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Transcript Title	Poole, David (O 2000.10)
Interviewee	David Poole
Interviewer	Jean Purkis (Riddell)
Date	15/07/2000
Transcriber by	Marilyn Taylor

Transcript

Hertford Oral History Group

Recording no.                       O2000.10 

Interviewee                           David Poole          

Date                                    15 July 2000                         

Venue                                 90 Windsor Drive   Hertford 

Interviewer                          Jean Purkis (Riddell)  (JR)

Transcribed by                     Marilyn Taylor

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

[discussion]                         untranscribed material

(Transcriber’s note               There are a number of yes yes comments I have not transcribed)

JR       This is Sat 15th July of the year 2000 Jean Riddell – Purkis speaking. I am just doing the preliminaries at home before setting off to interview David Poole of 90 Windsor Drive Hertford which is on Sele farm Estate and err  he’s given me a card saying that he is the branch chairman of the Hertford Branch of the Royal British Legion but I think he wants to talk to me about his early days in the town, um particularly around  St Andrew Street – Pavitts yard area. ***** I am just going to look at the paper that um David **** and ask him to start. It has got here born Hackney Hospital 22nd  Nov 1938 and you stayed in London in that area was it.

DP       well

JR       for about 18months or so or

DP       Yes well I was born in Hackney Hospital um but we actually lived in Carrisbourne Road in Stoke Newington that was our home address Carrisbourne Road  Stoke Newington and we were there until the start of the blitz in err  blitz it started towards the end of August 1940 and we were hit err not a direct hit but it was blast damage um and were  down the shelter for about 3 days. The raids were so frequent that by the time you got down the shelter and settled in the all clear had sounded and then by the time you got everything back together again to get out another raid started. It was it ended up, we were down the shelter for 3 days and um there was a huge explosion. I mean I’m only going by what my parents and grandparents used to talk about because at that age I mean I wouldn’t remember it. Err there was a lot of damage around us and they had to virtually dig us out of the shelter. When we came out the block of flats we were living in was completely destroyed, so that is how we got around to Hertford.

JR       So what made you actually come here rather than somewhere else

DP       Well it was where we were sent

JR       Oh I see

DP       I don’t think we had a choice um err in each area there was an evacuation officer responsible for anybody that was made homeless and err we were sent to Hertford and I can always remember my parents saying, I mean although we are only talking a distance of what 20 mile, if that, Hertford could be the other side of the world because you know in those days people didn’t go much further than where they lived certainly not in London and err my parents sort of being East Enders originating from the East End as well. My father was from Bethnal Green um they tend to be very very um close knit communities in the East End.

JR       yes yes

DP       So Hertford was well way out in the sticks you know and err

JR       Who came with you then as part of the family, did your grandparents come with you.

DP       My grandparents came down yes very very soon after us

JR       I see

DP       We all came down roughly about the same time. Um yes we were

JR       your parents and how many children

DP       Only me I was the only child yes

JR       Right and they were your father’s parents who came down or your mother’s parents?

DP       My mother’s parents

JR       Did they live with you first of all then or………

DP       We all lived in together yea .it was all we had.

JR       You had a house in Pavitts Yard

DP       We had two rooms um the people who lived whose house it was or cottage it was was a family by the name of Reed now Mrs Reed she was related, she was a Wareham before she married her husband Charlie Reed

JR       Oh

DP       Wareham’s being and old established Hertford family

JR       Yes

DP       um she had 2 children Ronnie and Pat, Ronnie used to work for MacMullen’s, he was about the same age as me, he died several years ago um Pat is still around um I see her occasionally but because of the, we were virtually forced onto them. They lived in the downstairs two rooms and we lived in the two upstairs bedrooms if you like and we had to share a kitchen um my grandparents had one bedroom and I and my parents had the other bedroom Err fortunately,  it was only for 6 months and as I say I don’t really remember that, well I don’t remember that I only know what I what I from listening to my parents talking.

JR       right

DP       and then as I say  we were allocated a house on Port  Hill. When we got to Hertford the evacuation person who was responsible for evacuees was a chap named Allen Mr Allen he was responsible for looking after newly arrived evacuees, getting them housed and settled in but um as I say we arrived in Hertford on the back of Fred Sadler’s coal lorry.

JR       Did you

DP       What was left of the furniture was all bunged on the back and shoved in the cab and away we came.

JR       Did he collect you in London then.

DP       Yes he must have done

JR       Yes  right so you were saying that when you were in Pavitts Yard your furniture was stored for you in.

DP       Davison’s the tobacconist

JR       Yes that’s right

DP       which was on the corner of Pavitt’s yard yes

JR       So when you went up to……..I know we have said all this already but for the tape

DP       Yes

JR       When you went up to Port Hill you were able to release that furniture out and take it up with you.

DP       Not at first no, that’s how I can remember going back to Pavitts Yard you see because we lived in num….um…when would it be . 1941 so lets say early 1941 we moved to Port Hill we lived in number 61 which is the cottage immediately opposite the Warren Gates and as I say that was  a furnished cottage so we had none of our own furniture there and we wee there till about must have been late 43 early 44 when number 81 became vacant and 83 became vacant…number 61 my grandparents were there as well again, a four cott a four  bedroom cottage my grandparents in one room, my parents and I in the other and we had to share the same..those tiny little cottages there I mean they have been modified now extensively but very very tiny little places with little kitchen ranges and outside taps, outside toilet no mod cons

(Transcriber note: No 61 Port Hill had 4 rooms in total 2 of which were bedrooms upstairs and 2 rooms downstairs a living room and kitchen/scullery. The front door went straight in off the street and there was a small back yard. No’s 81 and 83 were similar but smaller)

JR       No no

DP       but having said that they were quite cosy and we had some happy days there yes I can remember Port Hill quite well.

JR       so you got number 81 and number 83 then next door to each other

DP       yes that right

JR       so a bit more room there

DP       and then we lived there till 1954

JR       right so where did you actually go to School then

DP       Port Vale School I went to Port Vale School started there  in Sept 1940 ……..

JR       3 or 4

DP       1942 I think  September 1942 and I was 5 in the November I was just under 5 when I started school.

JR       right

DP       I wasn’t quite 5

JR       yes…….. who was the head teacher then?

DP       Miss Bradbeer

JR       Yes

DP       Lovely she was

JR       yes was she

DP       Me first teacher who took the infants set was Miss Kiddle who died just recently she used to live along here.

JR       Oh did she I didn’t know.

DP       Yes before until died I used to see her quite often I used to go and see her because she um she also lived in Farm Close where I lived before I went into the army.

JR       Right

DP       with my Mum and er while I was in the army I was quite seriously ill and she was most concerned because she sort of ...we kept in touch all the years you know she became in the  end, she became sort of part of the family you know she was lovely, very strict, and she taught…I have got three children , she taught my eldest boy and she taught my middle one,  my youngest son and she retired just before my daughter was due to go so I always remember her saying she said “ I have had three of the Poole’s that’s enough for anybody to put up with in a lifetime! I am going  before I get the forth one!”

JR       Oh Yes

DP       and that’s when she retired. She was lovely

JR       Who were your friends at that school particularly, anyone that’s still around now?

DP       er well there’s err, I suppose my my closest mate at Port Vale School was Denny Dudley we were sort of joined at the hip more or less.

JR       Yes

DP       um I have mentioned his grandmother in my notes there Mrs Morris who lived on no 24 and she was they lived at no 24 Port Hill which was opposite to where we lived.

JR       Right

DP       Just slightly down and er

JR       She um yes she was Dolly Dudley wasn’t she.

DP       um

JR       Let me get this right because

DP       She might, her name might have been Dolly, and I only ever knew her as Mrs Dudley

JR       is …….Yes

DP       No she was a Morris, her name was Morris

JR       but she was,  was her maiden name Morris

DP       No that was her married name

JR       Oh right

DP       Denny Dudley, Ah I know what you th…, yeah I know where we are. The one Dolly Dudley or Dorothy is Denny’s mum; I think she is still alive

JR       She is

DP       She is yes

JR       I actually interviewed her she lives over in  er..

DP       Glebe Road

JR       Yes that’s right

DP       yes yes well that is Denny’s mum, 

JR       Ok right

DP       Well I am speaking of Mrs Morris who was Dolly’s mother

JR       Who would be his grandmother.

DP       His grandmother yes and she was a lovely lady she was, she was the lady where, if anybody on the hill, if any ladies on the hill was expecting a baby she would go in perhaps in the days of bowls of boiling water and clean towels and sheets you know and um she would also do the honours if anybody passed away, she would lay them out and it was quite a well known thing on the hill. I can remember this happening if for example if someone was close to giving birth…all the women….oh Mrs. so and so is about to produce so Mrs Morris has just gone in with her white apron on, you know, very often she got there and started before the midwife arrived .

JR       yes

DP       and likewise if somebody passed away um the tongues started…….the doctors just come out of number so and so I think they have passed on, Mrs Morris has just gone in , and so she was a character in her own right really. She used to bring them into the world and get them ready for dispatch.

