Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Beetham, Florence (O1998.18.2) |
| Interviewee | Florence Beetham (FB) |
| Interviewer | Jean Riddell (Purkis) (JR) |
| Date | 25/08/1998 |
| Transcriber by | Jean Riddell (Purkis) |
Transcript
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O1998.18.2
Interviewee: Florence Beetham (FB)
Date: 25th August, 1998
Venue: Rickney's Farm
Interviewer: Jean Riddell (Purkis) (JR)
Transcriber: Jean Riddell (Purkis)
Typed by: John Van Hagen
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
JR: Here I am again, here at Rickney's Farm with Flo Beetham, and this time I'm on my own. I haven't come with Peter or Eve Sangster, who might have come today.
I've come back to Flo because after listening to her tape which we made on 8th August, I realised there was a lot more I would have liked to have asked her and we had an hour's worth there and so even if I'd thought of it at the time it wasn't fair to carry on. So, what I've come here this morning to ask you, Flo, is to ask you a bit more about your job, actually, if that's all right, because there are so many interesting bits we started talking about and went onto something else and I thought if we kept on the job a little bit, if you wouldn't mind.
Now, I know you went to Ware Grammar School and you said that when you were coming to the end of your time there you wanted to do something to help people and that's why you chose pharmacy. Now, did you have to have any particular qualifications to go into Sheffield's?
FB: Well, not really. We went up, and I had to be registered at Bloomsbury Square with the Pharmaceutical Society for a three-year apprenticeship which I served at Sheffield's.
JR: So it was actually called a pharmaceutical…?
FB: A pharmacist's assistant, really.
JR: Yes, yes, OK. And did you always have to work under the strict supervision of the pharmacist?
FB: No, only for dangerous drug things, he had to check.
JR: So you could do things on your own.
FB: There were bottles of medicine in those days. We had a prescription written out and we put it into the ledger for future reference and then we made them up with all the ingredients, a certain amount of ingredients per dose, and made 602, 802, 1202, 1602 bottles and we had corks in those days. We labelled the bottles by hand and then we sealed the corks with the initials of Sheffield on the top, wrapped them all in this white demy and sealed them again. And we had two errand boys to take them out. And the shop was open from half past eight in the morning 'til 8 at night. At 9 on Saturdays and then in turn with other pharmacists, on Sundays, for about an hour in the morning and I think a little time at night.
JR: So can you tell me then, what a typical day would be like, as you first went to Sheffield's?
FB: Well, if it was a Monday, you would dust everywhere, with a short pair of steps and if it was winter it was perishingly cold because the place was not heated very well. And then people would come in with prescriptions and it'd be pretty busy, especially during the morning. And if you weren't dispensing you were doing the window or a display case with toiletries or serving people.
JR: And was there a rush as you knew some of the surgeries were on?
FB: Yes, and people had to wait, or come back because they all came in more or less at the same time between 9 and about 11. And then in the evening the surgeries started around 6 'til 7 and so you got quite a lot of people and sometimes had to work past 8 o'clock to get it all finished if they wanted them the same day!
But we were busy all the time. Even on a Thursday afternoon when we were closed, we were still busy dispensing then catching up.
JR: You weren't at home then; you were still in the shop?
FB: Yes, we worked on a rota you see, and probably had another half day. We didn't close for lunch, so we had to use staff all the time. And as an apprentice I used to go to Christ's Hospital for Girls and set up their chemistry apparatus on the instructions from the chemistry mistress every day.
JR: Every day?
FB: Yes, every day. I used to go there first, half past 8. They'd start classes at 9. And then if it was my late turn, half past 12 'till 8, I would go home again, but if it weren't I'd go back to the shop and help with the other dispensing. There were about three young staff most of the time, no, four, we had a chap called Bracken Parkin who was a qualified dispenser. Mr. Sheffield didn't do much in there, just interviewed people selling things and that kind of thing – representatives of firms - but he wasn't very strong and it was Bracken Parkin that did all the dispensing really with us. Some of them had already passed their apprenticeship time and were more qualified, but they all worked jolly hard. There wasn't a lot of time to play about. We used to do a bit of it, but not too much!
JR: And you said you went to Christ's Hospital to set up the chemistry experiments. That was a contract they had with Sheffield's? Paid?
FB: They didn't pay me, but they paid Mr. Sheffield.
JR: Yes, as part of your wages, in a way.
FB: I didn't get any wages, dear! My father paid a premium for me to be there for three years.
JR: Oh, I didn't realise you weren't paid!
FB: I had 5/- the first year, 10/6 which is half a guinea the 2nd year, and a guinea the third year and by that time I was 21, so we weren't actually rich.
JR: I thought you'd be paid but at a reduced rate. Well in a way I suppose, you were but very reduced! I'm glad I've got that clear, because people listening in a few years' time won't know about that, and that's important.
FB: It's incredible when you think now, but of course, prices were so different. I had to be kept. Obviously, I lived at home. You could never afford to go into digs or anything on that sort of money. But we were never very well paid unless you were the boss.
JR: So did you actually I mean, you learned in a practical way, but did you do any theory like anatomy and physiology anywhere?
FB: No.
JR: No, you didn't. You just learned everything in the shop.
FB: And you get to know what the doctors prescribe as well. Of course the prescriptions are totally different now. We didn't even have these things for counting tablets. They have V-shaped trays now, don't they? We just did it on a piece of paper with a palate knife. And I think we were more accurate than they are now with these other things!
JR: How about the doctors' handwriting, that's always a…
FB: Oh, that was pretty bad usually. If you really couldn't read it you had to just telephone and ask them to tell you what it was.
JR: It was as bad as that sometimes?
FB: Oh, yes.
JR: So it's not a myth then, it's true!
FB: Oh, no, but of course you get used to writing, don't you. But it's a very interesting job because you see people, whereas if you are in a hospital pharmacy you don't really see the people who are going to take the medicine. And also, it's most interesting with a family. You remember a grandfather who always had asthma, then you see the next generation and they're perfectly all right, but the next generation has asthma or eczema. It's alternately in the family and that's most interesting if you've been there a long time, you can see the generations working down.
