No, I've got a book upstairs with Jocasta in it. Oh yes, that's right, yeah, that's right. So marbling is that I'm because I'm thinking of paper marbling. It's a similar sort of thing and it gives an effect to sort of like a wood finish and you give it this sort of marbling thing and there's lots of funny little things. Would you know what I, when I talk about graining when they used to grain front doors, people used to have a pine door, yeah. And then they used to paint. Uh, about 4 coats usually of white lead paint but of a, uh, ochrery colour. Then you go over it with scramble and then. With Of your thumb you put all the figuring of oak and you would not tell the difference with skilled people. Some people tried to do it. But I never learned it. But I know I was done.

There are so many of these handcrafts that are that are gone. Well, we used to employ somebody. We used to do the spadework and then the specialist used to come in and do it.

I was just saying to Fran, I'm sure there's, there's a project to be done in recording.

You say you've got Ja Cata in this book upstairs, but there's nothing like somebody saying, this is what you do, you know. Uh, Errington, the decorator in Victoria Street, uh, they had their yard where the hotel is now, I think the Bovary, Bovary. Halfway along which Victoria Street coming off the new bridge.

I can't think of a hotel there.

Well, I think it's a boarding house now.

Oh, I know what you mean just by the, um, by the burial ground by Saint Nicholas.

That's right, just past there there used to be their yard there, and they used to live there. Errington's quite a long-standing outfit, but in at those days people didn't come and go. They just tooled along. Right, tea, tea and chatter.

Yes.

Can I tell you about that? Is it Hereford? That's at the sewerage works.

It is at the sewerage works. That's my uncle. Good God. And I believe I believe That's The car belongs to Charlie Parker, who was the engineer that oversaw the Victoria Bridge and whose name is on the plaque. Victoria Bridge, the Victoria Bridge. Really? Good Lord. But I believe that's his car down at the sewerage works because family stories told. My grandfather told me that he meant.

The car, is it a Daimler? Goodness only knows what it is because I found a lot of photographs.

I gave them to Derek and one was the, I think, 1904 small car race through Hereford, and I had a picture of a Cadillac going round the corner by the Midland Bank. Well, cup of tea, cup of tea, and then we're gonna record you.

That's, that's all right. I wonder. I won't let you. Yeah, the music one is interesting because I, I was, um, I did, I don't know if you knew about the Stitched Atlas project that was, it was in the old mayor's parlour. Um, there's actually a couple of ladies on who live around Park Street. I don't know if you know Helen Watkins or Caroline Gerstadt. Yeah, so she was part of that, that group with me. Yeah, I sing, um, but we were, she is, she's amazing, she's great. I love it, um. But, um, we were basing it off the folklore of Herefordshire and there's all those songs in there and there is a group called the Ellen Mary Leathers who sing these songs. I didn't know that actually, yeah, yeah, they called it, yeah, Ellen Mary Leathers.

I, I went very quickly. I went down to the records office. Have I said this, and I asked them if they got any sheets and they got this sheet music. So yeah, sort of thinking along the lines along the lines of that, which would be like a big project. I'll bring you some biscuits. Never mind. Have you read any of the What is there things to read? Have you read any of this? I'm waiting. No, I'm waiting for my tea. I'm waiting for my tea. No, no. All right.

What I want to do is get, get you sat down and start recording you. All right. Charles Arthur Blackford, Emily Warren.

Right, OK.

Yes, so it went all right yesterday.

Yeah, it went really well actually. She was, you know, she'd got the things out, and she'd called her sister and tried to jot some things down, but obviously her memories, she was very young when she came and I was quite intrigued because she didn't, she was trying to figure out where she stayed with her grandmother and she was talking about the mayor's parlour and how they used to go in there and I was wondering which one, like. I don't know about that old mayor's parlour, what was going on in there at the time, or I don't know, but yeah, I found out that her grandparents were publicans and they had, yeah, yeah, and I found actually I found the census that lists where she lived. She lived on King Street next to the Spread Eagle. Uh, with her grandmother, um, and her grandmother was a costumer, so involved with like, you're making clothes, but like for the theatre and things because there was the David Garrick theatre which I know burnt down, but then, so, so, but what he, but surely that's post-war, no wartime. I'm just trying to think when the Garrick was.

There was the Kimball was there and the Garrick, I think, well, I mean, the Garrick burnt, got burnt down in, in during the First World War, but then it was rebuilt, so it's where that multi-storey car park is on Widemarsh Street. Funny enough, there was also a little theatre, um, just down from the Saracen's Head where that car park is.

I only ever heard one reference to it, but it was a, it was an oral histories. I always look at the end of that row of houses on that street, and you can see the fireplaces. Well, there was a theatre there, I think, called the Alhambra. Hm.

So, yeah, I mean, the, the thing with the wartime stuff, so she remembered going to school. I loved the photo of them with the gas masks, um, but she couldn't remember what school she went to. Um, Leinster Leinster.

Oh, OK.

No, no, I thought you said it was Leinster. No, no, I, I don't remember. No, she doesn't remember, um, but it was in Hereford because they would walk to school from King Street. Oh, right, sorry, yeah, yeah, um, I, honestly, I get so embedded in this bloody history. I'm gonna stop myself talking. Yeah, yeah, um, and then she talked, yeah, she talked about going hot picking with her grandmother. But I think she was too young to pick the hops.

