TRING: History

I close my eyes, the sun streamed in the window of the old village school. I was three years old, sitting in the gallery, up three steps. Around my neck, on a piece of elastic was a string of blue glass beads. I pulled them over my chin, alas once too often. They snapped and rolled pitter pat down the steps of the gallery and teacher said I could not pick them up until playtime.

This is my first, very earliest memory. School was very different then, We had a tray, a tin, about four inches by six, with silver sand sprinkled on the bottom and a wooden skewer to make our letters in the sand then you could just shake it and have a fresh start. There was no paper or pencils or anything like that for young children, that was for when you were able really to do your alphabet and the rudiments of arithmetic. From this we graduated to slate and a slate pencil it must seem primitive now but it was better than my mother.

For when she was a baby her father died at a young age leaving my grandmother almost penniless and she had to give up her house and live with a crotchety old uncle now this was in the 1870’s but granny knew the value of going to school so as soon as she was old enough she sent my mum to the plaiting school (This straw plait was for the hatting industry of Luton) and the lady who taught them was very strict she used at first to read from the from the bible then the alphabet and simple sums and eventually how to read and write it must have been very basic teaching at first as it seems that the chief thing and the hardest for small fingers to learn was how to plait properly and neatly setting in the straws was quite difficult. This took place in a cottage in Wigginton Bottom, which was changed for some time to the more ‘polite’ name of Lower Wigginton. by my childhood there was an old lady lived down there called Dinah. She sold the straws, which made the plait.

I used to have to fetch the straws in my dinner hour, which were twopence halfpenny a bundle and I could bring three bundles in my pinafore and take them up to my grandma and borrow her plaiting machine. (Just a little wooden instrument you held in your fingers, and split the straws on it). My mother would then do the plait while I was in school and after school I used to take it back to my grandma. The plait in bundles of 20 yards were taken to the dealers on Fridays in Tring market

But School days were happy days when I look and think of how they go about it today. Our parents were very very different. They even advised the schoolmaster to give you a good hiding if you didn't behave yourself. I remember one day when I had been naughty my schoolmaster sent me out into the cloakroom. I decided to go out in the road and have a skipping touch, and I was skipping away in the road never thinking about Mum - we lived quite close to the school - and down the road she came, and oh! she was furious, she dragged me by my arm and took me to the school and banged on the door. When the schoolmaster came my mother said to him.

"What's this girl doing out skipping in the road when she should be learning her lessons?

Her Dad and I have quite enough to do to keep shoes on her feet without her skipping them out when she should be learning"

He told her he didn't like to give girls the cane, and my mother said.

"Well if she deserves it, give it to her. That's the only way they'll learn".

You'd think she was the cruellest woman on earth yet she hardly ever spanked us, it was enough for her to speak and tell us and we did it. We had to be obedient, we were ten in family eventually, but I was the eldest daughter so I had quite a brunt of it. I was nursemaid to all of them.

My next memory is when I was five years old and my sister Nan, Annie, was about to be born. I was sent to live with my grandmother. She lived up the 'Bit', that was quite a way for a little five year old who was terrified of Granny's closet, as it was called in those days. 'Granny's closet' consisted of a wooden seat with a hole in it and a big iron bucket underneath, however at home my Dad had made a small one with a potty underneath for the children. So when I wanted to go, I used to run up the Bit, across the playground, down 'Vicarage' Lane to home. Of course I always arrived with wet pants, which meant a slapped bottom. I shall never forget that time. I was so glad when I was able to go back home when my sister Nan was born. and I shall always see her in bed with my Mum, a tiny little baby. She was the best friend I've ever had in this life. 'Bless her'.

The next important event was when I was about eight years old. My brother George was born. I was old enough to care for Annie, peel the vegetables and wash up and midwife came in the mornings to look after my mother and the new baby which was my mother's fifth child. I had a brother older than me - two years - and we had a sister who died at five years old when I was four so I did not know about her until I was older. There was one very bright spot in our lives at Christmas. Before the First World War Lord Rothschild gave to every child in the villages around Tring where he lived at Tring Park Mansion, he gave us all a lovely hamper and in it were two presents - one useful, one to play with. A Dundee cake and a pound box of chocolates tied with lovely ribbons. I can't remember what else, and a new shilling in a little packet. They came in great vans pulled by shire horses and we used go to the bottom of the 'Oddyhill’ to meet them. By then my mum had five children and the men staggered to the door with five separate hampers. We could not wait until Christmas Day; we opened them straightway, the youngest first. Alas when the war came in 1914, there were no more hampers and they did not restart again after the war. Little did I know then that in my fiftieth year I would work for the grandson of that Lord Rothschild

What never ceases to amaze me is the price of bread and milk.

