Janet Quick - Memories of Croxley Green
Recorded 29th April 2023
Recorded 29th April 2023
Bronwyn: Janet, what year were you born?
JQ: I was born in 1935.
BS: And where were you born?
JQ: Wolverhampton.
BS: And when did you move to Croxley?
JQ: When I was three months old. My parents bought a house in Frankland Road – I believe it was £750. Number 64. And I grew up there until I came to my present address which is still in Croxley, and I have just lived in Croxley all my life.
BS: What are your earliest memories of Croxley Green?
JQ: Going to school at Yorke Road. My father used to take me down on the back of his motor bike! Down there. I went to Yorke Road, then Harvey Road, then Durrants, and then Watford Tech, which was in Queen’s Road, Watford.
LW: Oh right.
JQ: When I went.
BS: What do you remember of Harvey Road, because you must have gone there when it must have just been a very new school?
JQ: Well, yes. Harvey Road I joined in the war years, and it isn’t the building it is now, it was at the top of the field, and we had a long corridor and all the classrooms came off the long corridor. We had a shelter, an air raid shelter, there in the grounds, and we used to have to – if the air raid siren went – we used to have to pick up an oval mat which was woven raffia, I suppose, really. Grab milk – I didn’t do it because I don’t like milk, I don’t touch milk – and we used to have to sit down there until it was OK to come up.
BS: On your raffia mat?
JQ: Yes. And we were told – I used to walk to school from Frankland Road down to Harvey Road School, and you were told if the siren went you were to knock on the nearest front door, which wouldn’t be nowadays.
LW: Did that happen?
JQ: No, not with me. But that was what – and you always had to have your gas mask with you in a cardboard square box, which - very regularly there’s what we used to call in Frankland Road the slipway, which went down to the woods, and there was an air raid warden’s hut there, and Godfrey Cornwall used to have us in there – he was a very well known character – and we used to have to have an inspection of putting our gas masks on. I hated – they were horrible things, they smelt terrible, rubber. Horrible! And they fitted so tightly, you know, round here.
BS: And what was school like first at Harvey Road? Were there a lot of evacuees that were at the school with you?
JQ: Yes, we did have evacuees. I don’t think I was terribly conscious – we did have a couple of houses in Frankland Road where evacuees lived. And of course, you see, I was just with my mother because my father went away in 1940, came back in ’46. And people used to come round with a clipboard – “have you any spare bedrooms?” You weren’t asked who you would like or – “Well then, you can take -you’re free [or ‘your three’]”. And it was mother and I so we had one family, they didn’t stay very long, and then we had two single ladies.
LW: Right. From central London presumably?
JQ: Yes. And then when the – the night they bombed the docks in London, I wasn’t on the side of the Moors in Frankland Road, the other side, backing onto the railway, and – mother – we used to sleep under the stairs, which really wasn’t the safest place, but there was a mattress put there and that’s where we had to go when the air raid sirens went. And I remember her saying to me “Now go to – we’ll go downstairs” and looking out of the front bedroom window the sky was red!
LW: Really!
JQ: Yes, I’ve never forgotten that.
LW: Fascinating.
JQ: Never forgotten that.
LW: You would have been very young then, too, wouldn’t you?
JQ: Yes.
LW: Gosh, yes. Well. So there wasn’t any – because I think a bomb fell down by the tube station, didn’t it?
JQ: At Scots Hill. Which fell and nobody was killed. But there used to be a lovely – it’s Fuller Hall now – but where the cars are parked by – outside the Grammar School, there used to be this lovely like chapel, and it had beautiful red velvet – I always remember that.
LW: The Gospel Hall, was it? Somebody mentioned, yes.
JQ: I think it was the Gospel Hall. But I remember as children we got on our bikes – why you collected shrapnel I don’t know – but the thing was to get up there as quickly as you could because you picked up quite a lot of shrapnel.
LW: Treasures!
JQ: Yes! And of course the 412 was the main troop road. Used to bring the Americans. We used to stand at the top of Scots Hill and ask for gum and it used to get thrown, you know, to us. But – no, nice memories of growing up. And when my father – when your fathers were called up for serving, they used to call it embarkation leave, and my father said to me ‘what would you like’ – I’m an only one – ‘what would you like to do?’ And I said ‘I know what I would like to do, I would like to go up with Jennie, who lived in Number 62’ – I was 64, she was – our houses were joined – and ‘I would love to go down to the Aquadrome and you row us out on the boat on the lake’, (whispering) and they were beautiful boats, (normal volume) they were really lovely, wood all polished and before we went, we went up to Stone’s Orchard on the Green, which was a cherry orchard, and they had the cherry picker ladders that went up to quite – and we bought black cherries and they were huge, and they were really nice, but that is another big memory I had.
BS: And that would have been 1940, just before your Dad was sent – well, went into the forces?
JQ: Yes. He was in Burma then till
BS: He was in Burma?
JQ: Yes. Came out in 1946.
BS: That was a long time, was the whole time he was in Burma?
JQ: Yes. And especially for my mother, because my mother, who had to go to work because if you – if you worked at the Sun Engraving or in the print, the interest on your mortgage payment was paid. But if you didn’t, and my father didn’t, my mother had to go to work to find the money, you see.
BS: And where did your Mum work?
JQ: She worked for Heinz, Heinz had an office on the Green here and then they moved to Harlesden. You see the memories then – we had no central heating as we do in houses now, and in holidays I was told that I mustn’t light the fire before 3 o’clock, and I couldn’t get the fire to go very often, and do you know what I did?
LW: What did you do?
JQ: What everybody did – they had the newspapers – the newspapers were large then, and you held the newspaper in front of the fire with your foot on the bottom to draw it.
LW: Yes, dangerous, yes.
JQ: I can’t tell you how many bits of newspaper went up the chimney (laughs) Alight. So dangerous!
BS: So you had to come home from school on your own at a young age from Harvey Road during the war years, while your Mum was working?
JQ: Oh yes. I used to let myself in, and in the holidays I used to have to go down to the British Restaurant in Winton Drive and the meal was one and fourpence. And you collected the tray. You know, I mean a child wouldn’t
BS: Wouldn’t do that any more, no.
JQ: Well they wouldn’t be allowed to.
LW: Allowed to, no.
JQ: And if I was asked, I had quite a few friends, and their mothers used to say ‘would you like to stay?’ “Yes, but please don’t tell my Mummy.” And I used to give them the money. Knowing that they needed it.
LW: Instead of going to the Restaurant, yes.
JQ: Yes. I used to like the company.
BS: And what did you do for – what did you kids do, growing up in those years around Croxley, you know, when you could go out in the – did you go down to the Dell, the woods, play in the woods?
JQ: Oh we played in the – we used to play in the woods; by the air raid warden’s hut there’s a slipway and you go down, and we used to call it the gravel pits, I don’t know whether it’s still called that now, but some bomb damage, bomb damage refuse was tipped in there and there were woods the other side, and we used to play in those woods and our parents would come and call us.
