Valerie Wilson - Memories of Croxley Green
Recorded 30th November 2015
Recorded 30th November 2015
Interview with Valerie Wilson
Interviewer: Right. What is your name, please?
Interviewee: Valerie Wilson
And where do you live in Croxley?
VW: I live at (Redacted)
Now let’s go back to when you were younger – can you tell me about your parents when they were in Croxley Green?
VW: They moved to Croxley Green just before the war. I was four, and I think they moved because they knew that the war was coming and so really my Dad was one of the first commuters, really. And we moved to Baldwins Lane where there were about – well – ours was one of about - how many? Five in that particular part and the rest was all open until the war – or when - houses were being built. But of course as soon as the war came then they were left as half built houses, those across the road were half built. And I remember the beginning of the war because I remember being – my Dad rushing – the noise of the siren and my Dad rushing out and scooping me up and taking me indoors, and that’s the first I remember. When we moved to Croxley, the first day, I remember walking through grass which was taller than me in the garden and that was it, that was Baldwins Lane and that was where we were for – oh My Lord, well – I was there until I got married at 21.
What did your parents do, in their social life?
VW: Oh, their social life – my mother wasn’t quite so social as my father. My father was a very social person. He was the choir master at St Oswald’s and there was an Adult Fellowship of which he was quite an avid member, and he also was in the drama group – was it the Chandeliers, or something, or Chanticleers?
(other speaker: Chanticleers.)
VW: Whatever that means. And so he was quite – he was very sociable. My mother wasn’t quite so. But then, you know, she was busy all day and when he got home from work my mother – he wasn’t like the men today, he didn’t really – he was a very hands-on father but – you know, I’m going to well up now.
(other speaker: I’ve already welled-up, it’s all right.)
VW: But men then didn’t do as much as they do now, they’re not so involved with their children so much, although he was in that way. And so they both used to go to the Fellowship, didn’t they? But my Mum wasn’t so keen and she didn’t always want to go to the church, but always had brand new hats and went, because he was the choir master. What else?
What’s your oldest memory of Croxley then – you mentioned –
VW: My earliest memory of Croxley Green was, as I say, that first day and the War and going up to Durrants school with my mother and finding out that it wasn’t for infants, which she had thought it was going to be, because it was for seniors. So we had to go round to Yorke Road, the school then. And I remember Miss Bridges, she was my teacher, and we had ovaltine tablets – was it ovaltine? Or the other one. I forget which. No, just little ones.
(other speaker: and the milk)
VW: Yes, and the frozen milk. And the school was lovely and we wrote on tablets.
(other speaker: slate)
VW: Yes, on slates, with whatever was – chalk, I suppose. And the little man used to come in and top up the fire – we had coal fires and the milk was always frozen, so that was standing by the fire, you know – no health and safety in those days.
And what was Miss Bridges like?
VW: She was absolutely adorable – absolutely. I suppose she couldn’t have been more than – gosh! – twenty, wasn’t even that, I wouldn’t say. She was very – as you can imagine, very, very young, and yes, she was pretty, she was really a lovely – the sort you would want to go to school to. But the only thing is there was no school dinners so my mum had to wheel me round in the wheelchair – are they called wheelchairs?
(other speaker: push chairs)
VW: in the morning, collect me at lunchtime – this was round to Yorke Road from Baldwins Lane – bring me back, have dinner, take me back and then a couple of hours later – she did that four times a day. And you were at Harvey Road, which some mums wouldn’t put up with these days, would they? They would – if they hadn’t got a car, forget it! So yes, she also was – they were lovely parents (almost breaks down), close – you couldn’t ask for better parents.
So you had a good childhood in Croxley Green?
VW: I had a smashing childhood.
Where did you go after Yorke Road School?
VW: Then I went to Harvey Road, and it was all lady teachers, obviously, because the war was on, and then you had to take the 11 plus, which I didn’t pass, so after that – Harvey Road was a good school, I think. I was quite ill a lot of the time with bronchitis, so I missed quite a bit, and in those days they didn’t give you lessons to do at home, so it was just perfect, and so then I went to Durrants, where I thoroughly enjoyed myself. All this time I’d made a friend at Yorke Road, well, there were four of us really, but this special friend, [?Anne Heard] and so we got very friendly and did everything, and we both went up to Durrants with these other two friends and, yes, I liked it, it was lovely. The only part that was a bit – my mum didn’t like, was that she was working there, because during the war they wanted people – she volunteered to go into the kitchen, and of course in the end ended up as the cook supervisor, and so – and then at fourteen I left there and went up to Pitman’s College in London – I loved it, loved it – really felt grown up, you know – well, I was, I had to get on the train at Watford – at Croxley, get off, get on another train, get off, and get on a bus for twenty minutes to Finchley – and that was at fourteen. Now you’re worried if they go on a bus! So, yes, that’s it, that’s my childhood. And it couldn’t have been better. And also we had the Club, didn’t we? Round at St Oswald’s with the Reverend Wilkinson, who was called Skip, and he was fantastic, absolutely fantastic, and we used to dance to Victor Sylvester at the end, and that was good.
