, he would ask me, as he was going out all day, would I like to go with him, and I said "yes, of course". And it rather went on from there. And sometimes we'd go with my sister and her husband up to London, to a theatre, and then you'd go out somewhere and have supper. And then, out of the blue one day, my sister said to me, when I was visiting her "I've got some news for you, and I don't think you'll like it", and it was the fact that Jack had become engaged to a girl named Helen Ford, who lived - She didn't live in Hertford, but the name Nicholls, Nicholls used to be a small brewery.
PR: Yes in West Street.
BG: Yes in West Street. Well, she was a cousin of theirs. Her mother had been a Nicholls. And she was an only child, and they owned a hotel or something, were quite wealthy. And it rather turned out, and whilst I knew he knew her, because I used to hear them talk about this Helen Ford, anyhow, he became engaged to her, which, of course, was a shock to me. And, well, I suppose I didn't really, then, that was it, and I didn't see him. In the meantime, after a bit, sometime, I had another boyfriend, and that sort of thing. And, then he was engaged to this girl, and he was engaged to her for three years, and there never seemed to be any sign of them getting married. And by that time, my sister had moved from Hertford, and they'd gone to a house in Mill Hill. And she had a baby, in fact it was her second, and sad to say, both the babies died at birth, and after this second one, and she'd had a nurse, and you had the baby at home always. And the nurse had left, and I went up to stay with her, to sort of help her on her way and do a few jobs for her, one or two things. I do remember I wasn't particularly keen to go, because I'd got this boyfriend. Anyhow, my next sister sort of said to me that I must go, it was my duty, and I went very reluctantly. Anyhow, I was up there a few days, some few days, I suppose. I think it was on the Monday, I was coping with the breakfast things and things like that, and a ring at the bell, and who it should be but Jack Garratt. Announced that his engagement had broken off, and did I think we could pick up the pieces. So I said, "Well, I don't know, I'll have to think about it".
PR: Hard to get.
BG: Anyhow, then of course, that was in the February, and we were married the following June.
PR: A lovely story.
BG: So that's how that came about.
PR: This is a super tape, because you've traced a way of doing things in that time, and a family life, through the story, which is just what you can't really write down as well as tell. The beauty is of actually saying it.
BG: Well, these people that write things down are sort of gifted really in that direction, aren't they? It's like being able to write a book.
PR: Yes, yes, but hearing you tell it, there's a something special. Thank you. So, you're into the Garratt family, in June. Then, where did you live?
BG: We lived at the Pest, the Old Pest House.
PR: I remember people called Shelshire living there more recently
BG: I don't know who's lived there really.
PR: There were some Conservative events there, I suppose, about twenty years ago.
BG: It's a lovely, little, old house.
PR: Yes, that's the only time I've been there.
BG: We lived there for twenty years
PR: Oh, did you, yes.
BG: Yes, because it was about twenty. All my children were born there.
PR: And then you moved to?
BG: Then we, well, yes. You see the Pest House isn't terribly big. It's got, you know. I don't know if you've ever been to it, have you?
PR: Yes, but.
BG: There's the front door and the two, the sitting room and the dining room on each side with a window, and then, in those days it was a very narrow kitchen at the end of a passage, and quite dark.
PR: Yes, and I remember that.
BG: Because Miss Thea Longmore had lived there with two sisters, and then, I don't remember where they went after that, quite. And then you see there were two main bedrooms over those, the sitting room and the dining room, and we had quite a large bathroom and a loo, which had been built on at the back. And there was a…
(end of tape)
PR: Let's try clipping up again, just in case it needs, they slip out. It needs to go somewhere that's not being masked by a collar.
?? What on Mother?
BG: On me?
PR: Yes, see if you can find a spot. I think we were all right actually with it as it was, but I don't want to get too ticked off.
?? There, mind your fingers.
PR: This is such a valuable tape recording, I'd hate to ask you to
BG: Equipment.
?? Do it again. I'm sure she could.
PR: So, you were saying, the tiny stair to the attic rooms
BG: And you see with the three children, really, it just wasn't big enough, but I was very sad to leave it, very. And we moved up to The Avenue, 2 The Avenue.
PR: Yes, I can remember you being there.
?? A white house.
PR: Yes. The Fardells were two or three doors up.
BG: Yes, they were on the other side of Westfield Road.