JR       yes yes

DP       She was a lovely lady

JR       Dennis that’s the boy’s name is it.

DP       yes he is six months older than me

JR       He lived over there with his grandparents

DP       Yes his Dad was in the army Reg. He was out in Italy and North Africa with the eighth army

JR       Yes I remember Dolly saying she lived there for some time, she is in, she features in, I don’t know if you have seen that book in the museum called “Children of the Angel”

DP       No that’s. one book. I have got the “Alleys and Courts” and that’s…….. I was given 3 titles to get

JR       That’s right

DP:…..and that is one on my list  “Children of the Angel”

JR       well she is featured in that

DP       Is she?

JR       yes with her cousin Jim, Jim Morris they both lived at the Angel you know two families, close related families.

DP       That right yes

JR       Oh it’s a small world isn’t it?

DP       yes yrs

JR       So that’s good

DP       Mrs Morris’s other son, she had a son Charlie, that would be Dolly’s youngest brother, he married Joyce Ketteridge, daughter of Mr Ketteridge who had the one arm, had the greengrocers shop on parliament Square, he is mentioned in the “Alleys and Courts” They used to live down, they got married they got one of those cottages on the same side as The Reindeer but further down the other side of the Quaker burial ground going down to…

JR       I know

DP       going down to what was the railway bank

JR       I know there was a bit of old road there wasn’t there?

DP       yes its still there but that’s where they lived

JR       right

DP       after they got married

JR       yes Ok and it says here you went to the Cowper School so you must remember Len Green do you?

DP       Very much yes yes

JR       that was after he came back from the war I imagine

DP       Yes I went to Cowper School um about 1950

JR       yes

DP       He had just come back; his marriage had just broken up then

JR       yes

DP       and I think his wife, or ex wife had gone to America I believe, I didn’t know her, she apparently was a teacher at Cowper School at one stage but I never ever knew her

JR       I think when he went to war she……..I was going to say more or less took his place...I don’t know….she may have already been working there already. I knew him quite well but I didn’t like to ask him too many questions about his marriage, I didn’t know what had happened to his wife.

DP       No

JR       You think she.

DP       Oh they were definitely divorced yes,

JR       went to America

(discussion)

DP       went on to America but I was with Len Green a week before he died, I went to see him in hospital, they took him into hospital

JR       Oh yes yes

DP       and I went  with 2 caps one as an ex pupil, a very grateful pupil, and also in my role as welfare officer for the Royal British Legion, and I just went  because he was a member of the legion I went to see if there was anything we could do to help. I took with me another close friend of our family Gwen Felts.

JR       Oh Yes

DP       Her and her husband Bill were very close friends of our family and um I took her and her friend Mrs Long along Ware Road

JR       Yes *****

DP       another ex teacher I took them over and we stayed with him 2 or 3 hours over at the hospital and I said to him at the time you know if there is anything you want Len, anything at all then we will get it sorted for you. Sadly he took a turn for the worse and he died., He was a lovely man he really was, he was the one man who I think was very strict as a teacher um an if you, if you stepped out of line he was down on you with the wrath of the devil BUT he was also a very very fair man. Um I have never met anybody, any ex pupil, or anybody that has said anything bad about him..um because I don’t think there was anything bad you could say about him. He was the one man who I know all ex pupils in particular we all say the same we had as much respect for him up to the day he died as what we had when he was teaching us, a very very nice man.

JR       I know that if I was ever with him in town and we met any ex pupils in their 70’s they would say “Good morning Mr Green” they never said Len

DP       That’s right yes no that was , it was only the week before he died I started talking to him, calling him Len always Mr Green, its funny but there  you go it seemed the proper thing to do, I think its respect.

JR       Yes

DP       I think its respect that’s why you do it

JR       Yes  he never remarked on it, I was the one that remarked on it really, I think he found it very useful having all these ex pupils, particularly when he got a bit disabled because all the shopkeepers would often be his ex pupils and they would come out with the goods.

DP       That’s right yes

JR       he wouldn’t have to go in and that kind of thing.

DP       very very well known he was

JR       yes yes I was surprised though when I heard his story that he didn’t marry again, because I would have though he would have been a very good father and would have wanted a family

DP       I think he was married to his job

JR       Yes yes 

DP       I think that…..was er he loved his job. He loved photography, he loved Hertford, I think the history and that ,  I think he just sort of drew into that little world and stayed there. I think he was quite happy with his…….and he loved his classical music of course, he has an enormous collection of classical records and discs

JR       ********cd’s didn’t he

DP       ********* on the day of his funeral a piece of one of his favourite classics was played at the crematorium

JR       That’s right,  yes we had trouble finding that actually, but we managed to get that one ready for…….I don’t think the crematorium had it so I **** his nephew

DP       That was his own that was played

JR       Yes I bought it with me ye well that good Ok . Well now you then joined the scouts at some time

DP       yes

JR       Who was your um …….was this to do with Baden Browne?

DP       Yes his Dad, his Mum was the Akela of the cub pack and his Dad was Skipper of the scouts.

JR       Because the 3rd Hertford seems to be the one that everyone seems to have been a member of, I don’t know if there were any other scout groups

DP       It was the best troop that’s why

JR       *******

DP       The cream was in that ****(discussion) *********no I think it was the biggest, I think it was certainly the biggest troop

JR       That was in Port Vale

DP       That was in Port Vale what is now the Company of Players, their theatre that was our scout Hut

JR       right

DP       Behind Christ Church

JR       They have got now a new hut haven’t they?

DP       They have got the one down the bottom yeah

JR       The same company

DP       Yeas the same troop yeah

JR       Oh right now um this wings for victory to go back a little bit, you wanted I think to tell me about that, collecting £18

DP       It was a lot of money in those days

JR       So what did you have to do to get that

DP       Well I have got a folio I can’t put my hands on it at the moment and I have also got a letter which I want to give to the museum because I feel it belongs to Hertford, it is a letter from I think it was the Mayor of Hertford at the time who was responsible for fundraising during “Wings for Victory Week” thanking me for my efforts I also had a letter from the err………..not directly from the Chancellor of the Exchequer but from his office. Anybody that participated and raised a certain amount got a letter a sealed…..with like a seal at the top. Don’t know what happened to that but I have put the letter that I that got from the Hertford people in a safe place and I have put it so safe I can’t find it myself, I have been up in the loft every day this week looking through bits and pieces trying…but I know I have got it somewhere and when I find it I am going to give it to the Museum ……….

JR       Yes do

DP       because I think that’s where it should be. But basically what it was, during …I can’t remember off the top of me head remember when “Wings for Victory Week” was it must have been 42 perhaps 43……..erm…….. basically every town wanted to raise money for buying spitfires.******* and I had an aeroplane, I didn’t have a pedal car, I had a pedal along aeroplane which I could sit in and pedal it along and err so my Dad ….during “Wings for Victory Week” he thought that’s a good stepping stone so he got some bunting and some Union Jacks and various other flags and allied flags and decorated all the front of the house up and decorated all my aeroplane up and every day I used to sit outside on Port Hill in my aeroplane my dad got ……do you remember the old National Dried Milk tins

JR       Yes I do yes

DP       He got about 6 of those and erm banged slot in the top and taped them up and sealed them up you could get some official stickers you could tape up tins with so they couldn’t be …..to seal them and I basically sat outside and collected this money in those and er…..alright there was about six tins and you think £18 well each tin was full but bearing in mind in those days a penny was quite a good donation

JR       a big coin

DP       Yes where now people collect money , you think you see people collecting for some charity you pop £1 or a £2 coin in and think nothing of it well people in those days used to pop a penny in or a halfpenny and we even had farthings in those days so 6 tins with £18 is not………but I remember at the end of the week they had a sort of a reception in the Corn Exchange and we had to go up, everybody that had been out doing street collecting or fund raising in various ways had to go down and hand all their  what they had collected over to the organisers and the Mayor of Hertford and they were all up on the stage. Dad carried the tins down and took me with him and er I think I was possibly the youngest person that had been involved in this fundraising effort and er the Mayor spoke to me and Dad lifted me up on the stage took one look at all these ……….I want my Mum ….you know that was my first ever stage appearance but er yeah I got this letter.

JR       Who was the Mayor then can you remember

DP       I can’t ….a name Pulleston keeps coming to the back of my mind but I can’t honestly say I can’t remember ………….if I can find this letter then I will know.

Erm then shortly after that they had a spitfire, they bought a spitfire in and assembled it on I am not sure if it was the Castle grounds.

JR       You have got it here yes

DP       Yes  I am pretty certain that’s where it was on the area…..on that island where the swings are that’s where it was and they took me down to see that, people queued up, they had a sort of catwalk built up over the wing so people go up one side, look in the cockpit and down the other side you know and er there was the pilot or a pilot and one or two other RAF people cause when I went up to have a look my Dad happened to say, my young lad here he has collected £18 to buy one of these “Oh well in that case he “……I sat in the cockpit, you know, that was the icing on the cake that was.