When I was small, milk was two pence halfpenny a pint, full cream, no messing about with bottles. I had to fetch it every day; it was fresh from the cow. Then the farmer's wife had a separator and you could have skimmed milk by the three-pint can-full for a penny or two pence, depending how she felt. We used to get farmhouse butter for a shilling half a pound. Margarine was just coming in, but poor as we were we never had margarine on our table. Dad said it was “cart grease”. So we had three penny worth of fat from the butcher which Mum used to make beautiful dripping or fresh 'flair' when a neighbour killed a pig. It used to make lovely home-made lard and crackling. The bread was another story. We had at least five bakers who delivered it to your door. Our bread man was dear Mr. Warrior, Bob to mum and dad, he used to live up Akeman Street Tring, and he came three times a week, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and he brought his big basket. Our table was full, I think we had eight or nine loaves each time he came, and occasionally he would give us a bag of stale cakes that he had over and we as children thought they were jolly good. We also had butchers who used to come round from Northchurch on Saturday, and my mother would buy a huge piece of brisket of beef costing sixpence a pound and about a shilling's worth of pudding beef and a lump of suet, and that was our weekend food. Well it used to last us till about Wednesday, when she would send me to Tring for some pudding meat or perhaps bacon for a dumpling, or something like that. Of course, in those days there was no refrigeration and the butcher used to come in a cart up Hemp Lane and go back down Vicarage Lane where we then lived, so we were nearly the last call. In the hot weather, the flies used to be buzzing, blow flies. When he stopped his cart you could hear the noise the files made, you always had to wash the meat and be most careful with it.

When I think of the way we were brought up, there was no spare the rod and spoil the child. My mum brought up her brood on the Ten Commandments. Submit yourself to your teachers, take the spiritual path to the Master's door, honour your father and your mother, love your neighbours etc. etc. My grandfather took me to task when he thought my three-year-old son Tim was getting away with something he shouldn't have. He said to me,

"You know my dear, you must take him in hand, If you can't bend the twig, you'll never bend the bough".

My Dad was very strict indeed with us. It was the buckle end of his belt for my brother and me. We did do damage to a disabled man's hayrick, about seven or eight of us, on one Sunday after we came out of Sunday school. We played on his piece of land, which we called the Acre Bit. He was a short little bandy-legged man - they used to call him Old Joe Bandy - and he used to cut it with a scythe and laboriously built a haycock. We took turns sliding down it till it was spread all over the field. The police were told. And they said that if our fathers punished us and we built it up again they would not prosecute and did we get a thrashing - I shall never forget it. I couldn't go to school, I couldn't sit down. My mother was very upset. She took me down to my grandmother's and showed her my backside and said "Look what your son has done to my child!"

I think my Dad had lost his temper because he said he'd never thrash them again with a belt and although we had four more children after that, two sisters and two brothers, I don't ever remember them getting the belt like we had, which was a good thing.

When my brother Fred was 11 he went crow scaring he had a tin tray to bang on and a pair of clappers to change over to when the crows got used to one sound the field was at the top of vicarage road where we then lived and belonged to Mr Busby .For doing his crow scaring he gave Fred 6 pence I cannot remember for how long he had to scare the crows for to earn this but I know I wanted to do it as well, but found it too difficult

While using the clappers Fred would shout

“Fly away! or I’ll come with my clappers and knock you right back-ards so fly away do!”

Fred also did stone picking in the same field

My father had two young brothers, Uncles Albert and Archie. At the outbreak of the '14 war they were in the army and they came to church one Sunday in their red jackets. I was so proud, but the next Sunday Albert was in France. For this he had the 1914 Star, a most coveted medal. He went all through the war and wasn't wounded but three days before the Armistice was signed he was killed. His brother Archie had been killed many months before. My father didn't go as a soldier. I felt quite ashamed when I went to school. I wanted him to be a soldier but my mother said,

"Think yourselves lucky. I'm thankful he didn't have to go"

Dad was kept from the Army because he was in a reserved occupation. He worked at the pumping station practically all his life, down at New Ground.

I think it was in 1916 when the William Willet Daylight Savings Bill came into law. The good hand writers in the school had to make fair copies of this law and deliver to every house in the village because only about nine people had a daily newspaper and there was no wireless or television. I know this because I had to go to Tring every morning at 7.30 to get the daily papers from the newsagents and deliver them before I went to school. We had a man who had won the Victoria Cross in the Boer war and he lived beyond Lower Wigginton. Each day he walked with his dog part of the way and then sent his dog the rest of the way up to the Greyhound pub. I met the dog there, folded the paper and put it in his mouth and he took it back to his master. For this job, six days a week, I earned the princely sum of two and six a week which I had to give to my mother for money was short and food was rationed, especially sugar. The government of the day had started to grow sugar beet, and it was said in the daily papers, (so it must be true), that instead of a pound of sugar to the pound of fruit you could use half of sugar, half of sugar beet. You had to boil the beet well and put it through a sieve, which of course we did not possess. Dad grew the sugar beet on the allotment, so Mum took us and the little ones in the pram, a large basket and off we went down Crawleys Lane to pick Blackberries. It was a lovely day, the birds were singing, Mum joined in and then we all joined in. As I looked back we were so happy and I've always to this day loved that Lane. However, to go back to the jam, my Mum was not a very good one to experiment with food. She did not cook the beet enough and the result was terrible, but we had to eat it, and what was left in a very short time went mouldy.