BS: Yes.
JQ: All day. You know, if we could stay there all day we would. It was so lovely. And then as we grew older, you know, the boys used to go down and swim in the canal. And we used to go over on the Moors and sit there and watch the men from John Dickinson’s doing the fire drill.
LW: Oh, of course.
JQ: That was very interesting to watch.
BS: What was that like? What did they do when they did the fire drill?
JQ: Well, they used to have to get the hose out and roll it along and, you know, to aim water here, aim water there, sort of thing. And it was very entertaining! (laughs)
BS: Do you remember any particular teachers from those years in Harvey Road that have stuck in your mind?
JQ: Yes, Miss Cooper was headmistress at Yorke Road, and there was Mrs Green, it was Percy Graver’s wife, she taught at Yorke Road, Miss Groom taught at Yorke Road, and the Baptist Minister down in Rickmansworth, Mr. Bridge, his daughter used to teach at Yorke Road and became headmistress at Yorke Road. And then in many later years when I had my family and I was in the house I’m in at present, a job came up at Yorke Mead and Miss Bridge was headmistress at Yorke Mead, and I appeared for the job and she said “Janet, I’d love to have you come and work for me, it’s yours”. And I was there for 24 years, school secretary.
LW: In the office, yes.
JQ: And many lovely happy years.
LW: Yes, oh good.
JQ: With Joan. And her father when I was at Yorke Road, there used to be a bench all along the wall – it’s now housing – but there used to be a bench all along the wall and we used sit on there and Mr Bridge used to come along – if it was a lovely day he used to come along and tell us stories. It was a very pleasant school, lovely school.
BS: So after your years at Harvey Road, you went on to Durrants?
JQ: Yes. And worked my way through Durrants and then went on to do short – I wanted to do horticulture badly, and we had lots of small nurseries round here – there used to be Chandlers Cross Nursery, Ward’s used to have one at Sarratt, there were quite a few – and Mr Ward offered me a training job – a job I could go into because I loved my garden, and I was told ‘no, you’ll be a shorthand typist, the same as everyone else’.
BS: Who told you that? Your parents or –
JQ: Well, my parents. You didn’t have the choice in those days. You know, the world’s their oyster now, but we didn’t have that choice – we were told ‘you will do’.
LW: Oh. But you’ve carried on gardening as a hobby?
JQ: Oh yes, yes. It’s my
LW: It’s a beautiful garden.
JQ: Yes, I love my hobby. I can be absolutely lost in the garden, you know. I really enjoy it.
BS: So you grew up on Frankland Road, and you must have known lots of people on the road, and I know you’ve got a list here of all the people you remember.
JQ: Yes, I used to know the names of the people – I mean I can go up one, two, three, four, five, six – there’s ten. The Knights, and there was us
BS: What number? Tell us the number of the house and the people who lived there.
JQ: The names I can remember (long pause) 60, 62, 64, 58, 56, 52, 50, 48 and 46.
BS: OK. And who lived at those houses – the names, do you remember the family names?
JQ: Yes. And when the war finished, what it was – it was VE Day was the first one, wasn’t it? Victory in Europe. The next one was
LW: In May, yes.
JQ: And when it was VE Day, we had a bonfire in the road.
BS: In the road?
JQ: And people danced and sang and two people brought pianos out. (Wow) Because one of them were personal friends of ours – I remember that very clearly. The piano was brought out and you sang and danced and
LW: Which house did they live in, the people with the piano?
JQ: They lived up where the road first comes in.
LW: Oh, OK, yes.
JQ: Down there. Because 64’s about half way down, really.
BS: And were there lots of kids out on the road, tables, food, for VE?
JQ: No.
BS: No?
JQ: Not like we do a party now, like that.
LW: No, because dancing!
JQ: It was just people brought it in their front gardens and you just
LW: Because people had front gardens then much more than they do now, because of cars.
JQ: Oh yes, there were no cars. Because, you see, we used to play as kids, we used to play in the road and I used to get very cross because I was always about the first to be called in – it was bedtime, you know! And we used to play ‘kingy’, you know, with a ball when you hit below the knee. Oh yes, everything – you had no vehicles coming down. And when – I can remember, but I don’t know when – I don’t know how – I can’t remember exactly how old I was – but I do remember a gentleman coming down on his bike and lighting the lamps in the street. But I can’t place it as to years, unfortunately.
LW: Yes, that was obviously still going on in the – well, forties, when there wasn’t a blackout I suppose, later, later on, maybe in the fifties.
BS: So you’ve got all the names of the people who lived at those houses, so if you can read out the house number and the family names that lived there. So – who lived t number 60?
JQ: Cunninghams lived at number 60 and they had big white Dalmatian dog – you know with the spots – Foche, he was called. Thompsons lived at 58, and Mrs Thompson unfortunately got killed on her bicycle in the road past the Harvesters and then you go over the canal bridge into Watford – she got killed there.
LW: And Florrie was her daughter, is that right? Florrie Thompson was her daughter?
JQ: Was she?
LW: I think so. Well, when we first moved in, Florrie Thompson lived there, in 58, and she was very elderly then. So maybe she was her sister or something?
JQ: Yes. I remember her dying, telling my mother and how upset everybody was.
LW: Yes. Yes. Gosh.
JQ: You know, dreadfully, dreadfully upset.
LW: And the houses were quite new when your family moved in.
JQ: They were newly built, yes.
LW: You were the first inhabitants, yes.
JQ: Yes, oh yes. And then I sold it in ’92 when my mother died.
LW: Right. Right.
BS: talking over
JQ: I’ve been here 60 odd years.
BS: So what other families do you remember that lived around you?
LW: So 56 was?
JQ: That was the Allisons. And then there was a family West, and I don’t know if her name was Sheila West or Shirley West. And number 50, Derek White, that was the name, White. And he had a sister. And then there was a gentleman who lived with his mother, and there were the Archers, and I – they moved to Watford and I sometimes see them now.
LW: Oh, very interesting.
JQ: And that’s just the side that I lived. I knew people the other side. You know. Because people stayed in the houses. Most houses you knew, you know, who lived there.
LW: Yes, yes, yes.
JQ: Now where the grammar school is, on that piece of land at the front where they park cars, when the fair used to come to Croxley each year, it used to be held on there. Dodgem cars and everything like that.
BS: When was that? During the fifties or earlier?
JQ: Oh no, because the school’s been there some time.
LW: ’54 I think.
JQ: It must have been in the fifties.
BS: Late 40s, early fifties?
JQ: Because we got married at All Saints Church in ’57.
BS: Did you have a reception locally in the Guildhouse?
JQ: At home.
BS: At home, yes.
JQ: There wasn’t the lovely dos that there are now. And also I do remember the woods, down there, are ancient woods and I always remember during the war the pigs used to be kept in there, because I suppose they were ...
