Interview with J Taplin

Interview with J Taplin

J Taplin of Stevenage worked at Stevenage Lodge as a gardener associated with Six Hills Nursery before he was called to the Army at the start of the war. Within a week of enlisting he was in France where he spent the months of the Phoney War as batman to a quartermaster and a member of the field ambulance. He was evacuated from Dunkirk before being remobilised and posted to Egypt and North Africa near Tobruk.

1986-07-31

01:26:41 audio recording

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ATaplinJA860731

Interviewer: Recording an interview with Mr Taplin of Trumper Road, Stevenage on the 31st of July 1986. Interview recorded by Chris Drake from Stevenage Oral History Project at the Council Offices. Right. Good morning, Mr Taplin. Thank you very much for agreeing to be interviewed.
JT: Yes. Good morning.
Interviewer: First of all could I ask you when and where you were born please?
JT: Yes, I was born at Sacombe near Ware. 29th of April 1919.
Interviewer: Right. Into a large family?
JT: Yes. Ultimately, I was the second son.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: There were six sons and one daughter. That’s me. I had five brothers and a sister.
Interviewer: I see. Could you tell me a little bit about your parents? Your father’s occupation.
JT: Well, the fact was that my father worked on the farm at this time because he was a member of the Navy and in 1913 I think it was he was discharged on health reasons.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: And at that time of day in this particular area farming was one of the occupations and he took that up as a job and as you know at that particular time in farming workers lived in tied cottages that went with your job. At this time he was working out at Sacombe Hill Farm and the cottage was there to go with it.
Interviewer: I see. And your mother was the, the housewife and mother.
JT: Well, yes. It was the normal thing in them days.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: The majority didn’t as such go out to work.
Interviewer: I see. That’s interesting actually. Were there any conditions applied to living in the tied cottage?
JT: Yes. It was very rigid that if you left the job you left the cottage. It was just straight out.
Interviewer: No argument.
JT: And generally speaking within the region of many miles one farmer would not take another farmer’s employees in order to take them away from that particular farm.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: It was very difficult to move.
Interviewer: Employees quickly got a good or a bad name and if they got a bad name they were sort of –
JT: Well, you were stuck with them if they were bad.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: That was it. But like it seems today there were some [unclear]
Interviewer: I see. Yeah. What were the other conditions of your father’s employment? Can you remember the sort of wages or —
JT: Well, the wages I think were something –
Interviewer: Hours.
JT: About what we know today as one pound fifty a week and perks like a pint of milk a day I think they brought and not a lot else. Fortunately, the cottage we lived in had an orchard so we had a certain amount of apples etcetera. Other than that there weren’t. Weren’t that many perks. There was a bit of home [econ] work during the summer months with the harvest.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: I think that was about it.
Interviewer: I see. So the average hours would have been sort of daylight, daybreak to dusk.
JT: Well, I think sort of starting at 5.30ish in the morning.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Until 5 o’clock at night and later than that during the hay and harvest time.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: ‘Til dusk.
Interviewer: Yeah. Were you and your brothers sort of asked or coerced into sort of going on to the farm.
JT: At that time, that time I was too young.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: But later on.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: When we moved to another area we did help out with the, with the farm work.
Interviewer: Was that sort of expected of farmer’s sons?
JT: I don’t really think so. I think as a rule since there wasn’t a certain amount of other work available the son followed the father’s footsteps.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: On to the farm in one form or another.
Interviewer: I see. Was it a large house? Cottage.
JT: As far as I can remember it was a normal two up two down. Two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Kitchen come scullery I think.
Interviewer: Can you remember any of the sort of daily routines? Did you help in the house with chores and things?
JT: Yes. We used to do, I suppose a bit of jobs because in those days there was no central heating or anything like today.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: There was no water laid on. We had a well outside at this particular cottage that we pumped it up.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: There was a pump outside. I was so young then I don’t remember too much detail.
Interviewer: Right.
JT: Yeah.
Interviewer: That’s interesting.
JT: Mother used to walk Hertford for the shopping.
Interviewer: Really?
JT: There were no buses you see.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: They used to be walking or —
Interviewer: It was a bit —
JT: That was it you know.
Interviewer: A good four hour journey by foot. Must be.
JT: I suppose it was.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: In those days people accepted this.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: This was reasonable. Walking was an accepted thing regardless, within reason of distance. Yes.
Interviewer: Oh, I see. Can you remember where you started school?
JT: I started school at, at Sacombe.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: That back then entailed walking across the fields I suppose every mile. Every mile to the school.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: It was the village school which —
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: I don’t really—
Interviewer: Mixtures of all ages and —
JT: Mixtures of all ages.
Interviewer: Backgrounds.
JT: Five to eleven or twelve’ish I suppose.
Interviewer: I see. Yeah. Can you remember your favourite subjects at school?
JT: Not really. No.
Interviewer: No.
JT: You know.
Interviewer: I suppose they concentrated on the three Rs just —
JT: Well, just a general education then.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: You know. It wasn’t so much of this question of the Eleven Plus and that in those days.
Interviewer: Yeah. I see. Did you have any particular pastimes that you enjoyed? Did you enjoy playing football or anything?
JT: Not really. I think walking in the fields and that. Bird nesting I suppose I used to do, you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Helped. Used to help father with the garden when we were a bit older.
Interviewer: Was that one of your interests? Gardens.
JT: Well, I suppose this was where it started. Yes.
Interviewer: I see. Yeah.
JT: Yes. And generally helped with [pause] with any other odd jobs.
Interviewer: Yeah. Did you have your own plot?
JT: No. No. It was just a general all purpose garden.
Interviewer: I see yeah.
JT: To subsidise the family.
Interviewer: Good. What did you do after you left that school? I presume —
JT: We moved you see then. Father left the farm about 1924 and went on to the railway, when they were building the [pause] this new line which runs from Stevenage to Hertford. He worked on that.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: We moved into Watton then. Into another cottage and this then took us away from the farm and farm environment. Well, Watton was a country village with all the country environment around anyway.
Interviewer: Yes. So —
JT: You know. There was one or two farms there and by then I suppose we used to spend our time at [unclear] School which was just up the road then about half a mile. Thereabouts. And evening times I don’t remember too much about that.
Interviewer: I see. What were your, so your father was actually labouring on the railway was he or —
JT: No. What they considered then the plate man was looking after the, the track.
Interviewer: I see. Yeah.
JT: Keeping that in good order.
Interviewer: What was your new house like? Can you —
JT: Well, much the same as the old cottage.
Interviewer: Right. I see.
JT: There were no, there weren’t many new houses about.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: I don’t think there were any particularly new ones at Watton at Stone at that time.
Interviewer: Was that also subsidised or —
JT: No. No.
Interviewer: They had to pay full rent for it.
JT: Straightforward renting. suppose what we know today twenty five pence a week.