The, the house was a half. There was a half-timbered house. It's still there in King Street. Thank you very much. Take whichever sugar, sugar. I'll give you a spoon. I'll put the spoons on the other tray. You're a gentleman.

Thank you very much. I don't know how I do it for the money. Let's get, absolutely.

Did you say Michael? Michael? No, you said you don't care what you're called.

No, I think Michael's. I'm known more as Michael. Do you see this? It says presented with a new skittle alley at Brewer's Arms 1935.

I was gonna see if I could, uh. Do it with some tracing paper. Oh, kind of do a rubbing of it, or yeah, yeah. That was going to be. Right, I've got a lot I've got to remember to ask you.

So, I need you to explain what the hell we're doing anyway, all right? Perhaps it's better if I didn't know.

So I'm Bill Laws.

Laws, Laws like legal, yeah. I'm Francesca Davis.

Francesca Davis.

Francesca, yes, it's a grand name and I, and I am, I am, I am Michael Edgar Charles Rook. Michael Rook, you say Rook Rook 134 Home Lacey Road, and it's what June, uh, what is it, June the 10th June the 10th today, and this year in in September.

I would have bought the house 70 years ago. Well, for 1000.

925 pounds. Gosh, you were dumb. I got the conveyance there out the other day 70 pounds so I'm not gonna be able to get this size so I need to put the tray down. So we're recording you because we, this is what we do at Herefordshire Law.

Record people, write down what people have said. Get it back to you, so I shall bring it back to you after it's finished, and you can have a look at it and say, oh, this is nonsense or whatever.

But long after you and I are dead, but probably she's still going strong, all these recordings are going to go to the records office. So in a way we're kind of recording history.

Well, we are recording history.

Yes, will anybody be bothered? I'm getting less.

I'm, I'm interested.

My son is interested because he prompted me to contact you. So consequently, I I talked to the next generation.

And they think we're living in the past. I think, I think a lot of, especially, I know a lot of people, kind of my age who are, who are very interested in history and like real people's stories and, you know, there's so many things that we're not gonna know about, and it, it seems such a shame to lose those.

And I think there are quite a lot of younger people who are interested and they want to make sure that everything doesn't get swept away. With the last generation we want to know about, yeah, and it's important to know as well, so hopefully that's reassuring. I fear that we may be swept away by technology. Yeah, so we need to try and use technology to try and preserve these things. I mean, yeah, you're frightening your son. He'll be on email. Will he have email? It would be good if you'd like to share that email, and we'll keep him in touch as well.

It would be lovely to. Anyway. I, I've got an hour and I want to ask you specifically.

So when you came here first, your, your mom and, what were your mom and dad called and what did they do? Uh, My father Edgar George Rook. Worked for the Corona paint point.

Corona Lemonade Soft drinks in Hereford.

Yes, he had been manager of Stratford on Avon.

But because of the war coming, they moved back from Stratford on Avon. To hear And uh and to live where, where do they live 3 doors up 128 Holme Lacey Road. Bought the, bought the house off J and H Heles.

H A I H I L E S.

Yes, I know that name. Their yard was Where the co op was up here they were builders builders.

And Uh, One of them had a, a Citroen car.

The uh Inspector May grey car. Do you know what I'm talking about with the, with the front with the opening doors traction avant suicide doors, suicide doors.

Your mother, your mother's name? Florence Annie Roque.

What was she called before she was married? So what was her maiden name? Blackford.

Right now Blackford is an important name. Tell us why we should know about Mr.

Blackford. One of the things I always mention is that he was born in 1861.

When the American Civil War was on.

That dates him.

And he was born in Bewdley and he was Charles, was it Charles Arthur Blackford.

And he was born in Bewdley.

Which is just on the border of Herefordshire.

But uh. I, I found, I found a line that takes me back. A couple of generations, as far as about 1811. I went down to the records office um Why he came to Hereford from Bewdley I have no reason to, but he served his apprenticeship at Nailers, the iron founders and engineers in Friar Street. Hereford.

Do we know when that was? I don't know dates of that. But they, but that one of their one of their jobs or one of their enterprises was repairing Uh, farmyard machinery. In which what they did, they actually went out and Lived on the farms.

Because he was a steam engineer and all the machinery was steam-driven, thrashing machines. ploughing with a line. Um, can you explain the ploughing with the line? Well you had 2 steam engines. Uh, one at each end.

And it pulled a plough. Just the plough from one end of the field to the other and then back again.

And then they moved it along the And then, Michael, that this, this was particularly the First World War. There was a huge push to mechanise halfway through the war. And I know nailers, but this, this would have been. At the tail end of the uh The 19th century.

So that that was quite progressive.

By then nailers had become friars. Well, nailers were all were iron founders and made cellar tops for, uh, houses. Where people used to have the coal thrown down into a centre and this uh they had an open flap.

And there must be some Uh Uh, of these flaps somewhere with Naylor's name on. Yeah.

But I don't know the dates of this, but But we, you do know that he went then to the sewage works, but then he must have applied.

As a steam engineer for the job of Uh, manager of the sewerage works, and this is down outfall outfall Road down the lane there.

Uh, do you know where we are? The sewerage works. The ones where they are now, the waterworks. Yeah, so, um, you go down that way and across the bridge, yeah. And as you go into the works, there was a house there that's not there now, no. The the job went.