JR: I wonder if families know this as well - knowing you are going to produce a child with asthma.
FB: Well, they don't all get asthma. If a child gets severe asthma you can think back to the grandparents and think that's where it came from because it does miss a generation nearly always.
JR: Did you get people coming into you without going to the doctor for a prescription and saying could you make me up something.
FB: Yes, then you referred them to the proprietor or more usually the dispenser. But we also got people coming to us who'd cut themselves badly, perhaps on a bacon slicer, or who'd - that was horrid because I wasn't very good with blood. And if they got things in their eyes we used to brush that out for them. And stings, things like that because if you are in the middle of the town people
would just come in. If a child got stung by, a wasp, or one horrible time a child got a firework blew up in his face and I had to walk him to the hospital.
Another time a girl had chronic hiccups. She didn't stop for days and she'd been to the doctor and she really felt so ill that I had to escort her home on the bus.
I did a bit of delivering as well at times, urgent medicines. I'd got a bike, you see. I can remember going up to Panshanger, Lady Desborough's. Lovely run that was!
JR: What was it actually like working in that building. It's quite an ancient place, Sheffield's.
FB: Yes, it used to be a pub, you know, years and years ago. The Naked Lady, it was called. You didn't know that?
JR: Oh! No. Because the next door one I think was called the Falcon, I think, but I didn't know Sheffield's was a pub.
FB: It was quite fun, because there were several others, you see. We used to have a bit of fun in the shop, guessing what people were going to come for.
JR: Have you seen the video "Haunted Hertford"?
FB: No.
JR: Only Sheffield's features in that as having a ghost did you see the ghost?
FB: No. Didn't even know there was one. It's very long and narrow, went right back until it met where Mrs. Muir lived. And there was that yard. And also Mr. Fordham used to come from the shop because he had a store-place on the right-hand side there. And we always knew he was there because he'd got the most tremendous voice. He shouted all the time.
JR: Now, what about poisons and dangerous drugs like that - there was a poison register, was there?
FB: You have a dangerous drugs cupboard and it's locked and only the qualified pharmacist would have the key to that. And he would check what you were taking to put in medicines, or somebody else would check. As long as you'd got two people to look at it to know it's right.
JR: To confirm it. I remember when I was about eight being sent to the local chemist which was called Sharpe & Waterhouse at Deal where I used to live, to get some salts of lemon for cleaning a panama hat, that I had to go to school in. And I had to sign at the age of eight the poisons register.
FB: Oh, yes!
JR: My mother had forgotten it was a poison. I don't know if they would do that now-a-days. Let a child of eight take salts of lemon!
FB: I don't think they'd let a child sign for it. It'd have to be an adult.
JR: Times have changed a bit.
Now, when you went on to George Lines, you said you got a bit fed up at times because you were the only one on duty.
FB: Yes, there wasn't much company there. But we got quite busy.
JR: Was it as busy as Sheffield's? Because it's not in a very prominent – you'd almost miss it, wouldn't you?
FB: Yes. They had an old boy there before, who was very popular with the public. George Evans wasn't particularly, but this old boy was extremely popular and therefore a lot of people went to him for advice. He'd been there such a long time.
JR: Did you say his name.
FB: No, I don't remember it.
So they did have a certain clientele and then of course I was quite well known in the town anyway by then because I'd lived in Hertford all my life, and I knew people and I hadn't been far away to school, either. We used to sell all those tickets for the dramatic and operatic shows as well. We had these plans and we had to mark them all out.
JR: That may have brought some trade, because somebody going to buy a ticket might have seen something else they wanted.
FB: I enjoyed setting up displays of toiletries which is interesting if you're keen on arranging things.
JR: So you'd do the window, would you?
FB: Yes and you'd have one or two glass cases inside.
JR: Did you have those big glass carboys of, coloured water?
FB: We had them at Sheffield's. I don't remember any at Lines though.
JR: They were in nearly every chemist's shop.
FB: They usually had them, didn't they! They've died out now, I think.
JR: Yes, I never quite understood what they were for.
FB: I think it was just a sign that they were chemists. I suppose it's because the medicines would be different colours. It was like the barber's pole and the three balls for the…
JR: … pawnbrokers
FB: I suppose a lot of people wouldn't read, so it might be a sign.
JR: Yes, of course. And what was the shop furniture like, chests with these tiny drawers?
FB: Oh, yes, lots of drawers. And homeopathic medicine was quite popular as well. You've seen those little tubes - hundreds of them, there are, all different strengths and they had to be in drawers. But it was fading in popularity, although it's still going, isn't it?
JR: Oh, it is, I understand the definition is 'curing like with like.' What…
FB: Yes, they're minute doses of things. I can never understand quite how it works. The doses are so small. But the people who go in for it are so keen on it and say it does the trick. Whether it's just faith or whether it really does, I don't know.
JR: I think it does, because when I was first married we lived in an area where the only doctor was practising homeopathy and I didn't realise I was actually having it for a long time, but I found it took a long time to get better compared with ordinary medicine.
FB: I wonder whether it was because they tried to treat the whole person rather than the symptom. I think that's really the idea.
People used to come and ask for belladonna or some of these other things. And we did have a lot of drawers where we had all these little boxes of pills
JR: Homoeopathy's different from herbal medicine, isn't it?
FB: Oh, yes, it's really chemical. I suppose all the medicines started off as natural products from plants and now they're making them synthetically instead.
It's like digitalis, for heart, it was always little tablets of digoxin, which are made from the digitalis root and then all at once it was changed and they were doing it synthetically and calling it Delloxin. But what they didn't tell people was, and my husband almost got caught out with this, it was four times as strong, so same dosage and you were taking four times as much as you took before, which nearly killed him. If he hadn't had to go to Mount Vernon to have a lump removed from his gum, and they looked at his medication and they said do you realise you're taking four times as much. The doctor hadn't said it was four times as strong.
JR: Did they know?
FB: I should have thought they ought to have known. But had he not gone there, he was dosing himself to death, really, which is frightening.
JR: Yes, it seems to be a lack of communication between the manufacturer and the retailer.