Interviewer: That must have been a fair size of the income though then.
JT: No. The income on the railway was something I think about two pounds fifty a week and you know families were normal there.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Yeah. I suppose about forty eight a week.
Interviewer: I see. What was your first job after leaving school? Can you remember?
JT: I believe it was [pause] yeah, was it a paperboy because prior to leaving school I used to do a paper round and then when I first left school I went into it full time. Then went down to the shop down the road. It was a general what would I say? Hardware. Hardware shop. Worked in that for a few months. Then of course I went on to Stevenage Lodge as a gardener.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: When I was about fifteen.
Interviewer: Oh great.
JT: Yeah. Nice.
Interviewer: What were your brothers and sister doing at the time?
JT: They were all at school except my older brother. He was working in a shop I remember [unclear] butchers. He was there in the old town and it was what they called a delicatessen.
Interviewer: Oh yeah.
JT: In those days.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: It sold ham and the like. He worked there.
Interviewer: Did you not have any desire to go onto the railways like your dad?
JT: Well, at that age I was too young anyway.
Interviewer: Right.
JT: You couldn’t get on to the railways. You went on perhaps at about I think sixteen was the minimum age they would take you.
Interviewer: Ok.
JT: And then helping out in the portering line a bit and going on from there but on the actual engineering side I think one had to be twenty one. I’m not sure.
Interviewer: Right.
JT: Or eighteen. I’m not quite sure now. Eighteen or twenty one before they would take you on as with what they called the engineering side.
Interviewer: I see. So you went to work at Stevenage Lodge at the age of fifteen.
JT: The age of fifteen. Yeah.
Interviewer: What, what was, what met you when you sort of walked through the gate. I presume there was a gate on it.
JT: Yeah. There was a large, a large black gate which I believe they still have to this day.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: But I had seen the place. I knew the place so it wasn’t actually walking into a strange area because I was friendly with a young lad of my own age whose uncle was the head gardener there so we’d been up there on one or two odd occasions and seen the place before so it wasn’t like actually walking into anything which was entirely new to me.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: Nothing strange about it at all.
Interviewer: Was it in response to an advertised job?
JT: No.
Interviewer: Or did you just go on spec?
JT: No, it all came about by me working at this hardware shop place which sold flowerpots and Frank Barker who was then the, I suppose general manager of Clarence Elliots Six Hills Nursery used to come in there and buy his flower pots. And the perk was that I would deliver them to him usually on a Saturday afternoon and I used to like to get up to his house which was in Fairview Road
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And we used to have quite long talks in his conservatory which he had at the time and on one occasion he came down and he said would I be interested in taking the job in the gardens because he was at this time friendly with the people at Stevenage Lodge and you know, he appealed to me. ‘Well if you go and see George Carpenter —' who was then the head gardener.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Which I did.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And talked it over and he said, ‘Well, when can you start?’ Sort of thing. Well in those days one give a weeks’ notice and I mean I don’t know if this was [pause] I don’t remember the day of the week when I went to see him. It could well have been a Saturday or a Sunday but I duly give my weeks’ notice in to this chappie that owned the shop where I was working and I started up there on Monday the [pause] I believe it was the 30th of April 1935. No. 1934 because it was the day after my birthday. I can remember that. 29th of, 30th April 1934 and that was it and went from there.
Interviewer: I see. What duties were you doing?
JT: Well, multi-tasking [laughs]
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: It started off with looking after the boilers because they were this particular time there was only the one. We used to, between us we used to look after that to heat the water for the house. It heated water and did a bit of central heating. In those days they were coal fires so you had to carry the coal in. Looking after the kindling wood to light those said fires. Chop that. Clean the shoes. The governor’s shoes. And of course, they had poultry and my job was to look after the poultry.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: They had then about six dozen chickens and I used to look after, feed those, clean them out once a month and so on. Collect the eggs. And of course, work in the garden during the day or, well throughout the day and break off —
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Say mid-morning to look after the chickens and then again perhaps in the afternoon collect eggs. So on and so forth.
Interviewer: So they made sure you got, got around a bit.
JT: Oh yes. It was a, it was a good job really.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: They were very good people to work for. They were very good.
Interviewer: Who actually owned the Lodge?
JT: They were Allan’s. They were two brothers.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And the sister in the early days.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: The sister died I suppose about 1935ish, I think. Five or six.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: The [pause] there was Mr Edward, Edward Barry his right name was and Mr Fred. Mr Frederick. Mr Edward, he died later on. I don’t know. It would be about as far as I remember 1937, I think.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: Thereabouts. I don’t remember dates too well. And of course Mr Fred survived until after the war actually. Oh yes. It was quite a nice job actually.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Quite interesting. There was such a variety of work that in 1935 I think it was they had the power put on by the Electricity Board because prior to this they’d been, they would be, the thing was to generate [pause] you see it was a self, self-contained unit as a house. It had its own water supply which they pumped. Generated their own electricity and then when the power was put on it had to be converted from a hundred and ten volts which it was using to two hundred and fifty you see. And at the same time we had all the outbuildings renovated and painted up, a new greenhouse erected, a new alpine house erected and the place was just generally tidied up. A new, a new pumping pump fitted in the pump station which I believe is still there and the well deepened because the, at times the water supply got a bit short. Particularly during a dry summer. But this went on then after that things came unstuck.
Interviewer: Can you remember what your wages were in the early days?
JT: Well, there I suppose I started I should think at about twelve and sixpence a week at that sort of age. What is it today? Twelve and six. Sixty five pence.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: By the time I left, I left in I think it was April 1939 I was getting thirty eight shillings. Which is just under two pounds a week.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: None the less for that they were quite generous people in many respects. You see the norm was those days that you paid a rate, a recognised local rate for any particular job in that line you see.
Interviewer: Did you develop your interest in plants particularly there or was that later on?
JT: A little bit of interest in alpine because they had such a marvellous rockery there. A rock garden and a marvellous collection of alpine plants which were supplied of course.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: By Clarence Elliot who used to come up periodically and give guidance on the rock garden and the alpine house with Mr Fred.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: He spent a lot of time in there.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Looking after his collection. It was a very valuable collection actually.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Because in those days some of the alpine plants were seven and sixpence each which if you work it out was a good price.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Today of course I suppose they were equivalent for about five or six pounds.
Interviewer: Do you remember much about the characters that we talked about? Sort of, Goerge Carpenter and Clarence Elliot and Frank Barker.