With a house provided. The manager's house stood just inside the gates on the left, on the right, on the right.

What was it like? Don't know. I never, I must have seen it, but I can't I have somewhere got a picture of it with my mother and her sisters on the front door, a small picture of mine, but I will try to endeavour and finding it because I'm going through a lot of things. Uh, at the moment, but from the, uh, When he took the job. Of manager.

That I don't know the date of it. But He retired. In about 1929. I, I think so he managed that through the First World War. He, he oversaw the transition from steam-driven machinery to electric, which was a big thing then. And Uh All the waste.

From a refuse collecting was taken down to the sewerage works.

And burnt in the boiler to drive the machinery. You know, it was recycling before recycling.

Um, They kept pigs.

Because a lot of the waste came from Uh, greengrocers and things like that, and they used the steam pipes.

To heat up pig swell. And then feed the pigs.

And then that was, they were sold. Into the kitty of the And you said as well about the, the ash from the burning.

When the Ash was Finished with as it as they cleaned the boilers out.

The ash was ground in a mill. and sold to the builders.

locally.

Uh, for mortar. No, this is for brickwork and stone brick.

So, interestingly, I happen to know that in 191917, the national sanitation.

Whatever association during the war came and met and they visited that site. Because I think it, they thought it was quite special. And they also, uh, noted that, you know, the willow trees by between the sewage and the thing. That those we used, the sallies we used to make the baskets for the municipal farmers market. Did you know that? I didn't know, but now you refresh my mind, my memory, because I seem to have, uh, remembered some somewhere along the line that they used to do that, but, uh. What I will say, Michael, you're, how old are you now? I was born in 1933.

So did you remember your grandfather? Did you meet him? What was he like? He came over, I mean, bearing in mind that I would be Uh Preschool days when I actually got to know him, he was still He was still the manager of the sewerage works inasmuch as he was still a Victorian.

But He did talk to me about when I made anything.

I mean, you know, simple things.

He could tell me what I, what I was doing, you know, little ships and that type of thing. But Uh, I would have thought he was a stern. Author Authority Bent All the time because it was an important job.

How did he? How did he dress? Because he went, I mean, we've got this, this tankard here.

Can I just read out what it, or I can't read out what it says, presented to C. Blackford, Esquire. Oh, on the occasion of the opening of the new Skittle alley at the Brewer's Arms in September 27th, 1935.

So he went up the brewers.

He walked 9:30300 every night.

I won't say this is a religion or anything, but he was uh You could see that he was a man of method.

So at 9:3030 he walked up to the brewer's and had half a pint of beer. From here I don't suppose he's ever had two.

No, so where, he lived at the, where was he living then at the Where was he living then? In the superintendent's house, the manager's house, when, when he retired? In the late twenties I would have thought. He was given a house in in Number 9.

Central Avenue in the Port fields.

I was born there.

Were those new, those were built then. Those were council houses built then, built like battleships, red brick and slate roof. And they were built new.

Without electricity. Which is ironical considering that he transformed the sewerage works from steam to electricity.

They had gas, gas, uh, lighting in those houses, which I remember. So now you were born there.

I was born there. Why were you born there? Was your mum? Have we got your mum's? I don't know. Tell me, did, did we get your mum's Florence? Florence. People were born at home then, but that wasn't my home. My mother. And father bought a house in College Road on the left going up. And Uh I can show you the house. It's about. Semi-detached with an apex on the front with a circle in the middle.

So I think, uh, I always, when I go by there, I always say to myself, I was made in there.

They bought the house new.

For 300 and something pounds off Jewel the builder.

Jewel Jewel, how do you spell him. Well, I, that I don't know. Jewel, J E W. That's, that comes over as uh and I suppose.

Uh, I was born fairly soon after my mother and father. Getting married And brothers sisters me only had only one good. No, so, so they bought that house.

I thought the whole of college estate was, um, local authority housing was council housing. No, no, no. Before the, before the council developed college estate, there was the road going up to the, uh, uh, training college on the right, but this is from the bottom going up on the left. I'm with you. 3 or 4 houses up or 3 or 4.

Uh, semi-detached house. There's just one with an apex like that that serves the two houses with a circle, ornamental circle in the apex just waiting for the blue plaque to say that you were concealed. I didn't like to push it. Michael, I, the reason that we met the other day was because I was explaining about this 8080.

project we're doing about recollecting the war in 80 items or whatever with the libraries. And you're, you were a young one, obviously. So what, how old were you when the war broke out? You were only 6 6656. What do you, what do you remember of those days? Anything at all? Had you gone to school by then? I started school in Stratford on Avon. The board school, I don't think it's a school, no.

It was council school, you know, local authority, um. What else? So then you came down here, but the, the school, weren't you sent to Bullingham to the Catholic because Saint Martin's School was in the throes of just being finished.

Uh, there wasn't accommodation in the old school in on the corner of Hinton Road and Ross Road. Um, So It was easy for me to walk down as well. Yeah, because you were here, people didn't use cars to go to school. So I went down there and was taught by the nuns.

So I could make Evans.

I could make certain remarks about that, but they shot Eichmann.

No, they dropped him in the sea, didn't they? Eichman. But I tell you what, it was pretty severe.

Severe isn't the word. They hadn't got a, a soft. Touch at all.