School days passed by very quickly. Towards the end of the war I had to go with one other girl to Tring to enter an exam. I cannot remember its name. If you'd reached down to seven in reading, writing and arithmetic you could enter. No O Levels or A Levels. Much to everyone's surprise I passed this exam. This meant I could leave school straight away. This raised a problem, I had to go to Berkhamsted to Lawyer Penny's office to collect my school leaving certificate. Why it couldn't come by post I don't know. My mother said to Dad "How will she go?"

"Woops" said Dad, "What are her legs for?"

I had lived within 5 miles of Berkhamsted but had never been there. When you think how transport has changed, it is unbelievable. However, my Dad drew a map, down Hemp Lane to go, Hill Green Lane, over 'Wytchley' Hill, into Northchurch and on to the town of Berkhamsted. I was shaking with fear in case I couldn't find my way home. I sit and think my grandson goes off alone by air to Luxembourg, skiing in Portugal and to the Greek Islands with his parents. He was less than half my age when he went alone to Luxembourg. Times have certainly changed and so have children. It took me all day from nine o'clock in the morning until five o'clock in the afternoon, but I got that precious certificate.

1919 now. Sitting around the fire of my cottage home. My mother was in the wooden armchair with one foot on the cradle, rocking the cradle. There was always a baby in the cradle. I was the eldest girl of ten children.

"I think", said mother, "we have found a place for you, Miss Annie Crawford came to see me today and she said they want a between maid at Pendley Manor and I'm to take you for an interview on Wednesday".

"I don't want to go", I said.

My mother looked at me - "You will be very lucky indeed if you get into that house. You'll be able to come home every week".

"What", I said, "must I sleep there?". "Yes", said my mother, "You are nearly 14 and we've not got room for you."

I knew I had to work but I rather fancied myself serving in a shop, but I knew that when my mother said service, service it had got to be. The dreaded day arrived and we started off just after dinner. It was a long way, along the farm, down the long walk and into the long drive. When we reached the back door I was terrified, but my mother pulled on the bell and the hall boy opened the door. The old butler was having his nap and the footman was still away at the war. "Madam is expecting you", he said and he took me into the servants hall to await her pleasure. He came back for us and took us through the swing doors, into the presence of Madam. My heart was beating so loud I nearly choked. To me, she was a small plump woman, like Queen Victoria, and when my mother dropped her a curtsey I almost thought she was the Queen

"What is your name", she said.

"Violet", answered my mother.

"Let her answer for herself", she said.

"Violet", I whispered.

She looked at me, "If I take you into my service, I shall not call you Violet. I shall have to call you Jane".

"I'll be called by my proper name", I said

"Hush", said my mother, "that's not for you to say".

They went on to discuss details as if I wasn't there. I was to be fully dressed and downstairs, ready to start work at six o'clock each morning with the housemaids until 12 o'clock and then to the kitchen. When I look back I am amazed to think what was expected of a fourteen-year-old girl in those days.

My work was hard, in the morning I had to go through the front and clean first the entrance Hall which was mosaic with small coloured bricks then through to the rough hearth stone outside steps and in the winter it was torture as my hands became chapped and cracked.

I had to do the Gentleman’s cloakroom and lavatory, I hated this worse than anything else. The toilet there was an early version of a water closet and at the base of the pan was a copper trapdoor and about six inches of water and I had to put my hands in it and clean the copper bit with sandpaper. Sometimes it was horrible. Also in the cloakroom were large bookshelves to be dusted and all this had to be done by 8.00 which was the time of the servants breakfast meal (this was laid and cleared by the Hall boy)

Then Lizzie the under-housemaid and I went to the top of the house, and made all the staff beds, emptied the slops, and filled up the jugs and water glasses. On hands and knees all the rooms had to be swept and polished including the long landings and stairs then everything put away and dusters washed by 12 noon and into the kitchen dead on time or else.Here in the kitchen I had to tackle two huge sinks full of washing up, and at least a dozen copper pans to be cleaned with a mixture of sand salt and vinegar,then there were pans like silver and these were cleaned with soft soap and sand. I could not get over the number of different pans. You can imagine how green I was my mum only had a boiler and a small pan for milk.

All the washing up had to be done by 12:45 and then it was into the hall for midday dinner. This was quite a ritual, the butler, ladies maid, and sometimes the cook, came in for the meat course, then the hallboy opened the door and they rose and went out (in the right order) for sweet in the housekeepers room. On our hall table was a large jug of beer but of course the under servants were not allowed to take it, we had water.