BS: Good food.
LW: Yes.
JQ: You know, for food. Oh, and also by All Saints Church, where the Green is, the church, the garden, and then there’s the Green going up, there was a big air raid shelter there, which the public could go down, and where, when the – Drive is and everything, there was a big TA centre there, and the air raid siren used to be there, that used to go off.
LW: Yes. On the windmill.
JQ: It did make a noise!
LW: I’m sure. Did you have to go down there at all, if you weren’t at home and the siren went?
JQ: No. I never went down there.
LW: talking over – it didn’t happen.
JQ: but I knew – we were all aware that, and we knew it was there.
LW: Yes. Yes, just in case.
JQ: Going down to the Met Station, the parade of shops along there was really, really nice. The first shop opposite the Red House, the funny pointed end, that was a cycle shop.
LW: Oh right, yes.
JQ: A very tall man used to run the cycle shop there, and we had very, very nice – we had two very nice chemists in Croxley Green. We had one on that parade of shops and another one up New Road which was very nice. And we had three butchers’ shops that I can remember and two of them had their own abattoirs. There was Darvill’s at the bottom of that parade of shops opposite the Red House, it was Darvill’s at the end – there’s [? ] Court - there’s flats there now.
LW: Yes.
JQ: And that used to be a nursery, because my father used to go in there and get his tomato plants and all things like that. And there was a very nice wool shop, a fruit shop, a chemist. And Mr Hedges, which is a well known name in Croxley Green, he used to be the grocer in that parade of shops, and all the bargee people, because the canal was very business like, you know, esparto grass, coal, everything. And the ladies used to come up, all dressed in black, with huge baskets, to get their provisions.
LW: Yes. Gosh.
JQ: Mr Hedges, he had a very busy shop there. And likewise at the top of Scots Hill it was Mr Hunt, that was a very – that was a grocer’s there.
LW: Well, that’s interesting.
JQ: You know, it was – it was Darvill’s had the abattoir, Gadsden’s had their own abattoir, which was half way up New Road, and there was a parade of shops opposite Gadsden’s. There was Wally’s [Wallis?] that used to have a little library there, my mother used go there and get – that’s where the other chemist was. And Cheshire’s – we used to have to go and get the bread there. And it’s now - that’s now cottages I believe – yes, cottages. And the Fox and Hounds was there. The Guildhouse is another very popular thing that we had in the centre, and we needed it and we need
BS: We need another one.
JQ: Another centre.
BS: We do.
JQ: Because it was made into flats and we lost
BS: Do you remember when it burnt down?
JQ: Oh yes, yes. I used to belong – with Maureen – to the Girls Life Brigade which was run from the Methodist Church at the top of – and we used to do all sorts of shows there. Dances used to be held there. Everything was there. It was a centre hub.
LW: Yes. You didn’t need to go anywhere else, did you? There was so much going on here.
JQ: Yes.
LW: Very vibrant community.
JQ: Oh yes, definitely. Definitely. And there was – I think it was Darvill’s I mentioned. And Saunders was up the top of New Road, almost on the – no, it wasn’t on the corner of – it was before then. And there was Mead’s Garage. And next to Mead’s Garage was the blacksmith, which we used to go and love to see the horses shoed – and of course the smell – the smell!
LW: Yes. The Gibbs family, weren’t they?
JQ: Oh, lovely smell there.
LW: Yes. Yes.
JQ: And – the Methodist Church, that, you know, the Hedges family used to belong to that, and there was a Mr Parker. Again that was a very busy church.
BS: Had your parents – did your parents belong to the Methodist church, that you ended being in the Life Guards there?
JQ: They belonged to All Saints.
BS: OK. So how did you get involved with the Methodist Church, then?
JQ: Because I went to the Girls Brigade.
BS: You went to the Girls Brigade.
JQ: I wasn’t a Guide, I was [inaudible] Girls Life Brigade. Because Miss Hedges that in later years taught at Harvey Road, she was there running it then.
LW: OK.
BS: And the Coronation coming up in exactly one week’s time, do you remember Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation – were there street parties in Frankland Road? (long pause)
LW: I think it was a very wet day.
JQ: No. I was at work.
LW: Yes.
JQ: I remember staying up there all night.
BS: Up where?
JQ: In London.
BS: In London.
JQ: And big bonfires up there (inaudible). I worked at Unilever House at Blackfriars then. And of course you didn’t – it was quite sad really because you didn’t see - you just saw that flash past and that was it.
LW: Yes, yes.
JQ: You know, so vastly different.
LW: You didn’t have the television?
JQ: No.
LW: No.
JQ: Because we didn’t have television for years. So many things happened – washing machines, television, telephones, mobiles.
LW: Of course.
JQ: The change that we’ve seen in the 80 odd years that I’ve lived, it’s very vast.
LW: Yes. Yes. Your mother must have been still in Frankland Road in 1977 for the Silver Jubilee.
JQ: Yes.
LW: And I think there was a party then. I think I’ve seen a photo of something happening then. Maybe it wasn’t in Frankland Road itself, but I think that was it.
JQ: So (inaudible, but maybe something like ‘how old was I then”) 30?
LW: 40?
BS: 42?
LW: Yes, so you would have been here probably? (long pause) 1977.
JQ: I have got a photograph where I am sitting with all of the children. But that wouldn’t have been
BS: So that photograph that you do have at a street party – if it wasn’t VE Day, was it VJ Day? Where there was tables out in Frankland Road.
JQ: Yes. It must have been. You’re right, because I had a spotted sundress on, which my mother had made and I know I said – again yes, you’re right, it would have been then.
BS: So growing up in Croxley, you were very involved with things happening at the Guildhouse. The Revels – were you ever involved with the Revels or with the children in the Revels.
JQ: Oh yes, yes. The Revels was a very – the Maypole dancing we did.
BS: When you were at school?
JQ: Oh yes, yes. That was – and we used to have such a long procession. You know, now it’s
BS: Non-existent!
JQ: All the lorries, you know, Gibson’s and – all the lorries used to be out and people on it and – or you were in a car, but of course that now is just, sadly, fizzled out. And the houses up on the Green where the – it’s coming back to me – where the walk is through – there’s a walk through into the council estate.
LW: Oh yes, up at Owens Way, yes. I know where you mean.
JQ: There were some big houses there, and one or two of them in the summer they used to have like garden fetes, and we used to go to those. And there would be – you know, you would buy things and have tea – I used to love going up there. Because there wasn’t the transport or anything, you know. I mean the only way – if you went to Chorleywood on the 336, that was a day’s outing. You know. I mean it’s just down the road now, isn’t it? But to us that was a day’s outing. You took a picnic and you went and watched the cricket at Chorleywood, which has always been – they’ve always had the cricket on the green there.
BS: So in all your growing up years your Mum always shopped in the village? She didn’t go much down to Ricky or into Watford?