JR       Good so that was quite an event in your young life

DP       Yes it was

JR       Do you want to say anything about the scouts at all or the cubs um memorable you have got here……

DP       Well I suppose really the most memorable things was the Gang Shows used to love doing those

JR       Yes and what did you do in those, what did you do

DP       Various bits, appeared in one of two sketches in the very first one I was in I had to sing a solo which was absolutely terrifying.

JR       Oh what was that

DP       We did a sketch um it was a school room and er a classroom of horrible boys and we had a lady coming to unveil a bust, she was one of the school governor’s, this is the story, a lady a lady snooker player, that was her name the Honourable Lady Snooker Player and she was going to come and unveil this bust of her…..a commemorative bust..and er…..part of the ceremony was we had to go and sing a ***** song ….and there was I think four of us had to go on stage and sing a separate verse  ….four verses each one sang a different verse and then the unveiling came and when they unveiled the bust it had been tar and feathered (laughter) and that when the curtain came down.

JR       yes yes

DP       I always remembered that, the one who played the school mistress our school mistress was a chap called George Hull, he used to work in the Co-Op grocers in Maidenhead Street

JR       He was the Lady Snooker Player

DP       No he was our school teacher; he played the part of the school teacher

JR       Oh yes sorry yes

DP       I can’t remember who played the lady………I have got a feeling ……no I can’t remember who was

JR       It was all men playing all the parts

DP       It was all men and boys yes played the parts it was a Gang Show there was no girls involved

JR       No guides involved

DP       No the only involvement the guides had they were allowed to sell programmes during the evening during the performances other than that it was all men and boys. Trevor Powell the late Trevor Powell

JR       Oh Yes

DP       There was him, George Fisher  and ……...there was three Trevor Powell,  George Fisher  …I can’t think of the other ones name but they were always billed as the funny men, they used to have you in stitches, Trevor Powell was always a bit of a comedian anyway, I still see his wife quite frequently.

(Transcribers note      Nellie Powell living at 5 Willowmead Hertford in 2011)

JR       Used to live quite near me when I…….

DP       What Nellie yes she is a lovely lady

JR       She has remarried or she has got someone else

DP       She has got a gentleman friend I don’t think she has remarried but er very very nice cause she belongs to the er...Trevor was a member of the Hertfordshire Regiment and I belong to the association I am a Herts Regiment Associate member and we have our annual dinner and dance and get together’s and Nellie often comes to those.

JR       They called their house Trevellen I noticed ***** a combination of their names

DP       Yes that’s right

JR       Um it says also on your list of things that you belonged to Christ Church Port Vale choir

DP       Yes that’s right

JR       Was that in the church the church choir

DP       Yes choirboy, when I joined the church the vicar was Mr Laker

JR       He now lives in……no his son now lives in West Street.

DP       His son does yes Mr Laker  died not long after my father died actually because in a very short space of time, my father died, another chappie I am mentioning Charlie Taylor he died and Mr Laker died soon after

JR       Mr Laker died I think about 1950 I think

DP       Yes that would be……..my Dad died in 49  Mr Laker died about 1950 that’s right.

JR       The curious thing is that I actually come from .my home town is Deal in

Kent.

DP       Yes

JR       I was interested in local history even as a child and there was quite a hefty tome published I think in the 1880’s  1890’s called Laker’s history of Deal and when we interviewed John Laker of West Street he said his father came from Deal that the Rev Laker came from Deal so um I saw his sister now her name is Mrs…………..um I can’t think of her name now……….Waterman is it?

DP       I don’t know what her married name is I know his sister but what he married name is I don’t know

JR       I saw her fairly recently and I asked her about this local history of  Deal and she said oh yes it was .she…. wasn’t too sure but it was her grandfather probably , he husband thought it was her grandfather that had written this book so they come from quite a well known family in the East Kent area. Um yes so he died quite young that chap didn’t he.

DP       Yes he I think had a heart attack he was a very big man from what I can remember of him. He was very nice and then he was replaced by an Ex Army padre Major Ernest Lyn-Hill. He was an ex Army padre

JR       yes in the war

DP       and he had just finished out the army and I think that was his first civilian appointment in the church Port Vale.

JR       So when

DP       Totally different to Mr Laker

JR       Yes yes

DP       Got this military background as well which was a bit more severe than Mr Laker

JR       You went to work at Simson Shand then, was that your first job?

END OF SIDE ONE

SIDE TWO

JR       At Simson Shand was Reg Purkiss still when you were there

DP       No Reg had left then

JR       Right

DP       I know Reg Purkiss

JR       right yes ye he he did a very good interview for us

DP       Yes

JR       and I

DP       He was at Dr Barnardo’s

JR       He was by that time yes I couldn’t remember the dates

DP       No he wasn’t at Shand’s when…..as I say I know Reg Purkiss, I know his daughter well she married one of my mates Henry Clay. No Reg had gone to Dr Barnardo’s then the school of printing.

JR       Yes, he had a younger bother didn’t he as well who was also at Barnardo’s teaching something else I think?

DP       Oh I don’t know I only knew Reg

JR       Right  … Um so what…..you stayed at Simson Shand for 15 ½  years it says here and then you joined Stephen Austin where you stayed

DP       I am still, I am still there

JR       You are still there OK, What I mean when you were an apprentice at Simson Shand what did you actually learn to do? Where you a printer?

DP       Yes  ***********

JR       is that what you still do?

DP       Yes that’s what I still do

JR       Because Stephen Austin are very well know, a very well established firm aren’t

DP       yes

JR       As I thing Simson Shand was

DP       Well Stephen Austin have been going for…..it must be ….230 years now

JR       177?……..yes that’s right yes I think the first Mercury that they produced was 1772

DP       Something like that

JR       Yes and then there were breaks weren’t there from different publications but they came back to being the Mercury eventually. What did Simson Shand do in the way of printing?

DP       Um it was all general printing, you know commercial print, just general stuff where Stephen Austin specialise more in Exam Papers and security work we at Shand’s it was just general printing the only think we printed in the way of a newspaper was a weekly and independent newspaper called Time and Tide I don’t know if you have ever heard of that?

JR       I think I have actually but I haven’t seen one.

DP       Yes we used to print that I don’t know if it is still in existence. Then also when the Consumers Association was formed their monthly magazine Which? We printed we used to print that each month.

JR       Oh Shand did

DP       That’s where it started

JR       So when was it….at one time it was Simson Pimm wasn’t it?

DP       No Simson Pimm was a separate company

JR       Oh is it

DP       Yes it was the same family Simp er Shand…..the Shand family. There was old man Shand, he was a right old Tyrant he was, he lived in Queens Road and there were 3 son’s Alistair, James and David. Alistair and James ran after the old man retired from active working er Alistair and James, James being the senior partner ran the printing side. David Shand ran Simson Pimm’s the envelope makers

JR       Right

DP       They were the same family but run as two separate individual companies

JR       Yes who was Pimm then he wasn’t anything to do with.

DP       No I think Pimm like Simson were the companies who were taken over by the Shand’s

JR       Ok

DP       but I would stand to be corrected on that but I think that’s how it come………….I think once before old man Shand came to Hertford er there was a printing works in Parliament Square where Shand’s used to be…..which is now the job centre

JR       Yes

DP       I think it was called Simson’s

JR       yes just Simson

DP       I think the Pimm side came from a similar situation; Pimm might have been the envelope makers

JR       Yes

DP       Shand’s took over but I am not really certain

JR       No right so what sort of things did you do at Stephen Austin were they still doing the oriental languages when you were there

DP       Yes still do

JR       They still do it now

DP       Yes though it’s all a totally different ball game now it’s all computerized and everything

JR       Yes Yes

DP       We don’t print the Mercury now, its nothing to do with us. The Hertfordshire Mercury is nothing whatsoever to do with us now. That was sold off when the Harrison’s sold out to the present owner Peter Fowler um I think there was a clause that he wouldn’t sell the Mercury for so many years but now the Mercury is long gone. When I when I first went to Stephen Austin I used to work one night a week on the Mercury …printing but as I say that is long gone now.

JR       They used to have um their print works in, actually in Parliament Square

DP       Opposite Shand’s yes

JR       Were you there at that time.

DP       No no I was at Shand’s they moved, Stephen Austin went to Caxton Hill in 19 ………………………

JR       Well before you went anyway, before 1969

DP       well before Oh yes in the 50’s about I would think about 55 56 time I would think

JR       Yes right, So let’s go to more personal things then um you have got here you were a member of the ATC this is obviously when you were starting work or just before

DP       Just before I started work I joined the Air Training Corps

JR       Did you do anything exciting as part of your membership of that.

DP       Not really no it was just um…. I think in those days it was just boys…….I wanted to go into the Air Force that is what I wanted to do….my mother, my father died, my mother remarried and I didn’t have a very happy home life with my Step-father, I was in the way and I wanted.