Then it was back to washing up, it seemed endless and when I eventually got through it, I had to clean the scullery. This had a floor that was hearthstoned every day all over ‘no skipping it’ the cook said to me. It also had a huge copper, with two huge copper lids, in which soup was made and the poor came from all round, with jugs and cans. I can’t remember how often they came but I used to feel like lady bountiful when the kitchen maid let me help to ladle it out. What went into it was nobody’s business I do know that chickens heads and feet went in

We did get good training in the kitchen it still had an open fire and had a meat jack all steel at least 2 yards square, on legs, and underneath a basting tray and ladle. I had to cleaned this once a week and also a huge dresser full of copper moulds and pans.

Every evening, after hall tea the kitchen maid laid out on the cooks table a large brown jar full of spoons and forks and other things, all put in handles first, so she could see which to take out to form a line of knives on the table together with the salt box, rolling pin, chopping board and scales,all ready for the next day.

I had to go to the scullery and do all the vegetables for the next day,two large pots of potatoes, carrots, onions, chop the parsley and anything else she would need.

When there were shooting parties at the house we would kill a pig for pork pies making raised ones for the gentry, and flat ones for the 20 or so beaters who got 1/- a day (5p). Beside the pig we also provided sausages, I say we, my share was to put skins onto the hand worked sausage machine and it took hours also there were faggots, and they were faggots in those days.

Every morning we had prayers for the entire household,and again on Sunday nights after dinner we all trooped into the Billiard room in order, top servants first down the staff, and I came last, with the hall boy behind me then finally the butler who put out the lights (we had to be careful as we made our own electricity). I can see it now the long settle that took 8 or 9 of us the rest in chairs the gentry gathered round the fire with the master reading prayers.For some reason I always saw the funny side of it and one awful night I could not stifle my mirth and gave a loud hysterical giggle in the middle of a prayer then came a dreadful silence and then madam said in an awful voice ‘Violet’ (the one and only time she ever called me by my real name) “Leave the room at once”, and I had to get up and walk disgraced from the room and stand so frightened in the dark passage, because although the house was not very old it stood on the site of a much older one and was said to be haunted by the ghost of Simon Harcourt.

My wages were £14 a year, £14 a year paid quarterly (out of which I had to pay my father for the clothes he had bought me), one afternoon off a week and back to the house by 7:30. Alternate Sunday afternoons each week, back before 8 o'clock.

In the summer Madam went to church in my own village she did not approve of taking a carriage out on Sunday but she had a contraption, a kind of a bath chair with shafts, with a donkey to pull it. It was left in the stable at the farm, next to the church, while she went to the service, which I also had to attend, then I had to escort her home.down the long walk Drag the donkey when it wanted to linger and guide it across the main road by Pendley beaches, through the Lodge gates back to the House where the hall boy would take the donkey and the ‘carriage’ round to the stables. On one occasion however when we reached the front door the hall boy wasn't there. So Madam said to the butler

"Do you think we could trust the girl to take it round".

"Yes", he said, "I think so".

So Violet went round with the donkey. As soon as we were out of sight of the front door I did what I had longed to do many times got in the chair into her holy seat and took the reins, the donkey must have scented he was nearly home and he took to his heels and he went round the corner on one wheel. I was frightened out of my wits, but we arrived safely and I dare not tell anyone about it in case it got to madams ears she was so strict.

There was an awful calamity while I was at Penally at Christmas time. One Christmas, I was very excited and I was jumping about trying to do, you know, too much work and I was told to wash up a copper pan. Now as I said before they had lots of copper pans in that kitchen and they had two boilers, a sort of oval kind of boilers. One that had boiled a ham and one that contained the consommé for a dinner party on Boxing Day that had taken the cook a week, it seemed to me, to make. The kitchen maid told me I was to wash the pan out that the ham had been boiled in and clean the copper and put it back as I hadn't got anything to do. So I proceeded and poured away what I thought was the ham water, because you see if my mother had made soup it was always greasy that was what poor peoples soup was like. Of course what I'd done was to pour away the consommé that was like cold tea, and left the ham water. When the kitchen maid found out what I'd done she went and told the cook who went absolutely berserk. I shall never forget it. She was making mince pies and it was Christmas Eve, and she flung the rolling pin at me. I can feel the anger behind it as it came across the kitchen and it struck the backs of my heels, now I didn't very often lose my temper but I picked the rolling pin up and threw it back. On the table was a seven pound stone jar and it had knives and forks and spoons that she used for cooking. The rolling pin struck the jar, smashed it to smithereens, and these old spoons went flying all over the place. I was horrified of what I'd done and I ran out. I wasn't satisfied with running out, just as I was in a print dress and apron and cap; I ran home which was a mile and half more. I got to Vicarage Lane, Wigginton, and burst open the door to see the family sitting all round a lovely evening fire I should think it was about 7 o'clock, something like that. And they were all happy, and there's me standing there, it was snowing, and my mother took one look at me. She said,
"What on earth are you doing here!"

So I said, "I've run away".

"Run away." She said, " What are you talking about? "What have you done?"

I said, "I've thrown the soup away."

"Well" my mum said, "it's no good you thinking you can come back home because you can't".