JQ: She used to – we had ration books where there was lines and – I was just seeing my mother trying to (inaudible), because it was so meagre, the rations were terrible. I had an uncle and aunt that lived in Pinner and they used to ask us over to lunch. And we used to have to go on the train, and of course all the windows were latticed with black tape so that the glass didn’t come in, and the brown trains with a door at each end of the carriage, and we – [Margaret? Mother?] used to sit on the train coming home and we used to – Mother and I got on the train one day and at the bottom of All Saints Lane the railway either goes into Rickmansworth, but there was a cutting and it – and – a back one. You mentioned the Dell, you’d see it from the Dell. Would go to Croxley. So the train – some trains would come as far as Rickmansworth, then go to Croxley, but some would go through Croxley to Watford, you see, that way. Well, we got on a train one time we were coming back and my aunt had given my mother some butter and some tea in a packet. And the train stopped and people – you know – a full carriage – and a man opened the door and my mother went first – and she went flying, just went into space.
LW: Oh my God!
JQ: And what had happened was that the train had pulled – the train had come in and it was on the slope, you know, where the platform slopes down! And of course my mother’s knees were in a terrible state and everything, but she was more worried that – about the tea and the butter. They wouldn’t let me get out and they had to pull the train further up because there was people further down. And then we got home and got indoors, and I always remember my mother opening this – and the tea had gone into the butter! ‘We’re not throwing it away, you’ll have to have’. Can you imagine – tea leaves
LW: In the butter.
JQ: In butter. And you had that – and you have it and you eat it.
LW: And your mum recovered – her knees were OK?
JQ: Yes. It was a heck of a
LW: Nasty, yes. It would have been.
JQ: A horrible fall for her. And the shock!
LW: Yes. A horrible thing to happen. Yes
JQ: And we all – we used to have (long pause) milk delivered. And it was Sears farm, up on the Green. Do you know where the – just before Parrott’s Close, you know where I mean? And Mary used to come out from there in a horse and cart, and you took your jugs out and I used to ride in the cart with her when she was in Frankland Road. She was ever such a nice lady, she was a really nice girl. And I remember that. I also remember (long pause) Mr Grillo. There used to be two rival ice cream people in Watford. There was [Ceresale’s] and the Grillos. And Mr Grillo, every Sunday, used to come up in a van and be by the station and if anybody wanted an ice cream, which was an absolute luxury, you went with your bowl and your money and you got – and the queues used to be right round Winton Drive, to queue for this ice cream. And that was a real luxury. I’ve told you about the trains, told you about the milk. Can you think a bit?
LW: You’ve covered so much and such nice snippets of information. It’s really interesting for people to know about.
BS: What’s kept you living here in Croxley? Why did you always stay in Croxley? I mean, you’ve been here since you were three months old.
JQ: (talking over) My children done the travelling. My daughter lives in Kent and my son lives in Dubai. He works in oil. And I just love Croxley. But it’s very, very sad to see how it’s changing. You know. I suppose – we don’t like change, do we?
BS/LW: No.
JQ: And also it seems to be coming in.
LW: Joining up with Watford.
JQ: If you understand what I mean – it’s
BS: It’s not its own village any more.
JQ: (talking over) And Killingdown Farm just seems to be the end to me. We used to go up there and we used to have square dances, Peter Foster used to – and we did have some fun up there. And the cows – the cows are back on the Moors evidently.
LW: Yes, they are.
JQ: But all those sorts of things – and by the Canal. I mean our parents would have been so cross, but we used to go down there and watch the boys swimming in the [?] in the Canal. But you know the Canal comes along and just before the bridge to go up the hill, there’s an overflow down this, we used to have such fun playing down in there. But I mean our parents – and the Colne, the river one over before the Moors, sometimes the water in that used to be very hot.
BS: Because of the Mill?
JQ: We never swam in there or anything, but – and I never saw the boys swimming in there, but in the Canal – oh yes, yes, there were loads of us down there. You know, it used to be a good meeting place and – and we had a lot of fun in the Dell. And we called it – I don’t know whether it’s still called the Plantation?
LW: No, I don’t know either.
JQ: At the bottom of Harvey Road.
LW: Right.
JQ: [Seiforts? Seaports?] used to be there. At bottom of Harvey Road, when you went towards Rickmansworth, it was all flat and we used to play rounders, everything down – we called that the Plantation.
LW: Right. OK. Yes. That’s now along the Buddleia Walk, down there.
JQ: That’s where the railway was, wasn’t it? Then there used to be wood storage down there, you know, a big wood yard down there. Now, very often if we went to Rickmansworth we used to see, you know the Batchworth Basin at Rickmansworth, and you see these ruts across as you walk up the Basin, well, they were for the carthorses that used to pull the barges, and they used to bring esparto grass up to make the Croxley Dickinson’s paper.
LW: Yes.
JQ: And we used to be down at the Basin and we used to ask could we have a lift up to Croxley, and the bargees on the whole were a very nice group of people – there wasn’t this horrible atmosphere that there is in the world nowadays, and we used to sit on the barge and come all the way up, and it was so – and that was so lovely! But you don’t see a horse or
LW: No.
JQ: There’s no – and it was – and Croxley Mills was very busy. Very busy all along there, you know. And it wasn’t unsightly, it was just part of Croxley.
LW: Yes. Well, we’re lucky we’ve still got some of these things, we’ve still got the Ebury Way and the Moor.
JQ: Yes. Now, the Ebury Way – that was lovely, that train ride all along the back. Yes I have done that, before that disappeared. But the other day – I went – was it last year? I went down to the Canal Festival and somebody I know was showing the boats off – you probably know her – and she said ‘Janet’ I said ‘oh isn’t that lovely, I do like that, I remember that, I remember the bargees’ – because they would invite you on their boat to look – and she said ‘come and have a look’. And I said ‘oh, I don’t think I’d manage it’. She said ‘yes you would’. So I got – oh gosh, did it bring back some memories!
BS/LW: Yes.
JQ: Did it bring back some memories! It was really lovely. You know they used to be the main boat and then there used to be the tow boat behind.
LW: Yes.
JQ: But that was all part of Croxley life.
LW: Yes. Yes. That’s certainly changed. That’s the Mill, isn’t it?
JQ: You know, you knew the bargees when they came up to the shops and – those shops might have had quite a bit of business from them.
LW: Yes. Yes. Yes.
JQ: But it – you know, we’ve lost Durrants, we’ve lost the Old Boys School, we’ve lost the Duke of York. You know.
LW: We have to hang on to what’s left, yes.
JQ: And I find – it seems to be getting a little aggressive. You know, whereas it used to be peaceful and we were lucky to be so near London and – but now it’s a different matter altogether.
BS: So to close out our interview, are there any special memories that you want to share? Anything?
JQ: Well, I just hope that the youngsters these days will have memories like we had to look back on, of the woods and the different things going on. And we must keep all that going, and we must keep our history going.
LW: That’s a lovely.