JR       Did they have any more children……sorry yes go on

DP       No I was the only one, I wanted to go into the Air…I have always been mad about Aeroplanes I still am………um and I thought well I would like to go into the Air Force as an apprentice go in at 16 so I thought well I would mention it to my Mum but she wouldn’t hear of it. She was of the opinion that I was doing it simply  just to get away from home, which in some ways I was but that wasn’t really the reason I rally genuinely wanted to go into the Air Force and I hadn’t got a clue what I wanted to do in the way of making a living other than that and er I thought well in those days national service was very much in existence and I thought well at 18 I am going to go in anyway so I thought I will find any sort of job until I go and do my National Service and once I am in I won’t have to have my Mum’s permission to do anything I will be 18 and I will be able to sign up for anything like that myself. Then one day she came home just about 9 months before I left school and said there is an apprenticeship available at Shand’s because she worked there and she said I have had a word with Mr Anderson who was the print room manager at the time and she said you have got to go down and see him and he will talk to you and if you like it the jobs yours. So I thought oh well a jobs a job so off I went um I got the job and I thought to myself, you had to sign a 7 year agreement in those days, I mean apprenticeships now are virtually non existent, they are trainees now, but I mean I had to sign, I had indentures and everything and you could not break that agreement unless you paid a sum of money to your employer. If you broke that agreement you could, you was in violation of the agreement so you could be taken to court over it but at the back of my mind was the knowledge that you had to be released for National Service.

JR       Oh you did, you could break it well you weren’t breaking it

DP       No you could be released you see, my idea was that once I go for national  Service I would sign on because you couldn’t then be taken to court because you were serving Queen and Country so I was untouchable, that was my  intention

JR       Right

DP       Well this was in 19 ….I went in to the Army. well I was due for National Service in 1957. When I registered for National Service in the beginning of 19, well about may time of 57 I went down to the labour exchange which was then at the bottom of Port Hill. And er we went in and er I will always remember this it was a Saturday morning when we had to go in, when you go in they ask you what do you want to go in Army or Air Force you see so I said I want to go into the Air Force, they said well if you go into the Air Force you can only sign on for 3 years minimum they were not taking National Servicemen at that time but this was the run down to the stopping of National Service altogether

JR       Right

DP       So I thought well I can’t commit myself because officially I am not….. .I might not even pass the medical you see so I can’t commit myself to signing on so I said well it will have to be the Army then and I didn’t mind going in the Army either I thought I like the Army, they appealed to me Um  so that’s how I came to go in the Army but prior to this all happening I met my wife and er  all my plans for the future then became a little bit obscure I thought I dunno er I never dreamed, it was alright us going out together but never but at that early stage never did dream that we would make a go of it you know and I thought well perhaps I will get in the Army and after a few months she might get fed up with me being away or I might find somebody else, you don’t know, it will all fizzle out but it didn’t (laugh) and er and one stage I did say to her about staying in um but she wanted to get married,  settle down and have a family so I didn’t stay in, I just did me 2 years but er yeah I quite enjoyed it it was tough at first but I made full Corporal in the end so didn’t do too badly out of it. Went out to Libya – Tripoli –

JR       When were you actually involved with the St John Ambulance

DP       When?

JR       you said for 15 years

DP       yes

JR       What part of your life?

DP       I joined the St John Ambulance round about 19 ……..(pause and whistle) about 1974 -75 time when I joined

JR       You weren’t um doing it in your teens?

DP       Yes I was a …..they did have a cadet division run by old Mr Durrant…… .you know the Durrant Hall.

JR       Yes

DP       But it all fizzled out, I belonged to that very briefly  um

JR       Bill Taylor was associated with it then was he?

DP       Yes Yes I think Bill has always been associated with St Johns for as long for as long as I can remember. But how it really, how I got to be involved with St John’s they wanted somebody to do a first aid course at work, to be a company first aider so two or three us put our names on and we went on a course, evening classes and Bill Taylor was running it at the time he held these classes at the White Horse Hotel and cause I had known Bill many many years I lived next door to his sister and brother in law in Farm Close, the Izzards, um so I knew Bill and Jean very very well you know so when I went on to this course with Bill running it it made it made it that much………..because I always say anybody that was trained by Bill Taylor has had the best, you had the best possible training um anyway I did the course and got me certificate and I said to Bill afterwards er really I ought to join St John’s I suppose really Bill just to keep me hand in well he said you would be most welcome he said so I said well I work shifts is that going to be a problem. Well he said you don’t have to come every Tuesday night you go as and when, you are not restricted to specific evenings he said you do what you can when you can to the best of your ability that’s the only requirement so I went along and saw a chap named Bob Taylor who was the superintend……..cause Bill was Superintendant in charge of the cadet division the guy in charge of the adult division was a chap name er Bob Taylor  no relation.

JR       Bob……no.

DP       Very nice chap , he and I became very close friends up until he died and I joined and er after about 7 years in the brigade um Bill Taylor was running the cadet division and because his full time job was county training officer of the ambulance service there were some times when he had to get away quickly and leave the boys and he couldn’t do that you see so he really needed an adult there to take over so I suppose I said I will come along on Friday evenings ad give you a hand you know as an when he said I would be very grateful if you would so I did and by this time my wife had joined as well and she used to give us a hand with the girls because we were girls as well were there and after this went on Bill was leaving a lot of the organising to me and what have you and then one night he said look he said you are doing the job of a divisional officer he said really I would like you to be my divisional officer he said but it means you have got to transfer from the adult division he said you would be no more responsible to them other than your duties he said you would be running this division do you think you could handle it. So I said well I said I will think about it after a while we thought it over and spoke it out  talk it out with Bob Taylor and he said I am reluctant to let you go he said but you know he said if that’s what you feel you want to do so it was then put to the county headquarters and er I was sent away on a , well not away on weekend courses to county headquarters brigade leadership  courses and what have you and then we took our officers exams and were promoted up to divisional officers then I was offered another promotion later on but it meant going on to county staff and I really didn’t want that plus the fact St John’s took an awful lot of time up I mean I was doing St John work seven days a week um as well as doing public first aid courses instructing on those as well it too an awful lot of time and I got to the stage where I couldn’t do the job properly and after 15 years I said well I think I am going to call it a day you know but I always enjoyed those 15 years I did er I was on the Queens Jubilee parade in London when she celebrated her 25 years on the throne and I did 4 or5 trooping the colours er introduced to Princess Margaret when she came to Hertford. She landed at Sele School, helicopter landed there and they arranged for, because she was national president of the St John ambulance cadets we had our cadet division up there to form a guard of honour.

JR       what year was that?

DP       the year they opened Castle Hall so what year was that?

JR       I don’t really know 79?

DP       the day the opened Castle Hall so what year was that about 78 - 79 I would think yes

JR       Yes Yes

DP       Yep

JR       So how did you get involved with the British Legion?

DP       Well I just joined as an, as an ex serviceman I joined er and like anything else I am the sort of person if I get involved with something I get involved, I don’t

JR       Yes do something

DP       I don’t want to be a person who is a member by name only if you are going to belong to something then I believe you should get involved with it

JR       Yes Yes

DP       and believe it or not I am 6…...well coming up for  62 and one of the youngest members in the branch you know

JR       I can believe it yes

DP       you see er so we have got to look to the future, we have got to start encouraging younger people in. um I I was just happy to go along as a member take part in the meetings do what I could in the way of fundraising for poppies and the Poppy Appeal and what have you but like everything else you get involved and before you know where you are you are drifting in deeper and deeper  then we had and annual general meeting and we needed a welfare officer and er somebody said what about you would you, I said well I don’t know what you have to do, they said well you learn as you go along sort of thing you know so I said well I will give it a go and  er its really what I like doing its meeting people and helping them you know any ex servicemen or their dependants have problems if they get in touch with us I go and see them, I talk to them ask them what their problems are and er we thrash it out and if I think we can help them I get in touch with er our headquarters and we have got a county field officer Major Phil Collis he is responsible for Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire and er we work it out and we are very successful in the way we help people. It is all done very personally whatever I discuss with an applicant, because its financial most of the time or personal circumstances I do not divulge any information they only information that I get is passed on to Major Collis so only he and I know what’s been, other than the actual person I have been talking to that’s as confidential as it can get. Um but yeah I enjoyed doing that because I think it is worth while

JR       You still do that don’t you?

DP       yes I still do that yeah

JR       That was on your card

DP       yes you see what happened how I became chairman was our chairman died er about a year ago now Cliff Camp he lived down The Folly * and er no body wanted the job and I said well we have got to have a chairman so somebody said would you be prepared to do it ? so I said well I will give it a go and see how it goes but I said I don’t want to give up my role as welfare officer that’s what I really enjoy doing um so it was put forward at the AGM and because nobody else wanted to do it it was unanimous and I said that I would give it a year and er we are coming up now, our year is up in November and I have enjoyed it and it looks very much as if I have got the job for life! But I don’t mind because I do enjoy it

(Transcribers note      Possibly 29 Frampton Street)

JR       I am just going to check this because I have got another tape with me because I want to carry on um now I am going really by this sheet it seems quite a good idea to do that you did say would tell me about one or two of these characters.