JT: Well, George Carpenter was an ex-Cavalry man. He served in the First World War as a cavalry man in the Hertfordshire Yeomanry and what little I know about him [cough] excuse me, he went there in 1919 [pause] Yes, George as I say served in the Cavalry and so far as I know he went there in 1919 and took over the gardens. He was quite [pause] quite a nice chap to work with. He was very understanding, fatherly because I was only as you know a young teenager then and he was reasonably considerate and helped and as long as you did your job that was all there ever was to it. He stayed on there until Mr Fred died in the 1950s actually so he did quite a time there and he was quite a good guy. He managed all this garden between the two of us and kept the, I mean the idea was that the the family which was the three of them in the beginning kept them in vegetables and fruit. There were trees, a lot of fruit trees which used to be gathered and stored for the winter. And then of course when Miss, Miss Georgina fell sick they had a nurse added to the staff to look after her. A trained nurse there. And again when, when Mr Edward was taken ill they had a trained nurse come to look after him and he unfortunately passed away. He was sixty nine I think when he died. The time Mr Fred passed on I had left you see.
Interviewer: Yeah. What about the characters of the three family?
JT: Miss Georgina was a lovely old lady. Very considerate. She didn’t used to come out very much. I think she spent a great deal of time in because she was a good age. I think she must have been well over seventy and her hobby of course was the chickens. The poultry. And she used to walk up and feed them occasionally and look around. Come along, have a few words and so on but her generosity was quite, quite good. She always knitted me a pair of mittens for the winter and she was always concerned that I wasn’t out in the rain and things like that. Mr Fred didn’t have too much to say because he wasn’t sort of the head man I think. I think that was the way it went. Mr Edward, yes he always came out and had a word with you and he always addressed one by the Christian name which was not too common in those days.
Interviewer: No.
JT: ‘Good morning, Joe. How are you?’ Which, and well later on he used to come along the same time during the morning and say take the car home to lunch and he used to go out for lunch and this became a regular thing then.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Late afternoon he’d come out, ‘Oh, Joe, pop off a bit early and post these letters on your way home.’ And things like that. They were never to proud to stop and have a word with you and discuss, not politics of course but current affairs and various other things. On one or two occasions he bought me odd books on gardening and so on. As I say generally, and Christmas Day always gave nice presents and things like that.
Interviewer: Great.
JT: I think welfare wise they were very considerate in those days because one heard of bosses that didn’t want to know about their employees too much but no, they were very very good.
Interviewer: Can you remember anything about Frank Barker or Clarence Elliot?
JT: Not a lot. So far as I know Frank managed the nurseries and of course he lived in Fairview Road. He was a very keen plantsman. I believe he and Clarence between travelled to many parts of the world collecting plants. Here again Clarence was a nice man to talk to. He was always quite considerate. But I didn’t know them well enough. I never worked for them so I only used to see them on the odd occasions when they came up to Stevenage Lodge to give advice.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: On the rock garden and things like that.
Interviewer: So you weren’t actually involved in Six Hills Nurseries professionally speaking.
JT: No. I was never involved with Six Hills nurseries.
Interviewer: No.
JT: Professionally at all.
Interviewer: I see. Great.
JT: A lot of local people were.
Interviewer: Yes, I’ve interviewed one chap who actually drove Clarence Elliott around Switzerland.
JT: Yes.
Interviewer: On one of these trips. Yes.
JT: Yes.
Interviewer: It’s quite an exciting time I hear. So what did you do when you left the Lodge?
JT: I went down to what is now Blakemore Hotel. There was a major [unclear] and of course I was only there six months when the war broke out and I went into the Army.
Interviewer: I see. Would you mind talking a bit about your life in the Army?
JT: Well —
Interviewer: What regiment and where you served and all about that.
JT: Well, it started off because I was, I joined the St John Ambulance Brigade when I was seventeen.
Interviewer: Right.
JT: When the war broke out they were looking for actually volunteers for what they called Military Hospital Reservists and my older brother was with me in the St John and we signed up as Military Hospital Reservists at the outbreak of war and within a few weeks we found ourselves in the Medical Corps. Got this notice on the Friday, “Report forthwith to Aldershot.” And I saw the major and he said to me, ‘Well, the Army’s always in a hurry to get you and when they get you they don’t know what to do with you.’ [laughs] He said to me, ‘If you go down on Monday that’ll be quite alright. I’m sorry to lose you but circumstances as they are you would have been called up anyway.’ Because of my age group you see. I would have been called up I think in the early part of 1940.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: So away I went. Well, away we both went and we arrived at Aldershot on the morning of the 9th of October 1939 and as the major quoted there was hundreds of us there and the Army just didn’t know what to do with us. Anyway, within the week they they’d made their minds up what to do with us. On the Sunday, well actually before that we had a lecture from the sergeant major on security which to me on reflection was a bit stupid. But anyway we were kitted out on the Thursday with our uniform and webbing equipment and all the bits and bobs that the Army issues. And on the Saturday afternoon we were given four packets of biscuits and two tins of bully beef and on the Sunday morning we were marched down to some farmhouse down in somewhere in the wilds of Hampshire from what I can remember. Entrained along to Southampton and on to a ship and over to Cherbourg. So within a week of being in the Army I was in France.
Interviewer: What a way to start your —
JT: So then on by train through numerous hours down to the Bay of Biscay to a place that’s well known for a holiday resort. Three weeks down there under canvas and getting to know Army life and then entrained again and hours and three or four days on the train. On and off the train and finished up at a place in Northern France not too far from Paris. Lille area. And with this then we joined this, the 14th Field Ambulance which was 2nd Corps Field Ambulance.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: At the time. And then we sat of course for six months during the Phoney War business and I had a, I suppose [laughs] considered to be a reasonable job in Army circles, someone told the major that I’d been in private service and he said, ‘Oh, you’ll do for the Officer’s Mess.’ So, so promptly gets moved down to the Officer’s Mess. And then someone found out that I had passed a home nursing course and the major said, ‘Well, no. You can’t stop here. You’re wasting your talent. Come back to the main dressing station and do nursing.’ And then after a period there the quartermaster got his ear to the wall somewhere and found out that I’d also been in domestic service and he wanted a batman. Would I like to be his batman? [laughs] So I finished up in the quartermaster’s store looking after the rations store with a lance corporal and being the quartermaster’s batman which wasn’t a bad job really.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Got me out of numerous parades. It got me a ride up to Vimy Ridge each day to collect the rations and in those days it was easy going. The rations were quite good. We used to stop at a café on the way back and have a coffee run and arrived back at headquarters in time for lunch such as it was. Issued the rations in the afternoon and that was the day’s work done. We were right next to a French café so we could always pop in there and as was the norm have a coffee or what have you. And life went on much the same like this for months until May the 10th. Woke in the morning first light.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: By the bombing of Lille and then there was a just one mad scramble to get everything on to the lorry and as you know the Army, they never said much. Just drive on and away we went and wandering around Northern France and on odd occasions we used to go off to a given point on the map somewhere that somebody had given the quartermaster pick up the rations and try to find a unit on the way back. In between times often that whilst we just sort of got into a village and somebody said, ‘Get out of here quick. The Germans are on the other side.’ So we were dodging about Northern France like this for several days and you come to a point where we all met up again and somebody said, ‘Well, leave your lorry there and start walking.’ And we started walking and finished up on the beaches of Dunkirk.