I don't know what the heck was wrong with them. But Uh, of course they moved then up to Beddington Street. Oh, it was before Berrington Street.

Yes, I didn't realise that because Berrington, Berrington Street may have been going as well. It's quite interesting, Berrington Street, because, um, just, I think it was going because I think perhaps for older children or maybe for girls, because a lot of, uh, not a lot, a group of Basque children. were sent over because of the bombings by the attacks from the Spanish Civil War, and they were housed there. They were sent there. And, girls, they had, they were noted for their black hair, wonderful jet black hair.

And one of the local hairdressers used to pay them for their hair to create wonderful wigs and so on. So that, and that must have been about 38. So you went to school, you're doing the maths here. You went to school in 338, 39 had war started. I think we were, I think we were here when the war started down in 130.

Do you, do you remember anything of it? You talked about. I, I played in these houses when they were being built. And the camp was here.

The camp was here, Sterling lines, and they, uh, we put, uh, a couple up. Because you had, you had to take in lodgers.

People came from London and were bedded out in, uh, as sort of senior evacuees. And one of the guys brought his wife and he was working on the camp. They were putting up wooden Uh huts and the buildings there, they were developing it. One of the things that I remember.

At the outside of the war, at the start of it.

Of course these houses in the Home Lacy Road, the Cornish units weren't built then.

They were just fields.

They were.

Soldiers came and they brought searchlights and uh detector uh machines.

Which were looked like uh 3 inverted uh Globes as they are.

Um What shall we say? Kind of like a radar form of radar.

It wasn't radar, it was radio detection. They picked up the sounds, but they were in banks of 3 and 1, if I remember, and they had a, a, a unit with searchlights on that field as you go up on Lacey Road.

Going up towards on the Ross, going up towards Ross. No, up, up towards the. Just I mean Winston Road was a lane when I came here.

And the Redhill Hotel that hadn't been, I think that was built at about that time to accommodate workers going down to Rotherwas because there were 3 shifts down there.

And I think each shift was 1000 people. When they changed stage, it was like coming out of the football field. You know, it was, uh, people don't realise, I mean it was a a a massive undertaking, but it had been a munitions factory in the First World War. Like, because I was looking through the census yesterday, the 1939 census, and just looking at one page you could see so many of them say munitions worker, which is, yeah, really interesting.

It's a register, not a census. Oh, the 1939 1 is the register, yeah, yeah, sorry, that's really interesting. Before we leave the camp, what do you remember? So you remember the huts going up. Can you remember it being peopled, you know, staffed there, who was kept there? We, we also had Somebody else lived with my father and mother in at Home Lacey Road and that We He was actually in the army.

But he played in the played in the orchestra because there was a garrison theatre there. Which I went to during the war. Are we talking about it being in Redhill Hostel or in the camp, the camp.

What was it called? It was just called the Garrison theatre. OK, Bradby Lyons. And what was, can you remember what the chap was called and what he played? He played the guitar. And I think his name was Green.

01.

So, and he brought his wife down from where do you know? No.

Well, I don't remember.

I would, I would have known at the time, but. And in the camp itself, who, who were the personnel there? No, no, you. If there were gates, gates in the hall where they rolled, and you didn't, you didn't go.

Somebody told me, somebody I interviewed said at one point there were German POWs there towards the end of the war.

And that he'd been talking to, he used to talk to the Germans, and one of the Germans made a joke about him and said, Oh, you've got lovely blonde hair. When I, when Hitler wins the war, we're going to take you back to Germany. And he was very cross about that. Well, I remember. Uh lorries.

Or lorry Taking Italian prisoners down down Hinton Road.

And I don't know whether they were situated in the huts that became Hinton Youth Club in later years where the There was an ash path that went through from from Hinton Road out to came out by the W Hotel Ome Lacy Road. On the where the where the brook goes a little bridge.

I'm with you, yeah, yeah, and where were the huts then? Um, They they went in off uh Hinton Road, uh, as you turned, you can turn down to, you know, where Acacia House is. No, I don't. Don't you know where acacia is trying to think.

Don't think so. Coming down where you go down to the river. Go along Hinton Road and straight over. Well, instead of going. Dawn. You turned right.

It was more of a, it looked more like a builder's yard. I, I think it became a builder's yard afterwards, but there were Nissan huts there. During the war, and I think the Italian prisoners went there for some reason, but they had brown.

Uniform brown overall type clothes, and they had the big red or green patch on the middle of their back.

That was the only uniform that they could find them.

Uh That they could use it detained. It uh Uh, what should we say it, it showed that they were prisoners, but we used to run behind the lorry and No, Acacia House. Going down there, yeah.

Isn't that supposed to be the oldest house in Hereford, right, I've not heard that. But I have heard about Italian POWs that, again, there was a lady whose son said she worked for the Women's Land Army Timber Corps, and she would take, she would lead a lorry load of Italian POWs out to whichever wood they were going to work on.

And she would lead with her bike and they would follow on, on the lorry, except that when he said that when they got around the corner, They put her bike in the back of the lorry and off she goes. And after the war, she received an anonymous donation of a of a, a box of nylons from an admirer in Italy. In later years after the war. Quite a number of ex-German prisoners of war.

Seem to appear on uh the farming communities.