And she used to wear a woollen crossover shawl and she took it off and put it round my shoulders, I was already wet, and she took an old coat and she put on a cap of my fathers and took me by the arm back to Pendley. Ooh I was in a terrible state, but in those days, well you just had to do what your parents told you. There was no saying I wouldn't go. When we got there Mum knocked at the door and the kitchen maid came. Mum said

"I don't know what the girl's been doing, what she's done wrong, but whatever it is, well you must punish her in some way she can't come back home", and off she went.

Well, I wasn't forgiven. I stayed out the back door and I sat on the steps - there was a flight of steps, one went up to the kitchen door and one went up to the back door. I was crying my eyes out. I was making an awful row of sobbing as if it was the end of the world. Then the old butler he came across the courtyard, it was lit up, and I suppose he could see me sitting on the steps, and he always used to call me Maudy - I don't know why

"What's the matter Maudy?"

I said "Well I've run away".

So he said "Well you haven't run far!"

"Ooh" I said, "But I've been home and my mum's brought me back."

"Oh" he said, "Well you can't stay out here" he said, "Go on indoors in the warm-You're frozen".
I was. So he took me into the cook and he said

"What's been going on here?"

She wouldn't answer; she went on with what she was doing. The butler and her were always at loggerheads. So he said to her - her name was Mrs. Boa, B.O.A. like a serpent - he said to her,

"You know, you've got a good girl here. She does try hard. She's got a lot to learn. After all She's not 14 yet. She's got to have some sympathy somewhere. She's absolutely frozen".

And the kitchen was lovely and warm because they'd got a big eagle range. However, she said very little but he left me there and I went in the scullery, I was still crying my eyes out and my face was wet with tears, I was wet with snow and was in a terrible state. The kitchen maid came out and said,

"The best thing you can do is go up in your room and stop their cause you ain't no help here".

And up the stairs I went and laid on the bed and cried myself to sleep I expect, I forget what happened after that, but I know it was a very sad time. I've learned a lot since then and I've learned what that consommé meant to her. There's a lot of work in the way they used to do things in the old days. They didn't have help like you get today with cooking. She was a very good cook. She was a Scots woman, but oh so strict, oh so strict. She's buried in Wigginton churchyard. She died working

I must say I continued to suffer there. The upper servants were so petty, I was sent to be reprimanded for all sorts of things. The steel fenders and the fire irons had to be cleaned every day with sandpaper and a burnisher, which was a square of leather with chain mail on it. One job I did hate that, but I had to do it. I said before that I had to dust and polish the cloakroom. This room had shelves all round with the books which were my joy. The upper staff had two each month, the lower ones - of which I was the lowest - had one, but woe betide me if I did anything wrong because my book would be stopped. I remember when I was reading The Mill on the Floss it was taken away from me just when I'd reached the most exciting part, so I used to rush my work and then read a few pages while I was doing the cloakroom. This happened the week before Christmas. On Christmas Eve the staff gathered in the billiard room, guests were also there watching us receive our gifts. Mine was a length of print dress uniform material and a calendar. She was ticking me off at the same time and she said to me

"Why don't you try harder to be a good girl".

I'd borne enough and I said to her "I know what a good girl is and I am a good girl".

She looked at me so sadly and she said,

"Why don't you ask God to help you?"

And when I looked at my calendar it had a picture of the Rock of Ages and underneath it were her words ‘thy god has sent forth strength for thee’.

Being sent to service I never had much chance to meet young men but for a short time after leaving Pendley I worked temporarily at Barley End, Aldbury. Lord Sandhurst, who was Lord Chamberlain to the King, had a temporary cottage there - well they called it a cottage, but they had six maids. When they went back to London, an American family took it over and I went as a temporary kitchen maid. It was just the opposite of Pendley. They were so kind and lenient in every way. When I'd been there about a week or two, the Sandhurst family had gone away and the American people had arrived, I was walking out of the drive one day and the lady of the house said,

"Are you going to the village?"

So I said, "I'm going home". So she said, "Oh because I'm going to the village".

She was getting her car out and I said,

"Oh no, I live at Wigginton".

She was astounded that I was walking all that way. It was a good mile into Aldbury, more than a mile, and then along to New Ground, up Hemp Lane to Wigginton. By the time I got there it was almost time to turn round. But she said

"I'll take you. I'll take you today and then we must make arrangements".

I thought, well she's going to give me the sack or something, but anyway before my next day out came, she ordered from Kinghams at Tring two new bikes for the staff. It was amazing, I'd never owned a bike, I knew how to ride, but I'd never , owned one.

The boy from Kinghams, the boy, (well he was a man because he'd been in the First World War), brought them over to Barley End and I had a brief glimpse of him. After that I met him in Tring one evening, and we got friendly, and in the end he was my husband but not before we had a long, long wait - six years - because he went to Canada, But this house that I worked for, Barley End, oh it was amazing. They were so good and kind in every way. I never had another job like that, and they were only there three months but when they left they took any temporary maids that wanted to go, to America but my mother said

"No way", she said, "No way would I let you go there. Certainly not".