FB: Well, I think so too. Doctors have so much in the way of reading to get through and that doctor at that time used to spend quite a bit of time as an anaesthetist at the hospital, QEII. And he used to do a lot more studying. Every now and again he would take time off and go and study to catch up with present day. It's even worse now, because there's so many bewildering things for them to take in. But mistakes were made. The thing is, if the doctor prescribes an overdose, the chemist is liable if he dispenses it.
JR: So the chemist has to intercept really.
FB: Yes, the chemist has to check, which is a bit hard, because the chemist is not nearly as qualified as the doctor.
JR: No. But the chemist - he or she would recognise an overdose in a prescription, would they?
FB: Well, they have to. They would check it if they were doubtful. But it seems a bit hard on the chemists in a way. The doctor would get away with it and the chemist would be liable if that person had taken an overdose of something.
JR: So, would doctor, would it just be a mistake or would he think he was prescribing the right.
FB: Probably a mistake, and possibly if you noticed it on the prescription you would ring and ask him whether he intended that.
JR: And did they ever ring up and say, “Oh, I've just given you that, and it's wrong,” or…
FB: No, it usually happened the other way round! But they were always frantically busy, in those days, because everything was always written out by hand. And the NHS hadn't come in when I started dispensing, so there was a lot of private dispensing. They had to pay for it all, you see.
JR: How much was a prescription when you first started to work?
FB: I can't remember but it would be whatever was in it, you see, you had to work it out.
JR: So"it would be different, not just a blanket charge like it is today.
FB: Oh, no, and people had to pay for their bottles or bring them back, according to the size, about 3d in those days.
JR: It's not a bad idea really.
FB: Well, it isn't, the trouble is cleaning them.
JR: You had to wash them out. Did you do that by hand?
FB: We did it by hand. We didn't even have hot water in that dispensary at all, so it got very cold in winter. And the heater was a pretty poor gas thing and the boss decided if you shut the door you shut out your trade. That was always the way with business people in those days!
JR: I must say, even now if I see a door open, I'm happier than if I see it closed. The effort of breaking the barrier down and walking in.
FB: Yes, I'm sure it does make a difference.
JR: What about people who really couldn't afford to buy the medicines? Were there any remedies, like homespun stuff you could recommend to them?
FB: Well, they had things like Epsom Salts and Syrup of Figs and Beechams Pills and all those things, and Krushan Salts. Do you remember those, for rheumatism?
JR: Krushan Salts? I think I might do – a long, long time ago – yes. Epsom, yes, I remember those.
I wrote down a few things like that to ask you about, not particularly what they were made of, but if you remember them, and if they were popular. I wrote, paraffin for nits for instance, was that a good remedy for nits?
FB: No, we never used that, they had a proprietary thing for nits and they had these awful combs.
JR: Yes, very slim teeth, nit combs – tooth combs!
FB: We used to have bother with tramps and methylated spirits of course. Did you have that down?
JR: No, I just had paraffin
FB: We did have paraffin for constipation, the thick stuff, you know. But the tramps could come in and we were not allowed to sell meths to tramps because they drank it, you see. And it was always to rub on their feet or light their fire. We just had to say no, we hadn't any and then they would stand for ages and swear like troopers. They didn't bother me, I wasn't frightened of them. Some of the girls were. You don't see tramps any more. They used to come through Hertford and go on to Ware to Western House for the night.
JR: I've got down here camphorated oil, for instance. That was a favourite for rubbing on the chest. Did that do any good, do you think?
FB: I think so, because they got the fumes as well.
JR: There was another thing, an orange kind of wadding they put on the chest.
FB: Oh, yes! Thermogene!
JR: Thermogene. That's right.
FB: And they used to have Kaolin poultice, do you remember that, for putting on septic places.
JR: Yes, to draw the poison out, or even a bread poultice, I think.
FB: People used to wear camphor squares, didn't they, round their necks in the winter. Children went to school with them!
JR: Oh, yes!
FB: To stop them getting colds! There were always smells of something – mothballs as well! Lots of smelly things in those days, syrup of figs as well.
JR: Yes, I've got that down.
FB: Compound syrup of figs.
JR: Yes, you mentioned that on the other tape actually. I didn't realise it was a compound.
FB: Well, yes, it's got other things in it. It is not just syrup of figs. It's got sulphur and things like that in it. Flowers of Sulphur, now that in my day was used for sore throats. You'd blow it on the throat. And we had a girl at school, if she had a sore throat, had to have a feather burnt and to inhale all that horrible smoke. I think that was disgusting!
JR: Did it improve the situation?
FB: It was a sort of fumigating thing, I suppose, for the throat. People used to get a lot of sore throats in those days. A lot of things have gone now. You can't get boracic.
JR: I've got that down. We talked about that before. I've got boracic lint and boracic powder.
FB: Yes, we used to use that a lot, and even plain lint.
JR: You used to have lint and then bandage, sometimes lint covered a wodge of cotton wool, if it was a bad graze, and a bandage.
FB: But zinc ointment, you can't get it now.
JR: No. Zinc and castor oil?
FB: You can get that for babies, but zinc ointment is no longer found. Basilican ointment we had as well.
JR: I've got some of that at home. Was that a…
FB: Drawing ointment for septic places.
JR: One ointment that I had as a child which I thought was marvellous because I really used to graze myself so much, I was falling off everything - trees – it was called Lion Ointment.
FB: Oh, that was a proprietary thing.
JR: It was, yes, and we thought that was absolutely marvellous to heal. It had beeswax in it. It was really wonderful. I'm a good healer fortunately.
FB: I don't remember that, it must have been a local thing.
JR: Yes, we could certainly get it on the south-east coast where I lived, but the last lot I got in Oxford Street about 8 years ago.. And they said ;to me it's going off the market so I bought one.
FB: There was somebody used to make a hair thing at Hoddesdon, Beltona was it called? We used to sell, and it was only made at Hoddesdon.
JR: Mm. Well, I've got down here, cod liver oil and malt. That was another favourite for ailing children, wasn't it, to build up their bodies.