PR: Yes. Now I'm going to interrupt for a moment, because I may have done someone an injustice, not you. Because I'd thought, when you were talking, that when you described the back of the Pest House having an additional bit, it suddenly came back to me, I wasn't there at a Conservative Party Coffee Morning (that's the bit I've got to adjust). I went several times, because the Shelshers were very keen to stop development at Port Hill House, behind. There were various meetings. I was a Councillor then. That was in the end of the seventies, and we had meetings to organise objections in the Pest House when the Shelshers were living there, and in the end it came to ... Well, there is a development there but it’s not quite as bad as they had feared
BG: No
PR: So, in case they're left wing Labour people, I'd better not allow that go uncorrected
on the tape, otherwise I shall get shot for putting the wrong party on.
BG: You see, when we first went there, it belonged to the Longmores. We rented it, we took on the lease of a chap named Tom Knott, who was - he was an auctioneer. I can't remember who he was with. It wasn't Norris and Duvall, and Jack knew Tom Knott. He'd not long been married, and he got the offer of a better job, another job, and so he asked Jack if he would take on the lease, because he knew that we had become engaged. So, that's how it was that we went there.
PR: And you didn't lease for twenty years there?
BG: Oh no, no. After we'd been there, I can't quite remember how long, but it must have been some few years, and Elton Longmore, one of Sir Charles's sons, came to visit, spoke to, rang, got in touch with Jack. He came to visit, I remember he came one Sunday afternoon, and said that his parents were prepared to sell it, and so that's how we bought it. And I think we paid ,1000 for it.
PR: The Longmores were also the Wick, where Rosemary Swallow now lives?
BG: Yes, well that was John Longmore, that's right, it had been John and Margot Longmore, that lived at the Pest House before us, when they got married, and they had one small girl, Audrey, no it wasn't AudreyY
?? Anne
BG: It was Anne, the eldest. Then they built Bengeo Wick.
PR: Right, it's stitching in nicely. Now I think, because of time, yours and the tape, I'd like to just ask you about one or two people that I can remember, and you might be able to tell me where they fit into the Garratt scene. In North Road Avenue, next to Florrie Alderton, who…
BG: Yes, yes
PR: Was a really nice, jovial Mr Garratt.
BG: Oh, yes.
PR: Who was that?
BG: Well, he was a second cousin of my father-in-law, and they'd… he'd been… His father was a miller at Stanstead Abbotts, and he had died at a very early age of a tumor on the brain. I think Charlie was about eighteen months or a year old.
PR: Is Charlie the Mr Garratt I remember?
BG: Yes, he is the one. He was shortish and on the fat side.
PR: Yes, yes.
BG: He was very perky, and, oh well, the Garrattts didn't really know an awful lot about him, because when he was young...because he was brought up by his mother, and his mother was the daughter of a farmer. Now what's the farm that's started up this…
?? Oh I know, it's Tewinbury Farm now.
BG: It was Tewinbury, and he was brought up at Tewinbury by his mother at her…, which was her old home. And he, as a young man, went off abroad. He went to Australia and various places, and apparently, he met somebody in Australia, and married her, and then came back to England. And he had a business at Finsbury Park and sold wheat and all sorts of corn.
Simon Garratt: Hallo! How are you getting on?
PR: Absolutely splendidly. This is…Thank you very much for this introduction.
XX Here you are.
?? Oh, thank you.
XX Not at all.
PR: Because we're actually recording at lot of useful things.
XX Oh, good. Right, well I'll leave you to get on with it.
PR: So that's Charlie buttoned up, really.
BG: And he went into business, as I say, at Finsbury Park, and they had a sort of corn chandler, where they sold corn and flour and all sorts of things like that, up there.
And they worked very hard, he and this wife and his mother, and then they retired, and he retired quite young. And they bought some land at Letty Green and built a house.
And it was when they built this house and came to live in it, that I can remember Jack's father sort of saying about how they'd come to live there, and nobody really knew them very much. Then long and the short of it was that Charlie's wife, Meggie, who was great fun, she was a lovely person, I suppose she was in her sixties, I wouldn't like to say, but she got cancer. She died. It was at the beginning of the war, and it was just at that time, Jack's father had a heart attack in a baker's shop and dropped down dead. And then after a certain length of time Charlie and Jack’s mother got married and they lived out at Letty Green for a while, quite some time, and then they bought ... well, the mill owned that little house in North Road Avenue, and they went there to live and it was there that they lived next door to Mrs Barnett.