BS: That’s a lovely way to end it. Thank you so much.
LW: Thank you.
JQ: I was born in 1935.
BS: And where were you born?
JQ: Wolverhampton.
BS: And when did you move to Croxley?
JQ: When I was three months old. My parents bought a house in Frankland Road – I believe it was £750. Number 64. And I grew up there until I came to my present address which is still in Croxley, and I have just lived in Croxley all my life.
BS: What are your earliest memories of Croxley Green?
JQ: Going to school at Yorke Road. My father used to take me down on the back of his motor bike! Down there. I went to Yorke Road, then Harvey Road, then Durrants, and then Watford Tech, which was in Queen’s Road, Watford.
LW: Oh right.
JQ: When I went.
BS: What do you remember of Harvey Road, because you must have gone there when it must have just been a very new school?
JQ: Well, yes. Harvey Road I joined in the war years, and it isn’t the building it is now, it was at the top of the field, and we had a long corridor and all the classrooms came off the long corridor. We had a shelter, an air raid shelter, there in the grounds, and we used to have to – if the air raid siren went – we used to have to pick up an oval mat which was woven raffia, I suppose, really. Grab milk – I didn’t do it because I don’t like milk, I don’t touch milk – and we used to have to sit down there until it was OK to come up.
BS: On your raffia mat?
JQ: Yes. And we were told – I used to walk to school from Frankland Road down to Harvey Road School, and you were told if the siren went you were to knock on the nearest front door, which wouldn’t be nowadays.
LW: Did that happen?
JQ: No, not with me. But that was what – and you always had to have your gas mask with you in a cardboard square box, which - very regularly there’s what we used to call in Frankland Road the slipway, which went down to the woods, and there was an air raid warden’s hut there, and Godfrey Cornwall used to have us in there – he was a very well known character – and we used to have to have an inspection of putting our gas masks on. I hated – they were horrible things, they smelt terrible, rubber. Horrible! And they fitted so tightly, you know, round here.
BS: And what was school like first at Harvey Road? Were there a lot of evacuees that were at the school with you?
JQ: Yes, we did have evacuees. I don’t think I was terribly conscious – we did have a couple of houses in Frankland Road where evacuees lived. And of course, you see, I was just with my mother because my father went away in 1940, came back in ’46. And people used to come round with a clipboard – “have you any spare bedrooms?” You weren’t asked who you would like or – “Well then, you can take -you’re free [or ‘your three’]”. And it was mother and I so we had one family, they didn’t stay very long, and then we had two single ladies.
LW: Right. From central London presumably?
JQ: Yes. And then when the – the night they bombed the docks in London, I wasn’t on the side of the Moors in Frankland Road, the other side, backing onto the railway, and – mother – we used to sleep under the stairs, which really wasn’t the safest place, but there was a mattress put there and that’s where we had to go when the air raid sirens went. And I remember her saying to me “Now go to – we’ll go downstairs” and looking out of the front bedroom window the sky was red!
LW: Really!
JQ: Yes, I’ve never forgotten that.
LW: Fascinating.
JQ: Never forgotten that.
LW: You would have been very young then, too, wouldn’t you?
JQ: Yes.
LW: Gosh, yes. Well. So there wasn’t any – because I think a bomb fell down by the tube station, didn’t it?
JQ: At Scots Hill. Which fell and nobody was killed. But there used to be a lovely – it’s Fuller Hall now – but where the cars are parked by – outside the Grammar School, there used to be this lovely like chapel, and it had beautiful red velvet – I always remember that.
LW: The Gospel Hall, was it? Somebody mentioned, yes.
JQ: I think it was the Gospel Hall. But I remember as children we got on our bikes – why you collected shrapnel I don’t know – but the thing was to get up there as quickly as you could because you picked up quite a lot of shrapnel.
LW: Treasures!
JQ: Yes! And of course the 412 was the main troop road. Used to bring the Americans. We used to stand at the top of Scots Hill and ask for gum and it used to get thrown, you know, to us. But – no, nice memories of growing up. And when my father – when your fathers were called up for serving, they used to call it embarkation leave, and my father said to me ‘what would you like’ – I’m an only one – ‘what would you like to do?’ And I said ‘I know what I would like to do, I would like to go up with Jennie, who lived in Number 62’ – I was 64, she was – our houses were joined – and ‘I would love to go down to the Aquadrome and you row us out on the boat on the lake’, (whispering) and they were beautiful boats, (normal volume) they were really lovely, wood all polished and before we went, we went up to Stone’s Orchard on the Green, which was a cherry orchard, and they had the cherry picker ladders that went up to quite – and we bought black cherries and they were huge, and they were really nice, but that is another big memory I had.
BS: And that would have been 1940, just before your Dad was sent – well, went into the forces?
JQ: Yes. He was in Burma then till
BS: He was in Burma?
JQ: Yes. Came out in 1946.
BS: That was a long time, was the whole time he was in Burma?
JQ: Yes. And especially for my mother, because my mother, who had to go to work because if you – if you worked at the Sun Engraving or in the print, the interest on your mortgage payment was paid. But if you didn’t, and my father didn’t, my mother had to go to work to find the money, you see.
BS: And where did your Mum work?
JQ: She worked for Heinz, Heinz had an office on the Green here and then they moved to Harlesden. You see the memories then – we had no central heating as we do in houses now, and in holidays I was told that I mustn’t light the fire before 3 o’clock, and I couldn’t get the fire to go very often, and do you know what I did?
LW: What did you do?
JQ: What everybody did – they had the newspapers – the newspapers were large then, and you held the newspaper in front of the fire with your foot on the bottom to draw it.
LW: Yes, dangerous, yes.
JQ: I can’t tell you how many bits of newspaper went up the chimney (laughs) Alight. So dangerous!
BS: So you had to come home from school on your own at a young age from Harvey Road during the war years, while your Mum was working?
JQ: Oh yes. I used to let myself in, and in the holidays I used to have to go down to the British Restaurant in Winton Drive and the meal was one and fourpence. And you collected the tray. You know, I mean a child wouldn’t
BS: Wouldn’t do that any more, no.
JQ: Well they wouldn’t be allowed to.
LW: Allowed to, no.
JQ: And if I was asked, I had quite a few friends, and their mothers used to say ‘would you like to stay?’ “Yes, but please don’t tell my Mummy.” And I used to give them the money. Knowing that they needed it.
LW: Instead of going to the Restaurant, yes.
JQ: Yes. I used to like the company.
BS: And what did you do for – what did you kids do, growing up in those years around Croxley, you know, when you could go out in the – did you go down to the Dell, the woods, play in the woods?
JQ: Oh we played in the – we used to play in the woods; by the air raid warden’s hut there’s a slipway and you go down, and we used to call it the gravel pits, I don’t know whether it’s still called that now, but some bomb damage, bomb damage refuse was tipped in there and there were woods the other side, and we used to play in those woods and our parents would come and call us.
