Right, today is Monday, the 17th of August, and we're at Pam Colley's house, but we are very pleased to interview Peter Green.

Now Pete, um, can I call you Pete or are you Peter? I'm always Peer.

You're always Pete. Yeah, right. Um, when were you born, Pete, and where were you born? I was born on the 18th of January 1949, um, probably the county hospital, um, but, um, I was brought up at Penyo Fields, Jackley, that's where I first. Probably taken from hospital too then, yes, yeah, so that's where your mom and dad lived, that's right. And who did you have in the way of siblings? You've got brothers and sisters. Yes, I've got an elder, two sisters and a brother, and my oldest sister is now probably what would she be 78, I would think. My brother's 76. My sister is just other sister just turned 70, I'm 66, so. so that was just the forest, mother and father.

Right? And what did mom or dad do? Uh, my dad was a timberer. Um, my mum was a housewife really.

She didn't get a job until I left school. The last of us didn't in those days. That's probably right. I I don't really, although she did have the seasonal jobs, there were, there was a hot field in Checkley. Um, I lived on a small holding, uh, so we had a lot of chickens and, and animals, so she fed all the livestock and things like that, yeah, and done the eggs for the egg packers at Staunton and um. A lot of chickens and geese for the market at Christmas.

So really, I guess she did have a full-time job.

Did she go to the market hall? Yeah, Barnsley, no, no, Barnsley's sale in um the cattle market. They used to have a big Christmas, um, sale for it was a seasonal thing to get you to have your geese and ducks prepared. Yes, yes, everything was, was, was done and taken in and sold by auction, I guess.

I expect it was.

Yeah, I used to, I used to go used to go with my dad because we used to do some of that when I was a child, right? Did you get, were you part of this preparation, you children, did you have jobs to do and things? Mostly making skewers, um, spindle spindle wood is the what they used to make the skewers out of, and so, um, I was probably, I don't know, me and my sister used to go with the hedgerows to find the spindle and dad would shape them into the skewers. So and that was for for a fitting the leg, fixing the legs to leave the head on the neck and the head on and sort of bend it around the side of the bird and then.

skewer go through with the liver and all the rest of it and a bit of parsley around the side of it. So making an attractive presentation. Yeah, I guess it was. I mean, probably people wouldn't particularly want their heads smiling at them these days, but it was left on in those days. Oh, that's excellent.

You didn't have any cattle or pigs. So uh sometime.

In the 60s, I think, and then we had sheep, um, which I was never very fond of.

I've got to be a cow, the most stupid animal in the world, aren't they? If one does something the rest of them wanna wanna do it and they died just for a pastime, so I was never very fond of sheep. Were your cows milking cows? We had a milking cow, yeah, so we had more, more milk than you can shake a stick at it, we had, I think at one stage we had about 27 cats to try, basically they bred well because they ate well, so there was um a lot of milk and which.

To this, I guess it put me off milk a bit.

I, I, I have the smallest amount of milk in in things on cereals and tea, but when I was small, everything was cream and so what sort of cattle were they? Were they? Well, we had a And Ayrshire, I think when I was small as a milking cow and then a lot of Hereford um bullocks and and my dad would buy calves in the market and then they freed them up and then they'd go and another batch had come in and I think a milking cow would also have a calf. Because I think somewhere I got a certificate still from the when they set up the AI scheme and um so every so often we wouldn't have milk uh from the goat.

So that was a bit, that was uh not very often and then after that I think we had a guernsey I think after as a milking cow which cream was a was a lot of milk.

I do milk twice a day. Who did the milking that? My dad by hand, yeah, well, I mean it wasn't worth having the machine for one cow and it wasn't sold, so. What we didn't use the cats and the dog and just like that, did you all these cats, did they live in the house or did you? No, there was a couple of them that were pets.

There were the rest of them were, I wouldn't say they were wild because you could, you could walk up to them, but they never, they weren't house cats as such, I mean. They would turn up to be fed like all cats and then disappear. So you didn't have many rats about no rats often farms, no rats.

A dog was an absolute champion at killing rats.

What sort of dog was he? Uh, it was cross, collie, Labrador, spaniel, a bit of a hobbs dog, I think. He had very long ears and he could jump most anything 5 bar gates, 6 bar gate, didn't matter to this dog. But he used to like to jump barbed wire fences and his ears because they were so long were notched at the ends from catching them on the barbed wire. a terrible dog for it. There was blood that you could follow him for the blood off his ears. What was it called? This dog pug, I think his proper name was Rustler, but he never got called it. So you had what you would consider, consider a really happy child.

Oh brilliant. If you could not live anywhere as a kid, Chappy was the place to live.

I mean, we had a brook running yards from our door, the Pento, um, the Sharpage Brook was just over a couple of fields. Uh, I had a friend.

Uh, he was more or less my age and he lived about 4 fields away, um, and so, and we, we had licence to roam really nobody ever ordered us off anywhere.

We had all the woods to roam through, um. We had bows and arrows and air guns and everything you could think of really. Did you build dens in the woods and things? Did you, did you trap things? I mean, were you quite a bit of a poacher? Well, yes, you could say that it's a bit ironic really because the old I lived in. Uh, is now called Keeper's Cottage, but I think Poacher's Cottage would have been a better name but that's what it's called these days. I think one of the doctors from, I think she used to work at the surgery or lives there now it's quite, it's quite presentable looking house. Yeah, it's very nice actually, and he doesn't say it's been sold on. Oh, was it? I didn't know that, but it's got a it's a new timbers have been repaired but that's a long way from Jackie this keeper's cottage, you're not talking. This is the one that's what they've renamed it. It was originally called Baams where I lived and then it was changed to to Keeper's Cottage by the doctor. It's it's, it's you've got another one. I'm wrong. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of talking about a different, yeah, there's a lot of keeper's cottages of keepers. Yeah, well, yeah, I guess there was one time. In fact, my one uncle lived in the middle of the park, um.

At uh Checkley and he was slap bang in the middle of the wood.