Interviewer: Good grief.
JT: This was on the Monday towards the end of May and of course there was no food available. But I’d seen that, I’d seen what I recognised to be a ration truck in amongst the dump down the way. We went down there two or three of us, skated through that and found some I think a bit of corn beef and a few tins of veg and we knocked up a meal in one of the houses there and ate that. That was on the Tuesday and that was the last we had that week.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: We had this, a tin of chocolate ration but the norm was that you couldn’t open that without the authority of an officer. But in the absence of officers it was opened and eaten but it wasn’t very good. It was a high protein diet.
Interviewer: Oh right.
JT: Not very good stuff. It looked like chocolate but it certainly didn’t taste a lot like it. However, after I think five or six days on the, on the beaches there being bombed and strafed we managed to scramble on to a destroyer on the, I think it was a Saturday morning and they brought us back up to Dover. And of course, when we got at Dover we managed, well on board the Navy looked after us. They gave us some I think it was coco and sandwiches and stuff.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: As a meal. And of course, once we got to Dover again the Army didn’t seem to know what to do with us because there was all sorts of units all intermixed. They weren’t sort of coming away in an orderly fashion at all. And we came off from Dunkirk with what you stood up in.
[recording paused]
JT: At Dover. On to a train. Finished up at Worcester of all places and then I suppose we were at Worcester a few days. Not long. This was then high summer 1940. It was [pause] they were doing if I remember right sort of haymaking and stuff. And I suppose the Army then sort of worked out who was who and we moved over to Leeds and when we got over to Leeds the, a lot of the unit was there and I suppose we was in Leeds a week or so maybe. Not much longer and we reformed then as a field ambulance as such personnel wise. They gathered us together and moved us down then to Dorset and in a village down there on the River Stour. From there we were changed in designation from a field ambulance to a light field ambulance and from about, I don’t know perhaps three or four hundred personnel we were cut down to something like I think two hundred and fifty or even less. We were re-equipped with vehicles and ambulances and then of course this was early July and we were then functional more or less. We were then moved up to join some armoured formation at Halstead in Essex which were then defending the east coast in case of invasion which was talked about a lot in those days. There we stayed from mid-July 1940 to the 31st of October. All through the Battle of Britain. We were on stand to pretty well twenty four hours a day you see because of the threat of invasion. We used to go out half a unit in the afternoon, half a unit in the evening walking around the village. My pastime then was down to, they had a small swimming baths there, spend the afternoon in the swimming baths. If the sirens went we had to return to unit immediately and this was the procedure on manoeuvres. Go out and move the convoy all around the countryside for a couple of days perhaps and then finish up back where we were in the park. October came and we were moved then up to near Towcester. I suppose we were there weeks. Three weeks and I was still the quartermaster’s batman. He came to me one day and he said, ‘You’re going home on leave tomorrow,’ I think he said. ‘We’re now under orders for overseas.’ He used to tell me bits like this in confidence and I came home on leave. I think it was seven days. When I got back they’d moved then on to Northampton.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: And we settled in, well billets there. They took over odd buildings and the highlight there again was the swimming baths. We used to have this they called a bath break. They’d take us up to the swimming baths and have a shower.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Of course, bath parade was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and not having much else to do we used to go on this and have a swim all the time and then pay. I think Thursday and Friday used to go out and pay sixpence entrance fee for a couple of hours.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And this was during the January of 1940. There was a whole lot of snow outside but they were indoor swimming baths you see.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And thoroughly enjoyed that. Then of course all of a sudden the cooking staff started making sandwiches and I always remember the funny part of this was that they were slicing the bread. There was no sliced bread in those days you know and melting the margarine down to oil, putting it on the bread with a clean shaving brush. It was the funniest thing I ever saw. Spreading this margarine with a shaving brush to put on the sandwiches. I think it was two each and the next thing we know that we had woken up early morning, full marching order, fall in, march down to the railway station, entrained and up to Liverpool. This was sort of mid-February 1941 and joined a convoy out to sea. Across the Atlantic in the rough weather. Here again I wasn’t too bad off because I was still doing the quartermaster, the quartermaster’s batman and there was a chappy on there who was a steward. They had the stewards on the on the, this was on a sort of peacetime luxury liner converted to a troop ship and this steward used to give me a cup of tea each morning with cow’s milk in it. There was so much cow’s milk on board. It was refrigerated somehow. This was a luxury of the day because the rest of the food on was atrocious. Nearly always fish. And of course the sleeping conditions were terrible. You had what they called a Mess Deck as long as this room with a long table and used to sling hammocks out. Eighteen hammocks in a given space, you know. Touching. I think it was about eighteen inches wide for each man. I had one night down below decks and that was enough. The idea was you used to draw hammocks, I think it was 6 o’clock at night, take them back by sort of 8 o’clock in the morning. But from then on I slept on topside on the deck every night because of the atmosphere down below was too stifling. We were at sea for several weeks. We called in at Sierra Leone, stood offshore for oiling. Twenty four hours then off again. Stopped off at Cape Town for four days I think we had at Cape Town. Went ashore. Met the people who looked after us remarkably well. And then back up through the Indian Ocean into Port Tewfik and of course then it was terribly hot. Middle of May time. Into Egypt at [unclear] Camp for three weeks. And hustled out of there we went then up through, into Palestine, across the Sinai desert, Beersheba. Joined I believe it was the 6th Australian Division because they’d come out. They came out because when we got to Port Tewfik there was the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth stood alongside. They had just brought out I think it was the 6th and 7th or the 6th and 9th Australian Divisions and they’d sort of moved up into Palestine temporarily. And then of course there was this question of the Syrian problem. The Vichy French were in Syria and Lebanon at the time and we went in to take over because of them I think being too friendly with the Germans or something of this nature. We didn’t understand the politics of it. We just went in there and took over from them. We were in Syria up and down and around in Damascus and places like that for six whole months. Finished up at a place, there was Tripoli in Syria. We took over a French hospital there because there was a lot of malaria about and looking after the Australians with malaria and things. Had quite a nice time with the Aussies. They were quite good people to be with. Then all of a sudden from there I think if I remember right it was December the 5th or 6th, I know it was near my sister’s birthday and that’s how I remember it we got this urgent call. They wanted a field ambulance back in Egypt for some reason and we were the only one available I think and by this time of course the Australian field ambulances were out there. Things in the desert had been a bit quiet and they were beginning to liven up I think so we went convoy back to Egypt from Tripoli in Syria right the way down the coastline back through Palestine. One or two overnight stops. Finished up at [unclear] in Egypt up near Alex. And after we’d been there not many days they found out they didn’t want us anyway. There we sat for a bit. Sent some of us down to the 58th General Hospital which was down, down about five or six miles away on a training course. Had three weeks to a month down there and got promoted Nursing Orderly Class One. Army style. Back to the unit and in the March we went back up the desert. Up to somewhere west of El Adem. And of course, this was in preparation for this final effort to drive Rommel out of North Africa as they thought at the time.