Hilda Morgan
Hilda Morgan
Below are the notes taken by Rose Hanscomb during a chat with Hilda Morgan in 2009
My friend Hilda Morgan nee Birch, was born in 1921 in one of the cottages adjacent to the Great Barn in Croxley Green. Her father worked on the farm and her mother looked after their 5 children. Life was hard and every child, however young, had their own jobs Hilda at 2 ½ years old, had to look after her sister Kath just a few months old while her Mother got on with her work. Her older brothers went to Old Boys School in Croxley Green and loved Neggie Wilson the Headmaster, they still came back to their Croxley School even when the family moved to Mill End in 1926. When the boys needed a haircut, her mother used to cut round a pudding basin!
By the time she was 6, she knew how to skin a rabbit, pluck a pigeon and gather fruit and plants from the hedgerows to supplement the family food.
Life moved with the seasons and you ate whatever was available at that time of the year, wild strawberries, raspberries and of course blackberries and mushrooms. Her father grew a few vegetables in their tiny garden.
She remembers her first day at Yorke Road School when her Mother walked her to school through the woods, but said “Now you know the way, you can go on your own next time” and she had to, always a bit fearful of the sound of the wind in the trees and other noises in the woods.
She hadn’t been back to the Great Barn since the family moved away to Mill End and as there was an open day at the Barn that July, I took her along for a look. She was thrilled to look around the wonderful cathedral like building with its vaulted timber roof and to meet quite a few of her friends from the Rickmansworth Historical Society and Music Society as well as friends and neighbours. So many memories came flooding back.
She enjoyed playing Hide & Seek in the Great Barn and riding on the shire horses, Punch & Judy, who pulled the hay wagons full of harvest into the barn and generally did the heavy work around the farm such as the ploughing. The cows lived in another part of the building and each bay held different crops.
She remembered the tramps who called in the cottage on their way to the Watford Workhouse, when her mother gave them a pinch of tea, they had to go to the lady next door for the hot water to make the tea.
Hilda loved the poppies and the cornflowers in the surrounding fields full of butterflies and birds and on her way to the Baptist Church, one Sunday, she counted 75 different wild flowers.
Uxbridge Liz, was an old character who lived in a shanty hut near the bridge. She used to come up to the cottage each week for a bath. The Irish navies who built the railway but most of all she remembers how hard life was then, the big families and not much money coming in.
(© Croxley Green History Project)
My friend Hilda Morgan nee Birch, was born in 1921 in one of the cottages adjacent to the Great Barn in Croxley Green. Her father worked on the farm and her mother looked after their 5 children. Life was hard and every child, however young, had their own jobs Hilda at 2 ½ years old, had to look after her sister Kath just a few months old while her Mother got on with her work. Her older brothers went to Old Boys School in Croxley Green and loved Neggie Wilson the Headmaster, they still came back to their Croxley School even when the family moved to Mill End in 1926. When the boys needed a haircut, her mother used to cut round a pudding basin!
By the time she was 6, she knew how to skin a rabbit, pluck a pigeon and gather fruit and plants from the hedgerows to supplement the family food.
Life moved with the seasons and you ate whatever was available at that time of the year, wild strawberries, raspberries and of course blackberries and mushrooms. Her father grew a few vegetables in their tiny garden.
She remembers her first day at Yorke Road School when her Mother walked her to school through the woods, but said “Now you know the way, you can go on your own next time” and she had to, always a bit fearful of the sound of the wind in the trees and other noises in the woods.
She hadn’t been back to the Great Barn since the family moved away to Mill End and as there was an open day at the Barn that July, I took her along for a look. She was thrilled to look around the wonderful cathedral like building with its vaulted timber roof and to meet quite a few of her friends from the Rickmansworth Historical Society and Music Society as well as friends and neighbours. So many memories came flooding back.
She enjoyed playing Hide & Seek in the Great Barn and riding on the shire horses, Punch & Judy, who pulled the hay wagons full of harvest into the barn and generally did the heavy work around the farm such as the ploughing. The cows lived in another part of the building and each bay held different crops.
She remembered the tramps who called in the cottage on their way to the Watford Workhouse, when her mother gave them a pinch of tea, they had to go to the lady next door for the hot water to make the tea.
Hilda loved the poppies and the cornflowers in the surrounding fields full of butterflies and birds and on her way to the Baptist Church, one Sunday, she counted 75 different wild flowers.
Uxbridge Liz, was an old character who lived in a shanty hut near the bridge. She used to come up to the cottage each week for a bath. The Irish navies who built the railway but most of all she remembers how hard life was then, the big families and not much money coming in.
(© Croxley Green History Project)