There was old cages from the dogs and things there and it was really, really on its own is it there now? The house is still stood, I believe because it's on. A person who I, I, I'm a bit loathe to mention the name because I have a bit of a Adam, but he, he lived, he lived in there, I think he was the last one to live there I think and uh.

They moved out probably in the late middle 60s, perhaps, perhaps he was there till about 1964, I guess something like that.

Do you think it's occupied now? I don't think so. No, it's called the Punch Bowl. And it's um it's, that's an interesting name for somewhere in the country, it's well it's, I guess it's because of the lie of the land where it is, well, it's in the middle of the wood, I say, but but it is really in a bowl trees go up by the side and on the way there there's a load of old lime kilns and all that up in the wood there so.

It's a very lonely spot, really is um my auntie used to um.

Uh, walk from there, uh, down Purton Lane, catch the bus.

And um work in the milk bar at Ledbury until she was I don't know what age.

And it must have been a real lonely old walk in the winter past the Purton quarry and and all the way down there. Yeah, yeah. I expect she was happy with it being a country. I probably didn't bother her at all.

No, I wouldn't probably think not. In fact, the old boy is on. You can listen to the old boy talk.

He, he's on a thing called the British Library of Speech and dialect, I think. And there's a 44 or 5 minute, somebody from some university come and taped him back in the early back in the middle 50s. The British Library of dialect, speech and dialect I think or something like that it is.

Hm.

And did you have a bicycle? Um, with no tyres and tubes.

Most, most people, if they had a glat in the hedge, they'd stick an old bike frame in there. And so, myself and my friend, we used to. Get these old bike frames and find some wheels and um and quite often and not um we'd ride them with no tyres and tubes, you know, it was a it was a, it's a bit of a noisy thing.

It was, well, mostly there wasn't much concrete in Jacky to be honest, not many people had a proper path, so it uh we would ride them on the road, but they were pretty unstable and no brakes but. As there wasn't much traffic through chappy, the chances of you getting knocked over were pretty slim, to be honest. And then the wheels buckle quite quickly if there were no tyres, they just, they would just flatten out gradually, you know, the rims would gradually flatten out, and um, no, they, they didn't a problem. How did your mother cook? What did she cook on? We had an oil a paraffin stove, um, I think it was called a Florence cooker, as I remember rightly.

You know like a gallon container of. Paraffin on the side of it, which fed two burners and then on top of an oven that was fired by one of the burners.

It was it was pretty difficult I should imagine, you know. So that's how the cooking of children, yeah, open fire obviously with a big oven on the side and um.

Where did you get your water from? Uh, when I was small, there was a spring at the back, uh, one of the fields, and then a man from Mous, Mr. Small, I think his name was, dug a well. In some time about 1950 something, 1956 or something like that, he came there and dug a well.

Um, we didn't own the house, it was owned by a man called John Meredith who. Who owned a lot of properties, he owned properties in uh Jackley.

Um, you, I think should know. Is that the forebear of John Meredith? No, no, no, his daughter's name was dim.

Um, he had another son, I think.

Well, I think, I think Anne Bourne is, is, you know, Anne Bourne is, I think she is, uh. A niece, I think to To John, who was, who was known as Tick and universally known as Tick when I was a kid. He, um, he used to wear plus fours and um, he had thick rim glasses. And a baker, a big, which I thought was a kid was a radio, but it was his urinate. He had a huge, almost like a big radio bake light thing which used to hang around his neck. And squeal always squealing this this thing, and he would, he had a walking stick which he would bash in the ground all the time until the end of it it turned up like a chimneys sweet brush.

He was, he was a real strange old boy. Where, where did he live? He lived in a house called the Fields, Jay Fields, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh yes, he was another character. There was a lot of characters in Jackley. They all had a nickname and uh.

Um, and most of them are, I, I mean, most of them I only knew from my daddy would say, oh, that was, um, that was his name was Soddy Dick, who was an uncle of mine, um, then there was goddamn Jack who was another uncle of mine.

He'd done, he'd worked in America and. Um, there was um.

Dither man called dither.

Uh, my uncle lives in the, in the middle of the wood there is, is was shiner.

Um, I'm trying to think there was most, most of them, there was Cockerill Morgan who evidently used to have a few in the moon and climbed the telegraph pole outside and crow like a cockerel and he had a few, so, um, I think he was long gone, his house.

His house actually fell down probably late 60s, I guess that fell down.

It was on the side of Backbury Hill. Um, yeah, there, there were, there were lots of them around there, and I say they all had a, they all had a nickname.

And where did you go to school? I went to Morford.

How did you get there? We were picked up by a bus.

Yeomans is one, and, um, Yy Valley, I think when I was first started, Wy Valley Motors, I picked us up. Um, And then And the same when we got to 11 we had to go to the bishops.

So again we were picked up by quite a long day. We got picked up at 8 o'clock in the morning and we got back home about 455. So who was my headmaster, Mr. Holland. Was it a big school then? No, no.

I'll be honest, I think the day I started, I started in '54, I think, and myself and Fred Freddie Davis, Cutter, who lives in Morford, uh we started together, me and Fred and uh and Myra Watkins, I think from the park farm.

We all started about Christmas time, I think, and there wasn't many. Miss Tayson was the um. The Junior teacher from Hampton Bishop and uh Then I think Miss Miss Greenhill, I think her name was, but I think she went and then we had Mrs.

Herbert, um, who was Miss Stevens then, but I met her. It's strange because uh she was my the second teacher there, Mrs. Herbert, and then about, I guess it was must have been 20-30 years later, I worked with her husband in the fire brigade. Um, he was nearly retiring when I joined, but um, yeah, so I got to meet her again many years later, some do, yeah.

Did you actually enjoy school then? I enjoyed primary school, I did, yeah, junior school I did Morley for school was a great, was was OK. Um, we were all more or less on the same level. There was nobody. Nobody particularly bright, nobody particularly, you know, and um there was nobody well off or anything like that.

It was one of those village schools, you know, and everybody. Well, most everybody when I started I had older brothers and sisters there and uh you know, and mostly they were biggish families.