So after you went to Pitman’s College. What was your first job? What job did you have after that?
VW: The first job I had after that – my mum and I went up to Brook Street Bureau and my first job was at the BHS Head Offices in the – well, wherever – as a shorthand typist obviously, which when the one in charge – oh no, in my interview she said ‘there’s no need to take your handbag to the toilet’ – which I hadn’t done anyway – I thought ‘hello, what goes on’? It was like an open office but with windows, you know, and the man I worked for, I can’t remember his name, he was super. But I wanted something a little bit better. So I went to work in Welbeck Street for Taylor Woodrow Export Department, for the Export Manager, and that was a revelation I can tell you! Oh, the Personnel Manager and then the Export Manager. Every letter that came in I had to – on a typewriter, before anybody got their letters, every letter I had to say what it was about and do it on a sheet of paper. I used to have to get in before everybody else. And they call it pr – what do they call it when you have to .…?
Precis.
VW: Precis, yes, and had to type all that out and then make copies on some awful thing, you know, with a drum – and that had to be – I had to do that in the very most half an hour, so that they all got their post when they came in. And, yes, I used to catch the 7.25 train – but Dad did as well and often I used to hold the door open for him or he did me, and, yes, I enjoyed that job. After which – oh, this particular man I was working for, he left, and somebody else was going to a – I’ve forgotten the name of the company, I didn’t like it very much – but I went there, it was at the far end of Regent’s Street – it was near where they make all the suits and things – Savile Row – it was just off there and it was to do with clothing, but I wasn’t all that keen. Anyway I got engaged and there was no way I could get home at 7 o’clock at night, I thought, when I get married anyway, so I went to work for Sedgwick, Turner, Sworder and Wilson – you know the big white house in King Street, there? And I started there at 21. Got married at 21. Well, I stayed there for fifteen years. So you can imagine it’s all gone by in a bit of a blank (laughs).
So when did you get married? What date?
VW: I got married just – where?
What year was it?
VW: Well anyway, it’ll be sixty years this year, I think. Oh no, was it 55?
(other speaker: next year)
VW: Oh yes, next year, yes. 56 – I can’t remember.
And where did you get married?
VW: All Saints. And Diana was a bridesmaid and Michael’s nephew and a friend of mine, and yes.
And where did you meet your husband?
VW: Meet Michael? At the Town Hall, at a dance. (laughs). So yes, he lived in Hemel Hempstead.
Oh, not a Croxley Green person at all?
(other speaker: he is now.)
VW: What?
A Croxley person.
VW: Oh definitely, yes. He’s got an allotment down – yes, he sees he’s a Croxley person now.
So where did you move to when you first got married? Where did you live?
VW: Well, when I first got married I still lived with Mum and Dad, because we hadn’t got anywhere. God knows why we – oh! - And then we moved to Rochester Way, Hazel found this – Hazel cycled past this place that wanted renting and so we went in there.
Thinking now about married life and shopping, where did you shop? What shops did you use in Croxley?
VW: Where do I shop now? Where did I shop?
Yes, where did you shop when you first got married?
VW: Well, of course I was working in Watford, so I shopped in Watford really.
Oh right, right.
VW: I mean there wasn’t – when we came here there was nothing, absolutely nothing. There was about – how many buses a day – four? Four, all day long. And we used to have to go round to what was called Standen’s and round – you know where the antique shop is? That was a set of three shops, for our paper, anything, absolutely anything. And my mother ordered her food from Hunt’s on the Green, and had a greengrocer call. We had no shops at all. So if you didn’t go into Watford, you walked round and got stuff.
So what’s your favourite memory of Croxley Green? Your favourite place in Croxley Green.
VW: My favourite place in Croxley Green, of course, is my home. But the Green, I absolutely love the Green. I think when you come out of the – anywhere, any of the roads, and you look at the Green, you think My God! We’re so lucky to have that! When I think where some of my friends live, they – yes, they can get out to the country, but we are – it’s just country, really. I know where it’s all been built up but – I mean, when we first moved to Baldwins Lane it was really a track, where the cows and everything all walked up to the farm, and Hazel did a bit of – not me, I was frightened of cows?