BS: Yes.
JQ: All day. You know, if we could stay there all day we would. It was so lovely. And then as we grew older, you know, the boys used to go down and swim in the canal. And we used to go over on the Moors and sit there and watch the men from John Dickinson’s doing the fire drill.
LW: Oh, of course.
JQ: That was very interesting to watch.
BS: What was that like? What did they do when they did the fire drill?
JQ: Well, they used to have to get the hose out and roll it along and, you know, to aim water here, aim water there, sort of thing. And it was very entertaining! (laughs)
BS: Do you remember any particular teachers from those years in Harvey Road that have stuck in your mind?
JQ: Yes, Miss Cooper was headmistress at Yorke Road, and there was Mrs Green, it was Percy Graver’s wife, she taught at Yorke Road, Miss Groom taught at Yorke Road, and the Baptist Minister down in Rickmansworth, Mr. Bridge, his daughter used to teach at Yorke Road and became headmistress at Yorke Road. And then in many later years when I had my family and I was in the house I’m in at present, a job came up at Yorke Mead and Miss Bridge was headmistress at Yorke Mead, and I appeared for the job and she said “Janet, I’d love to have you come and work for me, it’s yours”. And I was there for 24 years, school secretary.
LW: In the office, yes.
JQ: And many lovely happy years.
LW: Yes, oh good.
JQ: With Joan. And her father when I was at Yorke Road, there used to be a bench all along the wall – it’s now housing – but there used to be a bench all along the wall and we used sit on there and Mr Bridge used to come along – if it was a lovely day he used to come along and tell us stories. It was a very pleasant school, lovely school.
BS: So after your years at Harvey Road, you went on to Durrants?
JQ: Yes. And worked my way through Durrants and then went on to do short – I wanted to do horticulture badly, and we had lots of small nurseries round here – there used to be Chandlers Cross Nursery, Ward’s used to have one at Sarratt, there were quite a few – and Mr Ward offered me a training job – a job I could go into because I loved my garden, and I was told ‘no, you’ll be a shorthand typist, the same as everyone else’.
BS: Who told you that? Your parents or –
JQ: Well, my parents. You didn’t have the choice in those days. You know, the world’s their oyster now, but we didn’t have that choice – we were told ‘you will do’.
LW: Oh. But you’ve carried on gardening as a hobby?
JQ: Oh yes, yes. It’s my
LW: It’s a beautiful garden.
JQ: Yes, I love my hobby. I can be absolutely lost in the garden, you know. I really enjoy it.
BS: So you grew up on Frankland Road, and you must have known lots of people on the road, and I know you’ve got a list here of all the people you remember.
JQ: Yes, I used to know the names of the people – I mean I can go up one, two, three, four, five, six – there’s ten. The Knights, and there was us
BS: What number? Tell us the number of the house and the people who lived there.
JQ: The names I can remember (long pause) 60, 62, 64, 58, 56, 52, 50, 48 and 46.
BS: OK. And who lived at those houses – the names, do you remember the family names?
JQ: Yes. And when the war finished, what it was – it was VE Day was the first one, wasn’t it? Victory in Europe. The next one was
LW: In May, yes.
JQ: And when it was VE Day, we had a bonfire in the road.
BS: In the road?
JQ: And people danced and sang and two people brought pianos out. (Wow) Because one of them were personal friends of ours – I remember that very clearly. The piano was brought out and you sang and danced and
LW: Which house did they live in, the people with the piano?
JQ: They lived up where the road first comes in.
LW: Oh, OK, yes.
JQ: Down there. Because 64’s about half way down, really.
BS: And were there lots of kids out on the road, tables, food, for VE?
JQ: No.
BS: No?
JQ: Not like we do a party now, like that.
LW: No, because dancing!
JQ: It was just people brought it in their front gardens and you just
LW: Because people had front gardens then much more than they do now, because of cars.
JQ: Oh yes, there were no cars. Because, you see, we used to play as kids, we used to play in the road and I used to get very cross because I was always about the first to be called in – it was bedtime, you know! And we used to play ‘kingy’, you know, with a ball when you hit below the knee. Oh yes, everything – you had no vehicles coming down. And when – I can remember, but I don’t know when – I don’t know how – I can’t remember exactly how old I was – but I do remember a gentleman coming down on his bike and lighting the lamps in the street. But I can’t place it as to years, unfortunately.
LW: Yes, that was obviously still going on in the – well, forties, when there wasn’t a blackout I suppose, later, later on, maybe in the fifties.
BS: So you’ve got all the names of the people who lived at those houses, so if you can read out the house number and the family names that lived there. So – who lived t number 60?
JQ: Cunninghams lived at number 60 and they had big white Dalmatian dog – you know with the spots – Foche, he was called. Thompsons lived at 58, and Mrs Thompson unfortunately got killed on her bicycle in the road past the Harvesters and then you go over the canal bridge into Watford – she got killed there.
LW: And Florrie was her daughter, is that right? Florrie Thompson was her daughter?
JQ: Was she?
LW: I think so. Well, when we first moved in, Florrie Thompson lived there, in 58, and she was very elderly then. So maybe she was her sister or something?
JQ: Yes. I remember her dying, telling my mother and how upset everybody was.
LW: Yes. Yes. Gosh.
JQ: You know, dreadfully, dreadfully upset.
LW: And the houses were quite new when your family moved in.
JQ: They were newly built, yes.
LW: You were the first inhabitants, yes.
JQ: Yes, oh yes. And then I sold it in ’92 when my mother died.
LW: Right. Right.
BS: talking over
JQ: I’ve been here 60 odd years.
BS: So what other families do you remember that lived around you?
LW: So 56 was?
JQ: That was the Allisons. And then there was a family West, and I don’t know if her name was Sheila West or Shirley West. And number 50, Derek White, that was the name, White. And he had a sister. And then there was a gentleman who lived with his mother, and there were the Archers, and I – they moved to Watford and I sometimes see them now.
LW: Oh, very interesting.
JQ: And that’s just the side that I lived. I knew people the other side. You know. Because people stayed in the houses. Most houses you knew, you know, who lived there.
LW: Yes, yes, yes.
JQ: Now where the grammar school is, on that piece of land at the front where they park cars, when the fair used to come to Croxley each year, it used to be held on there. Dodgem cars and everything like that.
BS: When was that? During the fifties or earlier?
JQ: Oh no, because the school’s been there some time.
LW: ’54 I think.
JQ: It must have been in the fifties.
BS: Late 40s, early fifties?
JQ: Because we got married at All Saints Church in ’57.
BS: Did you have a reception locally in the Guildhouse?
JQ: At home.
BS: At home, yes.
JQ: There wasn’t the lovely dos that there are now. And also I do remember the woods, down there, are ancient woods and I always remember during the war the pigs used to be kept in there, because I suppose they were ...
BS: Good food.
LW: Yes.