And then when they built Sufton Rise, suddenly there was a lot of extra kids came and it was and that was good because we had a football team and everything then because there was a lot of, a lot of kids their own age, you know. Did you send teams to play against Found Hope? Um, we did play, yes, um, although not. I know, I don't think we played fair.

I think we played, um, trying to think of the school in town, Homer. I remember we played Homer and. Ashburton.

We did, it's strange because we, I don't think we ever played any of the country schools though I think they generally seem to come from out of town, whether they, whether because they didn't have enough kids. Of the same age, you know, to have a team, I don't know, you know, because obviously we, we didn't have a team of all the same age, you know, we have, it was a bit of a mixture really of young kids, older kids, um, because when I first started.

There was a senior, you know, they were older kids there.

My brother had just left, but they went till they were 15 to Mordyford, but I think a lot of them came up to Fannope. A lot of the kids from Chackley, uh, from Mordyford School, when they got older, they they had to come up to, they started a special hut, didn't they? Yes, I think they did, but um I do remember, I mean, um, like David Winters, he must have been almost leaving.

Um, as I started and so I do remember Dave Winters and.

Uh, Brian Nash and that they were more or less leaving but and then in '58, it was 11 and then they all went.

So yeah, my sister was in the first intake, I think, to the bishops.

Oh right, yes, that was 58, wasn't it? Yeah, I think it was and so the world changed really the school.

Was, you know, they were once once you got to 11, that was it.

If you didn't pass to the grammar school off you went. I'm pleased to say I didn't pass because it was, I mean, the trouble with living in Jay was you would have had to have walked or rode a bike down to Mortyford to have caught the bus either to Ross Grammar or to Ledbury so. It would have been a heck of a day.

So at least I had to walk a couple of fields and catch the bus to the bishops in all weathers.

Yeah, but I mean that's, you know, when you lived in, when you live somewhere like that back then there wasn't that many people in a car, everybody had a bike and um. And everybody walked, so you, it's true what they say, you know, what you don't have you don't miss. That's right. So, so was it a big, a bit of a shock going to a big school like the bishops, I suppose it was, but again, I knew, I knew so many other because of the intake from Morleyford.

And found hope and and uh. Froome and Dormanton, you know, I didn't know that many kids from Fano, but within a matter of very short time, you know, you get to know them and uh and so that's really.

Um, I knew by the time I left school and I knew as many kids in Fano as I did, you know, from Morford, so it was, that was a good thing I suppose. I didn't like school. I didn't, I had no opinion, but I wasn't that bright and and I just mumbled through really.

Nobody really pushed you and um so I can't say I didn't enjoy school, but I wasn't, I couldn't wait to leave, to be honest. Oh right, right, so how old were you when you left then? 15, yeah, yeah, you left 15. So what did you do then? Uh, my first job was an apprentice plumber, believe it or not, which, um, I didn't stay that long. I, um, I started to play the guitar in, uh, I taught myself in. Oh, I was probably about 12.

My dad bought me off one of the Nash Raymond Nash, I think he lived in Jetley as well. And because my mom was a piano player, she, she um, she would only play for music. She would not um she no, she only learned by music. She, she got all her her music exams. And um she played church music and for weddings, funerals and christenings and all that sort of stuff she regularly as she did well she played a check, yeah, because they had a they only had a harmonium but yeah she played for most a lot of the funerals that she played for, in fact, I think Bishop Bevan would pick her up, I think to um because.

I think a lot of churches struggled for for uh piano and um so she would, she would play a bit, but of course. When she, when, if I wanted to learn, it meant that I had to learn properly and um she wouldn't learn me any, I think if she'd have taught me some chords.

Where I could have just sort of vamped a few tunes.

I think I would have stuck at it, but I just couldn't. I, I used to look outside the sun was shining and I didn't want to know about every boy, good boy deserves favour and and all that, so I just, uh, I was out of there really and because Lawrence Wright who lived again, they lived in a few fields away, he was a mate of my brother's. Lawrence could play a few chords and uh and I think it was brilliant because he could knock out a bit of Elvis or something like that, you know, and but my mom used to say you can't learn like that and uh and so I wouldn't learn.

I shame. It was, it was terrible really cause I had every opportunity, you know, and and I had a piano teacher right right there, you know, but I didn't want to learn to read music. So anyway, when I got this guitar, I struggled along and.

Yeah, um, at a record book like everybody else, the, um, was it the Burt Wheaton playing in a day or something like that, it was, and uh. And then there was a couple of lads at school who were keen and one boy in my class.

Are we talking bishop school? Yeah, he took lessons from Ronnie joins the barber. He used to give guitar lessons. He also had a guitar combo that used to play at the Green Man. Do and dance to Ronnie Ronnie Ronnie Jones, yeah, I think it was J O Y N E S or something like that, but he was a barber was his, was his job.

But he, but he also had this, um, I think we're a trio, I think that um. And I say in the days of dine and dance, I think Ronnie Jones was the man, so he did guitar lessons. So we used to grab this kid on a Monday morning after we did his guitar lesson and get him to show us what Ronnie Jones had taught him, which again was I think he was learning properly. So you formed a group. I, I was, yeah, I did in 1964, just about. Probably about 3 months after I left school, I bumped into a kid called Colin Hughes from Wallo and he got a drum kit, not much of one, but he got a drum kit, so me and him got together and then uh a kid from the carrots, his dad was the ceraman, a lad called Chris Haywood.

We persuaded him to buy a bass guitar and.

Unfortunately, my I had to get my mom to sign the higher purchase papers, and my higher purchase was was more than I was earning.

As an apprentice, I was 2 pounds 10 bob a week and um and then that I had to give my mum a quid.

So of course when when I had the purchase on the guitar, I then had to buy an amplifier as well to go with it and um and it was going to exceed my so. I, uh, I get I packed up basically and um went on the forestry commission for 4 pounds a week.

So, so I actually had some money. Oh, it was big money, yeah, 4 pounds and 4 pence I think it was, or 4 I should say. So I went on the forestry commission.

And could you work locally with the Forestry Commission? just I just walked. I just walked up into our wood and a way to go. I mean, it was um that was it was the actual forester lived in the houses at Willow. Dennis Dennis was on that, yeah, Mr. Skinner was the boss. As you as you come past the entrance, um. So where Mrs.