(other speaker, presumably Hazel: Oh, I forgot about that!)
VW: But it was just, yes, just a track, wasn’t it?
(other speaker: The cows used to be behind the Hunt’s, and I used to go ..)
VW: Yes. Gosh, you know, it really is astonishing how it’s all for the better, really, for the better, because people don’t have to get on a bus to go and get a loaf of bread and stuff like that. And of course everybody’s got cars. We didn’t.
You mentioned when you were at school you had special schoolfriends. Did you keep in touch with them?
VW: Well, no, I don’t. No, I don’t. I mean one I’ve seen in the last few years, and immediately we see each other we start laughing and saying this, that and the other, but no, she was married at seventeen and she moved away. The others – well, they moved away, but my best friend – oh God!
(other speaker: more tissues)_
VW: she was on the Harrow train, so she was killed at the age of seventeen. Oh God, it was so … So that was that.
Thinking about life events – what about the Coronation, in 1953 –
VW: Yes, that’s the first time we got the television.
So can you remember what celebrations there were in Croxley Green for the Coronation?
VW: Do you know, you’ve got to remember that I was – was I seventeen?
(other speaker: yes, about that)
VW: And when you’re seventeen you’ve got your own little life, haven’t you, and everything’s very, very serious and of course my – yes – so – do you know, I can’t remember the celebrations. Just all really – I don’t know – I remember when the end of the war came, when we went up to London, but I don’t remember anything special that I – I can’t remember that. I remember the Coronation, but I more remember when it was VJ Day and we all went up to London – us four – went up to London and I remember being carried along without my feet touching the ground. But there is an awful lot that you remember but don’t remember – do you know what I mean? I – yes, I’ve let out loads!
(other speaker: So have I. I forgot to say that I used to take the cows from where Costcutters are now, across the Green, and up to where the big fields are as you go round. Where the stables are. (VW: Fosters). I can even remember the name of the boy who I used to do it with, and that was John Biggleswade. Laughs)
VW: Yes. There’s a hell of a lot, once you start looking back.
What’s a highlight of Croxley Green for you, then?
VW: The highlight of Croxley Green?
What’s most important about Croxley Green to you?
VW: Family. Really. And the fact that none of them have moved away and so that says a lot for Croxley Green, doesn’t it, really. They like living here, and I’m sure it’s not just us two old biddies that do it, but, no, they’ve none of them moved away. So, that’s it.
Thank you.
Interviewer: Right. What is your name, please?
Interviewee: Valerie Wilson
And where do you live in Croxley?
VW: I live at (Redacted)
Now let’s go back to when you were younger – can you tell me about your parents when they were in Croxley Green?
VW: They moved to Croxley Green just before the war. I was four, and I think they moved because they knew that the war was coming and so really my Dad was one of the first commuters, really. And we moved to Baldwins Lane where there were about – well – ours was one of about - how many? Five in that particular part and the rest was all open until the war – or when - houses were being built. But of course as soon as the war came then they were left as half built houses, those across the road were half built. And I remember the beginning of the war because I remember being – my Dad rushing – the noise of the siren and my Dad rushing out and scooping me up and taking me indoors, and that’s the first I remember. When we moved to Croxley, the first day, I remember walking through grass which was taller than me in the garden and that was it, that was Baldwins Lane and that was where we were for – oh My Lord, well – I was there until I got married at 21.
What did your parents do, in their social life?
VW: Oh, their social life – my mother wasn’t quite so social as my father. My father was a very social person. He was the choir master at St Oswald’s and there was an Adult Fellowship of which he was quite an avid member, and he also was in the drama group – was it the Chandeliers, or something, or Chanticleers?
(other speaker: Chanticleers.)
VW: Whatever that means. And so he was quite – he was very sociable. My mother wasn’t quite so. But then, you know, she was busy all day and when he got home from work my mother – he wasn’t like the men today, he didn’t really – he was a very hands-on father but – you know, I’m going to well up now.
(other speaker: I’ve already welled-up, it’s all right.)
VW: But men then didn’t do as much as they do now, they’re not so involved with their children so much, although he was in that way. And so they both used to go to the Fellowship, didn’t they? But my Mum wasn’t so keen and she didn’t always want to go to the church, but always had brand new hats and went, because he was the choir master. What else?
What’s your oldest memory of Croxley then – you mentioned –
VW: My earliest memory of Croxley Green was, as I say, that first day and the War and going up to Durrants school with my mother and finding out that it wasn’t for infants, which she had thought it was going to be, because it was for seniors. So we had to go round to Yorke Road, the school then. And I remember Miss Bridges, she was my teacher, and we had ovaltine tablets – was it ovaltine? Or the other one. I forget which. No, just little ones.