FB: I've got a story about cod liver oil and malt. My sister, who is a bit younger than me, was very thin so my mother said she was to take cod liver oil and malt. And we shared a bedroom and she couldn't stand the stuff, so I used to take it so the level went down. She didn't get any fatter though!
JR: Did you, did it affect you?
FB: I liked it, but no, I was always thin as well, but not as thin as she was.
JR: There was another one called Virol, wasn't there, which was a proprietary brand. That was similar, I think, but not quite the same. When I was at school there were two girls who were very great friends who looked rather alike, same height but one was fairly plump and one was on the thin side. And they went to our fancy dress party which was held every Christmas dressed in white blouses and pink rompers with pink bows in their:hair and one had a card on her saying 'Before Virol', that's the thin one, and the other one said 'After Virol' and they got the first prize!
FB: Oh, yes! I don't think it's about now, do you?
JR: No, I don't think so, but I haven't been in the 'buying medicines for children' game for a while.
FB: But there were a lot of those nourishing things, weren't there? Drinks! I think Ovaltine's still about, isn't it?
JR: Oh, yes, yes. And Parish's Food was another one I had to take because I was anaemic!
FB: Oh, yes, that's iron. We had to mix Parish's Food and cod liver oil together, shake them up in a bottle. I think it was the dispenser who decided that this was a good 'pick-me-up' for children. But I think it was revolting really because cod liver oil smells so foul. And one special day he was shaking this up and the cork flew off and the whole place was smothered with cod liver oil and
Parish's Food!
JR: Oh, what a mess, 'cos it's greasy as well. Cod liver oil was horrible to take on its own, absolutely foul.
FB: They use Halibut oil now, which is much more concentrated, and in capsules.
JR: Yes, and Haliborange. That was quite pleasant, wasn't it.
FB: Yes, that wasn't bad. Allen & Hanbury's used to make Allenbury's Diet, which is now Glaxo of course. Allenbury's Diet, another sort of food which you mixed with milk, like Ovaltine a bit.
JR: An invalid food wasn't it really? Yes, yes, I remember that. I remember the word Allenbury and thinking I'm sure it wasn't Allen & Hanbury's Food.
FB: Yes, Allen & Hanbury
JR: Half of each name.
FB: They started that firm and had part of it at Ware and part of it up near London somewhere. They'd got another factory. Now they're out at Stevenage and they've joined up with Glaxo and they've joined up with Wellcome. And now they are still talking of joining with somebody else in America. Every time they halve the staff, that's the problem.
JR: Yes, yes. Now, I've got a few more here. Slippery Elm Food - that was a popular.
FB: That was a proprietary thing.
JR: Was it? What was that made of?
FB: I don't know what it was made of. It's a most peculiar name, isn't it? Don't know, must have come from the tree I suppose.
JR: I wonder how it got the word 'slippery'.
FB: I don't think it's about is it now?
JR: No. Well I say no, I haven't needed to. Somehow when you get into middle age you tend to need less medicine, don't you? I mean you may need them later on but children always seem to be ailing, but you get, particularly when you've been teaching, I think you become immune to so many things.
FB: Yes, I think the same thing applies when you are in a shop, because all these people go to the doctor and they've got all sorts of things, some of which are infections and they've brought the prescription in and you never think about it. You never think, “Oh, golly, I'd better disinfect this.” But I didn't catch things and I think you get toughened.
I was one of quite a family as you know and I think we were pretty strong, as a family, we are all living to a good old age, so that is significant, I think.
I had a lot of ear trouble but, and my sister had scarlet fever and had to go into that hospital at the top of Gallows Hill for six weeks. It was kept for diphtheria and scarlet fever (Flo is the only person I've ever heard pronounce that word properly!)
JR: Isolation hospital.
FB: They now use a bit of it for old people, don't they? And of course I told you, when I was living in the Ware Road there were no houses opposite and there were no houses on Gallows Hill. There was just that building that used to be the laundry and Woodland Road and Woodland Mount weren't there either. All the houses up the hill and all those houses where Spinney Street is, was all fields.
JR: It was in isolation then, wasn't it, that hospital.
FB: Yes, the hospital. But none of that building on the right was there. And of course the golf course was there which was rather pleasant which they've now built on, a lot of it.
And there was an old farmer called Bill Cooper and he lived at Foxholes Farm. You get to it when you get towards Hertford Heath. It's on the left there. It's been used for gravel like this place has. And he was so heavy. I had a friend who worked on the farm for a bit, and when he wanted to go
into Hertford, he had a pony and trap and he had to shout to all the people to come and hang on to the shafts of the pony trap while he stepped in at the back because he was so heavy he lifted the pony.
JR: Really?
FB: He was enormous. I should think he weighed about 18 stones.
JR: So he was much heavier than the pony.
FB: Yes! So they all came and hung onto the shafts you see while he got in. He was all right when he moved forward.
JR: How did he get in when he got to the town?
FB: I should think he must have got somebody else to hold on. I think he'd probably finish up at a pub, the Salisbury or the Dim or somewhere. I wasn't there, but John used to talk about this.
JR: Do you think it might have some, the pony, did he get through a lot of ponies
FB: Well, once they're on wheels, it's amazing how strong ponies are at just pulling. He couldn't take this weight from the back because of the balance.
JR: He'd be static of course.
FB: Yes, I hope so. He wouldn't run after him very far. His son got almost the same size. He used to sit, he used to come down from the farm and sit by the half-way houses, along the Ware Road and they've just knocked the pub down and built houses down there. He'd sit on the stile and wait for the bus and he eventually moved into what used to be Little's house up in Bramfield Road. Windy Ridge it's called. And I think he's lately died, because he had a very bad motoring accident.
He hurt his,foot or leg. But we always used to see him because he was a great big chap and he'd got an attaché case about this size (very little) like big people often do. We used to pass him every morning when we were cycling to school. He'd be sitting on the stile waiting for the bus from Ware to come to pick him up to go to Hertford Grammar.
JR: So, when your sister went into the isolation hospital, what sort of treatment did they give them there for scarlet fever.
FB: All I know is my father and the rest of us went to the toyshop and bought masses of toys and he took them all up there, 'cos she was in over Christmas. So that's what happened. But I didn't hear much about the treatment at all. It was just a question of being isolated, I think. I don't think they did an awful lot, because it was six weeks before she was allowed to come home.