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And the strategy of it went wrong. If you read I think some of the books on the North African campaign the way it went it went in favour of Rommel instead of us but with the desert warfare it could go in anybody’s favour as things were. However, we were cut off there during the late May time and in what they called one of the boxes there was several boxes there armoured and we were in that. Shut off. Cut off. The Germans got there and as it was they bombed and strafed us one afternoon. They virtually wiped us out, you know. They destroyed numerous vehicles, numerous ambulances, killed ever so many personnel and wounded ever so many and I think it was eleven killed, twenty seven wounded in about ten minutes and this messed us up. It left us just enough ambulances to evacuate the wounded into Tobruk which was still free. And we then assembled as best as we could and started to move back out of the area and as we were burning tents in the waddi the German tanks were going across the ridge. Why they didn’t open fire on us I don’t know. I suppose they must have seen the Red Crosses and kept quiet but it was quite commonplace there for the Air Force to bomb or strafe an ambulance if they saw it out in the blue. I mean we lost numerous ambulances that way. And so on. However, we managed to get these people into Tobruk and the major that escorted them in they were all captured by the Germans a few days later. We nipped down to Tobruk and down the escarpment and back to the Nile Delta down in the Suez for a complete refit. Down there for two or three weeks and re-equipped and joined then the force Light Armoured Brigade and moved up to make up on the Alamein line on the Qatari Depression. And there we sat at odd times apart from a bit of manoeuvres from mid-July right through to the battle of the 23rd of October. Fortunately, we weren’t too bad there. Water supply was because it was a short distance back to the railhead for water. There wasn’t too much of a rationing of water and we used to get, what did we get, about three bottles of beer a week I think. It used to come up. We had to pay for it but free. Once the breakthrough started they were sending us in between times down to Cairo on forty eight hours leave just as a break and I went down. Three of us went. About three or four times a few of us went down. On the day we came back we were picked up at the railhead in a fifteen hundred weight truck and the driver said he’d got to get back by a certain time. The balloon goes up tonight. Well, at 10 o’clock that night, that was the 23rd of October of course we were on stand to. Every, every vehicle had got the engine running and there we stood and then the barrage opened and we moved in through the minefields into the Italian positions and we followed the armour through there and had a skirmish around there for two or three days I think it was. Then we came back through and turned north and then as soon as they effected a breakthrough we went through, followed the armoured cars and the tanks through the breakthrough and did the spearhead right across the desert. In the desert because the Highland Division went along the roadway I think but they then attached the 7th Armoured Div, as I said they did the spearhead through to oh up the Hell Fire Pass and right westward across the desert and we you know on the tail of the Germans all the way through. And for I suppose over three months there we was out in the blue on our own miles ahead of most of the other stuff with just an armoured car screen harassing the Germans and keeping them on the boot I suppose. And we went in and the armour took [unclear] aerodrome to Tripoli before I think the Highland Div got in to Tripoli. And then we moved from there into, into —
[recording paused]
[dead air 4733 -4739]
JT: Getting your priorities right by keeping up, getting your water, petrol and ammunition up so that food more or less took a second place.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Because we always carried a big reserve of hard tack on the vehicle which was bully beef and biscuits and this is what we had. Bully beef, biscuits, margarine, cheese for about three months.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And then I think when we joined up with the New Zealanders we did manage to get some bread off them. However, into Tripoli and we moved out then into the hills for a complete refit because all the vehicles was this, you know if you’d been taken for a march through the desert there was about [unclear]. We sat up in the hills for about two weeks and then again a mad scramble and back into Tunisia and keep going westward and through all the, you know the campaigns there. I forget the name of a lot of these places. [Sous] [unclear] then on into Tunis. We met up with some American, one of the American divisions way down in the desert that had pushed down and around.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Tried to get behind the Germans. Anyway, we took [unclear] advance of prisoners into Tunis. We had a few days in Tunis and went back then for a complete rest and refit to Homs along the North African coast.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And of course we sat there right on the coast. Bivouac’d on the coast and reveille was up and in the water for a swim you know first thing in the morning.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: We didn’t do a lot during the day. Just general routine and fairly leisurely. Every afternoon into the sea swimming and you know general relaxed time. Then the King came out to see us. We tidied up and he came along but of course he couldn’t stop and see everybody. He passed by in a vehicle and so on just to review the troops. Then of course there was the Sicily invasion came up.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: We got down to the quayside ready to go on the, it was a tank landing craft there if I remember right and the major came back to them. The RAF have got priority. They’ve taken over the boat. We’re not going now. So we set up a convalescent camp just outside of Tripoli for a few weeks. There was a lot of malaria in Sicily and a lot of Australians caught it over there as well if I remember right and we were looking after them convalescent. I mean malaria was the thing that all they needed was quinine treatment and rest.
Interviewer: Yeah. I understand there was a shortage of quinine throughout the whole campaign or is that —
JT: It could have been. It was very precious stuff if you know what I mean. It was not easy to come by unless it was prescribed. But what they used to do with us as a preventative measure was give us [pause] I don’t know if its quinine or something when you queued up for your evening meal.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: The staff sergeant stood there and gave you a tablet and he saw that you swallowed it you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Otherwise they were nice things to take. Everyone used to [laughs]
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: But they weren’t too unpalatable I suppose.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Touch wood I never got malaria but I think that was due to taking the, you know wearing proper clothing in the evening and taking these tablets probably. Anyway, the next move of course was back down to the jetty and on to a tank landing craft. I don’t know when this was. July? It must have been very late or early August or early September. Two American tank landing craft plodding across the Med unescorted. Finished up at Taranto up the Adriatic coast then with the armour all through that bad winter of 1943.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And over the River Sangro, in and out the villages. And New Year’s Eve I’ll always remember that. It was, I was on guard and it started to snow just after midnight and by about the first light in the morning, seven, 8 o’clock time there were three or four feet of snow.
Interviewer: Good grief.
JT: Then the whisper went around that we was coming home and we were a bit fed up with it then. Although we weren’t too bad off because there was no proper billets, you know you’re sleeping on lorries at night and that was very very cold. A job to keep warm and you daren’t light fires because there, well there wasn’t a lot of wood or anything about to buy. Ration wise wasn’t too bad but of course it wasn’t too good because by this time we’d got the Anzio beach opened and there was a lot of demand for stuff there you see. However, the major called us together and said that the rumour had gone around that we were coming home. He said, ‘This sort of thing is just a rumour. Take no notice of it. We don’t want the Germans to get ideas we’re sending all our troops home and all that old rubbish.’
