My Life in Stanstead Abbotts
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MY LIFE IN STANSTEAD ABBOTTS BY KATHLEEN ALICE BAKER This is the life of Kathleen Alice Baker nee (Lawrance) An amazing lady with an abundance of memories about her life in Stanstead Abbotts Kathleen was born in Amwell Terrace, London Road, Ware on the 13th July 1921; her parents were Francis Lawrance and Georgina Violet Heeks. At five months old her family moved to Stantsead Abbotts where Kathleen has lived ever since. She loves living there and at the age of 91 wishes to recall all the good and sometimes not so good memories, as life was hard in the early 20th Century. 1 2 A Brief History of Stanstead Abbotts The Village’s name was recorded as “Stanstede” at the time of the Domesday Survey in the late eleventh century. In the twelfth century the manor passed to the abbot of Waltham Holy Cross. By the fourteenth century the suffix “Abbatis”, “Abbotts” or Abbot formed part of the parish’s name. The abbey continued possession on the manor until its dissolution in 1531. The neighbouring parish of Stanstead St Margarets was originally called Thele when Margaret Lovetot was Lord of the Manor (her father having no sons). The name changed to Stanstead St Margarets a couple of centuries later. There are three churches, the main parish church of Saint Andrews, Saint James, and Saint Margaret’s. The most enduring local industry of the village is that of malt production. The fertile soil in Hertfordshire and neighbouring counties to the north and northeast produced abundant quantities of high quality barley that could be turned into the finest malt. This Hertfordshire grain could be sold at a premium at market. Packhorses were used for moving the grain from the farmland to the malting towns of Hertford, Ware and Stanstead Abbotts sited along the River Lea. Their strategic location between the fertile growing areas and London combined with the benefit of a navigable waterway to London led to a flourishing local malting industry. 3 Chapter One: My Life as a Child I came to live in Stanstead Abbotts at five month’s of age when my father Francis Lawrance was offered a job as manager of the John Page corn and coal business. I had two brothers Sidney and Stanley when we moved there, one more brother Alan was born six years later. The Business was just over the brow of the bridge at no 77 The High Street, Ten Ton trucks brought the coal to St Margaret’s goods yard and had to be unloaded onto John Page’s lorry and brought back to his yard ready to be sacked up for delivery round the village and surrounding areas. You were only allowed so many days to empty the trucks otherwise you had to pay three shillings a day for what was called demurrage, if they worked hard enough they could empty a ten ton truck in a couple of days. My father had occasional help from a man called Ted who was based at the Ware Branch, they would shovel the coal into sacks and put them on the scales, it was a very hard and heavy job, they would then put the sacks on to the cart ready to take it out to customers, and this was called hawking. They would then have to get the horse out of the stables and harness it up and put it in the shaft ready to deliver the coal around the village and then on to Hunsdon and Widford. Very often they would have to come back and start all over again. When it was harvest time they would have a truckload of steam coal which was full of large heavy pieces for the combines, you wouldn’t want to drop a piece of that on your foot. These would be delivered to John Palmer the farmer at Olives Farm Hunsdon, the family still live there today. The furthest my father went was to The Bell Public House in Widford where they would stop and have a drink before coming back. The shop sold corn for chickens, chaff for horses and dog biscuits. Bird seed had to be weighed up and put in brown bags, everything in those days came in hundred weight sacks. My mother, Georgina (known as Vi) used to go out on her bike on a Monday to collect the money, we were left with the woman who used to come in daily to look after us, I remember she was paid half a crown a week. My father eventually bought the business from John Page so myself and my brothers were known as the "coalmen". There was another smaller coal yard opposite run by Joe Huttlestone, he lived in a little house near the archway beside The Rose and Crown. There was a nice girl who lived down the road called Dinah Bennet she used to take me out in my pram for a walk to save my mother doing it, then there was Elsie Moles who lived opposite who came and did some cleaning until she decided she would go and get a job at Addis’s in Hertford where she could get more money. Lizzie Burgess from Riverside took over the cleaning job for half a crown a week. 4 We all went to the Countess of Huntingdon’s Congregational Chapel on a Sunday Morning, and then again in the afternoon for Sunday School. My friends and I would then take a walk up to the old church to see if there were any snowdrops to pick, we were once caught as I was getting through the fence, I caught the buttonhole on my coat and got a good telling off, but never mind it was good fun! We finished Sunday off by going to evening service, my Mum and Dad were in the choir. We would also take a sack and go up the to the dell in the folly and slide down it, and then go back for the evening service at 6pm, the parson was Rev Higgins he lived opposite the Chapel, if you walked along the road a little further there was St Andrews Church, then Hill House where Mrs Croft lived with her son and daughter, John & Phyllis, they were very nice people she used to come to our shop for her dog food. Then a little further along was Warrax House where Mr & Mrs Barlow lived and further on still was Easney Mansion where Mr H Fawel Buxton & family lived; he paid for the erection of St Andrews Church and the construction of the Parish Hall. 5 Later Easneye Manor became an orphanage for children bereaved by the bombing of London in World War 11. I went to St Andrews school in Roydon Road in 1926, which is still there; the teachers were Miss Lovick, Miss Stevens and Miss Felstead. Miss Lovick lived in the village but Miss Stevens came by bike all the way from Eastwick, she taught the infant’s age five years old, we used to write on slates with slate pencils. Miss Felstead came from Ware by train and taught the elder ones, she also taught them to knit and sew. Other teachers were Mr Trelerran and Mr Oldhouse who would think nothing of throwing his ruler at the ones that were being noisy. There was a big stove in the end room but it could not warm the room up. The Headmaster was Mr Taffy Jones he lived in the School House, the Head Mistress was Miss Dawes and she in a house by the station just over the railway line. My two brothers went by train to Longmore School in Hertford. We used to have a sports day that was held in the field opposite the school which belonged to Mr Hurford, he also was a dairy man, one of the village girls worked for him taking milk out before school. As children we used to go fishing for tiddlers down at the maltings wharf and under the bridge. We walked to the 'Iron Bridge' near Amwell to go swimming, that’s where everyone learnt to swim in those days, we would take a bottle of lemonade which you made out of crystals. I can remember a time when the river Lea was frozen over and people were skating on it by the lock, one of the girls of Cockman had a fit while there and somebody got the lock keepers wheelbarrow and took her home. It was a long walk from the village to the Iron Bridge but nobody worried about it in those days - it was life. My mother had already taught me to knit at the age of five, and I loved doing it, I still knit every day and it has become my favourite hobby, my grandmother also taught me to crochet at a young age. I joined the Brownies for a while and my brothers went to the Scouts. In 1932 when I was eleven, I got run over by a car, I was picked up for dead and was taken to the County Hospital for a week, but I’m still here to tell my life story at 91 years of age. When we were kids we had a big yard to play in, and that was where I learnt to ride a wooden bike. We kept chickens in the yard, one was a cockerel which always went for my Brother Stan, I don’t think it liked him. We also played whip-a-top to see who could get it furthest from the bridge in the High Street.