JR: You weren't allowed to go, but did your parents go to see her?
FB: I don't think they were allowed in. They had to hand things in at the door. Real isolation. I think they used to wave to her. She used to come to a window. I should think she was pretty fed up by the time she came home!
JR: Yes. Do adults get scarlet fever or is it just a childhood disease?
FB: I don't know.
JR: I'm not sure. Diphtheria I think you can get when you're an adult.
FB: Yes.
JR: But I didn't know about scarlet fever. For Len Green, I've been going through a lot of the school log books for him to do this little book on education and there's a lot of mention of diphtheria and scarlet fever. And I think on one occasion one of the pupil teachers, or one of the students, not student teachers, pupil teacher, gets either scarlet fever or diphtheria and actually dies.
FB: Well, I knew a chap, a Mr. Lewis, he was in scouting, I think his daughter's still alive, Barbara. She married a Gifkin. And he died and he was scout-master for my brother. And they had a special service at the War Memorial and my brother had to play the 'Last Post' on his bugle. He had to practise this beforehand and it got pretty ear-splitting in the end. But he was a very nice chap, and he died quite young. That was diphtheria.
Of course they used to isolate people eventually over at Ware Park, but not now. People used to come from London to see relatives over there with diphtheria and tuberculosis.
JR: Yes, one of the members of St. Andrew's congregation, Henry John – do you know Joy and Henry John at all?
FB: No.
JR: No. He was a merchant seaman and he was isolated at Ware Park and his future wife, Joy, was working there as a secretary and that's how they met. They've been married for many years now. They're in their seventies.
FB: No, I know they used to use Ware Park after it was a monastery.
JR: There's a Carmelite monastery, well nunnery, near there.
FB: Poles Convent. Mr. Garratt had that Ware Park building built you know, Garratt's Mill.
JR: Oh!
FB: And he had it built and he bought the land right down to the river because he didn't want anything to interrupt his view of the Hertford golf course. He owned the other side of the river when my husband was farming down to the river, the Rib there.
END OF SIDE A
SIDE B
FB: It's the most beautifully built place I believe, because I intended to go and look at it when it was empty and they were trying to find a buyer, because apparently, according to John Crozier or Brian Crozier who was an estate agent, he said that everything is so beautifully made. The doors they just fit and click. There is no noise with shutting. Now of course they let it off in flats don't they.
JR: Yes. Now, I was going to ask you a few more things. Later on, at Russell's, it used to be Durrant's before, was there a lot of trade that Russell's took over from Durrant's? Did people stay with Russell's?
FB: Oh, yes, I think so, because he did an awful lot of photography as well and the other chemists didn't. The other chemists weren't so keen on the photography side. And also he was an optician, Kitch, and so he had quite a following really and he was very keen on photography. Len Green would have 'told you.
JR: Yes, he did.
FB: He was often in, and he was a clever chap actually and I quite enjoyed being there. He'd got a sense of humour. We had some fun. We had another girl there. He was busy, busier than Lines really. It was a very old building. It got shaken about when that bomb dropped on the bridge.
JR: Did it lose part of its roof, or was that next door?
FB: Well, there was a fruiterer which went completely, Nicholls. Now they've built again, haven't they?
JR: Yes.
FB: It was just a very flimsy, temporary building all the time_I was there. It looked as though if you pushed the wall it would just go. And Mr. Durrant for a little while had a dolls' hospital down through the yard at the back, in a hut. He took in dolls to repair. He was a very nice old boy. He lived in West Street.
JR: Oh, I hadn't realised he lived in West Street. That's one of our projects for the future.
FB: He had a daughter. I don't think his wife was still alive when I was working there.
JR: Len did tell me about the dolls' hospital. Apparently there was a room at the end of what was called Durrant's Hall which was used for St. John Ambulance.
FB: Yes, it was, he possibly had something to do with St. John at the time, Mr. Durrant. I don't know who started it. They now meet at Sele Farm, don't they
JR: Yes, they do. They've got a purpose-built place.
When you were there, it was after the war, did you find people coming in to get painkillers for war wounds or anything like that?
FB: No.
JR: When servicemen returned to the town for instance?
FB: No. Of course Mr. Sheffield suffered from the First World War. He had shrapnel everywhere.
JR: This shrapnel, it was little bits of metal embedded in the flesh, was it?
FB: Yes, which would gradually work out and it was painful. He didn't ever talk about it.
JR: But they would come out on their own?
FB: Yes. I don't think they tried to take it out. It was all little shards. But I believe he suffered quite a bit with that in his legs.
They had four children, John and Margaret and then the twins, Peter and Paul. Peter is still alive,
Paul died. Peter's at Great Amwell I think.
JR: I think we were in contact with him because we did an exhibition about working lives before the war and Peter Sheffield, lent us a letter. It would be his father, I think, that took the shop about 1903.
FB: Well, it might have been his grandfather. It started with A.J. Sheffield and his father was George.
JR: It must have been his grandfather then. It was a letter from an estate agent inviting him to come to Hertford and look at the shop prior to buying it and he did buy it, or lease it.
FB: It was a good position - best position of all of them, I think.
JR: At that time, probably yes, because that was when Fore Street was a proper shopping street.
FB: There are still the banks on that side but there were more shops. People all go to these big places to do their shopping. It's shame because when I was at Russell's, there was Hugman the other side of that arch, which was the sausage shop. They hardly sold anything else but sausages. Then beyond that was the tobacconist.
JR: That was Law's, wasn't it?
FB: Yes. There was another one opposite the Shire Hall, next to the shop that sells old fashioned sweets. That was Miss Ashman in my time.
JR: That was the one that John Sartin had the Toy Box, wasn't it, later on?
FB: Greaves the grocer was near the Oxfam bookshop, that long building that looks onto the fountain.
JR: Was that Godshaw's after? Actually Peter mentioned that only last night. At the council meeting we were looking at planning permission for Sykes, the jewellers.
FB: I think that jeweller has closed hasn't he?