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: So we sort of thought no more about it and then all of a sudden some days or so later all the vehicles disappeared and that sort of fall in to three ranks. All marching order on to a train and down to, back to Taranto I think it was.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Sat at Taranto about forty eight hours on another train and up to Naples. Outside of Naples for about forty eight hours. They let us go into Naples and we got told then it was a closed city because it was very prevalent with typhus at that time. A lot of typhus about. Some generous MP said to us, ‘What are you doing here?’ We said, ‘Well, we’ve got a pass here.’ He said, ‘You’ve no business to have passes. Take my tip and take this road and get back to where you belong.’ Which we did but some of our chaps were put inside overnight being picked up by the MPs. Major went down the next day and picked them up. We moved on to this boat. The first thing they told us that when you get on you’re not to take any article of clothing off until we dock. And we said, ‘Well, where are we docking?’ You know. we thought we might have been going north to Anzio or somewhere up there. But it turned out that we were coming home and home we came for eleven days. We never took a thing off. Not allowed to, you know. It was because of the torpedoing of ships. We had a torpedo scare just when we got west of Gib. But nothing came of that and we were all given jobs. All the gunners manned the ack ack guns on board and we were given jobs manning the sort of medical posts you see.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And we used to do boat drills and a bit of PT and stuff on board during the day. Anyway, we finished up at Gourock near Greenock. On to the, on to a train and of course I know I got picked out for the baggage party because they’d unload all the baggage and put it on the dockside and this sergeant I knew fairly well grabbed me for baggage guard and, because by this time I’d been sort of changed. I’d lost the quartermaster’s batman’s job. I’d been doing nursing orderly on the medical side now for a couple of years. More. And of course, all the boys were passing us these letters you see. ‘Post this home. We’re coming home.’ And of course, we were giving it to the Wrens to post in the pillar box outside. The authorities were politely emptying the pillar box and burning the lot because they knew what was in them you see and it was security at that time. You couldn’t —
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Sort of send that and say, ‘Well, my son’s coming home.’ My son. The Germans would soon get wind of it although they knew thatwe were bringing home troops.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: From the Middle East at the time but they didn’t quite know which units and that sort of thing which was, and I likewise I posted a letter home but it never got there. Anyway, we got on a train and finished up at Worthing. They’d got hotels and that down there prepared for us. Finished up at Worthing about I suppose 11 o’clock at night. Had a meal, went to bed. Up the next morning, passed three weeks leave and home we came. Well of course when I arrived home they thought I was still out in the Middle East. They hadn’t got a clue.
Interviewer: Really. Yeah.
JT: Yeah, because I mean the letter never arrived. Anyway, I stayed three weeks at home. Then we went back and we’d got all new vehicles. The Armoured people got all new tanks and we spent from the late February, March, April time doing what, everybody did a job then waterproofing the, waterproofing the vehicles for the invasion. And so there we sat. We were doing quite well there. It was quite reasonably leisurely I suppose. Used to get out a little bit in the evening although there wasn’t much to do. I don’t know what [unclear] a bit at the time. I forget. Pubs of course but I wasn’t a drinking man. I used to go out [pause] and just general not too bad. The colonel we had then wasn’t the best of people. He had insisted on a parade every Saturday morning and you had to be smartly turned out for that or else. And after we’d been there all of a sudden one morning the sergeant comes stomp stomp stomp on the floor, ‘Out you get.’ This was 4 o’clock in the morning and I don’t think we even stopped for breakfast. This was D-Day. June the 6th. And on the lorries and finished up in Portsmouth. And there we were and the people were bringing us out a tub of hot water. We were washing and changing on the tailboard of the lorries. And we moved into a camp there which was guarded by MPs because they didn’t want people out you see and we spent the night in there. The next morning we were on the boat that went down to the docks and got on a tank landing craft. The vehicles were already on there and plodded away out south of the Isle of Wight. Stood off the Isle of Wight for a few hours and then eastward ho and we got offshore, off the beach and dropped the ramp and marched, well we marched. I never got my feet wet even. We was lucky the tide must have been out [laughs]. Drove the lorries off and assembled up there and formed into sections because we had four sections then. The four sections of the headquarter company was the, was the norm for this type of field ambulance. And the one section moved straight out into the line with the tanks and armoured cars and we moved up the road about five miles south of the dressing station in a farmhouse and there we was in business. And of course, there was this sitting about there, moving about all over the place one way or another and I suppose it was six weeks until we got the breakthrough there and then we moved through to the Fallais [unclear] area. Treated a lot of German wounded and that there. But there was thousands of prisoners coming out of it. Then started moving north and up. Finished up pretty well up the Belgian frontier again and had a bit of respite there for a day or two. Finished up and this was September time sitting outside of Brussels relaxing in the sun one Sunday afternoon and we saw these aeroplanes going over. The next thing we knew was on your vehicles and away. And then of course we went up through into Holland and over the Nijmegen Bridge and we got up as far as Elst. We got up there attached to the 82nd American Airborne Div because —
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: They must have met us up there for some medical reason. And I think we’d spent ten days to a fortnight up there and of course after the Arnhem do we pulled back into Holland around about, what shall I say various parts of Holland up and down according to the way things were going. Finished up at the [unclear] on one of the, I think it was the River Meuse. It was bitterly cold and then of course we were doing the Ardennes push at the Christmas of ’44. We was on twenty four hour stand to because we didn’t know what was going to happen next.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: We weren’t sure of the picture. Towards the end of January we were up on the Meuse there. They’d got a small medical station up there because of the sickness and that looking after these various people with colds and that sort of thing. Bits and bobs. And I came home on leave in the January of ’45. I had about seven days but it was miserable. We travelled all the way from Holland right down to Calais on a train with no heating. Wooden seats you know. Wooden seats on these freight trains and bitterly cold. Miserable. Across the Channel with a cold northeast wind blowing towards land [laughs] Anyway, I came home and then I suppose about [pause] yeah ten, well seven or ten days. I forget now and back and rejoined the unit in Holland. Then we did these manoeuvres on the Meuse with the, you know because of the crossing and exercising with the boats to and from across ready for the Rhine crossing.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And prior to the Rhine crossing I went up to a farmhouse right on the river to hold it for a dressing station so that anybody else didn’t move in. This was the object of it and I was up there about three days. Not exactly on my own. There were other troops about getting a meal and of course this time the Rhine was blanketed in fog. Well, man-made fog. It was smoke. You couldn’t see a thing, couldn’t hear a thing and amazing part of it was that they were moving stuff up and the Germans never had many aircraft reconnaissance and they were blanketing the Rhine with this fog so that they couldn’t see what was going on anyway.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And then of course when the barrage started the ground shook. Of course, that was the Rhine crossing was over there in less than forty eight hours. Bridge across and away we went. Then we did this tear up through Germany. We finished up in Schleswig-Holstein on the [pause] on the coast there at Lübeck. Just down from Lübeck. We went in there because we went up past Belsen. They wouldn’t let us stop there. The Americans took over that I think and then we had these, these thousands of displaced persons that had been on two ships out on the bay that our Typhoons thought they were troop ships bombed and strafed them and they were full of these people from concentration camps that the Germans were moving up to Lübeck. Sixteen thousand of them and we looked after them for, from, we had five days and nights without sleep just looking after them from the start. Then we got them on this big hospital down the road. Of course, they were dying in their hundreds and we looked after them. Fed them porridge. Nothing else but porridge for three weeks and generally looked after them until the February of ’46 when I came home. That was about the, sort of the end of my military service then. That’s when I —
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Good.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: You left the Army in 1946.