Child lives, Wessington Court, as you come past Wessington Court, there's two red brick houses on the left, and they were forestry houses. Jack Reed lived in the one and and Mr. Skinner lived in the other. He was the head forester. And uh so he was on site and I think they were about.

6 or 7 of us up there, I think, um, full time, so I was on there, but I must be the only one of the few people in the world that's ever been in a band with electric guitar and couldn't plug it in a dome because the electric still hadn't arrived.

They, they turned it on in uh in very late '64.

And and I think we formed our band in about um.

Um, May, I guess, May '64.

So did you go round various gigs? Oh no, we weren't that good. I mean, we played in the, in the skittle alley at the racehorse pub for the Wy Valley Auto Club motorcycle. We played a few birthday parties and things like that, you know, we were never um.

Were you called? Uh, I think I've got a card somewhere kicking around, so I think we were the motion, and there are reasons beyond that which I won't mention.

But if you think of motions and what people said we were, um, I think you can more or less work out why we called ourselves that. Did you ever play in any of the pubs or places? I did, but mostly for the green man in in the early 60s had a back bar as you got the passage on the side where it says if you've travelled far and travel where just up the passway there was a door on the left and um there was a back bar with a jukebox in.

And uh all the motor, it was a motorbikebari, they come out of town, all of that outside of town.

Uh, would meet up and then ride out to the green man and um I had a friend from Hampton Bishop, uh, Pete Probert and Phil, they all had bikes, motor bus cycles, and um we used to get in there and gradually we'd get to know all the motorcyclists and they were all members of the Wye Valley Auto Club who used to put all the stakes and.

Ropes up for the scrambles and things like that, so I got to know a lot of those and and really. I needed, I wanted a motorbike, that was the next thing, so the music, although I was still very keen, but I was mostly then I bought an acoustic guitar then and. It was the days of Bob Dylan and things like that, you know, so your music changed from rock and roll a bit to.

To, um, folk music and I joined myself and Phil, my mate, we, we used to go to the Red Lion Folk Club in Hereford.

They used to have a folk club upstairs in the Red Line. It's not down there. It doesn't exist. It's, it's a block of flats now called Red Lion Court, Victoria Street on the on the corner of Victoria Street and Pine Street. That's, that's where the red line was opposite Jessen's Jess, yeah, it was a big old black and well, there was a bit of black and white to it.

Do you still play? Uh, to myself, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, when I retired, um, the boys on my shift bought me an electric guitar.

I always wanted a Fender Telecaster, and they bought me one and, and then my other, my other old watch bought me a small lamp, so I've now got a, I've probably got a better guitar now than I ever owned. Oh, excellent.

How long did you stay with the Forestry Commission? Uh, I did 2 years, I think, on the forestry commission.

And, and then. The only time you weren't any money, real money, was when you went on piecework in the winter planting Christmas planting trees.

They plant a lot of Norway spruce early in, in the 60s. And so you've got 10 and 6 100 for planting for planting trees, and I could plant 500 trees a day.

Um, it wasn't, I mean, you're talking only small or you could, you could carry 100 in 50 to 100 in a bag on your back and then you had a spade and you you lined your sticks up across the button.

And uh it was like one step, spade forward, stamp your foot on it, make the L shape, drop the tree and stamp and move on, you know, and uh so I was actually uh I what I considered to be good money in the winter, but and then of course as soon as the tree planting was over it was back to reality and I think your wages rose about 1 pound a week, 1 pound a week.

As you got older until I think I say and I think probably the older blokes were probably then only on about 12 pounds a week I would think 12 to 15 quid a week I think on the forestry because it was based on the agricultural wages, yes, yeah, yeah. So I went self-employed on the timber with my dad and my brothers, my brother and um my uncle.

Well, early on it was um we were falling the soft woods in our wood. Um, there was, uh, all the larch was coming down and for the, for the mines and pit props and all that sort of stuff. And then, um, we went back on the proper timber for Jack Green, my uncle, um, because my dad had been.

Um, quite big time on the timber as, as it goes in the late 20s, in the early 20s, uh 30s up until the start of the Second World War, then, really, and um.

And then after the war, he started up again, but the winter of 47 bust him. He got all his timber and er they wouldn't extend the time for him to get it out.

You have to be out of the wood by um. I forget what it was now, I think it might have been.

End of April, I think.

Well, evidently the winter of '47 was went on and on and it was, it was about 6 ft of snow and all the rest of it and so he couldn't get it out and they just locked the gates on him. It wasn't only him, I mean they were all the timbermen, but, but all the owners, the owners of the woods, they would just lock the gates and wouldn't allow them to get their stuff out, so they basically bust him really. So where did he, where did the timber go to he was cutting. Just about everywhere a lot of it went to the potteries for making crates and are we talking big trees or have weed it up by now? We haven't got a did it go to Morford on the bell or somewhere down there? No, most of it went on the rail, a lot of it in definitely in the 30s.

I've got a lot of some of his timber, well, quite a few of his timber accounts from from way back then. And most of it I say went up to the pottery um up to about 12 inches I think um I used to cut it in yeah about that for splitting for for making crates and then there were um.

What they call crate rods for making like baskets and things like this.

I mean, it was a big trade, the amount of I must have got at least 6 or 7 different. Weighbridges from Tunstall and places like that where they would weigh the timber as it went in, um, uh, I've even got some for the Mortyford Way bridge.

Have you? I got a ticket for the M where they weigh where you weighed the stuff that was local. Yes, you haven't ever given it to anybody from the history group. No, you've got your own, you've got your own little yeah it's a bit of a family thing really, yeah, but yeah, there's one of those. Yeah, I've got a lot of receipts like people like George Powell would come and and take the timber, you know, down from Sudbrook to the pulp mills and that later on.

Where were the pulp mills? It's Sudbrook, it's Sudbrook down by Bristol, right, OK, um.

You go down through Chepstow, well actually it's Chepstow the valley, go down through Chepstow and it's um I don't know if it's there anymore.