JR: Yes, it's now keys and locks and trophies.
FB: We used to have some very good ironmongers in the town, Quelch & Brown which is now the electrical shop opposite the P.O.
JR: Yes, Albany Radio, used to be
FB: Yes, it used to be Quelch & Brown. Mr. Quelch was a lovely little chap. He used to ride an enormous 'sit-up-and-beg' bike.
JR: Yes. He wasn't a local though, was he?
FB: Well, he lived in Bengeo when I knew him.
JR: Yes, I don't mean local, I mean a native of the town.
FB: Oh, no.
JR: I interviewed Susan Brown, who's the daughter of Brown and I think she said that her father called up an old school friend, Quelch, from the south coast where they used to live, to come up and partner him in that shop.
FB: My father used to say, because they only sold all sorts of ironmongery, and my father, who was very bright, said, “Now if you want to get on, you should go in for radio.” That's when they started getting wireless sets there and they made a very good living out of those. He was a lively little chap and Brown was just the opposite - very slow. He was Susan's father. Different altogether. I think they got on very well because of this. He was very highly strung. His wife outlived him and she went to live at Abbeyfield. She's dead now, but she was very lively.
JR: Was she called Fanny?
FB: I don't know. Susan, I've known her for years. She's a lonely sort of girl really, I think. I don't think she works at anything now, does she?
JR: No.
FB: She loves sales of work and things. She always turns up! I knew her mother and she got very ill. Susan had a bit of a rough time, I think, looking after her.
JR: She did, yes and now she's left(in that big house, which is not in a very good condition.
FB: It's in very bad order, isn't it.
JR: She's talking constantly about moving but doesn't do it.
FB: She ought to get into something smaller, but you get attached to places, don't you?
JR: Well, I got to know her~because a friend of mine moved in opposite to Susan and Susan had been caretaking the house when my friend moved in. (No. 98 Ware Road.) So Susan made herself known to the prospective buyer and Pat my friend got on very well with Susan but said that Susan has no water in the house. She relies on getting water from next door, the vets, because she looks after the animals at the weekend and they let her have water. But I can't imagine having no water.
FB: How does she bathe?
JR: Well, I don't know whether she goes into the vets and gets water and brings it back, apparently there's nothing on tap.
FB: It never used to be like that. That house was kept up like all the others along the Ware Road.
JR: Quite extraordinary. But there's no reason for my friend to make this up of course.
FB: It must be true but how sad really. A lot of those houses in Port Vale had very little plumbing and as far as I knew those terraced houses hadn't baths. A lot of them hadn't loos either.
JR: That was fairly common, but I'm thinking about 1998 rather than 1938.
Now one or two things before we stop, I didn't get round to asking. Yes, what about one or two popular medicines? You mentioned before about leeches, did you actually mean they were working still.
FB: Yes, they had them in a jar in the cellar and if people ordered leeches, perhaps the doctor would if it was a very bad place. I didn't handle them.
JR: No. Who was it who went out and did the leeches?
FB: A chap who was also an apprentice pharmacist. His name was Kitteringham.
JR: Oh, yes! So what would they do, just put them on someone and they'd get going?
FB: Yes. I don't think he actually put them on the patient. They were ordered by the doctor and possibly they had to be delivered to the doctor, I should think, and the doctor would handle them. And then they would come back to be disgorged in salt water, because they fill themselves up with this…
JR: Poison?
FB: Pussy blood or whatever it is, and they - then when they've taken their fill they roll off the wound and they have to be taken back and disgorged, and then they start again.
JR: Do they disgorge themselves?
FB: You put them in salt water.
JR: That doesn't kill them then?
FB: No, apparently not! I didn't have a lot to do with them.
JR: No, but it's fascinating. What do they look like, like a slug?
FB: Darkish slugs, yes, about an inch and a half long. Horrible!
JR: And yet you say they were effective and they're thinking of re-introducing them.
FB: They use things like maggots now on these very bad septic wounds, going backwards now. Because it was penicillin they started on and now people are getting so used to penicillins that they don't do the same job as they used to do. They are not as effective. They've got to find even stronger penicillins, branching out into all the different types of penicillin, tetracycline. There are so many of them. Then people get allergic to some and the doctors have to keep all these different notes if they want to prescribe penicillin to anybody or one of them. They have to find out which they are allergic to and steer clear.
(An interlude when JR is presented with a fresh cucumber from Joan's garden; thanks, etc.)
JR: To go back to the leeches, I mean if they are disgorging themselves and they weren't going out to another patient for a while, how did they feed them?
FB: They didn't seem to take much. I don't remember them feeding them. They were in a jar in the cellar!
JR: And they were alive!
FB: Perhaps they did put something in there and I didn't know anything about it. I think the girls didn't like them!
JR: Now. What about things like baby foods. I remember National Dried Milk.
FB: Cow and Gate. During the war National Dried.
JR: Did that come in during the war.
FB: Yes, I think that was a special war-time thing like dried egg. They had those national places for people feeding. What did they call those? But Allenbury's used to make a baby food then Cow and Gate, half cream and full cream.
JR: And this was available before the war, was it?
FB: Oh, yes, for people who couldn't feed them. They had special teats for babies with cleft palates. A cleft palate you see if the food doesn't get down they had to have special teats, built up to fill the roof of the mouth. And I remember a woman who had a cleft palate herself was expecting a baby herself and they made her prepare for a cleft palate baby. In actual fact I don't think she did have. But she had to be ready in case she had a baby with a cleft palate which was a bit frightening for her. You don't see much of that now.
JR: Well, they're repaired, aren't they, pretty soon. I think it's at six weeks.
FB: We had a woman at church whose daughter had a child with a cleft palate and he's had one or two operations already. He had a split lip and that's been brought down and the face is a bit flattened.
JR: Yes, it's a cleft which goes through. Sometimes they don't have what used to be called a hare lip. But when I worked my job was teaching children with speech and language impairment and we had several cleft palates throughout my time there and some had hare lips and some didn't, depending upon how severe the cleft was.
FB: No, you can't see it as much without the hare lip. In the old days of course they used to say they were witches if they had hare lips. But that's a very unpleasant thing for a child~
JR: Yes, I mean socially, too. The child is often very intelligent but the social side isn't so good for them, is it?