In vain I cried and never got there, but a friend, a girl I was very friendly with - she was an Aldbury girl - she went. I quite envied her.

After Lettie was born I went - my next permanent job was with Lady Hadden at Rossway. That was a very strict household. The cook was 82 years old and she'd been in famous houses. Originally she wanted to go to Buckingham Palace but she wasn't tall enough, even to do the cooking you had to be so tall. So she took the lesser place of - I think it was, if I remember rightly - Princess Louise, the Duchess of Fife, and she was there so many years. I knew she was telling the truth because when she left the Duchess she had been presented with a lovely silver inscribed writing desk. Oh she was a fantastic cook. The only real time that I saw her famous cooking was when the Berkhamsted Girls School had some sort of a centenary and the Marquis and Marchioness of 'Carrisbrook' came to open it and came to lunch at Rossway, it was quite an event. The preparation that went in for that lunch, well that was nobody's business. I got fed up and Mrs. Saunders that was the cook; she said "Well, at least you can say you've peeled potatoes for the King's cousin". Oh there were the most fantastic dishes. I just remember the sweets, which were made, they made like birds' nests of like powdered nuts - I don't know how they did it. Oh I can't really explain - I know they were pale green these nests, they were like birds' nests and dished up in a silver dish and the spun sugar was just like cobwebs over it. I don't remember, it was all in French, the menu was all in French, and well it was quite an affair. It took days to prepare. Of course, things like that are not happening today unless they're in a place like the Savoy, or one of those big hotels.

My future husband's father Ben Kingham was a cycle engineer and had a shop in Weston Road, Tring, and he owned a Model T Ford which cost £100 new and he used to let it out on hire. My husband, (before he was my husband), he hated cars but he used to have to drive this car. He had a cab license for it and that was his way of working for his father. He had to drive this wretched car which he hated. My future husband, he was then my sweetheart, and he used to drive over to Berkhamsted in the Model T Ford; I thought I was marrying somebody that was so rich, you know, they'd got a shop and they'd got a car. Anyway, he used to drive over to Berkhamsted to the bottom of Cross Oak Road where there was a big market gardeners. This belonged to my husband's aunt (The sister of his real mother who died when he was born) and he used to leave tdecided to go to Canada he car there. We weren't allowed to go joy riding in it. It was just to get to Berkhamsted to come and see me and we used to walk up in Berkhamsted Park and then probably go to the pictures, which used to be seven pence in those days. Then he used to drive himself back home so it was not much fun having a car, we didn't go far. But still we were very happy, we had very little. He never had any wages but he was allowed to take money from the till when he wanted to go anywhere but he was the least extravagant of men, he didn't buy presents very often. Thinking them a waste of money. However, my mother thought he was too old for me - he was ten years older than I was and had been through the war which made him seem twenty years older. His mother and father disapproved of me, well at least his mother did. She didn't want either of her sons to marry and put every obstacle in their way and in the end my husband to be decided to go to Canada and try and make a life out there. He went on a tourist not an emigration scheme, It was a very sad time for me when he went. I was 17 when I was engaged and there was not much hope of getting married but I was very very fond of him and he had been through the war and had a very sad life and was a stepson to the old lady. However, he tried very hard and he got work on the Canadian Pacific Railway. Although I told him before he went that I had no desire to emigrate and go to Canada because I was very fond of my family, my brothers and sisters, my mother and father and I couldn't see a future in Canada. However when he got out there, he got on very well but finally decided that life out there was not much. Although he might have got a house on the railway, working for the Canadian Pacific, it was many, miles away from everywhere and he knew I liked people, and was fond of company and he didn't think I would be happy

When he went away at first I felt very, very lonely but my sister Rose was born and I had to leave my job to look after my mother. That was the second time I had to leave - first for Lettie then for Rosie. So I started going to the Women's Institute with my mother.