PR: That=s right, and her sister, Florrie Alderton.
BG: And Miss Alderton. Mrs Barnett was so nice. They were, both of them nice. They were great friends.
PR: They were born just here, next to Roche's shoe shop.
BG: Oh, were they?
PR: Or lived as children, perhaps, but possibly born there.
BG: Yes, and I remember Miss Alderton in Durrant's, the chemist.
PR: Oh, yes, for years, and she did some receptionist work for Dr Bevan, I suppose, or whoever, at 54 St Andrew's Street or 52. Good old Florrie.
Right, now that's one little thing tidied up in my mind, I didn't know what connection there was at all between this… I just remember him being a rather jovial chap over the fence.
BG: You knew Charlie, did you?
PR: Well, when I'd gone to see… I mustn't say too much of my stuff really, because I get told off later, for talking too much when I'm meant to be listening, but, next door to us in Hertingfordbury Road were the Turnbull family. Miss Turnbull was the head of St Andrew's school,
BG: Yes, that name sounds familiar.
PR: And connected with St Andrew's Church. And she and Florrie Alderton were friends, and so, the Turnbulls aren’t related to us, but had lived next door, in the cottages further down the road, and then in the villas that we moved to in 1906, or something like that, for about 100 years it seemed, for a long, long time.
BG: Yes, because that was just a little lane, wasn't it?
PR: Yes, little Cross Lane.
BG: We used to call it the Cross Lane, and there were houses, there was a house on the corner, cottage, where, oh, you know…Who was the chap that worked in the mill?
PR: Wigginton, was it?
?? What, Fred Walker?
BG: Yes.
PR: Oh, the far end, yes, I…oh you said cottage, yes.
BG: She was married to one of the Walkers, and, of course the whole lot of those places were pulled down, weren't they?
PR: That cottage had sort of Essex weather boarding to it, the others, the bigger ones, were plastered, but…
BG: There used to be the pub, the Oak.
PR: Yes.
BG: And Jack and Geoffrey used to nip through there and have a drink.
PR: Well, that's how I knew, well, I saw your Charlie Garratt, going up to North Road Avenue with a message, or something perhaps, or perhaps for tea with Aunt Nora Turnbull, as we called her. Now, one memory I have; with the Turnbulls, there were two sisters living at home: Nora, the retired head, and the other one had been nanny to the Abel-Smith family as well as others, Aunt Gert, who was always called "Mrs Alice" when nannying. She wasn't allowed to be a spinster, and Gert wasn't the right name.
BG: Oh, I see.
PR: So she used her middle name, Gertrude Alice Turnbull. In front of us at St Andrew's, sat, Sunday by Sunday, when I went with these elderly aunts, Miss Pauline Garratt, who told me off.
BG: Oh, did she?
PR: Mm, in a serious way.
BG: Yes, she was a teacher, wasn't she?
PR: Well, she…Nora…they were all friendly with her, you know, across the pews as it were; but I'd done what I thought was rather a good thing, I don't know if I'd done it to be good. I'd been into the market, when I was about ten, and bought some mimosa, a yellow…some flowers.
BG: I know, yes.
PR: I'd brought it home, I can't…. I'd brought it towards home, but then had taken it into church, and put it in a vase in the children's corner. I thought that was quite a good thing to do for a little chap. I was in the choir by then, and church was… As I finished, and was just going out, Pauline came in through the swing doors, saw my mimosa, and said "Oh, it's a dreadful flower to put in there, oh awful stuff". And that hurt my feelings.
BG: Yes, I'm sure.
PR: And like you, that's a little memory, I mean, that was my only memory, but I certainly got hold of… I could never quite think what was wrong with mimosa, and she probably said it in a brusque, but not meaning to hurt way.
BG: No, not really meaning to.
PR: But that was the effect, and I felt very subdued, because I think I'd just done, you know, a little good thing, and got smacked down.
BG: Yes.
PR: But, who was Pauline related to? Where does she fit into the family?
BG: Well, she was the daughter of Walter Garratt, who I never knew. He had a stroke and died during the First World War, and he'd married Maud Ginn. You remember the Ginns, Purkiss-Ginn, well, Uncle Purkiss's sister, and Pauline was the eldest. They had three daughters, and Pauline was the eldest. She was really very beautiful, I was told, my mother-in-law used to tell me that she was a bit strange. She wasn't interested in men at all.