(other speaker: and the milk)
VW: Yes, and the frozen milk. And the school was lovely and we wrote on tablets.
(other speaker: slate)
VW: Yes, on slates, with whatever was – chalk, I suppose. And the little man used to come in and top up the fire – we had coal fires and the milk was always frozen, so that was standing by the fire, you know – no health and safety in those days.
And what was Miss Bridges like?
VW: She was absolutely adorable – absolutely. I suppose she couldn’t have been more than – gosh! – twenty, wasn’t even that, I wouldn’t say. She was very – as you can imagine, very, very young, and yes, she was pretty, she was really a lovely – the sort you would want to go to school to. But the only thing is there was no school dinners so my mum had to wheel me round in the wheelchair – are they called wheelchairs?
(other speaker: push chairs)
VW: in the morning, collect me at lunchtime – this was round to Yorke Road from Baldwins Lane – bring me back, have dinner, take me back and then a couple of hours later – she did that four times a day. And you were at Harvey Road, which some mums wouldn’t put up with these days, would they? They would – if they hadn’t got a car, forget it! So yes, she also was – they were lovely parents (almost breaks down), close – you couldn’t ask for better parents.
So you had a good childhood in Croxley Green?
VW: I had a smashing childhood.
Where did you go after Yorke Road School?
VW: Then I went to Harvey Road, and it was all lady teachers, obviously, because the war was on, and then you had to take the 11 plus, which I didn’t pass, so after that – Harvey Road was a good school, I think. I was quite ill a lot of the time with bronchitis, so I missed quite a bit, and in those days they didn’t give you lessons to do at home, so it was just perfect, and so then I went to Durrants, where I thoroughly enjoyed myself. All this time I’d made a friend at Yorke Road, well, there were four of us really, but this special friend, [?Anne Heard] and so we got very friendly and did everything, and we both went up to Durrants with these other two friends and, yes, I liked it, it was lovely. The only part that was a bit – my mum didn’t like, was that she was working there, because during the war they wanted people – she volunteered to go into the kitchen, and of course in the end ended up as the cook supervisor, and so – and then at fourteen I left there and went up to Pitman’s College in London – I loved it, loved it – really felt grown up, you know – well, I was, I had to get on the train at Watford – at Croxley, get off, get on another train, get off, and get on a bus for twenty minutes to Finchley – and that was at fourteen. Now you’re worried if they go on a bus! So, yes, that’s it, that’s my childhood. And it couldn’t have been better. And also we had the Club, didn’t we? Round at St Oswald’s with the Reverend Wilkinson, who was called Skip, and he was fantastic, absolutely fantastic, and we used to dance to Victor Sylvester at the end, and that was good.
So after you went to Pitman’s College. What was your first job? What job did you have after that?
VW: The first job I had after that – my mum and I went up to Brook Street Bureau and my first job was at the BHS Head Offices in the – well, wherever – as a shorthand typist obviously, which when the one in charge – oh no, in my interview she said ‘there’s no need to take your handbag to the toilet’ – which I hadn’t done anyway – I thought ‘hello, what goes on’? It was like an open office but with windows, you know, and the man I worked for, I can’t remember his name, he was super. But I wanted something a little bit better. So I went to work in Welbeck Street for Taylor Woodrow Export Department, for the Export Manager, and that was a revelation I can tell you! Oh, the Personnel Manager and then the Export Manager. Every letter that came in I had to – on a typewriter, before anybody got their letters, every letter I had to say what it was about and do it on a sheet of paper. I used to have to get in before everybody else. And they call it pr – what do they call it when you have to .…?
Precis.
VW: Precis, yes, and had to type all that out and then make copies on some awful thing, you know, with a drum – and that had to be – I had to do that in the very most half an hour, so that they all got their post when they came in. And, yes, I used to catch the 7.25 train – but Dad did as well and often I used to hold the door open for him or he did me, and, yes, I enjoyed that job. After which – oh, this particular man I was working for, he left, and somebody else was going to a – I’ve forgotten the name of the company, I didn’t like it very much – but I went there, it was at the far end of Regent’s Street – it was near where they make all the suits and things – Savile Row – it was just off there and it was to do with clothing, but I wasn’t all that keen. Anyway I got engaged and there was no way I could get home at 7 o’clock at night, I thought, when I get married anyway, so I went to work for Sedgwick, Turner, Sworder and Wilson – you know the big white house in King Street, there? And I started there at 21. Got married at 21. Well, I stayed there for fifteen years. So you can imagine it’s all gone by in a bit of a blank (laughs).
So when did you get married? What date?