I mean, I don't know if there is a pulp. I mean, we're talking when they were doing the pulpwood that was in the 60s, 70s, but um. That's where that went. A lot of the softwoods went to them for mining timber, um, props and that. Back then there wasn't the big call for garden furniture and, and large flat panels and things like that. There was a, a later thing. Um, the strange thing is there's receipts where they where he was selling timber to the Forest of Dean as if they haven't got enough timber down there. There was a firm called Little's, I think in um Newwood that would uh. Foxbridge colliery, um, is somewhere he was supplying mining timber to Foxbridge Coler, which, which was probably my dad's dad because he was a timberman as well, although, although he bought a farm in later life at Doington prospect farm at but uh, but and then I think his old mom was a timber faller, you know, I think they'd all been and the brothers were all timber fallers and some of them were were builders obviously because um. But they were, there were a lot of them at one time of my family, but we've um.

I've probably got loads and loads of relations that I don't know because sometime in the early 1800s, they seem to have split.

Apart in the 1700s, I could, you know, I've done it like most people have done a bit of a tree, and there seems to have been.

100 of them, you know, but they all called their kids the same name.

They're all Thomas, James, um, Ben, William and John, which obviously they became Jack, and these are all greens on father's side, yeah, there's hundreds of them it's, it's incredible, but sometime. I, I don't know if one of my, my uh relations jumped in that stick and didn't appear in church records, I'm not sure, but um we seem to have um.

Dwindled down to a very few, so it's it's, it's a possibility that all the other greens around you are probably, they probably are my relations, you know, but um.

Still, that's I guess most families are the same.

I wonder if you are Greens because you were woodsman. You could have been wood.

I don't know you never know, do you? It's a possibility. I'm not, because the earliest ones that I've got are found hope, you know, um, it's, it's crazy because we seem to have moved around in a big circle, um, but a lot of them have moved, sp spun outwards, I suppose, but some of us have stayed not very far away, you know, so I'm back in um when you were at the bishop school, is that where you met your wife? Um, actually, and actually the man I was telling you about. Um, I met Shirley way back then in the 50s.

She came to live in Jackley. Oh Her mom was the housekeeper for um and her dad and um. Older brothers and sisters, they came to live at the field at Jackley.

And um so I suppose she was probably about, I don't know, about 4 when I first met her, I suppose, might have been younger than that with her sisters at Checkley shop because that was the centre of the village really this checky shop uh and then obviously we travelled when she started school, she started at Mortyford so we travelled on the same bus and then I didn't see her again, but after they moved, they moved to Fanope in I don't know about 50.

6 or 7. I'm not really sure, but somewhere about then. Um, and then when I started.

When her sister was the same age as me, so I knew Chris when she started the bishops.

We all met up again type of thing, you know. What was Shirley's surname? 40, course. So, uh, we met we met and then I was in my last 12 months, I suppose at bishops when she started and I used to, uh, because obviously because I knew her, I used to speak to her and she used to sort of, I think I was a nutter I think and uh. And uh And then we, but then later we were both very keen on music and.

We started to go out really only just for music's sake really, but we gradually sort of and ended up getting married.

So where did you get married? When was that? When was that? 1971. So where did you live then? Uh, we were lucky enough when they built Churchcroft, um.

They I'm not sure it happened really, but I think John Hardwick's mother perhaps and Ozzie Edwards, who used to own the Green Man, uh, I think they were on like an allocation type. Committee for the parish council.

I'm not really sure she was on the on the but I tried to make sure that the local people that needed a place got in first then and so we got they allocated a flat on Churchcroft.

So we, we lived there till '77 and then we had the two, we had obviously Rachel and James then and and um they offered us the place next to Roy Crow on Court Orchard and uh so we moved on to Court Orchard and then thanks to.

Um, Margaret Thatcher and her government, they gave us a right to buy some time in the 80s and I joined the fire brigade by then, so I had a reasonably stable job, so I thought, well, there's a time to try for a mortgage.

Unfortunately, like everybody else in the early 80s, the mortgage rates suddenly went from about 7% to about 15% at one time. It nearly bust us to be, but we, we got through it.

So when did you join the fire service? Uh, 1979, although I was the process of getting in was quite drawn out.

I was working in the factory then in Thorn Lighting as a paint sprayer.

I've done about 9 years there after the timber trade. Well, the trouble was with the uh with the timber was that I was self-employed and um.

And then of course you work 12 months and then 12 months later the tax man sends you a bill, which, uh, unfortunately I'd spent his money on my own, so I, I thought, oh God, get around this tax bill. So I thought I've got to get a job on the books to try and pay my tax bill. So I did a few jobs in between.

I I drove a tractor on the hops and things like that, you know, went back on the hops, yeah, and anything like that. And um And then I got a job at Ravenhills as a car fetcher, a cleaner, anything. I wasn't a mechanic. I mean, I I I probably could have, could have done well, you know, spanner of a bit, but anyway, I was done a few jobs there of course, of course I immediately went on to emergency tax. So I think, I think I was earning about 12 pounds a week, I think, and they were taking about 7 to 8 pounds of it in in tax to pay the tax bill and And so while I was there, I used to take cars to the body shops uh for Wesla Motors and places like that and uh there was obviously spraying and all this sort of thing and I used to hang around sometimes waiting for the cars and the lads they used to let me have a bit of a go with spray gun and they had a bit of a spray gun in the in the car when we used to put them ready for secondhand cars to spray up a bit on the insides and things like that and uh so I saw lighting. We advertising for a paint sprayer. Shirley's mother was the inspector, uh, paint inspector on the factory. And she put a word in for me and uh so we went down and I got a job and I was there for about.

889 years I suppose on piecework, painting, strip lighting and all that sort of stuff.

It was all terrible for somebody who worked outside, it was an absolute nightmare.

In the winter you went to work in the dark and came home in the dark. We were on permanent overtime. You have to do overtime because, because the paint shop was the bottleneck of the factory. So, so and there wasn't enough capacity. To paint enough stuff in the north, so even if they'd employed more blokes, there was nowhere for them to be to paint it, so we, we were always on overtime. So I mean it was OK, but it was a nightmare really to have to work inside. But uh and then I had a Shirley's friend's, um, husband, he was um what they called a progress chaser.