JQ: You know, for food. Oh, and also by All Saints Church, where the Green is, the church, the garden, and then there’s the Green going up, there was a big air raid shelter there, which the public could go down, and where, when the – Drive is and everything, there was a big TA centre there, and the air raid siren used to be there, that used to go off.
LW: Yes. On the windmill.
JQ: It did make a noise!
LW: I’m sure. Did you have to go down there at all, if you weren’t at home and the siren went?
JQ: No. I never went down there.
LW: talking over – it didn’t happen.
JQ: but I knew – we were all aware that, and we knew it was there.
LW: Yes. Yes, just in case.
JQ: Going down to the Met Station, the parade of shops along there was really, really nice. The first shop opposite the Red House, the funny pointed end, that was a cycle shop.
LW: Oh right, yes.
JQ: A very tall man used to run the cycle shop there, and we had very, very nice – we had two very nice chemists in Croxley Green. We had one on that parade of shops and another one up New Road which was very nice. And we had three butchers’ shops that I can remember and two of them had their own abattoirs. There was Darvill’s at the bottom of that parade of shops opposite the Red House, it was Darvill’s at the end – there’s [? ] Court - there’s flats there now.
LW: Yes.
JQ: And that used to be a nursery, because my father used to go in there and get his tomato plants and all things like that. And there was a very nice wool shop, a fruit shop, a chemist. And Mr Hedges, which is a well known name in Croxley Green, he used to be the grocer in that parade of shops, and all the bargee people, because the canal was very business like, you know, esparto grass, coal, everything. And the ladies used to come up, all dressed in black, with huge baskets, to get their provisions.
LW: Yes. Gosh.
JQ: Mr Hedges, he had a very busy shop there. And likewise at the top of Scots Hill it was Mr Hunt, that was a very – that was a grocer’s there.
LW: Well, that’s interesting.
JQ: You know, it was – it was Darvill’s had the abattoir, Gadsden’s had their own abattoir, which was half way up New Road, and there was a parade of shops opposite Gadsden’s. There was Wally’s [Wallis?] that used to have a little library there, my mother used go there and get – that’s where the other chemist was. And Cheshire’s – we used to have to go and get the bread there. And it’s now - that’s now cottages I believe – yes, cottages. And the Fox and Hounds was there. The Guildhouse is another very popular thing that we had in the centre, and we needed it and we need
BS: We need another one.
JQ: Another centre.
BS: We do.
JQ: Because it was made into flats and we lost
BS: Do you remember when it burnt down?
JQ: Oh yes, yes. I used to belong – with Maureen – to the Girls Life Brigade which was run from the Methodist Church at the top of – and we used to do all sorts of shows there. Dances used to be held there. Everything was there. It was a centre hub.
LW: Yes. You didn’t need to go anywhere else, did you? There was so much going on here.
JQ: Yes.
LW: Very vibrant community.
JQ: Oh yes, definitely. Definitely. And there was – I think it was Darvill’s I mentioned. And Saunders was up the top of New Road, almost on the – no, it wasn’t on the corner of – it was before then. And there was Mead’s Garage. And next to Mead’s Garage was the blacksmith, which we used to go and love to see the horses shoed – and of course the smell – the smell!
LW: Yes. The Gibbs family, weren’t they?
JQ: Oh, lovely smell there.
LW: Yes. Yes.
JQ: And – the Methodist Church, that, you know, the Hedges family used to belong to that, and there was a Mr Parker. Again that was a very busy church.
BS: Had your parents – did your parents belong to the Methodist church, that you ended being in the Life Guards there?
JQ: They belonged to All Saints.
BS: OK. So how did you get involved with the Methodist Church, then?
JQ: Because I went to the Girls Brigade.
BS: You went to the Girls Brigade.
JQ: I wasn’t a Guide, I was [inaudible] Girls Life Brigade. Because Miss Hedges that in later years taught at Harvey Road, she was there running it then.
LW: OK.
BS: And the Coronation coming up in exactly one week’s time, do you remember Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation – were there street parties in Frankland Road? (long pause)
LW: I think it was a very wet day.
JQ: No. I was at work.
LW: Yes.
JQ: I remember staying up there all night.
BS: Up where?
JQ: In London.
BS: In London.
JQ: And big bonfires up there (inaudible). I worked at Unilever House at Blackfriars then. And of course you didn’t – it was quite sad really because you didn’t see - you just saw that flash past and that was it.
LW: Yes, yes.
JQ: You know, so vastly different.
LW: You didn’t have the television?
JQ: No.
LW: No.
JQ: Because we didn’t have television for years. So many things happened – washing machines, television, telephones, mobiles.
LW: Of course.
JQ: The change that we’ve seen in the 80 odd years that I’ve lived, it’s very vast.
LW: Yes. Yes. Your mother must have been still in Frankland Road in 1977 for the Silver Jubilee.
JQ: Yes.
LW: And I think there was a party then. I think I’ve seen a photo of something happening then. Maybe it wasn’t in Frankland Road itself, but I think that was it.
JQ: So (inaudible, but maybe something like ‘how old was I then”) 30?
LW: 40?
BS: 42?
LW: Yes, so you would have been here probably? (long pause) 1977.
JQ: I have got a photograph where I am sitting with all of the children. But that wouldn’t have been
BS: So that photograph that you do have at a street party – if it wasn’t VE Day, was it VJ Day? Where there was tables out in Frankland Road.
JQ: Yes. It must have been. You’re right, because I had a spotted sundress on, which my mother had made and I know I said – again yes, you’re right, it would have been then.
BS: So growing up in Croxley, you were very involved with things happening at the Guildhouse. The Revels – were you ever involved with the Revels or with the children in the Revels.
JQ: Oh yes, yes. The Revels was a very – the Maypole dancing we did.
BS: When you were at school?
JQ: Oh yes, yes. That was – and we used to have such a long procession. You know, now it’s
BS: Non-existent!
JQ: All the lorries, you know, Gibson’s and – all the lorries used to be out and people on it and – or you were in a car, but of course that now is just, sadly, fizzled out. And the houses up on the Green where the – it’s coming back to me – where the walk is through – there’s a walk through into the council estate.
LW: Oh yes, up at Owens Way, yes. I know where you mean.
JQ: There were some big houses there, and one or two of them in the summer they used to have like garden fetes, and we used to go to those. And there would be – you know, you would buy things and have tea – I used to love going up there. Because there wasn’t the transport or anything, you know. I mean the only way – if you went to Chorleywood on the 336, that was a day’s outing. You know. I mean it’s just down the road now, isn’t it? But to us that was a day’s outing. You took a picnic and you went and watched the cricket at Chorleywood, which has always been – they’ve always had the cricket on the green there.
BS: So in all your growing up years your Mum always shopped in the village? She didn’t go much down to Ricky or into Watford?