DP       Yes

JR       Its going right back again isn’t it really

DP       Yes

JR       I think it was Miss um Hoad that was her name this lady you called “flannel feet”

DP       was that……..we only knew her as “Flannel feet” and Dinah you know the lady that was on the walk with us born in Maidenh…er

JR       Dolphin Yard

DP       Dolphin Yard

JR       She is your neighbour isn’t she?

DP       Well she lives up here in the flats yes er she said we all called her Miss Chicken but I only ever knew her “Flannel Feet”

JR       It seems there is some confusion over this woman um are you thinking of the one that worked in a sweet shop

DP       No she didn’t work she lived in Villiers Street

JR       She didn’t work right Ok

DP       She used to travel around Hertford in mostly knitted and crocheted clothing she would not wear anything she would not wear an item of clothing if an animal had had to be killed to provide clothing, in other words she would not wear leather shoes.

JR. No but she would knit with the wool

DP       She would knit with the wool because the sheep or goat is not put down

JR       That’s right

DP       so she she was quite happy and she used to , most of the time she had her feet bound up in rags occasionally she would be walking around it what looked like knitted socks and do you remember the old American cloth.

JR       Yes

DP       She sewed that on the soles and she always pushed around an old hand cart it was virtually

JR       *****

DP       and old wooden box on 2 cast iron wheels and this cart was  I don’t think it was ever oiled or greased because before you heard the trundling of the cast iron wheels on the road it would go HE HAW HE HAW WE HAW and it was squeaking away down the road and her windows because she lived in Villiers Street used to go down there quite frequently as I had an Aunt lived down there at no 13 and on the same side as you are coming in from Ware Road end I suppose this old lady lived about two thirds of the way down Villiers Street on the left hand side it was a bay windowed house, you went up 3 or 4 steps you know and there, well I don’t know what the back ever looked like but the front there wasn’t one in tact pane of glass in any of the windows, There was all sacking and boards lumps of cloth hanging up in the windows there wasn’t one pane of glass

JR       awful

DP       and she had chickens running all over the house they used to be in and out the bedroom

JR       Oh in Villiers Street she had chickens

DP       Yes they used to run in and out of the house.

JR       This is a this is a yes well this is very strange I am thinking you may have known her later one and perhaps other people who say she worked in a sweet shop in St Andrews Street knew her before then?

DP       Yes I only knew her from well what late war years

JR       Yes I think this is what it is then I think she probably was the same one then

DP       She may well I wouldn’t I certainly wouldn’t argue with you

JR       no yes because it does tie up in a way though we hadn’t got round to the pushing round of the cart stage before the war. So what did she actually do with this cart? Did she collect things?

DP       Yes shopping

JR       Oh shopping sorry

DP       whenever you saw her she had got this cart with her you know sometimes it might be empty but it was always with her.

JR       yes

DP       an old wooden it was just like and old wooden crate

JR       On wheels

DP       with a block screwed underneath and 2 cast iron wheels

JR       yes

DP       you know the old cast iron wheels that used to be on the old railways porters trucks

JR       yes yes that type

DP       that type of wheel yes

JR       Oh right

DP       as I say you could hear it miles away, you could hear it squeaking before you saw them.

JR       What about Rosie Dunnage? I have heard of her before too

DP       Yes she lived down Port Vale um opposite The Millstream

JR       ***

DP       Well she, she was as batty as they came she was when we used to come out of school you know she come along and we used to give her some stick you know, start cheeking her you know and she used to chase us all down Port Vale with her umbrella  ** “I am gonna get**” the language that used to come from her was well unbelievable you know but er oh she used to rant and rave at all hours of the night apparently

JR       Really

DP       you only she only you only had to look at her and she gave you a mouth of abuse

JR       yes yes

DP       she was a character

JR       did she stay in Port Vale all the time *** up here?

DP       *********

JR       or was she ever re settled up here?

DP       No she I think she was put away in the end eventually I think

JR       yes I see

DP       Yes she has been dead quite a few years now……… I think she ended up  I think eventually she got so bad they had to put her away she got to a stage I think where she became a real nuisance and a threat you know she was a funny old girl

JR       What about this Peter is it Peter Mead

DP       Yes Peter Mead I have mentioned him because as a youngster I can remember quite a bit um I always felt sorry for him most of us did but like everything else there are always those that look at it from a different angle they think it is a good idea to put *****  in for ridicule you know but he was a deaf mute I say he lived in The Folly but I could be wrong on that there was another deaf mute lived on The Folly definitely that used to work at Jewson’s I don’t know what his name was he lived down The Folly for quite a number of years in fact I think he lived close to the is it Thornton Street which comes up to the waterfall I think he lived there. Peter Mead might he might live somewhere else in Hertford but um he was always about Hertford and he used to get a lot of abuse not only from kids but from a lot of adult people……..I mean like he would walk round the shops he was harmless. I suppose because of his afflictions he used to give vent to his feelings through anger and he could get violent um he used to try and communicate with people but all he could make was a series of grunts UM UM UM UM UM like that’s all he could that’s the only way he could communicate and he used to get a lot of stick, people go up and knock his, he always wore a flat cap and they would go up in the street and knock his cap off or pinch his cap and run off with it you know and things like that he...looking back he had a terrible life um simply because

JR       he was handicapped

DP       He was handicapped I mean today thank God people accept handicapped people now in a totally different concept but in those days because they weren’t quite the same as anybody else they were.

JR       Well it wasn’t understood

DP       persona no grata weren’t they

JR       ******** when you are talking about, about what age was he when you were a boy

DP       Oh difficult to say, I would say in his 40’s

JR       Oh Ok

DP       40’s and 50’s

JR       he is going to be 30 years older than you then

DP       Oh yes all of that

JR       I am just trying to place him because there was a scrap merchant on  um Folly Island so I understand called Joe Mead er who is still alive I think I wondered whether  he was any relation to him but?

DP       I remember the scrap merchant but um I wouldn’t know

JR       No ….Mead was quite a common name

DP       Common name that’s right yes

JR       Cause that chap Cliff North I don’t know whether you ever knew him did you?

DP       Yes

JR       he was Cli………………………..

END OF SIDE TWO

TAPE TWO SIDE ONE

transcribers note         this next section is about my family so I have transcribed what was said and put corrections for errors where David got a few things wrong  MT )

JR       We are really on the market now aren’t we, the Potato king and er

DP       yes that was not on the market that was on Port Hill……… Charlie Taylor

JR       Ah has he got something to do with Boss Taylor

DP       Boss Taylor?

JR       Vegetable merchants were they? um

DP       Greengrocery basically yes

JR       did they go out to, not quite like a round with a cart or…..

DP       Yes there the ones

JR       I know

DP       Well Charlie he was I think he was the oldest of them the older brother a big fat man always got a big cigar um

(NOTE he was not the oldest but the second youngest of the family of 10 children in total  he was my grandfather MT)

JR       and they lived on

DP       on Port Hill **** just up from what is now the Hooden Horse when it was The Reindeer they lived in the first house next to the stables there no 47 because after my father had his stroke he used to go and sit in the yard and mind the yard for Charlie when he went to London he used to answer the phone in the office and take messages for him and in those days Charlie used to slip me dad about ten shillings a week you know for that I mean money was tight, the war was on and me Dad all he used to get was a little bit of , well there was no national assistance then it was parish relief virtually and then my mother because like  when my father had his stroke she couldn’t work she had to look after my father, we needed money so she used to go out and do a bit of cleaning, she used to do cleaning for Charlie’s wife Mrs Taylor and um they were very good to us actually during the rough years. I can assure you I know what it is like to go to school with with cardboard in me shoes because we couldn’t afford to have shoes repaired and we couldn’t afford to buy new ones

(At the time of transcribing The Reindeer/ Hooden Horse has become a Vetinary surgery)

JR       No No

(Transcribers’ note     there are a number of coughs by JR in this section so they are just noted as a (cough))

DP       So I have known hard times but you you put them at the back and you think of the good times. But um Charlie Taylor was well he was a saint really he was a I I the one thing I can remember about him was one Christmas Eve um we hadn’t got Christmas dinner and we were sitting in the cottage like by gas light (cough) and er Christmas day to us was just going to be a normal sort of a dinner you know whatever you had got war time rations (cough) and er there was a knock on the door and then it opened it was Charlie, he walked in he said to my Mum, my mothers name was Olive he said “here you are Ollie, here’s your Christmas dinner and give he two chickens,  and er that’s the sort of man he was (cough) and um

JR       Yes

DP       he was very very blunt in what he said, he didn’t mince his words with anybody he’d swear like a trooper (cough) ****** the vicar Reverend Briggs from Bengeo he used to swear at him (cough) and the police superintendant a chap named Spicer he’d think nothing of telling him to P off in no uncertain terms you know um one of the most vivid memories I have got of Charlie was coming home from school one day, Port Vale,  Denny Dudley my partner in crime we were walking up the hill and we got to outside Charlie’s office (cough) and er Bridens’ bakers van was parked there a chap named Jigger Wright used to drive it a chap from down The Folly . Charlie saw me and Denny Dudley come along he looked at  “what O you two” we all used to  all the kids used to call him “Uncle Charlie” .”Hello Uncle Charlie”  “”you two hungry” “Yeah” “Do you wanna cake” “Yes please Uncle Charlie” “Jigger give em a couple of bun rounds” he said , Jigger opened his van and gives us two bun rounds, gives one each to me and Denny and do you know what he said to us, he said “Eh y’are now piss off” we were two two lads about six you know  he kind of, just like that you know, but that’s they way he was and

JR       Very generous, salt of the earth type

DP       Oh he was he was the man was a saint, when the war ended we had a party, all the kids got a commemorative mug and er all the tables were out in the street, Charlie had had a word with the police got all the traffic stopped including the busses

JR       Was that Port Hill

DP       Yeah Port Hill all the tables set up in Port Hill along the road.