I couldn't tell you what it entailed, but basically I think when they were making the lights. If they were running out of something, it was his job to get an order of the bits they needed and chase up the paint shop, the whole thing going. So, and he joined the fire brigade in about 74, I think, and he kept on to me, Why you join it's a great job and all this. And he was earning about 64 pounds a week, I think, in 1979 and on piecework in the factory, I was earning probably about nearly 100 quid.

So it was a non-starter really, but anyway, he kept on and and I think I can't stand this much longer. So the fire brigade after the strike in 70.

778, the government decided that the only way that they could give them a better conditions was to go from a three shift system to a four shift system and they because they were doing 56 hours I think.

And I was doing 52 in the factory, but I was earning 100 quid and he was, he was doing more hours than me and earning earning 30 quid less.

So, um, but anyway, in the end, I, uh, I put the bill and I started doing all the process of getting in in '78 and 79 I got in. I was probably left it too lately that you had to be. Uh, 30 was the cutoff figure then.

You couldn't, uh, there was a cutoff figure, yeah, and so I joined and I was just about 30 when I joined. And uh but I didn't regret it, I, I mean, it was tough, that's so.

For the 1st 4 years, I suppose it took me, took me nearly 4 years to get back to where I was.

It was very poorly paid job.

It was nice to be outdoors.

Oh yeah, it was great. I mean there were in the training school and that, you know, they thought it was tough and I thought they don't, you know, they want to try working in a factory. So where did you have to go for your training? Isgrove.

Uh, 14 weeks, and we stayed accommodation on the teacher's training college.

There was at Bromsgrove and, and they set up a training because they needed obviously when they went to 4 shifts they needed more people to make up. So, so there was 14, I think, 16 on a course, I think.

Um, For 14 weeks and then an extra 2 weeks for a breathing apparatus at the end of it.

So, uh, so surely was left on her own really with the two kids for um from Monday to Friday. I travel up and then come back for the weekends and then go back again on the Monday morning.

So So when you were allocated, where were you allocated back to Hereford and I joined Red Watch. August, I think it was August '79.

I went on to Red Watch Fred. So uh and stayed.

I was on Red Watch for 17 years and then then there was a great unpleasantness, that's all I'll describe it as. And they, they split all the watches up and transferred us left, right and onto different watches and I did my last eight years on Greenwatch. Is there any difference between the watches or is it just a, not really.

Um, it's, it's just a way of, um, there's, there's obviously red, greenwatch, watch, and white watch. And, uh, and so when they went to the 4 shift system, uh, Red Watch came on at 9 o'clock on we'll say Monday morning, and they did Monday 9 till 6, Tuesday 9 till 6. And then They went off and they would join, then they would go on to nights on the Wednesday at 6 o'clock till 9 o'clock on the Thursday morning and pick up again Thursday night at 6 o'clock till 9 o'clock on the Friday morning. So we did 48 hours, but they always said that it averaged out at 42 I think or something like that. But I'm not sure how it but that that was the the hours.

So you had to get a calendar and mark days, days, it's nights so you knew where you were, you know, yeah.

Is it still the same? Well, I'm not really sure because yes, I think in principle it is, but now they have a crew that lives on the station as well owing to all these cuts, they they they've kicked the fire brigade to hell and back, so. Uh, I'm not, not really up to speed on what the shifts are now because I say some of them are actually living on station for 24 hours.

So it's since the financial problem in 2008 there's supposed to be cuts that they've tried to, I mean that's why they've knocked it about. It went to pieces in 2002 that self-based in bugger John Prescott completely um. Yeah, in 2002, unfortunately, a strike was in and I can only say it was engineered by. We're not really sure, but anyway, and of course, as soon as they went out the door, they had broken the agreement that they had after the 777 78, and they had the fire bri get a very, very good.

Agreement after that one, but if if they went on strike and broke that agreement, then it was up for grabs and I think it was engineered to to get them out the doors and once they went out they they lost their 78 agreement which was very good.

I mean it was a very good one. So did you go to some very interesting or terrifying fires in the county? I guess I did, but I, to be honest.

It involves some poor others devil that I'd rather not, you know, it's always some, you know, some of them you'd rather forget. Did you come to any found hope. You know, I think I went to a few road accidents out this way, um, obviously, uh, because when I joined, we covered the county.

We had what they called an emergency tender, which was a six wheel Range Rover which which went to every road accident in the county and beyond. It was. Uh, the rapid response just carried a crew of 3. It was the ones that had the cutting equipment.

Yeah, that's right, back then, and then gradually they phased them out and put the cutting equipment onto the pumps and then brought some bigger cutting equipment out on to some of the retain stations because back then the only hydraulic cutting equipment was on the whole time stations, but as it got smaller and easier to To fit on to the pumps, they, they moved it out. So when I first joined the whole there was always a whole time crew that went to a road accident or or that sort of emergency, but now the retain crews have all got mostly they've got cutting equipment so they can, yeah, they are a bit more independent, yeah. Can you explain for the sake of the recording what retained firemen are? Oh right, well, they Of what they what would basically say they're part time and um they uh they get paid by training, they have a 2 hour 2 hour slot a week for their training when they join, I'm not sure how long their course is, I, I don't really know. Um, but they get paid the same rate as the whole time, but they only get paid for the time that they're actually on, on the job, then we'll say, you know, they, uh, once they get turned out on the alert, they have an alertter at home or they carry with them all the time.

And uh you either give full cover or part cover, there's all types of cover, I think.

The one they struggle for is the full cover. Well I got compulsory retired in 2004.

I used to have to finish at 55.

But within 12 months, I think it was just over about 12 months after I finished.

The world changed I think you could, you could join when you were 110, I think if you could pass the fitness thing.

um, and so they basically got in touch with me and asked me was I interested in going part-time. Um, and I thought about it and I thought, well, I need a job.

I had to get a job, so it was a job I could do and, uh, and so I just did a hot fire course at um which. Get a menstru.