I once won a £10 prize. Well £10 in those days, was, well, a lot of money. It was the second prize, and the competition was called, "Do recipes stir the memory" and I said yes they did. This cook that I was talking about before used to make a fantastic coffee creation, it was coffee and cream and sponge fingers and I she used to shut herself in the larder. It was a very old house and the larder had a big key like a church key, and it had worn a big hole in it, putting it in and out over the years. I watched her make this pudding - I think it was called a pudding - through the keyhole. She took ages to make it and it was perishing cold, I remember. But I've cooked that same pudding as my specialty for years at different parties I've been to, so I sent this entry into the Daily Mail. I tell you, I was surprised, I had a £10 prize for that. Yes they do stir the memory. I can remember fantastic things I've seen made, but cooks jealously regard their secrets, you don't really find out how to do them, or they leave an important thing out of it, so you might try for ages to imitate their cooking but you'd never do it. Of course, you've got to remember in those days there was no freezers or frozen vegetables or anything. The gardeners had to bring everything - well I know the Rossway gardeners for that big do, had to bring everything forward. We had little tiny new potatoes, peas and carrots - tiny carrots - the beginning of June, and Mr. Hales was a wonderful gardener. Every morning they used to come up, change their shoes and put carpet slippers on. The gardeners came in and did the flowers, all over the house, changed the pot plants, brought the vegetables - well first of all they came and asked the cook if there was anything special then they came up with their big baskets, all cleaned, vegetables all washed and properly - salads, fruit, everything in season, and early season if you wanted it. In those days there was much more skill than there is today. I mean we just go to the freezer and we get things all ready made now - there was nothing like that in the old days. I mean everything had to be kept, you had to be sure it didn't go off. But at Rossway they had an ice place in the middle of the park. They used to order from the fishmonger - they'd a big hole dug in the ground - I don't know quite how they used to do it, but they used to have the ice delivered from the fishmonger and keep it in this ground in the park, I remember. Because, of course, you see, you had to keep some things you needed ice for. Used to do homemade ice cream, oh it was a world that people today would never realise. They would not believe the work that was involved.

Eventually Reg came back from Canada. The electricity was just coming to Wigginton he worked for on the electricity when they were laying the wires, and after that he worked on the new road, the Ashley Green road to Chesham, He was earning 4 pounds a week and we decided that was enough to get married on. All the years I'd been working, because I had very small wages and I had to help my family, my savings were just 150 pounds and my husband had none. All the money he'd ever earned except for what earned his keep in Canada, had been just enough to keep him going. It was his gratuity money with which he bought my engagement ring. Great excitement - Mr. Clements in the High Street, Tring made it and it cost 19pounds. You could choose a ring in those days - I don't know what it's like now - but you could choose a picture of a ring and Mr. Clements would make it. Little did I know that I'd have to wear that for six years before another one joined it, but I didn't mind. I 'loved' the job I eventually got and I was married from there, and the boss's son took me to church in his car. They gave me my wedding cake, oh it was a lovely job, lovely. When we were going to church, the son took me to church, he looked round and saw I was crying and he said,

"If you want to back out Violet, I'll go and tell Reg."

I said," No", I was just crying because I was so happy".

I was so happy there. I had waited - talk about hope deferred - I'd waited so long for the wedding day.

The housing in those days was as difficult then, as it is now (1988). But we managed to get a flat in Berkhamsted, which were three rooms over sports equipment shop, opposite the boys' grammar school. Oh we were very happy there. It was twelve shillings a week, which was OK because he was working on the road, but no sooner had we got married than the job, finished. However straight away he got a job on the Forestry Commission at the National Trust at Ashridge, felling trees, since he had done quite a bit of this work in Canada. He used to go to work on his motorbike and come back to this flat and he had an awful job to get his motorbike up the little narrow alley, but he used to manage it - he had to turn the handlebars round, every night and every morning, cause they were too wide to go up the passage.

One Sunday my dad came over, he also rode a motorbike, and he said

"I've been to see about a house for you in Wigginton. It's in Chesham Road and it belongs to Mr. Tommy Lake - they're very nice houses and they're twelve shillings a week and he says if you'd like to go over and look at it you can have it".

Oh dear, we got on our bike straight away and went to Chesham Road, Wigginton and we saw Mr. Lake and he gave us the key and said

"You can go and look at it".

Oh we were in the seventh heaven. It was a really nice house with a lovely garden. There was some furniture left that we could buy, it was about 9 pounds. Well we had spent the savings we'd got, which wasn't much, on furniture for our flat, but anyway by some striving we managed to get the money and we moved into this house. Oh it was smashing, and we lived there for three years. Then Mr. Lake wanted the house for his daughter who lived in a tied cottage and her job had finished so we went to live in 'Hawridge', down at the dip at the bottom of Heath End Road. It was a tiny little cottage after our nice house but it had a lovely garden, which my husband was delighted with, and would, have stopped there forever but I didn't like it, as it was very damp.

We stayed there for a couple of years and then we went back to Chesham Road and we lived in the house there for thirty years and all that time I still had to go out to work, I went out to work all my married life. I had learned cooking, you see, and I was a very good cook, and I found no difficulty in getting a job, which was the rate of pay for a daily woman was about eight pence an hour but I was paid nine pence because I was skilled at my job, and I loved cooking, I've always loved cooking.