A lot of them stayed on uh and They, they Built up a life through the war and then they didn't particularly want to go back to, perhaps they've got nothing to go back for. So just after the war, when war, can you remember war finishing? Do you? Yes, very much.

Well, we all had bonfires and, uh, parties around the bonfire in these fields.

I mean, my, there was only 2 more houses in this row when I during the war. What's built down to the bottom of the road wasn't, was just a field and They cultivated it, but of course the road was going to go on with these houses, but the war stopped. Development of any description. Um So consequently we had parties, uh. I don't know, uh.

It was people were relieved, as you can imagine. Um It was a relief, but Things were tight after the war for a good many years.

Because the country was skint. We had, I remember the winter of 1947.

And anybody who lives through there will say there's never been a winter like it because there was no machinery to move snow, and we're looking at a long period of Cold snowy weather.

Because I remember the 1939 winter, that was cold, but it was uh My auntie used to show me the stars in the sky. And things like that, you know, the air was clear, but uh, but in 47, just after the war. Nothing was, uh, what should we say, um.

We hadn't got any, any Diggers or snowplows or anything like that.

Where were you at school by then? I was, uh, at Saint Owen's School in just off Bath Street. Can, can you, for Fran particularly explain what St. Owen's School was because it's not there now. I found my school reports the other day. So where was Saint Owen's school? Bath Street Simmons Street, isn't it? It's, I don't know what it is now.

It's some council. It's, I think it's the, yeah, I think it's the probation service now, is it? I think so and the, the. The ground That the solicitors got the modern building in Bow Street Loon.

Yeah.

With the school allotment. Oh, was it? And we kept bees.

So you did that at school? And The, the, the master that used to take us for woodwork lived in Iron Road, in Iron Road, yes, Mr.

Dukes. Nice fellow wasn't.

He was a carpenter.

He wasn't a teacher. Well, that's how I see him, but he was a kindly man.

And so you, you would learn to grow vegetables and keep the bees and one of the endeavours was each, each, uh, class had 1 pound of seed potatoes, and we We there were competition to see who could grows the most. So They cut. They cut the seed potatoes with left, leaving an eye on.

And there was quite a competition about it, and I think we didn't, our class didn't win it, but the winners grew over 100 weight of potatoes from a pound.

Pretty good.

And all that allotment there. Well, on that allotment, yes, yes, and and more other things that were going on pigs, so pigs swilled in the street. Yes, that sort of business.

Well, just Uh, Just next to the school where the uh prefabricated hut is opposite that the school. Over again, they used to keep pigs. E.

So, so there was pigs both sides.

Did the family, did your family keep any stock like hens or any? Did your mom keep hens or anything? My, my mother kept chickens during, during the war. Yes, so just out the back and the backyard people were starving.

I mean, I think we were fortunate in Herefordshire, being as it was an agricultural area. You know, people, uh, What they exchange a rabbit for a pound of sugar or something like that. And do you remember that? Can you remember thinking, I don't know, that you were hungry or that I can't remember that I was ever hungry.

Uh, well, kids are always, but Um, Things were short. You know, you, you weren't uh It's lovely I mean looking at the rations, 2 ounces of this and 2 ounces of that, I mean, I think a lot of fiddling went on with it, but, uh, everybody knew somebody who knew somebody who there was a lot of bartering going on in, in this area. I don't know what I think in big cities you wouldn't have an opportunity of Uh, getting anything. By the way, the toilet's upstairs.

OK, thank you.

Is there anything that you'd like to ask? I was missing when you were in school during the war, were there, did you have refugees come in, come in and join at the school? Do you remember? I can't remember uh Eddie.

No, that's OK.

At any time, because I went to, eventually I went to Saint Martin's School.

And then I went to Saint Owen's and during that period, I wouldn't say the only intake there was towards the end of my uh School career career. Bearing in mind that the school leaving age was 14.

But I did stay home a couple of terms.

Uh, because I hadn't got anything to go to, you know, it was that sort of.

I mean we're looking at 46 direct, I mean opportunity wasn't, uh, There, but they closed a lot of country schools at that period of time and a lot of the children. had been taught during the war by Well, little old ladies and things, you know, you could imagine the standard would have been very, uh, you know, small schools with a, uh, one teacher and a, a range of ages. And when, when the children came to, uh, the boys, Saint Owen was only a boys' home. I forgot. They couldn't, they were afraid to let the girls in it because we were a bit delicate.

Well, I hope yours is going because this ran out.

Yeah, it's still going. I can send you the. Am I rattling on? No, you're not at all.

You're not at all. And I think that what you're emphasising is that the end of the war and this talk of victory, it was quite a hollow victory. I mean, if there hadn't been a war, do you think that you, your education, did, did, was your education affected by the war? I think so. I, uh, in as much as all able-bodied chaps of sort of 2030.

We called up We were taught by Uh, people that probably would have been near retirement.

The headmaster of St.

Owen's was very good, Mr. Weber, Mr. Weston, Weston, A C E Weston. I worked for him in later years. And Mrs.

Weston, did she? Yeah, she, no, no, she taught at Bluecoat I think. Um, very nice people, very nice people, and, uh, I haven't, I, and they had two boys and a girl, Elizabeth Charles, and They had a, a, a, a memorial on the wall to the fallen from the First World War. A wooden memorial for boys who'd lost their lives in the First World War. Not that I know of.