FB: No, because they look different. Children don't like people to look different.
JR: No, children are very cruel to each other, in fact.
FB: Oh, yes, they are.
JR: Right. Well what about things like vitamins and nerve tonics and all that kind thing.
FB: They didn't have so many of them as now. Everybody's supposed to be taking something. They had cod liver oil and vitamin C. They suddenly went mad about vitamin C for colds, either eating masses of oranges or having tablets of vitamin C. And Halibut oil was there still as well as the cod liver oil. But you didn't get all these multi-vitamins like you do these days. Half the time
I think if people have normal diets they don't really need all these extras.
Metatone, of course, Parke Davis Metatone was a tonic that a lot of people used to take. It was quite good. Parke Davis is a very good firm. You can still buy that.
JR: Yes, mm, my mother was very keen on Phospherine. There used to be a slogan, 'Fortifies the Over Forties'. I remember (that was Phyllosan).
FB: Yes! I think a lot of that was sold but now they want everything from the doctor, don't they. They don't buy things from the chemist as much for tonics. Some of the doctors say that tonics are no good for you anyway.
JR: Yes, it's a myth. It's a psychological support. I've got one down here I've forgotten to say about and that was Horlicks, or was it Ovaltine, and the phrase 'Night Starvation' comes into it, or was it Bournvita? One of these drinks is supposed to keep you going at night in case you starve to death in 12 hours with no food.
FB: I think it was Horlicks, wasn't it.
JR: Yes, I think it was. It was taken really seriously, this night starvation, wasn't it?
FB: Yes and I wonder how they thought people got on before there was Horlicks.
JR: It was on the station posters. I remember seeing it particularly in South-East London, on the Dartford Loop Line into London, a lot of these adverts!
Can we go on for a few minutes to talk about make-up and hair colouring and hair perms and things like that. How did they sell?
FB: Oh, home perms were very popular. They used to buy the packet and do it at home themselves.
JR: There was Prom. That was one. And Toni – there was an advert 'which twin has the Toni'. Do you remember that?
FB: Yes, just about. Yes, I think people managed their hair pretty well, and of course ever so many shampoos were just powder. Do you remember 'Friday night's Amami night'?
JR: I remember my mother having Amami Wave Set.
FB: Amami shampoos, they were all in packets, you know, powder.
JR: Yes, and you put them in a cup and mother used to stir them with a comb!
FB: That's right! None of these bottles, nothing like that! Always 'Friday night's Amami night'. They were about the most popular shampoos, I think. People didn't bleach or colour their hair like they do nowadays. Neither did they go to the hairdresser in the same way they do.
JR: No, they sometimes had a purply, or blue, if you were grey, at the hairdressers. You could have it done purple or…
FB: Parma violet colour!
JR: With Marcel waves.
FB: That's right. A lot of people had these waving tongs.
JR: That's right, curling tongs.
FB: Curl your hair yourself. People used to do them up in rags, didn't they.
JR: Well, curly hair was all the thing. If you didn't have curly hair, you were a social outcast, until the 70's really.
FB: Yes, funny that.
JR: But those early home perms, they seemed to tie themselves up in foil, didn't they?
FB: I remember my sister had long hair, my oldest sister, and she was going to a ball and she plaited all and then she ironed it in the plaits and it went all crinkly, looked dreadful, but she thought she was wonderful.
JR: Burne-Jones or another of those pre-Raphaelite artists, they seemed to have women with long, crimpy hair, didn't they.
FB: Yes!
JR: Also if you had it damp and plaited it and let it dry, that would go crimpy as well.
FB: People spent a long time doing their hair. There weren't so many hairdressers although there was Beaumont's opposite St. Andrew's Church. My sister worked there for a bit, my sister Doris. She did hairdressing and manicuring. There are a lot in Hertford now.
JR: Yes, at every other corner you turn round. They seem to do good business all of them. You go past looking in and there are always people sitting down having their hair done – amazing.
FB: They're always busy at Bengeo. I never go!
JR: No!
FB: I never go to the hairdressers!
JR: Yes! What about make-up? I've got down, here, pan stick, do you remember that time when people used to get these sticks? My aunt used to.
FB: Max Factor!
JR: Yes, and they'd have a matt finish all over their faces. You couldn't see any of the natural colour of the skin.
FB: Yes, it was solid greasy stick. It was pretty heavy going, wasn't it?
JR: I remember that so well.
FB: There was quite a lot of make-up, because people used lipsticks. And make-up isn't so popular now as it used to be. In some ways, people want a more natural look.
JR: Well, red lips were in, weren't they?
FB: Oh, yes! But there weren't so many different shades as there are now with lipsticks and nail varnish.
JR: Yes, Woolworth's used to do a good trade in cheap make-up, didn't they? I'm pretty sure my mother bought her make-up in Woolworth's.
FB: Well, it was a phase when people used to make up a lot.
JR: They did. I mean people who were adult, in say the early 'fifties, would not go out unmade up. Once they were adult, they wouldn't think of it.
FB: Oh, no! You were half-dressed if you hadn't got your make-up on.
JR: “I must put my face on,” they used to say.
FB: It isn't done so much. Well, some do, don't they, some of these youngsters, now and putting this appalling black nail varnish and streaks down the hair, different colours. Putting studs in your eyebrows is common nowadays.
JR: That's right. Permanent adornment, disfigurement really.
FB: I think it's horrid.
JR: I was going to say to you actually, did you have an ear-piercing service at any of these chemists shops?
FB: No, none of them but I think it would have been much more sensible for the chemist to do it than the people who do it, because they are not very hygienic, some of them. I don't know how these people can bear having things fixed to their tongues and their eyebrows and noses.
JR: I supposed the tongue, the tongue must be dreadful but if you decide to have it removed at least it would heal up but your ear. Well, my grandmother lost an earring and never got it replaced, and there was always that hole in her lobe.
FB: When my mother was young, she didn't think she was seeing as well as she should and her mother said, “If you can't see very well, you must have your ears pierced.” And also she had to sit there and peel onions because that was good, the onions making her eyes water would strengthen the eyes! Those were the kinds of things they were brought up on.