JQ: She used to – we had ration books where there was lines and – I was just seeing my mother trying to (inaudible), because it was so meagre, the rations were terrible. I had an uncle and aunt that lived in Pinner and they used to ask us over to lunch. And we used to have to go on the train, and of course all the windows were latticed with black tape so that the glass didn’t come in, and the brown trains with a door at each end of the carriage, and we – [Margaret? Mother?] used to sit on the train coming home and we used to – Mother and I got on the train one day and at the bottom of All Saints Lane the railway either goes into Rickmansworth, but there was a cutting and it – and – a back one. You mentioned the Dell, you’d see it from the Dell. Would go to Croxley. So the train – some trains would come as far as Rickmansworth, then go to Croxley, but some would go through Croxley to Watford, you see, that way. Well, we got on a train one time we were coming back and my aunt had given my mother some butter and some tea in a packet. And the train stopped and people – you know – a full carriage – and a man opened the door and my mother went first – and she went flying, just went into space.
LW: Oh my God!
JQ: And what had happened was that the train had pulled – the train had come in and it was on the slope, you know, where the platform slopes down! And of course my mother’s knees were in a terrible state and everything, but she was more worried that – about the tea and the butter. They wouldn’t let me get out and they had to pull the train further up because there was people further down. And then we got home and got indoors, and I always remember my mother opening this – and the tea had gone into the butter! ‘We’re not throwing it away, you’ll have to have’. Can you imagine – tea leaves
LW: In the butter.
JQ: In butter. And you had that – and you have it and you eat it.
LW: And your mum recovered – her knees were OK?
JQ: Yes. It was a heck of a
LW: Nasty, yes. It would have been.
JQ: A horrible fall for her. And the shock!
LW: Yes. A horrible thing to happen. Yes
JQ: And we all – we used to have (long pause) milk delivered. And it was Sears farm, up on the Green. Do you know where the – just before Parrott’s Close, you know where I mean? And Mary used to come out from there in a horse and cart, and you took your jugs out and I used to ride in the cart with her when she was in Frankland Road. She was ever such a nice lady, she was a really nice girl. And I remember that. I also remember (long pause) Mr Grillo. There used to be two rival ice cream people in Watford. There was [Ceresale’s] and the Grillos. And Mr Grillo, every Sunday, used to come up in a van and be by the station and if anybody wanted an ice cream, which was an absolute luxury, you went with your bowl and your money and you got – and the queues used to be right round Winton Drive, to queue for this ice cream. And that was a real luxury. I’ve told you about the trains, told you about the milk. Can you think a bit?
LW: You’ve covered so much and such nice snippets of information. It’s really interesting for people to know about.
BS: What’s kept you living here in Croxley? Why did you always stay in Croxley? I mean, you’ve been here since you were three months old.
JQ: (talking over) My children done the travelling. My daughter lives in Kent and my son lives in Dubai. He works in oil. And I just love Croxley. But it’s very, very sad to see how it’s changing. You know. I suppose – we don’t like change, do we?
BS/LW: No.
JQ: And also it seems to be coming in.
LW: Joining up with Watford.
JQ: If you understand what I mean – it’s
BS: It’s not its own village any more.
JQ: (talking over) And Killingdown Farm just seems to be the end to me. We used to go up there and we used to have square dances, Peter Foster used to – and we did have some fun up there. And the cows – the cows are back on the Moors evidently.
LW: Yes, they are.
JQ: But all those sorts of things – and by the Canal. I mean our parents would have been so cross, but we used to go down there and watch the boys swimming in the [?] in the Canal. But you know the Canal comes along and just before the bridge to go up the hill, there’s an overflow down this, we used to have such fun playing down in there. But I mean our parents – and the Colne, the river one over before the Moors, sometimes the water in that used to be very hot.
BS: Because of the Mill?
JQ: We never swam in there or anything, but – and I never saw the boys swimming in there, but in the Canal – oh yes, yes, there were loads of us down there. You know, it used to be a good meeting place and – and we had a lot of fun in the Dell. And we called it – I don’t know whether it’s still called the Plantation?
LW: No, I don’t know either.
JQ: At the bottom of Harvey Road.
LW: Right.
JQ: [Seiforts? Seaports?] used to be there. At bottom of Harvey Road, when you went towards Rickmansworth, it was all flat and we used to play rounders, everything down – we called that the Plantation.
LW: Right. OK. Yes. That’s now along the Buddleia Walk, down there.
JQ: That’s where the railway was, wasn’t it? Then there used to be wood storage down there, you know, a big wood yard down there. Now, very often if we went to Rickmansworth we used to see, you know the Batchworth Basin at Rickmansworth, and you see these ruts across as you walk up the Basin, well, they were for the carthorses that used to pull the barges, and they used to bring esparto grass up to make the Croxley Dickinson’s paper.
LW: Yes.
JQ: And we used to be down at the Basin and we used to ask could we have a lift up to Croxley, and the bargees on the whole were a very nice group of people – there wasn’t this horrible atmosphere that there is in the world nowadays, and we used to sit on the barge and come all the way up, and it was so – and that was so lovely! But you don’t see a horse or
LW: No.
JQ: There’s no – and it was – and Croxley Mills was very busy. Very busy all along there, you know. And it wasn’t unsightly, it was just part of Croxley.
LW: Yes. Well, we’re lucky we’ve still got some of these things, we’ve still got the Ebury Way and the Moor.
JQ: Yes. Now, the Ebury Way – that was lovely, that train ride all along the back. Yes I have done that, before that disappeared. But the other day – I went – was it last year? I went down to the Canal Festival and somebody I know was showing the boats off – you probably know her – and she said ‘Janet’ I said ‘oh isn’t that lovely, I do like that, I remember that, I remember the bargees’ – because they would invite you on their boat to look – and she said ‘come and have a look’. And I said ‘oh, I don’t think I’d manage it’. She said ‘yes you would’. So I got – oh gosh, did it bring back some memories!
BS/LW: Yes.
JQ: Did it bring back some memories! It was really lovely. You know they used to be the main boat and then there used to be the tow boat behind.
LW: Yes.
JQ: But that was all part of Croxley life.
LW: Yes. Yes. That’s certainly changed. That’s the Mill, isn’t it?
JQ: You know, you knew the bargees when they came up to the shops and – those shops might have had quite a bit of business from them.
LW: Yes. Yes. Yes.
JQ: But it – you know, we’ve lost Durrants, we’ve lost the Old Boys School, we’ve lost the Duke of York. You know.
LW: We have to hang on to what’s left, yes.
JQ: And I find – it seems to be getting a little aggressive. You know, whereas it used to be peaceful and we were lucky to be so near London and – but now it’s a different matter altogether.
BS: So to close out our interview, are there any special memories that you want to share? Anything?
JQ: Well, I just hope that the youngsters these days will have memories like we had to look back on, of the woods and the different things going on. And we must keep all that going, and we must keep our history going.
LW: That’s a lovely.
BS: That’s a lovely way to end it. Thank you so much.
LW: Thank you.
