Summary (courtesy of Essex Sound and Video Archive)
[00:00:00] DF confirms name. Lived at Witchtree Road, Hempstead, in thatched cottage called ‘Howlands’, three bedrooms, kitchen, sitting room and buttery. No fridge. Ten children, four boys, four girls. DF born in 1924. Lighting was by paraffin and hurricane lamps. Open fire in kitchen for heat and cooking. Baked in sitting room. Father worked on the farm. Had to polish front room on Saturdays.
[00:05:00] Went to village shop on Saturday afternoon. Had halfpenny pocket money a week On winter evenings girls knitted, played games. Sisters joined Women’s Institute. Made lemon curd, aprons out of hessian. Youngest brother Bert helped make Christmas pudding and do sewing. Went to the village school at four and a half. Talks about houses she passed on the way to school, the shop; hadn’t altered much. School building cold, although infants’ room had fire.
[00:10:00] Classes divided in big room, two fires at each end. Toilets outside with buckets, three four boys, three for girls. Playground divided into two. Played rounders, skipping, ball games. Friday mornings went to Sampford village hall for cookery lessons, by bus. Sometimes had to walk home. Aged around 11. Also did sewing, knitting at school. Took own ingredients for cookery. Also did history, geography, dictation, maths.Talks about her friend.
[00:15:00] Mentions exams. Remembers school holidays, six weeks. Wasn’t allowed to go into village. Went to farms and gleaning for corn for their chickens. Had two acres of ground with the cottage. Also kept turkeys for Christmas to sell and eggs for market. Went blackberrying for market. Apple trees, plums sold to Chivers for jam. Kept two pigs in the war. Had some play time. Had a shed.
[00:20:00] Boys then used shed for darts. Went to church on Sunday mornings and Sunday school in afternoons. Walks in evening. Had radio, no television. Remembers listening to news. Had measles, chickenpox, never needed a doctor. No doctor in the village; came in once a week. Aged 14 when she left school. First job as a maid lasted three days. Later worked in Great Dawkins and looked after the dairy until family moved back to Cornwall. Next job with the Beatons lasted from 18 until expecting first baby.
[00:25:00] Talks about working at the dairy. Making clotted cream. Remembers going to Saffron Walden, buying ankle socks for 6d. When older, bought stockings. Mother bought her a nice dress from Saffron Walden clothing club. Had a whist drive and dance in the village, band from Saffron Walden, Goddards. Mother helped with refreshments. Dress lasted until she grew out of it. Sisters had dance dresses. Bridesmaid to her sister, used that dress for dance dress. When she was working she went to Saffron Walden by bike; buses didn’t go at right times. Tells anecdote about seeing ‘Gone with the Wind’ and missing the bus; had to walk home.
[00:30:00] Reflects on whether her mother worried about the children. Had a policeman, he did at one time live in Rosedale. Always around on his bike. Remembers her mother doing household chores. Father and brothers did gardening, vegetables. Hardly bought anything except butter and sugar. Tin of baked beans a treat. Little tinned stuff. At Easter, always had a tin of loganberries for tea, with aunt Alice. Hempstead football match opposite their house in Witchtree Road on Easter Monday. Father charged people 1d to put bicycles in garden.
[00:35:00] Other teams from villages. All her brothers played football. Mother boiled and starched football clothes. Only had one cold tap, had mangle. Mother would find a lot of difference now; no vacuum cleaner; had matting, lino, and made peg rugs for hearth. Polished furniture in sitting room. Anecdote about father making polish from turpentine and beeswax, put in the oven, it exploded. Before tap, had to fetch water from next door’s well or from land ditches, no fertilizer then. When well ran dry, the boys went to village fountain. Didn’t have a range, just open fire, oven at the side.
[00:40:00] Had a copper and a bread oven. Mother made bread, lasted a week. Took sandwiches to school and work. Two boys came home, one worked at Winslow Hall one at Church Farm until he went in the army in the war. One brother went to Thaxted sweet shop, by motorbike. Other brother had motorbike then three-wheeler Morgan car, before the war. When very young, not many cars around, except the doctor. Baker and fishman had horse and carts. Also man from Saffron Walden called ‘Summerlight’ who sold everything from biscuits to paraffin. Grocer, Westleigh from Bumpstead, came once a week. Mother only went to Saffron Walden for clothing club. She managed the family finances.
[00:45:00] Older children working helped with the finances. Three sisters married locals, went to dances, walking. DF only one to get married outside the village; husband in the RAF during the war. Brothers married locals. Comments that courtships usually lasted about three years. Most got a tied cottage after marriage, or rented a cottage. Charlie bought Forge House. Bert had a cottage at Church Farm. Jim moved to London. Collected most things apart from furniture before marriage. No hire purchase. Weddings at local church. Three receptions at their house, one at village hall. Just vases of flowers for decoration, did own catering. One sister went into the land army. Not many girls worked; female shopkeepers usually spinsters or widows.
[00:50:00] Talks about women working. Recalls the opening of the rebuilt church tower. Had service, refreshments. Lord Dalton of Penn opened it and laid foundation stone. Remembers whist drive, dances, Women’s Institute, listening to news on radio, 1930s general strikes. Remembers the King dying and abdication of Edward VIII.
[00:55:00] Celebrations for the coronation, had a tea and races for the children. Presented with spoons or mugs. Rained at Jubilee celebrations at Hempstead Hall. One of her brothers worked there. Killed pigs there. Bought half a pig, made brawn, nice joints. Boys from Hempstead Hall not part of the village. Woman and girls joined in. It was a remand home. The farmers were looked up to, they kept themselves to themselves. The church and chapel did not mix socially.
[01:00:00] Comments that most people fitted in. Talks about an Italian man in the village; thought was a spy at first. Mentions gypsies coming in for potato picking, some Irish people. Lived in caravans. Had travelling knife. Recalls gypsies selling pegs and heather and Indians selling silk ties and scarves.