PR: Mm. Well, perhaps it was my on-coming manhood at ten that caused her to slap me down.
BG: Perhaps she didn't even like boys.
PR: Yes, I can understand the beauty part of it, because she was tall.
BG: Yes, she was a good-looking woman, but my mother-in-law used to say how lovely she was as a girl.
PR: Mm. Yes, I can believe that.
BG: Though I forget, there had been somebody who was very keen on her, but she wouldn't have anything to do with him.
PR: Well, that's all right. So, Pauline buttoned up, and then, Maud Gardner, Nattie Gardner's widow lived somewhere near to Pauline Garratt, I think, in Farquhar Street.
BG: No, I don't think Maud Gardner lived up there.
PR: Didn't she?
BG: No, I don't think she ever came.
PR: I remember her coming to St Andrew's.
BG: I don't know where she lived, I don't remember, but Mrs Gardner lived with a Miss Boyes.
PR: Yes, Florrie Boyes.
BG: Who had a school in Castle Street, or West Street, or somewhere.
PR: Did she?
BG: I think so, and, you know, Mrs Gardner had a daughter by a first marriage I think she was a widow when she married Nat Gardner, and they had a son, Greg, because I remember him, he must have been around my age, could have been a bit older. In those days we used to be in the Operatic and Dramatic Society, and I can remember Greg Gardner being in the operatic, in some of the things - we used to be in the chorus.
PR: Yes, it doesn't…Yes I'd got a feeling they had a house there, somewhere.
BG: Then Mrs Gardner had this daughter, I forget what her name was, and after Mrs Gardner died, Miss Boyes and Margaret Hughes was the…
PR: Yes I remember now you say it.
BG: Margaret Hughes, they had a flat here, next door at
?? Yes
BG: You know that door, you go up those steps to Dennis's
?? That little bit in between.
BG: Yes, that little bit in between, because I can see them now standing on that doorstep, Margaret Hughes and Miss Boyes, waving somebody off, or something.
PR: Mm. And…I mustn't…we're nearly to the end of this tape, and then I'll go, I bet someone in the Autumn or the Winter wants to come back and say…
?? Well, it doesn't matter
PR: It won't be me, it'll be one of the retired ladies who does this, because I shall be back at school, I'm a teacher, you see.
BG: What are you going to do with all this?
PR: Well, it'll sit in the museum, and then someone, one day, in the year 2045 or something, will say "Garratt's Mill, now, what do we know about Garret's Mill?", and they'll be doing some research, and they'll look through our files. We've got 150 or so tapes, and they'll find a reference to one person talked to us about her father working at the mill when it was struck by…
BG: Oh, a bomb, in the First World War
PR: A bomb, and he was killed.
BG: Yes, oh yes, I can't remember the name. I used to hear about. They were standing at the top of the mill yard one night, because you see it worked 24 hours a day at that time, and this bomb dropped, and one of the men was killed, and Jack's parents were in over the road, and I think things were all shaken off the shelves. It shook the place.
PR: Well, that little reference has been there. The daughter's name was Gladys Pateman, but that was the married name, and I've forgotten…And then they'll say "Well, but we have a recording in August, 1999, with Mrs Betty Garratt talking about some of the intricacies of the family relationships, and so on", and then they'll know what's what, rather than just guessing. That's Y.
BG: The Garratts were a big family, about 12 of them I think, and my father…
PR: Let's just rescue the…
?? Shall I put it there?
BG: Oh, sorry.
PR: Yes, they are a nuisance.
PR: What about Betty…
BG: Wingate. Well, she was one of Walter Garratt's daughters. It was Pauline, and then Freda, and then Betty.
PR: Oh, yes, well I remember Freda as well. Yes, they lived at the bottom of Queen's Road when I knew them.
BG: Yes, they did.
PR: Yes.
BG: Yes, because Freda and Betty married brothers. Betty married George Wingate and Freda married, I forget what his name was.
?? Jack, wasn't it?
BG: Jack, was it?
?? I think so.
BG: Yes, Jack Wingate.
PR: And then Raymond Wingate was…
BG: And Raymond was Betty's son.
PR: And we've talked to Raymond's brother, Michael.
BG: Michael.
PR: There's a nice long tape. A few years ago, I went to see them, and so we've got a bit of that sorted.