When the second world War started I was working four hours a day at the Glebe House, Heath End, in the employ of Mrs. Russell. I was teaching a school-leaver how to cook and it was jolly hard work to someone who thought she knew it all. They were quite ordinary people I was working for. At this time I had two boy evacuees. Later on several desperate people from London airaids, and I can truly say, hand on my heart, that I never made, ever, made a penny out of the war. To start with we had eight and sixpence, that is 42 p a week for the boys to feed and clothe and you know what boys are for eating. We had to clothe them cause they had very little, not even a change of clothes. The next person I had she had only 27/6d. (£1-38) coming in and too proud to take the retirement pension. I looked after her well. Luckily, she was with me only 6 months. The next couple, which was two women - a mother and a daughter, drank three quarts of parsnip wine in about two months. My husband had a glut of parsnips that year and I never did care to waste anything and I'm still like that, so although neither my husband nor myself drank wine, I used precious sugar to make it. The young woman it was, mother and daughter, took Joe and Ernie out for walks - they were the evacuees - and they were six and seven at the time and she tried to teach them to smoke cigarettes. I did have a job to get rid of them but I did get rid of them. After that I made up my mind to get another job, to get a better job really, and I don't think my story would be complete without what I shall call the Rothschild episode.

During the war a house called the Ranger's Cottage in the woods at Wigginton was prepared for the three children of Victor and his first wife, Barbara, a nurse and a working couple and two dailies came in to do the housework etc. I heard that they wanted a cook so I applied and got the job. As I was exempt from war work because I had evacuees, I didn't think I was experienced enough for the Rothschilds, but as it was just for the children I took it on. Later on, when the living in London was worse, they used to come occasionally for the weekends - his Lordship, as you know he was working during the war - they came for weekends and sometimes their visitors. I know Lord Walton was one of them and quite a lot of famous people came. It was a marvelous job. They didn't have any, they had their rations from Tring, their ration books, but of course with a private estate there was things that they had sent every, (I think it was once a fortnight), from Ipswich which was where they lived at that time.

And when we'd been married 16 years we gave up the idea of a family which we had both longed for. We were married for 17 years and in my 40th year, when my husband was 50 I became pregnant.

Then in the middle of that year we heard that his Lordship was suing for divorce. The entire household went away and I was left to caretake. We moved into the nursery part until I went home for the birth. They were very kind to me. They gave me a new pram bought from Hamleys in London, cause you couldn't buy anything like that locally in the war, and a 'Heals' cot, hair mattress, soap enough for the year - soap was unobtainable - it was lovely Bronnleys bath soap in a big box, I remember. Oh they were very kind - baby's blankets. Our one and only child were born at home. We did try not to spoil him

After the war we were still living in Chesham road and eventually scrimped and saved till we had enough money - till I had enough money to try and buy it. My husband, he didn't want to own anything, he didn't want to own any property. He wanted to go on renting it and that was eight shillings a week - I don't know how it came to be cheaper but that's how much it was. However I was always mad to live in my own house.

I think we'd lived there for about 25 years paying rent, when the man who owned them, died, and left them to his nephew. Now the nephew had been shell-shocked in the same battle in France that my husband Reg had been in and Reg knew I kept asking in if he would let me buy the house and Reg said to me

'Look, I don't very often quarrel with you, but if you mention buying that house from that man again you will worry him to death. He turns his back on you every time he comes in to collect the rent, and you're not to ask him any more. You know I don't want the house, I've told him I don't want the house and that it's you that wants it".

That was Reg He never wanted to own property. However, one day the man came in and he said,

"If you're still interested in buying this house and if you can get your neighbor (it was a semidetached) to buy hers I will sell, or you can have them both yourself for one thousand pounds"

I said "Well I shall never have 1000. pounds, I haven't got the money and I don't think I could afford the mortgage, cause my husband don't earn much money".

However, I spoke to my neighbor, Mrs. 'Cyster' and she said she was 72 and no way did she feel she could start buying her own house. No she wasn't going to buy it. However just then, her son in law lost the cottage they lived in and they'd got three children and when they came to live with Mrs. Cyster and he decided that he would buy the cottage, so he went to his boss and his boss said he could take it out of his wages. He worked at the brick kiln and so he could afford it, which left me to find 500pounds. My savings by then had amounted to half that and in those days a woman couldn't get a mortgage, However I worked for Mr. and Mrs. Saville, who lived along Charles Street, Berkhamsted, and it was through him, through the Berkhamsted Building Society that I first bought my house because normally women couldn't get a loan. But Mr Saville got me a mortgage with my 250 pounds down (which was my life savings), and I got my mortgage at fourteen shillings a week rent.

Once my son started going to school to Hawridge I started to work again cycling to Belingdon and then when Tim was about 11, I got this wonderful job in Hawridge it came with a lovely house and I was able to rent our house in Chesham road out to the RAF. My employer in Hawridge was the kindest and best and although I still worked hard but financially it was easier.

My son was no trouble until the rock and roll years. I had never and still never been to a dance but all the young ones went mad with Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and dances in the Co-op Hall in Chesham and then there was girls, Susan, Mary and a few more. He had a very happy childhood but worked hard and did day release until he was 21, then he went to Wycombe and Slough night schools and he's got on quite well. I don't think he'll ever be domesticated, he's so untidy. He takes after his father and both grandfathers in his love of motorbikes. It would have just suited him to carry the business in Tring but he would have never had any money there. He was first a work study engineer, but soon turned to computers. He has one son, Ben, who is now 14 years of age and my only grandchild.