No, no, OK, no, so, so. You We've talked to you quite a lot.

You got to the end of the war. And your education hasn't maybe been what it might have been. Well, everybody's a bit short. That might be, that might be my fault. I don't think so, Michael. I think it's clear, everybody, it's clear that it was, it was a really difficult time. The up to the time of see we had rationing to 1953.

And, and the reason that you had POWs still is that the British government refused to send them home because people were starving in Britain and then we had that terrible winter, as you say, and the state of agriculture was dreadful and in a way the POWs saved our bacon, literally. That's a pun. They did indeed.

So, so what happened to you, so you're, what, what age are you now at the end of the war, 19. I'm, I'm 14. So you're having a party out at the, out on the meadows. Yes, on, on, on the ground. Designated for further building and ready to ready to go into work.

You are at 14 or 14. Uh, I stayed on for a couple of years for a couple of terms.

Getting to bearing in mind my birthday is in January.

So come December just before Christmas, uh, uh, A position was put in the paper for a junior clerk at the GWR Goods Office.

And I applied And I got it.

And I started work on December 7th.

1947. And it bars court or at bars court.

Bearing in mind at that time most Uh, supplies were were moved around on the rail.

I mean there wasn't the road transport, uh. Then the railways, when I went into the uh goods office. There was about 30 clerks working. men and women, but one little, one little thing.

When in 1947 I worked for the GWR.

For 3 weeks.

And then 1st of January 1948.

They nationalised it, so.

I only worked for, I must have been the last.

Employee put on for the GWR in Hereford. And I've got my first payslip. But because of the date.

I didn't get it until we were nationalised, so it wasn't the DWR.

And what was your first payslip? How much I can show you. Well, I was getting 2 pounds 7 and 6 a week.

And I gave my mother the 2 pounds.

Because I felt the That was the thing that you did.

And I had 7 and 6, which I'd never had 7 and 6 in my pocket. I mean, I, I was looking at starting to look at girls and things like that. And where was the family living then? Still on college? No, no, still in.

They bought the house in 39 here. So how'd you get to work? Bicycle. Over the Victoria Bridge, over the Victoria Bridge, getting soaked in.

Do you remember a bridge being put up for the munition workers on the side of the railway line? That at Bartenham.

No.

Or a fairy. No.

But it would have made sense.

Yeah, those mentions being mentioned. Alf Evans remembered the thing and if he remembered it, yeah, yeah, he also remembered then the bombing, uh, so the, the, the big event really Hereford, its city never got bombed, and yet we have this munitions factory.

That you remember, so you remember the, this flow of people, mostly women, back and forth when the shifts changed. And do you remember the bombing and it was a flood of bicycles mainly and middle and red. Buses and they used to.

I don't know.

Whether there were some Some came in from South Wales on the train.

And I don't know whether there was a means of stopping the train.

I'd rather wish.

I don't.

This isn't, this is, I, I only fancy this was done, but I know people, uh, came from Pontrylas on the train, yeah, and from Ross as well. They came in. We've had women talk about catching the train, but whether they came into Bars Court and then got a train out, I don't know. But so do you remember that, um, do you remember the big explosion? Yes, very much. Tell us about that when it was yes, well, the Was it in the afternoon? I don't know. I don't know. I know I think you said it was early in the morning. That's the bombing. So there were two things in July 14942. The factory was bombed, and then in May 19445. But what I remember about that time as children. We walked up danger and you, you, there was gir great big twisted girders that had been, uh, part of the factory in the fields around. They've been literally blown. It was some sort of explosion. Gosh.

I don't know how many were killed.

Um, very few, 2 or something. It was extraordinary. And yet the bombing, there was, we don't still don't know, 18, maybe 20 people were killed in the bombing, but, of course, Ken Hersey's family were killed because the bomb hit their house. But there was some talk that there was a gun on a tower there, wasn't there, but the ammunition was locked up.

I, that is the tale. I, I mean, some of these are, you know, some are tails that are grown over the years. It's like, it's, it's like rugby matches, you know, the, the other side gets bigger every year, don't they? There are a lot of stories about that. Sometimes, not without truth, some sort of truth.

And I love the story about the missing train engine.

Have you heard that one? That where the football, they used to play football, uh, uh, where, where they play football now, or they don't, but there was a, a reservoir and there was an inspection, and there were too many, one too many engines and so they put this engine down in the bottom of the reservoir and Whether that's true or not, I don't know. But, um, the other thing about engines after the war, uh, well towards the end of the war, I remember seeing American trains. On the bridge in uh Deby Road there on the railway bridge which I could see from uh what I Visited Central Avenue.

They were the, the ones with the cowcatcher on the front, you know, the cowboy ones. But the story is that They used to come off the lines.

I don't know whether the wheels hadn't got a rim on or the, the wheels were different because when they got to the Brecon curve, they didn't curve.

No, there were some, some, uh, they were all, of course, in America, they just go straight, don't they, you know.

So there were some Something that didn't work and of course the engines were used. They were then shipped to France for D-Day and so on. You mentioned going to the circus. Yes, yes, I just. Yes, we've seen, seen all the uh Indian soldiers. On the top flight of the terrace inside the tent.

Which Uh, you know, it, it looked like a, uh, an army almost, but they were, they were intended accommodation on the, uh, racecourse. And they were, uh, A unit which had ponies or horses and mules. For taking supplies to the front line where there weren't roads or were, you know, uh, areas where the uh A mobile ah. Laurie couldn't get.