JR       They didn’t fall down then because it’s rather on a slope isn’t it?

DP       No down the bottom end by the Reindeer  on that bit, and er all the tables were laid out, I think he got he paid for it all, I think he got Jack Skinner who was running Bridens, he supplied all the cakes and sandwiches and what have you and er I think Mrs Hartley she was running The Reindeer she supplied all the Lemonade and Orange squash and Ginger Beer and stuff and er every kid got a little brown envelope and I think it was 2/6d we had in each , every kiddie had, you didn’t see that sort of money you know and it all came out of Charlie’s pocket um he as I say he was a big man and his heart matched his size he um eventually bought a house in 1940…….about 1947 time in Church Road Bengeo and Mum they said to her when they moved would you come up and clean for us as well so she said yes, I always remember my Mum, coming you know those big houses up there in Church Road in Bengeo

JR       Yes

DP       he’s alright they are big houses

(Discussion)

DP       Yes She came home she said to Nan and Grandad “They paid £3,500 for that house”

JR       Yes

DP       Well I mean £3,500 in those days you just well that was just dream money that was that was what they paid for their house in, but he used to drive around in the most atrocious car you could ever imagine, it was an old Austin and he called it “Scruffy “and it was scruffy I mean there is no way under today laws it would be allowed near a road let alone on the road

JR       before the days of MOT

DP       Oh long before the days of MOT. All the windows were cracked and splintered shattered who used to go carry sacks of potatoes in it and goodness knows what else but he was a he had a heart of gold that man and er my dad died 1949 May 14 1949 and I always remember Charlie um cause they bought me Dad in those days they used to leave them laying in the coffin in the house overnight the night before the funeral  and Charlie called in on his way home to Bengeo that night he walked cause he kept the house on Port Hill as his office after he moved to Bengeo and er

(Discussion Tea and is served not transcribed!)

DP       He called in on the way home and he said to me Mum “Just come to pay me respects to poor old Fred” he said he came in and he looked at me Dad in the coffin and I I was there cause by this time I was what 10 coming up 11 anyway and he looked at me Dad in his coffin and he said “poor old Fred he said he didn’t deserve this” and he cried like a baby and he want out and he went home, that was in the May the following September of the same year , another thing Charlie always did always called my Nan and Grandad  everyone on Port Hill called my Nan and Grandad “Nan and Grandad” even though they were a lot younger than a lot of the people on the hill

JR       Yes

DP       they were still called Nan and Grandad. and er every night on his way home he come on  their door, poke his head round and “Goodnight Nan, goodnight Grandad”  and off he would go well one night he came walking up the hill and me nan was standing at the front door  and he was having a bit of a job getting up the hill.  So he was a big man and er walking up the the hill, “Ooh” he said, “ just off home Charlie” she said “ yeah “ he said “ when I get home” he said “ I am going to have good stiff Gin”  he said “ and get to bed”  he said “ I have got this pain in my chest and I can’t get rid of it” he said “ I have had indigestion all day” he  said “I have been chewing Rennies till they come out of me ears” he went home, he went to bed and he died, that was in September so it wasn’t long after me Dad but um the world was a sadder place without him.

JR       yes

DP       Lovely man and his two brothers Fred and Char………. Sidney, Sid was the pearly king there is a photo of him either in Len Green’s book or the other one that I have got yes

JR       Yes I have seen that I didn’t know till I saw that they had a pearly king

DP       Yes yes he was “Rocky” Taylor that was Rocky, there was Fred the youngest one “Elmo” and Sid “Rocky” his nickname he was and they used to go to Welwyn Garden City and all the Greens every day with horse and cart

JR       Yes

DP       Rocky had the bigger horse “Jonathon” and Fred had another smaller horse called “Polly”  and that’s where I had my first experience with horses and things like that and  I very often used to me and Denny would  to walk down to Old Cross and we knew they would come up about 6 o’clock along St Andrew Street with the horse and carts and whichever one come along first we used too say “can we have a ride” and we used to meet them by what is now Wigginton’s (no 2) we used to climb up on the horse and cart and very often they used to let us take the reins the horses knew their way home anyway but we as kids we thought it was great we were driving a horse and cart

JR       Yes

DP       Yes so they were more happy memories certainly and I think I have labelled it off there is a photograph in this book

JR       Ah yes

DP       Of the muffin man F W Taylor and if my memory serves me correctly I can remember the sister Aunt Em as we used to call her Aunt Emily talking about her Dad selling muffins; I am certain that would be their father.

(Transcribers note      the muffin man was Walter Taylor, no F in his name though a number of books do have him as FW Taylor I have no idea where it came from it is not correct! MT)

JR       It is actually I think this is the one they called Bossy, I am not quite sure or Boss

(Transcribers note      Walter was known as Boss Taylor so JR is correct  MT)

DP       I am certain he would be their father

JR       Yes Yes

DP       I didn’t realise that until I actually saw this photograph when I bought this book last year but I am certain

JR       We had a

DP       Cause Charlie’s son is still alive Gordon he has just celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary him and his, he married an ex Land Girl Agnes she came from Dagenham

(Transcribers note      Agnes nee Mant( my mother) came from Kenton Middlesex not Dagenham, she was born in Notting Hill, at the time of transcription they have been married over 60  years  MT)

DP       He met her during the war, she was working on one of the local farms where they used to go and but the potatoes from

JR       Did he continue with the greengrocery

DP       Yes they I will tell you where they, they had a place built up at um  that is now I think it is Roy Carters garage and that you know along Ware Road you know by Greens Garage up there, I think that is what is there now but Gordon had that place built originally as his warehouse he started, after they had to get out of Port Hill  he got too big I mean they days when Fred Taylor lost Polly and Sid retired horse  and carts where out, Fred got himself a lorry

JR       Did he trail a sort of stall behind it or is that somebody else

DP       No

JR       I remember there was an greengrocer went around trailing …

DP       Yes how long have you lived in Hertford?

JR       I came in 80………….2

DP       No I think you are thinking of Sam’s Shop

JR       Ah

DP       Yeah I think yes I think you are thinking of Sam’s Shop

JR       and I did live in Welwyn Garden City and I vaguely remember in the very early days in the early 60’s there was a greengrocer used to come along but he didn’t bring a horse

DP       Did he have a bus?

JR       He may have done I can’t quite remember

DP       Whereabouts in Welwyn Garden City did you live

JR       Um well I used to live in the Digswell area um as you come off the B1000 just up from there

DP       Only I used to go out that way on a greengrocery van

JR       Did you?

DP       Jack Nash another chap that lived on Port Hill

JR       Oh it might have been

DP       He started up

JR       ** Many years ago ***

DP       You know round Great Gannett and all that way in Welwyn Garden

JR       Yes I didn’t live in that area

DP       No well they were still building that in those days

JR       Right yes. Oh right so let’s have a look Jim Roberts Sergeant Major Salvation Army it’s got here.

DP       Yes well why I put him down was he was he used to go and work with Rocky Taylor.

JR       Yes

DP       Fred worked alone on his little round and Sid and had  a bigger round and Jim Roberts worked with him he was a devout Salvation Army man, very nice man, I think he had the rank of sergeant major in the Army. The Taylor’s also had another sister Gracie, she died during a thunderstorm, a violent thunderstorm one night she was very active in the Salvation Army she used to run the Sunday school down when the Salvation Army citadel was in Bircherley Green

JR       Yes

DP       um and she used to run the Salvation Army Sunday School they used to call the sunbeams

JR       right

DP       and she used to call all the children on Port Hill her sunbeams but when she died um it was a Salvation Army funeral and they had all little chairs put out, they had a little tiny stage in the hall there like a ½ circle of children’s chairs put out on the stage and all the children from Port Hill and all the children from Sunday School sat on those. She was a lovely person she was Gracie. But Jim Roberts as I say he never married um deeply religious man and when my Dad had his stroke the Salvation Army band very often used to come and play Sundays in stand in the entrance to the Warren Gates where the road curves in they would stand there and play I mean that was quite a common thing for the Salvation Army band to do in those days and um he would very often get the band to come up and play a few hymns outside for me Dad  you know and some carols and Christmas and things like that but he was a very devout man and er funnily enough his sister she lived in the Albert buildings on Cowbridge

JR       Yes

DP       You know the old Albert memorial cottages [Prince Regent], she lived on the bottom ground floor left hand side and she was totally reverse to him

JR       Yes

DP       She used to drink, she used to swear and curse and carry on absolutely filthy dirty she was totally reverse to him

JR       She was on the lower ones, on of the lower ones

DP       Bottom left hand corner yes

JR       Somebody said something about somebody else living there but they were one of the top ones.