JT: 1946.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Demobbed with this suit and the mac.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Back home and then of course one has to find their feet again after this. So, a few weeks rest and then you start getting itchy feet. Wonder what to do next and I started on my own. I started window cleaning for a little while and that didn’t, wasn’t particularly great. I was then, went on when the Ambulance Service was formed in 1948 I went on that but at this time it was being administered by the Fire Service and in effect it was the wrong thing to have done I think because the people in charge were firemen and it was a new thing. It was feeling it’s feet and I suppose that the country wasn’t ready for it anyway. Had a little while with them and then I went into industry. I went to King’s for a bit.
Interviewer: So you moved back. Your family was in Northampton at the time.
JT: No. No. I came back to Stevenage.
Interviewer: Stevenage. Right.
JT: Yes. I was actually demobbed in Oxford. However, I went into industry for a time and did various jobs around Stevenage from 1948 onwards. As I say I went to King’s for a few years. I went to British Visqueen for a while.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And I went to BAC for a little while. I finished up then after them working for Kodak until I retired.
Interviewer: Right. I see. BA and Kodak. What were King’s like to work for? What was your job first of all?
JT: I think King’s, I don’t know about these days but in those days there was no trade unions. King’s I think exploited the worker to the utmost in so far that what they thought were good wages I don’t think personally were.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: To start with. I mean one started at a wage and improved the wage as the, as they went on but it was such a poor place to work in as well as at. Working conditions weren’t good in so far that in the winter it was bitterly cold. In this day and age the health and safety regulations altered all that but in nineteen, early 1950s working in a place like that where it’s sort of freezing outside and freezing inside but there we are. Since then its changed hands and I imagine that it’s a lot better now. Visqueen’s again was quite a reasonable place. Hard work of course but anywhere seemed to be hard work in those days. But as I say I finished up at Kodak which was quite a good company.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: They looked after you much better.
Interviewer: Where were you living at the time?
JT: In Stevenage.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: I’ve always lived in Stevenage.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Ever since I came back you see.
Interviewer: Which road?
JT: I moved about a bit.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: It seemed at the start. Well, I —
Interviewer: Did you move into some of the New Town or into the Old Town?
JT: No. I moved into, when they first built Boxberry Close. That was the first house we had.
Interviewer: I see. Yeah.
JT: One of the new ones. And then we had various, without giving too much detail various houses around about Stevenage and they were finished up in well it’s all under one now so we’re in Trumper Road now.
Interviewer: I see. Yeah. Did you have, actually we’ll talk about housing and the Corporation if you remember anything about being involved with them a bit later. We’ll go back to Kodaks if that alright.
JT: I don’t remember too much about the Corporation apart from the fact that they were at Aston House in the beginning.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: For the administration offices. We can remember of course the first initial development after it was proposed and approved. Bedwell area where the, [unclear] poultry, the big poultry farm was.
Interviewer: Yes.
JT: I remember them digging out the first trenches for the drainage.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And sewerage. The first houses going up. I think Buckingham way area and that across to [pause] I forget the name of the road now. It was Monkswood and that way and from then on each section had a different area —
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: As it was built.
Interviewer: How did you feel about it?
JT: Nonplussed actually.
Interviewer: Nonplussed.
JT: The, I think the general feeling among many people was well it will bring work.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Which it did. I understand these people when you go to someone that’s just bought a nice, or just had a nice house built or bought a nice house, got the garden all nice and say, ‘Yes, well we’re going to bulldoze this all down. I mean obviously they’re going to object, aren’t they?
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Which is what happened.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: It was out of the blue to these people and you know in retrospect I think the Corporation, Development Corporation broke a lot of promises so far as I can gather in so far that they said they wouldn’t touch the Old Town but gradually they crept along and bought the Old Town up and in many ways it’s it spoiled it since that it’s not a High Street as we knew it now. It’s just a big commercial area. Very few people living in it. Very few shops of the right sort perhaps. You know, this is an estate agent’s paradise isn’t it really? It’s the [unclear]
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
JT: However —
Interviewer: Yeah. Did you renew your acquaintances with people at Six Hills when you got back from the [pause] from the Army?
JT: I used to talk to Frank Barker occasionally and I used to see Clarence Elliott and talk to him occasionally.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: But as far as renewing acquaintances not, not that much.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Really speaking. But you know as I say Clarence Elliott was always the man that was good for a good nice chat and he was a nice chap to talk to.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: He was, you know he had a lot of experience and he was always interesting. He’d always got something to say that was worth listening to.
Interviewer: Did you, how did you feel when they actually closed it? Six Hills, and sort of built the College on top of it? Of its service—
JT: Well, this was not really in that true sense because it was well known that in the early days that it was planned to put a cottage, a college there so that when it came I suppose it was rather —
Interviewer: Resignation.
JT: Yeah. But it’s rather a sad thing to do because how or if one can replace a collection of plants as such I don’t know. I think that Joe Elliott, Clarence’s son took over to a certain extent but he moved down to Gloucestershire.
Interviewer: Yeah. So, I understand.
JT: Moreton in the Marsh.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And but it was rather a shame to actually take that area I think to build on. I feel that could have been left as a, as a business place.
Interviewer: A world famous institution really wasn’t it.
JT: It was. It was known worldwide. It wasn’t just Six Hills Nursery, Stevenage. It was —
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Well known. It was a unique collection of alpine plants which to my way of thinking could never be replaced and never has been replaced.
Interviewer: No. Was, do you remember any moves to transfer any of the stock to [Upton}
JT: No. No. I don’t. No. I wasn’t involved —
Interviewer: [unclear]
JT: In any way in that.
Interviewer: No.
JT: You see. So how much or what have you I don’t know. I imagine that the Corporation took the rock as such and possibly a lot of the shrubs probably and moved them around and they’re probably still planted around the town no doubt.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: The more commoner ones.
Interviewer: Did you go back to the Lodge at any time and try and see what they had done with the place.