And shipped over in D-Day they were again.

I don't know. I couldn't. So I didn't know where they, they were, I would recognise them because their hats were. Rounded with a with a with a uh Like a peak, a peak, a pinnacle on the top.

I thought, I, I thought that they were Sikhs, but they, it may not be. and so they put on a show for the public.

No, it was the circus. They'd come to see the circus on a freebie. Ah, right, yes.

So who put the circus? Bartram's or well. Yes, Uh, See, you see, uh, Most of the things that happened. During the war, I mean I was only Sort of 14 12 when it finished.

Uh, I mean, I I knew everything about the war. Because, uh, You know, there were war films.

Uh, you know, you were.

What the propaganda films, I, I think you said, I actually wrote it down. I was in the war.

I knew every plane Japanese, German, American. I could name every plane in the air. Did you have the book that had them all in the, I mean, even to a raw dough.

Float plain.

Which was sometimes catapulted off a ship. Yeah, that was German. Yeah, a big, a big, uh, seaplane type thing. Uh What else? There was a lot of excitement really that it's, it's quite a boy thing to be excited by big vehicles and munitions Rogan.

Who Rockfish Rogan, Rockfish Rogan, I think he was in the knockout or the Beano, not well, not the Beano or the wizard, and I mean, I, you couldn't get comics in the war. But I managed to get one though because my auntie knew the chap at the newsagent. Did, did you come across the Americans at all, uh, briefly, uh, uh, you, you were aware of them, uh, I mean they came in.

Uh From Barron's Cross. Uh, but such, such was the, uh, The situation with the Americans is the white soldiers came in one night.

And Black soldiers came in there last night, the next night, you know. didn't let the two in together.

Do you remember seeing them? Do you remember seeing black GIs? Yes. That's quite extraordinary.

It was quite extraordinary for Hereford. They hadn't seen a lot of black faces before. Well, in that quantity. You know, I mean, I must have been aware of these things, but it didn't stick in my mind.

Like it does now. No, that's interesting.

You're more aware of it now than I was at that time. That's funny. This is right.

That's interesting, but. And where do you remember seeing them and White, black, whatever. Sometimes Uh, I used to go out with my auntie and my mum, who were close, and we used to have a, a, a, a, I used to have a lemonade and my mom used to have a Guinness or something like that in the, uh, in the pubs.

What was your auntie's name? Is that, and is that your mom's sister? Yes, no. May Her husband lived, she lived 80 Iron Road.

Which isn't there now because there's 2, there's 4 masonetttes where the masonettes are by Ren Ma.

I think I know, yeah.

Do you know where Ren Ma is? I work for the lady whose father built Renma. The other side of the brewers. No, no, you're the wrong side. The other side. Come up. Come up towards town by the left. Big double-fronted red brick houses.

Big. I'll have a look. Do you remember a plane crash in Ayne Road? Towards the end of all, no.

Um, sorry, Auntie, Auntie May and her husband.

He was a taxi driver, but was in the First World War.

And was called up.

And he was situated at the barracks in Harold Street and they went.

I got a picture of him. At at the camp. That they held before the war at Tenby is it who was the artist you mentioned? Was that him? No, no, no, that's another line of yes, I, I'm, I'm, I'm weary about going down too many rabbit holes, because you can, uh, you associate, this is why I said we would keep two.

Did you, did you see the, I think I'm going to have to come back.

Yes, I'm going to, I'm going to read this while Fran thinks about what we're missing. So we got Charles Arthur Blackford married Emily Warren. At Warrant. Awardgent? Yeah, OK, good old name. Wargent, W A R G E N. at Homer Church, 1886, apprenticed to nailers, which we know. Steam engineer nailers repairing agricultural steam engines, travelled around the farm servicing, um, put pocket watch in bed, checking if bed was damp. Yes, and if it steamed up, the bed was damp. simple, but you can see that he was a practical man.

But he was a practical man with authority, I think.

You were fond of him, weren't you? I am, yes, um. It's a pity I didn't have more time with him. It's all right.

Sorry, I was just gonna ask when he died. Um, what year did he die? Do you remember? About 43, 40. So during the war, yeah, yes, yes, he was poorly in bed for a long time. I don't know. Uh, what he died from. I mean, I, I think this is significant. I didn't know this, that the rubbish that was brought in and used in the boilers included the horse carcasses brought in by Gwins, horse slaughterers. Do you know where they were? Well, I know that there was a hot.

They were in the bone yard where those piggeries were by gosh, by your school. Yeah. But there was also a, a, a, a, a bone mill just outside the sewage gates, the sewage yard, the sewage factory, whatever you call it, just by the gates, there was a bone yard because, um, a chap called Tom Wheatstone remembered the horses going down there and they'd be ground up, the bones would be put on the train to Paddington for dog food. And I think it originated from using barges because the wharf is down there. I don't know that one, but the Pritchard's might ring a bell, but Yeah, but the, um, I've tried to, I wrote that down.

I thought, well I'll try and put it in. As quick quick detail. I mean it, it, it won't make the, the awards for the I mean, I'm all right now because Frederick Forsyth has died, hasn't he? No, but you, you write these things down in, in sort of staccato bits, you know, uh, I can tell you something else. God, God. Not, not very pretty.