DP       That would be her daughter probably

JR       OH

DP       What was her name during the war she got the nickname of banister Kate

(Transcribers note      AKA balcony Kate grandmother of Frank Ansell who is living in Bayford Close in 2011)

JR       Oh that was who it was yes

DP       She was always hanging over the banisters always inviting the soldiers up

JR       This was Don Geall that told us about this

DP       Yes well Don Geall lived opposite them

JR       That’s right yes

DP       Well I was at school with him well his two younger brothers Ken and Roy

JR       Yes Oh so you remember her too. What about this Peet man

DP       He was the school board man.

JR       Yes did he

DP       That was just another ****, he was a very important man to us at the time because in those days if we didn’t go to school for a couple of days you got a knock on the door and someone was checking up on you and he was the man. Big man he was with a wax moustache and plus fours.

JR       How long, I mean I thought he was way before probably was as well but when

DP       He was an old man when I was at school

JR       right Ok the Peet family are quite well known again in the town as well

DP       Are they

JR       Came from Hertingfordbury that way

DP       I wouldn’t know where he came from

JR       He came out from that Cole Green, Hertingfordbury, and Letty Green that way I think yes

DP       Right yes I only knew him as Mr Peet

JR       Yes

DP       Used to tremble when you saw him you know if you had been off school even though it was legitimate you know Oh dear Mr Peet’s about you know, used to come in religiously every week and check all through the school registers Oh Yes you didn’t get away with much in those days

JR       had a bike

DP       yes had a bike with a basket on the front yes.

JR       Oh right what about Ok what about Bill Ball I have heard of him too, seen a picture of him actually

DP       Yes he is in one of those books on the dray he was MacMullen’s drayman he was Rosie Ball’s grandad

JR       OH I hadn’t realised

DP       Rosie Ball from Maidenhead Yard

JR       Oh yes I know about her

DP       Well Rosie Ball she’s a little bit older than me, well she is dead now I believe she would, if she was still alive she would be somewhere in the region of about 65 – 67

JR       Not older?

DP       Unless you are thinking, unless they called Rosie Ball her mother cause he mother lived down that yard.

JR       I think it must be the mother.

DP       Rosie Ball that I am thinking of was bought up by her grandparents

JR       Oh right

DP       But her mother lived down Maidenhead Yard and so did Rosie Ball, the Rosie that I am talking of but they may well have called her mother Rosie as well

JR       I am talking about memories from about 1947

DP       Yes well that

JR       So which that wouldn’t be her she would only be a child

DP       Well she would be a young woman a young girl in 1947 she would be well I was 47 I would be 9 she would have been about 12 I would think.

JR       I would think, it was Joe Quince and his wife that were telling me about Maidenhead Yard and they said Rosie Ball and he they were hardly talking about a child of 12 I don’t think.

DP       Well she did live down there I believe after she got married

JR       Ah well perhaps it was her

DP       She lived down there after she got married I can remember so it could well be the same one but if it’s the Rosie Ball I am taking about then Bill Ball would be her grandfather

JR       Yes they would be related it would not be the mother it would be the father

DP       Yes but I think the Rosie Ball they are referring to is the one I am speaking of the younger one.

JR       Yes

DP       and er

JR       He was a drayman wasn’t he?

DP       He was a drayman for Mac’s, he was the last man driving for Mac’s on the horses, he used to have when I was a boy there used to be two horse drawn drays and they used to trundle along, they used to stable the horses down Port Vale and let them out into the meadow behind Port Vale school that’s where the stables where as well.

JR       Oh

DP       and er you would hear **** cart coming along, the most significant thing about old Bill Ball, Whit Monday always used to have a fete on Hartham before it became County Day and er Mac’s would always dress up their drays and parade them around you know all the brasses and the feathers and what have you they used to look immaculate always used to always wore always had grey shire’s pulling them old Bill used to he always smoked a clay pipe he used to get a clay pipe break off the stem shove it in his mouth, always upside down and he would just sit there on the horse and cart and all he would ever say was EH UP THERE, that’s all you would ever hear him say EH UP THERE  and the old horses used to plod along cause sometimes would would be sitting in class in Port Vale if you were in the front classes that faced onto the road you would hear the dray coming along EH UP THERE there would always be one wag in the class that would say EH UP THERE  (laugh) go and stand in the corner.

JR       Yes

DP       That sort of thing, he was quite a character

JR       So Ok now you have got here Mrs Purkiss Ginn

DP       Yes

JR       and Mrs Mildred Gripper

DP       Miss Mildred Gripper yes

JR       Miss sorry yes, did they in the end did they share a house

DP       I believe they might well have done yes um

JR       I think Mrs Gripper is still Miss Gripper is it

DP       Miss Gripper still alive?

JR       No I meant I think there is a Mrs Gripper that was why I said Mrs there is a Mrs Gripper who is either still alive or hasn’t very long died I am not quite sure because I met her.

(Transcribers note      Mrs Marion Gripper lived in Woodside Cottage New Road Bengeo on the corner of Parker Avenue, now demolished and later moved to St Leonards Road, she died in 2000 born 10 October 1908)

DP       It might be a relative but it is certainly not her because Mildred would be………Mildred was a middle aged woman when I was a child

(Transcribers note      Miss Mildred Ella Gripper died in 1990 born 15 December 1902)

JR       yes a different branch of the family

DP       yes but  they were two lovely people, next to the Museum what is now the CAB there used to be a sort of a think it was a day nursery at one stage during the war um one afternoon a week I can remember going down there with me grandmother and me Mum occasionally . There used to be a group of evacuees in Hertford  from London all used to meet down there they used to have a social gathering if you like down there it was organised by the WVS where evacuees could go down and talk amongst themselves and commiserate if you like, be together, because a lot of them came from the same areas and er Miss Gripper and Mrs Ginn were two of the leading lights of the WRVS Mrs Ginn was a really lovely person I think she was a Mayor , she may have been Mayoress but I think she was a Mayor I think she was the first lady Mayor of Hertford but I stand to be corrected on that [1st lady mayor was Mrs Winnie Brookes]. She lived down Duncombe Road in a bungalow um Miss Gripper lived, I lived in the end block of houses on Port Hill then there is a gap garden bank that goes up the hill, half way up the hill there is a big grey house stands on its own called The Slopes flight of steps leading up to it she lived there with invalid, her mother was bedridden very often if Miss Gripper had to go out in the evening to a meeting or something like that in the evening she asked my mother if she would go and sit with her mother in the bedroom because her mother couldn’t  do anything for herself she was a frail old lady she must have been must have been nearly 100 years old I would think in those days and er then eventually she died round about 1947, 48, 49 time Mildred went to South Africa for a while I she emigrated or just went out there for a long holiday she was out there quite a long then she came back you might well be right in as when she came back she might have shared a house with Mrs Ginn because Mrs Ginn was widowed and they were very close friends always together so they might well have shared a house in their latter years. Um I occasionally went up saw Mrs Ginn just as a social visit cause she was always so very nice and kind and you know I am the sort of person I don’t forget kindnesses and things like that um used to go and see her quite often but she was a lovely lady she really was but in those days I sad there in my notes evacuees in Hertford had a pretty rough time from the local people because Hertford has always been a very very sort of conservative sort of town um if you didn’t quite fit in the mould then you weren’t accepted and it took many many years to become for us people to become accepted.

JR       Yes

DP       and I think possibly this is why I have got involved with some of the things in Hertford like I have in some ways it is my way of paying back Hertford  for what Hertford has given me because when I look back I will never move from Hertford I have absolutely no intention of moving from Hertford it had given me a home, its given me education, its given me employment, its where I met my wife, its where my family were born and raised Hertford has given me everything that I have got really so I don’t want to move from here.

JR       But in turn you have made an effort a very big effort to be

DP       to give back

JR       to be accepted here as well

DP       you had to yes otherwise you weren’t

JR       your family were accepted by the sound of it I mean this Charlie Taylor must have thought a lot of your father

DP       He did

JR       and that wasn’t a very long time span in which to get acquainted was it

DP       No but Charlie was the sort of person that I mean he was a one off you could go through all your life and only ever meet one Charlie Taylor

JR       Yes

DP       I mean when he was born they broke the mould

JR       Yes yes, well I will look at this again to just see if there is anything else, you have got notable happenings. Um Millbridge hit by flying bomb I think my father was the only casualty. I didn’t know there were any.