A quick burst around the county in the pump and was back on the run within about a fortnight, I think, and joined Fannape as a part-timer, so I did another 99 or 10 years down down at Fanno.

That was very satisfactory.

It suited me and uh yeah, I think it was helpful to them because I was available for 24 hours, you know. What is the condition? How do you have to live to the fire station to be retained it used to be you have to be able to get there, I think in in under 5 minutes, but again, it's one of those things that I've never had to think about because I was within walking distance, so I'm not really sure, but I think. I guess you could have somebody from Olay, I suppose, if they could get down here and you know that sort of range then.

I know Tony Lim used to live.

So and so Tony used to ride, um, and Neil Gordon lives at Will Hope, so Neil makes the call, so I guess it's that sort of range, you know.

Yes, good, good.

Well, thinking back, have you enjoyed your life in Found Hope? Yeah, I think so. Um, it's got. Most things that you need without having to, you don't.

Necessarily have to have a car, I mean, it's, I don't know what they're gonna do about the bus service now, but uh as it stands, I mean, I, I think like any other village.

It's uh it's, it's changed.

I don't know as many people. As I probably did years ago because people move in and move out sometimes you don't even know they've moved in and moved out, but uh I think it's it's got a lot going for it because a lot of people that have moved in have benefited the village by forming various clubs and and they've been willing to run the clubs and you know.

And I, and I think that a lot of these things wouldn't have happened without a change of personnel and let's put it that way. So I'm, I'm all for, you know, people moving in and moving out. I just think it's a shame that a lot of the younger people can't stay, you know, my, my children could no way ever afforded to have bought a house in Fano and as, and I guess it's from people like me who had the opportunity to buy the. Houses that we lived in, but unfortunately it's stopped, it's put a stopper on the younger people getting a house, you know. So you would like some more houses I think so. I think that they definitely need um. Housing of all sorts, but I don't think we need, I don't think Fair Oak needs big houses.

I don't think they need 64 4 and 6, well, they obviously need some 4 bed perhaps, but they don't need 6 beds and mansions and things like this. I think they could do with some, you know, maybe 2s and 3s and semis and and that sort of thing, you know. And do you think the people in powers that are are making a good effort to Accommodate you. Yeah, I think they probably are, but I don't know from what I can see of Hereford council, they appear to have these massive big schemes and they want to move 200 age this year and up 3 Elms they want to build 1000 houses up there, um, and there seems to be a bit of a A push here to build in smaller lots. Unfortunately I cannot see if anybody's only going to allow them to build 5 houses here and 5 houses there, how they're going to be able to get this cheaper housing built. So unfortunately it's only going to be a bigger scheme that will allow that. I cannot see with the price of land and such like if you're only going to build. 6 houses, how it's going to finance the cheaper housing. Have you any memories of wonderful occasions in Found Hope or goings on or excitement? Yeah, well, it used to be quite the club when I was very small. The club is the heart of, yeah, I just want to get you to say it, yeah, yeah, the heart of um when I was very small, um, my eldest sister went out with um.

A lad from Fano called Billy Townsend, his dad had the big agricultural engineering contractors and, um, so, uh, and he had an old, they had an old 3 wheel van, 3 wheeler van.

It was like a motorcycle in a lot of ways it had handlebars like a motorbike and it was certainly laid like a motorbike and I was about I guess about 5. And uh Bill brought me and my sister down to the club walk uh and they used to have a big fairer in those days as well with it.

Well, it seemed a big fair when you're small and uh and it it that used to cause a bit of a stir when Bie Watkins used to turn up with his. With his fair and uh he'd be in the new inn on a Friday night and they put all the rides up and such like at the back of the new inn and I think a time or two I think it was in the field behind the village hall as well.

I've got a feeling where the school playing field is now. I've got a feeling it was there a couple of times but. I don't know why I think that.

But uh I do remember it certainly beyond the new in quite a few times.

um then Arthur Williams organised, I think it was Arthur organised the big. Back in the 80s, they had 500 years of the Green Man or something and they shot Michael Best in the garden of the Green Man.

That was entertaining, uh.

Um, what else? Um, many interesting characters you can remember in Tipperary.

Oh, everybody.

He was a great, great character could hear him singing as he left them from new in case I can still remember that.

In fact, I think he was from Checkley in originally the whites.

You had a lot of interesting characters up in the air to be quite honest, I think they were all relatives as well, um, well, I think they were and uh well it's hard not to be.

The old postman we had in Jack, he was an interesting old boy, he um.

He used to come around with his old don't bother Billy looky.

Now there was a man he should have met. He was a Nooky, Billy looksy. Every everything he said was to looky. So he got the name of Billy Lusy.

He used to push his bike everywhere and as kids we used to say, hey, why did you ride that bike and he used to say it's a push bike. Oh he was a, he'd sit there on the side of the road.

And uh smokey's old, he had an old clay pipe.

He was a terrible old boy. He lived in a flipping shed on the side of the road, but he was very, very good man, you know, you pleasant enough bloke, but yeah, Billy looksy and Frank Go on the postman, he was, uh, he was very keen on, um. Put in grafting trees and things like this and when the when the as kids we were a bit mercenary really because we knew that if we helped with the office festivals we'd always get invited to Christmas parties, so we used to help the chapel, the chapel um get all this stuff in and Frank Holland used to um somehow or other he would mark the side of his vegetable marrows and and when they with a needle.

And the verse used to come up and you could read the verses down the side of his vegetable marrows. And I remember he had one on there, was it Holy Bible, wrote divine, Ben in leather 1 and 9.

Satan trembles when he sees, um, Bible sold as cheap as these. That was what he did for the chapel which which caused a bit of it's a bit like back from front braille. Oh, it was, I don't know. I say I don't know he did it. I think he must have, must have put lines or wrote the verse in and then as it repaired itself, the verse would appear in brown. I don't know, I've never seen anybody else do it, but old Frank Collins used to do that, and he was the postman. Yeah, he was the checkley postman. Phil Samuels his sister did one half of Checkley. And uh from yeah Cath Cath yeah Cath Samuels did one half and um Frank Holland did the rest of it.

Um, So he was uh another interesting used to make his own cider.