I don't know whether I've wrote it down or not.

During the time that my grandfather was at the Uh, sewerage works.

Occasionally, occasion.

They'd find a newborn baby come up in the sewer where some girl had had a baby.

And Whether it was a uh whether there was anything wrong with it or not, but in those days, you know, pre-1900. A girl with a baby hadn't got much chance of nailing a fellow, would she? I mean, so take a, take a manhole cover up somewhere, drop the baby. I mean, it's a terrible thing. And also, Whilst he was manager. A lad must have got into the sewerage works.

And started, you know, the settling beds.

Well, it looks almost solid.

He got on to that.

And drowned. I don't, I don't know his, I mean, I don't know whether inquiries were made in those days, but my, My family people knew about it.

So I don't know.

Yeah, it's 100 years ago now, you know, it's, so the, the sewage farm wasn't just for sewage, of course.

I, I, I didn't realise all that you've said about the, the rubbish and the waste. The other thing was. Tomatoes.

If you wanted tomato plants, you, you could have them by the dozen because tomatoes.

You know, once they've gone through They, they, they always had tomato plants. I So, but I, I mean that about putting the kids down in the manor is a terrible, you know, I mean you, you'd want some.

You want to be in a pretty state.

I mean it mightn't have been the girl that did it. It might have been the mother. I could see that or the father for that matter, but in those days, you know, it was deemed not done.

Terrible thing, isn't it? There were some terrible things, but, well, we've survived.

We're looking at, we're looking at terrible things now. We, we haven't learned. We haven't learned. Pity we had the First World War. Why do you say that? Well, I, I think of what could have been developed without the energy, uh, Uh, wasted that went to two wars which crippled Europe.

I absolutely agree.

I mean, I, I, I sort of wrote the book about the First World War in Herefordshire and the Second World War in Herefordshire. And it was clear the First World War that they were feeling their way. By the time the Second World War came about, they knew what they were doing. They just thought, heads down, let's get through this. It's gonna be a long haul. And they were very efficient with it, but You are a victim of it. And, you know, my mom and dad were too, you know. A lot of people suffered as a result in ways that, anyway, that's, that's Fran, what have I, what have we missed? Apart from most of his life, but we don't have time to get, I mean we've covered. school and, and what was going on around here and Yeah, what are you curious to know? I suppose See.

Going on a different tack now.

M.

Uh, my father's people.

Uh, They kept the black lion in Bridge Bridge Street.

Oh wow.

I was in there the other day.

Wow.

Unusual to see the name outside like that.

When, when would this have been taken? Do you know when? That must have been in. Mid-20s, so for the tape, what are you looking at? It's 100 years old and at least but anyway, would you, would you know that the Oh, so it says the Midland Red, Midland Red bus bus people garaged their buses there.

So it says, sorry, Michael, it just cut across you. It says the Black Lion Agricultural Inn. Thomas G.

Rook, proprietors Rook. And then my grandfather Stroud Ales, there's an advert for the Kimball theatre. I sort of Derek.

Derek has blown that up, and he, he found out what the film was. At the Kemal.

But anyway.

I say the Midland Red Bus Company.

Used to put the Buses in the in the yard because the yard would have gone down further because the bridge is there now so but It says agricultural.

Farmers in those days on a Wednesday came in with a uh Gig jig, uh, uh, and the horse and they used to stable the horses whilst the farmer went to market and my father said one Wednesday they stabled 130 horses. That's a, that's a busy market day.

I mean, yes, but you're, but when the farmers had a good day. They, they were a bit slosh kept back so very often. He used to Put them in the back of the trap.

Take them out into Bridge Street.

Point them to the. Give the horse a slap and then the horse would know the way home.

So it says black lion stabling, um.

Motors and repairs.

And, and it says, um, the red, uh, Red Motor Tours, Bris Midland Red Motor Tours. And the, the man, no, one of the drivers lived in Port in Foley Street because his son was also at your same school at Saint Owen's, and he loaned us a picture of his granddad. With the buses there and you can still work out where it is in the yard.

This is wonderful. I'd love to get a copy of this somehow. Well, you say Derek's got a copy. Derek put it in his book. I'll ask Derek for a copy. I'm sure he will let us have it because it's a shame to take out the thing. I'm going to, we need to wrap up, really, um. The other thing was they were agents for ROP petrol.

Oh no, no. Russian oil products.

That's the, that's the firm that the Bolsheviks nationalised and didn't pay out.

Now can you tell us this is your this is your father's side of the family? Yeah, this is another, and just tell us their names.

So grandfather on the father's side. I'm gonna have to shoot off soon.

Yeah, that's fine, um, I can leave that with you. I'll just show you how to turn it.

So it's still recording now, but so you just slide that one says recording, you slide it down that way and then to turn it off, you slide it down. Way, OK, and I can pick it up from you later, OK, if you like and then I could just download that, yeah, so I can I'll put it on my computer. Fran's got to get going, but she's running this machine, so I'm going to get her to turn it off. I, I could, I could come, come get it from you, and if I bring a cable that will go in your laptop, I'll I'll have a cable. Just turn it, turn it off now. Are you sure, and I'll write some notes for this. Yeah, are you sure you can keep it and I can pick it up. I don't mind, OK, and then, and then I'll take, can I take