DP       (laugh) I will say I say that very guardedly dad before he had his stroke he was a house porter in London in um Board Street in Board Street House a big office block

JR       did he travel up then?

DP       No no he um he did for a while stayed in London but he got a job at Hertford County Hospital

JR       Oh I see

DP       You see he had TB

JR       Yes

DP       He was in a sanatorium when I was born in 1938 he was in a down in Godalming for six months so he wasn’t fit to do military service so when he came out of hospital he got this job in Board Street house and then soon after we got bombed he got this job at Hertford County Hospital as a porter and then eventually he went into the grounds as a gardener um so that’s how me dad really got here working um I have lost me thread now where was

JR       On this day of the bomb.

DP       On this day of the bomb right so when I think it was a Sunday morning

JR       yes it was early wasn’t it

DP       Very early about 7 o’clock time Dad was on the fire watching team at County Hospital and as a result you had to go on fire watch it was his stint you see and he was very conscientious about the hospital you see and there was this almighty bang  and he dived out of bed and looked out of the window and come back in like that his first reaction was it was the hospital that’s what he was thinking of there was huge cloud of dust all over the place and he got a piece of grit in his eye. Well his first immediate reaction even if was he had got to get on his bike and get down to the County Hospital at all speed you know well he ended up going to the hospital to get the grit out of his eye (laugh) so we all joked about that he was the only casualty of the flying bomb in Millbridge

JR       Yes

DP       that was just a bit of  it was only a flippant remark but it was always a joke in the family for years after that.

JR       But did he get down there because I can imagine all the debris it was terrible after that.

DP       I suppose he would have we were on Port Hill so I suppose he would have gone along Port Vale and over Beane Road that would have been his quickest route

JR       Yes North Road

DP       Down North Road

JR       Yes we had a very graphic account of what happened to Barbers the seed merchants

DP       Well apparently  it was there was a saddlers and leather merchants on the bridge um Rush’s and they were laying in bed having a cup of tea on this Sunday morning and suddenly the roofs gone and they were laying there looking at the sky. (laugh) miraculous that no one was injured

JR       No because it was so early I suppose

DP       about 7 o’clock I think

JR       yes yes

DP       So the next one was the one that landed behind Bengeo Water Tower I think there is a lot of people forget about that one that was a Saturday morning if I remember rightly.

JR       yes that it says here a V2 rocket that was a lot later wasn’t it?

DP       yes about 1944 just before the end of the war

JR       because that was the V1 that went into

DP       the doodlebug that’s right

JR       I have learnt that you see um yes I didn’t know about Bengeo Water Tower did it damage it must have done I suppose

DP       um there was a house stood there in a field had all the slates taken off the roof but and up to quite recently, I was looking at a photograph yesterday up in the loft I meant to bring it down with me, you wouldn’t know it’s a crater, there’s a photo of me I took my two boys up when they were quite young to show them where it landed there was just a big hollow in the ground all been grass growing over it you know over the years but it had never been sort of filled in but its all been developed up there now so its getting now it doesn’t exist but I mean this is going back in the 60’s or 70’s it was still the crater was still there. It’s like there I mention a tank catching fire on Port Hill

JR       Yes

DP       outside the Reindeer pub and the Quaker burial ground up until not too many years ago the marks were still on the road on the pavement and part of the road where the tar had melted under the weight and it had sunk into the ground and the track marks you know the tank tracks it just blew up and caught on fire well what they was worried about was the ammunition that was on it exploding cause if that had gone as well but that was I think they were getting ready for the invasion because I mean country roads and fields were being used as storage depots for military vehicles anywhere you could drive a vehicle they were stored up in, all the little side roads and what have you so up and down Port Hill cause it was a route to the East Coast anyway there was an awful lot of traffic up there war vehicles and what have you an awful lot

JR       Yes

DP       and there was another incident when the er there was a raid on and you heard these guns going machine guns and there was a terrific roar just over the tops of the houses just missed tree tops in The Warren was this German bomber came over

JR       Oh Oh

DP       it was that low we stood on the hill and we could see the crew in the planes nose you could see the crew it was that low and quite hot on its tail was some fighters I suppose spitfires, hurricanes whatever and it followed the path of The Warren right the way down The Warren and we watched and then we saw something drop and then this almighty explosion and there was this,  that was when St Leonard’s church got the bomb behind it there was blast damage but no, some cottages gained you know down behind the church so that was another thing that involved Charlie Taylor he stood there he said here’s to  “Jesus Christ where the bleeding hell’s that gone” you know and he got this persons bike never ridden a bike in his life I don’t think and he was riding off down The Warren to see what had happened (laugh) and um the theory they had then that had been on a raid perhaps been after de Havilland’s at Hatfield um been bounced by a couple of our fighters cause it was smoking so they had obviously scored some hits on it

JR       Um Um

DP       They reckon he might have been trying to get rid of his bombs to gain some height to get away and they the theory was that rather than just waste his bombs he had seen the gas works cause they used to make gas down there in those days and er wether he was trying to hit the gas works to sort of rather than just drop the bombs he would try and hit something with it  but I think that plane was shot down eventually  somewhere out Hunsdon way

JR       Oh Yes

DP       I think it was shot down eventually they got him

JR       Oh it didn’t land on the meads or anywhere like that

DP       No I he was shot he was shot down yes they got him eventually

JR       I will put this on again is there anything else you can think of you would like to ,  I think we have gone this mostly

DP       We have gone through that list I think

JR       Yes you told me about the street party and its got here ********severe flooding  you haven’t said anything about that yet.

DP       Well that was the severe winter of 1947 you know when there was weeks and weeks and weeks of hard frost and then a lot of rain and a sudden thaw um that was pretty nasty

JR       You were still on Port Hill then

DP       Still on Port Hill yes

JR       So you weren’t so affected as people lower down

DP       No we weren’t affected at all, Dims  the areas in that around that area that we most affected would be Beane Road, Chambers Street, Dimsdale Street Cowbridge all around that area pretty much the same as it was in 1968 because my wife she comes from Stanstead Abbotts their home was des.  they lost everything in their bungalow  1947 and the experts said it could never happen again like that and 21 years ago in 1968 it was 10 inches deeper and cause we were involved then because we were living up here and had her parents living with us and everything because their home was a right of the second time, the first time they  didn’t get any help. But 47 was a grim year as I say we had still got rationing coal was rationed so people couldn’t dry their homes or anything like that you know it was pretty disastrous but I can remember that Hartham and the Meads was just like one big lake and er I remember my grandmother coming she she worked down the Dicker Mill and an electrical company called Conrad’s and she was coming home from work she used to walk across Hartham a group of women used to walk home together from there and coming across Hartham she said she could remember coming across there and they were looking behind them and they could see the water closing in behind them and they had to put spurt on in their step to avoid  getting caught up in the water in where it was coming in , once the rivers broke their banks it just rushed in.

JR       Um yes

DP       But er  it was petty disasterous

JR       How long did  the um I can’t remember how long did the ice and snow last for then was it early in the winter when it

DP       Well it started early in the winter yes and um yes lost and lots of snow I mean then a freeze you are talking about a foot of snow you know very much the same as you had in the 62-63 winter when you had 13 weeks when it never went above freezing well it was like that virtually.

JR       Yes right

DP       Um it was it was frozen you would go to school you had your school milk when you got crate of milk was bought into class at break time you had your milk and when you went to try and drink it it was frozen solid in the bottle you know it would then have to be stood in front of the fire to thaw out, before you could drink your milk and things like that um we didn’t have hot water in the taps at school only cold water you couldn’t go  and wash your hands if you after games or something like that if they were dirty cause there was no water in the tap they was frozen um very often we used to get sent home which was good sent home early you know if you got too cold and the fires had gone out cause again the coal being on the ration once they had used their allocation up then they couldn’t have any more so if the coal burnt out early in the day and it got too cold you were sent home that was another thing that was good at school that quite good fun there used to be an air raid we would all pack off down the air raid shelters and er used to be good cause you couldn’t do any lessons down there you know used to sir there and have a sing song you know she would perhaps tell you a story I can remember one particular time when there was a long raid on not that we knew we just heard the siren went and that was all we heard until the all clear went but it lasted about 3 hours (laugh)

JR       you were at school

DP       Time we came It started just after we got to school in the morning and it went on till well past lunchtime so when we came out we came out at lunchtime to o home for our dinners er Miss Bradbeer closed the school down she said it’s not worth me opening up this afternoon so she closed the school down and we all went home early.

JR       Yes

DP       so that was the plus side

JR       yes an unexpected treat

DP       yes

JR       Well thank you very much, I don’t know whether you want to call a halt to this now or whether you think there is enough in fact we must be at the end of this side

DP       I have enjoyed it

JR       um if I stop this and if you want to go on in a few minutes we can turn over again so but anyway in case you don’t thank you very much

DP       I mean well I could go on if you want to come back another time or I can come and see you we can continue if you think of anything you want to ask me