And my mom said she could always tell when us kids had been anyone knew Frank Collins because we'd come home swearing because he'd give us all the cider.

He had a mill which he had a horse that used to push the mill. He used to make a lot of cider. It was, it was the old 3 man stuff, but bet it was. Yeah, I say it was the 3 man to to hold you down.

to pour it down your neck, it was, it was uh.

It was a bit vinegary some of it, but you tangle for it was um, yeah.

And So yeah, I'm trying to think what.

Mm.

Have you got any um hobbies or pastimes? Um, myself, music mostly, I'm sure I'll tell you.

I never, never ever let anything musical go. I have reel to reel tapes which I don't have a player for, but I've got some old John Peel programmes on. Uh, I have all my cassette tapes. I have all my vinyl. I have CDs. Um, I just can't bring myself to throw music away, so music is, I've got 34 guitars. Yeah 22 amplifers I think still um.

Did you, did you teach your children? No, no, they weren't, they weren't interested, to be honest.

No, I did try, um, Charlotte, I think the youngest granddaughter, I've taught her a couple of chords, so who knows, she might, um, so she might be another one.

I did teach myself the banjo once, but I wouldn't coming from check it wasn't a good thing to be seen with a banjo, so I. I packed that in a bit quick. Why do you say that? Well, it's a bit old Billy one they call to check the billies didn't they so it would have been very appropriate.

It probably would have been, yes, yeah. Mike Peters was a lad from.

He had a great voice and we used to do a few songs, you know, probably got no beer and all things like that, but uh. So yeah, that's really basically my and history are quite keen on history.

You've got quite a collection? Well, mostly, yes, I say mostly because when the last of my family, my dad's family died then at Dorlington, they didn't have a lot, but what they did have was a lot of paperwork. Unfortunately, my one cousin probably destroyed a lot of it, but I did manage to hang on to. And I've got, so I've got receipts from a lot of places in Fano, you know, Georgie Thomas's grandfather for the blacksmith and Tibby's from Mordy for the blacksmiths. Excellent Harrys and people like this very good records be delighted by that.

Somebody is one day the chapel. I've got a couple of bills for Checkley Chapel when Charlie Griffiths and John Ford opened Checkley Chapel, um, the people called Hell's reopened it back in the 50s. Uh, that Checkley Dlo and Froome, they used to run the three chapels.

Yeah, I think Checkley's been sold in Durlo.

I don't know. I think Dlo's been sold. I think, I don't know if room is still run as a chapel or not, or whether that's a house as well, um, but I think Charlie Griffiths was from a move to, um. Up the Limbris lane there.

Jones Hill, I think uh the Griffiths is from Jones Hill, I think, oh, I think he might have been.

I think that's where he went to, I think Warner was the name of the guy who was at Jones Hill.

Sorry, Warren. I was, yeah, Mr. Warren when I was a kid. Yeah, I know you know anyways, yeah, yes, yeah, but that was when I was a kid, but way back in the 1800s, 1860s? Yeah, yeah, Charlie Griffiths. In fact, I think one of my Ancestors married to one of the Griffiths from up there.

You never can tell.

It's very unsafe.

Yeah, in fact, Wars low down on the side of the Rivers lane was was where the bomb crater was, uh, because they even the Germans 80 check even they managed the bomb checker.

So where, where was that then? Well, the bombs evidently started with a load of um incendiary through the roof of Mrs.

Taylor's house at the end of Broadmoor Common, and then the bombs went, there's a couple down in the wood and then one in the side of Warslow Field which And then there's what they call the Bond house on the clouds where you caught the corner of the house and um so I don't know I think that may be all of them, but I'm not I don't know if anybody's really sure how many there was this on their way to the factory? Well, I seem to think so. That that uh there were some big poplar trees on Broadmoor Common and they were still there till a few years ago, but they seem to think they might have thought they were church steeples and line ourselves up on them and uh but they're not really sure, you know, I don't think. But anyway, yeah, they say even the Germans bombed us. Well, you must have found it a bit restricting coming down to found Hope after your lovely life up gently and freedom, but the time you get to about 15, yeah.

Yeah, you need a bit of. And, and it was falling apart up there.

I mean, all the houses in Chetley had once been black and white and thatched roofs, but even when I was even in the 50s, there was only one thatched house left and that was on Checkley Common. The rest of them had got wriggly tin on the roof and and most of the panels had fell out, so they just nailed wriggly tin on the side of them. So it was like living in an oil tank, really. I love this expression. I never heard that before.

No gin. That's that's a bit of local check. I think it might be, isn't that lovely? I think Mos were anti mps were you know there's a book in the library about Hereford dialects. Have you seen that? I think I've got a copy somewhere it's amazing. Yeah, I, I could tell you if you check the expressions, but I best not put it in there. There there was one great one that was told to me, uh, what was it? Checkley for beauty, Moly for for wit, found out for money, and we look for, but it rhymes with wit.

My goodness, perhaps, perhaps we'd be able to stop this man at this point.

Anything else you'd like to talk about? No, no, that's fine. I mean, if you want. Well, you obviously could go on talking all day though.

Perhaps we should sit here for an hour.

It's been very interesting, because we really didn't know about, but we now know it was a happy life.

It was for me, yeah, I mean, I think for the older it wasn't so good. I mean when you left school it was hard. You had to ride a bike to get anywhere, you know, and now it's a great place because now four wheel drives and everybody's got and you can you can hardly recognise any of the houses. That were there when I was a kid because they've all been like like common hill, they've all been up which is no bad thing because even when I was small, there was loads of houses that were just, you'd see a pile of bushes and I started to say oh that was a house there, you know, that burnt down in goodness knows when, you know, and it must have been a really thriving place in the 1800s, I mean. They do say that when that Charlie Griffiths and that opened chap chapel, they asked a lady, you know, what she thought about building the chapel. She said, well, at least we'll know what day Sunday is. So you know, I think it was a bit remote.

Right, so we thank you very much, Pete Green, for what we have had a very interesting morning and we on behalf of the history group, we thank you very much for spending this time and telling us all about this.

OK, thank you. Thank you.