JT: Once or twice. I’ve been back more recently since it’s been council property.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: But I spoke to the, the last owner up there several years ago and he invited me to go and have a look around but I never got around to it. I mean I’ve been and looked through the gate shall we say but of course naturally the council when they took it over had to develop it to its present form in so far that as it was it was not really of great interest to people as a whole. They wanted probably to see it as it is now with more less common trees and shrubs in it rather than ordinary common or garden apples and plums.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: I mean you can go and see those but what the council have done they’ve got a heather garden, I think and the rock garden is still basically as it was and the rest of it of course is is for educational purposes really isn’t it? To, for people to go and look at various shrubs and trees which are not grown everywhere and are less common sort of thing.
Interviewer: You mentioned, changing the subject totally here when we first met about the fiftieth anniversary of St Johns Ambulance.
JT: Yeah.
Interviewer: At Stevenage. Would you like to describe how St Johns Ambulance was formed? How you came to be involved?
JT: Well, as far as I can remember it was started by a Mr Greenwood who is not with us. He was a railway employee and at that time the railway which was not of course nationalised, it was the London and North Eastern Railway, they like the mines and docks etcetera liked to have first aid people working for them and in order to do this they encouraged it. And Mr Greenwood started a division in Stevenage on that basis as a railway employee. He worked in a clearing house in London and he with several other people got together I understand and started a division here which was about twelve members strong. Some worked on the railway and some worked on the, at the ESA who also encouraged it because they liked people there to know first aid for accidents as did the railway. And from then it went from strength to strength if you like. Soon after it was started the war scare came along and it then was involved in Civil Defence and it also trained people in what we know as home nursing. The subjects it does now are various particularly with Cadets.
Interviewer: How did you become involved?
JT: How? I don’t really know for sure but it I suppose my uncle was a member —
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And he used to talk to us about it. And at that time of day in Stevenage there weren’t any clubs apart from the Club and Institute which was, you know not too appealing. Brother and I went along and became interested and subsequently joined.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: I carried on and a bit later on my father joined. Then my mother joined. My other brother he left after the war. But during the war of course it was involved in manning first aid posts and the like in conjunction with the Red Cross. They worked closely together during the war years. I don’t know much about the war years in Stevenage because I wasn’t here. But there were many people joined and learned first aid at that time and manned the first aid posts and of course was prepared to treat casualties from air raids. That was the basic principal of it during the war time and of course after the war it carried on where it left off doing the normal functions. Fetes, gymkhana, the like of that. Football matches and so on as it still does. Since then of course this local division has acquired a Cadet Division which is quite, quite strong and these days, in the old days they used to be separate divisions, ladies and gents. What they called nursing and ambulance division but since then of course economics and practicalities it’s better to have what they called combined divisions.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Which is male and female work together.
Interviewer: What, you’re still involved obviously.
JT: Still involved with it. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Yes.
Interviewer: Do you hold a rank or —
JT: I used to be a sergeant but with working shifts and not always being able to attend all the meetings I felt that it was better if somebody else could give it a bit more time at that stage than I could and I reverted to the rank of common old garden private.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: You know, you could still do as much, I think.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Help as much as without too much rank. Somebody has to administer.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: It’s not one of my favourite subjects administration.
Interviewer: So where was the place based before the war.
JT: It was originally based in the in the Town Hall which is now pulled down which is well we knew it as Orchard Road. Is it now [pause] I don’t know what it is called now but—
Interviewer: Still is.
JT: Where the road turns off the High Street to join Lytton Way. You know some of the people —
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: Remember the old Town Hall then. It moved during the war of course. It had a place, a first aid post at the Club and Institute in the High Street and they used to meet there. Then post-war years it went to the Church Hall in Basils Road. It was a galvanised iron place which has since been pulled down. Then when the Old Training Centre in Stanmore Road became available from the County Council some years ago the St John bought that and the ground around it and we used that for many many years and after much serious thought and discussion it was decided to build our own headquarters which we have done by, well having flag days and our own labour force. Naturally there were certain jobs we couldn’t do ourselves but the foundations were laid by experts that we were fortunate to have a certain amount of craftsmen in the division. A good bricklayer, one or two handymen, carpenters and a lot of help by various volunteers from outside and from other divisions in particular. A lot of guidance and help from our senior officers in, you know area officers.
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: And people of that calibre which would either come along to meetings to give us valuable guidance on the, maybe the legal bits, the technical side and so on. We did the bricking ourselves I’d say and then we had experts to put the roof on, to do that. The Brigade people who have a fund I think it is which loans money out were very generous towards us to lend us some money to get started and a I say people come from outside. Electricians came along and they were from other Divisions and did the electrical wiring. Parents, Cadet parents who helped in some respects and this sort of thing, getting together we were able to over a period of time build it, move in to it, pull the old place down and I’ve got to repeat with the help of a lot of generous people outside and contributions get where we are today and we are able to let it off to people that need it for useful purposes.
Interviewer: I see.
JT: Its serving, as a building it’s serving quite a useful purpose.
Interviewer: Yeah. Good.
JT: But as I say the division is fifty years old this year.
Interviewer: What, what plans have you got to sort of celebrate this or publicise it? Are you going to hold a —
JT: Possibly a dinner later on but advertising and publicity campaign. We had a bit of publicity at Stevenage Day and a bit during the Carnival. We had a float at the Carnival to publicise it. But by and large the public of Stevenage have been very good to us. Generous money wise. We always have a good response to Flag Days.
Interviewer: Good.
JT: I think we’re, we’re well looked after in that respect although we again we like to feel or personally I like to feel that we are giving a service looking after, you know people’s interests which is what we do it for. This is what it’s all about. To help people out if they need it. Because I mean the St John itself is over a thousand years old. It’s nothing new. I mean the St John can trace its history back to —
Interviewer: Talking [unclear] now. Yeah.
JT: Eight, nine hundred, tied to the old, the Crusades.
Interviewer: Yes.
JT: And so on, you know.
Interviewer: Yes.
JT: That in itself has quite a history from Palestine, to Rhodes, to Malta to the present day and we still maintain, the Brigade as a whole maintains an optical hospital in Jerusalem as it has done for many many years. It, it does a lot of, you know work in the Middle East. All classes, creeds.
Interviewer: Good.
JT: Nation. What have you.
Interviewer: Yeah. Great. Some final thoughts perhaps on how you feel about living in Stevenage now. Are you satisfied with the way it’s developed? The town centre.
JT: I think personally, I think Stevenage has got too big. I don’t know what the population is now. I thought the ultimate was going to be sort of sixty thousand.
Interviewer: Yes.
JT: Then they’d take a bit more land and put another ten thousand on it and I feel now that they’ve got out to walk and I think you know but it’s, it’s dominated by, I think economics to a certain extent isn’t it? You can argue well people want houses so we build them houses but it depends on I think largely on your point of view but —
Interviewer: Yeah.
JT: I would feel that Stevenage would have been left at about sixty, seventy thousand would have been a reasonable figure but here again it’s, to me not what I say a commercial thing now rather than a development thing in a manner of speaking. So as people are buying land to build houses on to sell which is fair enough but that’s another story.
Interviewer: Ok.