JR: Folklore really.
FB: But it's very fashionable at the moment, all these things. How you can bear to have a ring in your nose! What happens when you want to blow your nose? If you get a cold, it must be ghastly. It's going backwards, really.
JR: Well, I can't imagine it. Some people are very prone to going for whatever's in fashion or fad at the time. Yes. So, people had these perms and put on make-up but there was also an idea that if you put cream on your face at night, it would make you more youthful, Ponds Cold Cream and all this. People'd go to bed with their faces plastered.
FB: Ponds Cream, yes, I'd forgotten about that.
JR: Yes, Nivea as well.
FB: Now it's Oil of Ulay.
JR: I've often wondered about that. It's supposed to be very good.
FB: Well, I think that people's skin always dries up as you get older, anyway, so I don't think it's a bad idea, occasionally to lubricate it.
JR: Yes. Now just to finish with - that's a good note really, because I was going to ask you, you, I think, are so youthful, I can't believe it, both to look at and in your movements. I was going to ask you what you attribute this youthfulness to?
(Laughter)
FB: Well, I think it's partly hereditary because we are a tough family and also, I've never smoked in my life, not once. And being a Methodist and going to Sunday School when I was tiny, when alcohol was very prevalent, we all signed the pledge. I never take any alcohol at all and we were brought up to keep ourselves upright and not stoop. Mother wouldn't have us stooping. And also I
had a job where I was standing and walking about and not sitting at a desk which I think is a help to keep yourself straight. And my father, too, was always very fond of exercises, so we used to do them, because he used to do them.
I don't take medicines either, except occasionally if I get a very bad headache, I take one aspirin. Having been brought up with dispensing of medicines for people who are sick, I think, “I'm not going to start taking things, because I'm fitter than any of those.” And it's psychological, partly and good fortune, as well. I just happen to be fit.
My father wasn't fit. He was C3 after the First World War. He was kept out of the army for a very long time because he wasn't well. He had a very poor digestion. He couldn't eat ordinary food. He got called up for 'Home Service' and he only did about 3 weeks and the rest of the time he was in hospital. That's really why we came to Hertford in the first place, because he wasn't fit enough to stay in London but he had to take it very carefully. He never drank. He used to smoke though.
JR: He worked in the office or did he go out as well?
FB: He had quite a number of agents who went out.
JR: I just remembered. Eve, who was going to come, phoned me and asked me to mention to you about someone she'd heard of working for the Pearl, who was an agent. She told me his name and I just cannot remember it, oh… Mr. Blow.
FB: Oh, yes, my father was the manager for the district and he was assistant manager and his daughter still lives in Hertingfordbury Road. Evelyn. She's been married. She lost her husband some time ago and she remarried and now she's lost her second husband. Evelyn Blow her name was, Peter would know her.
JR: Blow? That's Evelyn Hayden, isn't it? Ambrose?
FB: Shortish girl, dark or was dark.
JR: Oh, that's Evelyn.
FB: You know her?
JR: Well, I do, but her name was Walls before she was married.
FB: Yes, but she'd been married twice.
JR: Yes, but she was 'Walls' as a Miss, then she was married to Ambrose and then to Hayden. But he did work for the Pearl, her father.
FB: Yes, her father did, yes. Evelyn was a Walls and Mr. Blow lived at Bengeo. She's always lived in Hertingfordbury Road. She's still there, is she?
JR: Yes, she's a good source of information for us and she's very nice, too.
FB: Yes, Blow was the assistant manager and Mr. Walls was an agent, and Bert Akers.
JR: Yes, I think this particular connection was that Eve is doing some research in the Angel, which was a de-licensed pub in Railway Street where some people employed by McMullen's were living. It was demolished about 1935 for an outdoor market. There was a little market place in Railway Street apparently as well as the covered market and that was the site of the Angel Inn and Jim Morris, who worked at McMullen's, he lived in the Angel as a boy and he mentioned Mr. Blow in some capacity.
FB: He was quite a dominant sort of figure, a typical insurance man. He could chat to people. Incidentally, talking about pubs, my brother-in-law, who used to live in Bengeo, counted the pubs in Hertford in his youth and there was over a hundred, ever so many! Incredible, all along Maidenhead Street and everywhere there were pubs.
JR: Yes, I think Railway Street is the most…
FB: And Old Cross, where that furniture shop is, that was called 'The Galleon' I think. They had a lovely window there.
JR: 'The Ship'.
FB: Yes, opposite what used to be the drinking fountain.
JR: Yes. Just briefly to return to you then - you attribute your good looks and well-being to a healthy lifestyle obviously, and being active.
FB: I think so, and I've always beep energetic. When I was young, all during the war we had a junior guild which I helped to run and we used to take them on Hartham and play rounders and things and in the winter we'd have it in the hall and make up these games. I went to choir practice every week regardless of the weather.
After I was 13 we were out at Great Molewood which is opposite Goldings entrance and we used to cycle everywhere and went to church three times on Sundays, in the afternoon it was Sunday School, you see - walking from Great Molewood down to Ware Road!
JR: You'd hardly get time to come back before it was time to go out again!
FB: Not a lot! The same thing used to happen working. I used to cycle home for lunch and back. And if I went at half-past-twelve, I cycled home for tea. I had an hour, then I went back 'till eight. It's just good fortune. I was talking to a chap at church on Sunday. He said his mother's legs were terrible, she could hardly walk and she's very tearful. He'd been up to see her and she lives right up in the north. And I said, “Well, how old is she, Chris?”
And he said, “Eighty-two!”
And I said, “Well, that's the same age as me!”
I meet people, and I think it's such a pity when people get to a certain age and they have to deteriorate and deteriorate and then die. If only we could get to a certain age and it was said, “Now look, you've got a month to get yourself sorted.”, Tell everybody and then just suddenly have a heart attack or something. Wouldn't that be nice?
JR: Well, yes
FB: Much better than – a friend of mine says, “Things keep dropping off.”
JR: OK, well, we'll finish there, I think. That's a good note!