BG: Yes.
PR: It is quite…because it touches the social life of the town, the business and the families.
BG: Do you remember Stuart Ginn?
PR: No.
BG: Well, that was, he was a cousin of Freda and Betty. Stuart and Leslie.
PR: They're names that I've read, because of the connection, well, with the Borough Council.
BG: Well, you see, Stuart was mayor. I don't know whether it was more than one occasion.
PR: Probably.
BG: And his wife Etta.
PR: Yes, who I do remember. I can remember her as a widow.
BG: Etta Ginn, yes, and they had one son, Alan, who was Philip's godfather, and he was killed in the war, like Michael Wingate's elder brother, David, he was killed, I think, in bombers going over to Germany.
PR: Yes, his name is one at St Andrew's every year, that's read out, David Leslie, I think it's David Leslie Wingate.
BG: Yes, he was a nice boy, David.
PR: Yes, well, I remember Alderman Mrs Henrietta Purkiss-Ginn, as she then was, facing a… (I may have said this on tape before, so someone will delete it later). At the time of the Borough Council there was a proposal to move the library, there still is that proposal, and a public meeting had been called in the Corn Exchange. And the councillors, it was just coming into the more modern times of being accountable as a councillor to the public, and the various committee chairmen were sat on the platform, and some quite hostile and angry members of the public in the hall, over a number of issues, one of which was the closure and moving of the library. And she was called upon to defend the attitude of the council, and they'd already I think had a few attacks on one or two other members, and I remember her standing, tall and slim and quite elderly really, by then…
BG: Yes, by then.
PR: With that lovely voice. What was her accent?
BG: Well, it was a sort of Irish-American.
PR: Irish-American.
BG: I think she…I can't quite remember where she grew...Because I can remember her old mother, Mrs Johnson, lived with them, because they built that bungalow, up on The Avenue. A beautiful bungalow, Stuart and Etta.
PR: Mm. Where was that?
BG: Well, we lived at Little Molewood in the latter part of our time. Well, you know at the end of Church Road, and you turn into The Avenue, well, it's on the opposite side, the left hand side going up, they're number 2, well they're next door to Little Molewood. And Little Molewood had been built by the Gravesons, Alfred Graveson, and Etta and Stuart built a beautiful bungalow called…
PR: Oh, I didn't know that. I thought she was living in Farquhar Street.
BG: Well she did, but that was after Stuart had died, and she lived there with Mildred Gripper. Do you remember Mildred Gripper?
PR: Yes, I do, yes.
BG: Oh, she was so nice, we were very, very fond of her.
PR: Yes, sprightly and active and always very busy with things. Yes, a lovely person.
BG: Mildred lived, they lived at The Slopes on Port Hill, Mildred did, with her parents.
PR: Oh, where the Tancocks lived later, and she's just moved, Kathleen Tancock.
BG: Then her parents died, and she was the only one not married, and she evidently was a friend of Etta's, and they set up home together, and they went to Little Eves
PR: That's right, you've given the name as well, I'd forgotten.
BG: In Farquhar Street, one of the houses, bungalows that Pemberton Billing??? built.
PR: I'm sure you're going to find a little procession to the door. Send people away if you don't want them.
?? I think it's interesting just to…
PR: The family stuff was very important, but people would love to hear your memories of the shops and shopping in Hertford, where you went and what it smelt like.
BG: Yes, it was very good at one time, but I think pretty hopeless now
PR: Yes, it is.
BG: I say, if I was turned loose and able to walk around, I should lose myself in Hertford. They blocked off bits and done all sorts of funny things.
PR: Yes, walking wouldn't be so bad, but driving is where the big change is.
BG: Why they won't let people go right round the Memorial I can't think. What good do they think they've done?
PR: No, that is a pity. There we are, change, progress.
?? Yes
BG: Yes, well that's what they call it, but I don't.
PR: No, there we are. Now I must go and see how Eddy Roche is, this morning, the cobbler. Because I told him I was coming here, yesterday, and he said "Oh, well, I've got a few things I could tell you", so I said "I'll pop round immediately after".
BG: I've no doubt, because, as far as I know, he's always been there. I remember Jack used to say about the Roches.
?? Yes, I can remember his father.
PR: Fred.
?? Mm, Fred.
PR: Well, thank you very much, we have actually run out of tape, which is a very useful way.