VW: I got married just – where?
What year was it?
VW: Well anyway, it’ll be sixty years this year, I think. Oh no, was it 55?
(other speaker: next year)
VW: Oh yes, next year, yes. 56 – I can’t remember.
And where did you get married?
VW: All Saints. And Diana was a bridesmaid and Michael’s nephew and a friend of mine, and yes.
And where did you meet your husband?
VW: Meet Michael? At the Town Hall, at a dance. (laughs). So yes, he lived in Hemel Hempstead.
Oh, not a Croxley Green person at all?
(other speaker: he is now.)
VW: What?
A Croxley person.
VW: Oh definitely, yes. He’s got an allotment down – yes, he sees he’s a Croxley person now.
So where did you move to when you first got married? Where did you live?
VW: Well, when I first got married I still lived with Mum and Dad, because we hadn’t got anywhere. God knows why we – oh! - And then we moved to Rochester Way, Hazel found this – Hazel cycled past this place that wanted renting and so we went in there.
Thinking now about married life and shopping, where did you shop? What shops did you use in Croxley?
VW: Where do I shop now? Where did I shop?
Yes, where did you shop when you first got married?
VW: Well, of course I was working in Watford, so I shopped in Watford really.
Oh right, right.
VW: I mean there wasn’t – when we came here there was nothing, absolutely nothing. There was about – how many buses a day – four? Four, all day long. And we used to have to go round to what was called Standen’s and round – you know where the antique shop is? That was a set of three shops, for our paper, anything, absolutely anything. And my mother ordered her food from Hunt’s on the Green, and had a greengrocer call. We had no shops at all. So if you didn’t go into Watford, you walked round and got stuff.
So what’s your favourite memory of Croxley Green? Your favourite place in Croxley Green.
VW: My favourite place in Croxley Green, of course, is my home. But the Green, I absolutely love the Green. I think when you come out of the – anywhere, any of the roads, and you look at the Green, you think My God! We’re so lucky to have that! When I think where some of my friends live, they – yes, they can get out to the country, but we are – it’s just country, really. I know where it’s all been built up but – I mean, when we first moved to Baldwins Lane it was really a track, where the cows and everything all walked up to the farm, and Hazel did a bit of – not me, I was frightened of cows?
(other speaker, presumably Hazel: Oh, I forgot about that!)
VW: But it was just, yes, just a track, wasn’t it?
(other speaker: The cows used to be behind the Hunt’s, and I used to go ..)
VW: Yes. Gosh, you know, it really is astonishing how it’s all for the better, really, for the better, because people don’t have to get on a bus to go and get a loaf of bread and stuff like that. And of course everybody’s got cars. We didn’t.
You mentioned when you were at school you had special schoolfriends. Did you keep in touch with them?
VW: Well, no, I don’t. No, I don’t. I mean one I’ve seen in the last few years, and immediately we see each other we start laughing and saying this, that and the other, but no, she was married at seventeen and she moved away. The others – well, they moved away, but my best friend – oh God!
(other speaker: more tissues)_
VW: she was on the Harrow train, so she was killed at the age of seventeen. Oh God, it was so … So that was that.
Thinking about life events – what about the Coronation, in 1953 –
VW: Yes, that’s the first time we got the television.
So can you remember what celebrations there were in Croxley Green for the Coronation?
VW: Do you know, you’ve got to remember that I was – was I seventeen?
(other speaker: yes, about that)
VW: And when you’re seventeen you’ve got your own little life, haven’t you, and everything’s very, very serious and of course my – yes – so – do you know, I can’t remember the celebrations. Just all really – I don’t know – I remember when the end of the war came, when we went up to London, but I don’t remember anything special that I – I can’t remember that. I remember the Coronation, but I more remember when it was VJ Day and we all went up to London – us four – went up to London and I remember being carried along without my feet touching the ground. But there is an awful lot that you remember but don’t remember – do you know what I mean? I – yes, I’ve let out loads!
(other speaker: So have I. I forgot to say that I used to take the cows from where Costcutters are now, across the Green, and up to where the big fields are as you go round. Where the stables are. (VW: Fosters). I can even remember the name of the boy who I used to do it with, and that was John Biggleswade. Laughs)
VW: Yes. There’s a hell of a lot, once you start looking back.
What’s a highlight of Croxley Green for you, then?
VW: The highlight of Croxley Green?
What’s most important about Croxley Green to you?
VW: Family. Really. And the fact that none of them have moved away and so that says a lot for Croxley Green, doesn’t it, really. They like living here, and I’m sure it’s not just us two old biddies that do it, but, no, they’ve none of them moved away. So, that’s it.
Thank you.
