Tape 101
Mr Horace Brooks and his wife Mrs Gladys Brooks (nee Smith), were born in 1904 and 1909 respectively. They were interviewed on 8 November 1985, when they lived at 9 Pattisson Close.
They also appear on tape 100.
For more information about them, see Brooks, Horace and Gladys in the People category.
The original recording of this interview is held at the Essex Sound and Video Archive. To listen to the recording, please contact them at ero.enquiry@essex.gov.uk or 033301 32500.
[???] shows words that are not clear enough to interpret and so have had to be omitted.
[?] after a word shows that its interpretation is not certain.
Later explanatory additions by JG or the transcriber are in square brackets [e.g. explaining locations etc.]
Continued from tape 100
Side 3
Mr B: Beardwells, teachers at Faulkbourne school, the little Faulkbourne school. The first white house at you approach the top of the hill on the right hand side, opposite the farm. That was the Beardwells’ house. Victor Beardwell was the oldest son, one of the oldest sons. George was older. They had about three or four boys and three girls. [???] after the first World War.
Q: So they were both from up there then. Because I met Ruth Beardwell, she’s from up there, isn’t she? (Mr B: Yes.) The same family.
Mr B: I think she’s still alive, [???] I went to school with her. She and Dolly, they used to play the organ in the village church. I used to pump that. So I used to travel with them with their bicycles. (Q: Really?) They used to say ‘Horry, will you come and give us a pump, we’re going down to White Notley to have a tune’. ‘Will you come with us down to Chipping Hill, we’re going to have a tune down there’, So I’d go down to Chipping Hill church, I used to go down there and pump for them. (Mrs B: He fell asleep.] I fell asleep in the local church.
Q: Oh dear, what happened then? The vicar wouldn’t be very pleased. (Mr B: No he wasn’t.) Do you have to pump all the time, do you? (Mr B: Yes, but its all electric now.) So what happened when you fell asleep?
Mr B: Pump, pump to keep the bellows full. But one afternoon there, when War [First War] was on you see they used to have the short hours you see because of the lights and that. Good job it didn’t happen in the morning where they get a full crowd. That happened in the afternoon, I fell asleep when he was giving his sermon up in the pulpit, you know what it is, [???] for about half hour, three quarters of an hour. I fell asleep and when he ended up, say a few words and ‘Amen’ [singing], she couldn’t get the tune. [laugh]. I felt someone shake me and say ‘Horry, wake up’. Oh I started. I had to go on the mat over! And my pay was eighteen pence a month. I was attending church mornings, afternoons. And ordinary time when the War was over and that, in the evenings. When I was at work I used to go pumping, go down the church.
Q: They used to cycle about, did they? Did you cycle as well?
Mr B: Oh yes, cycled everywhere.
Q: When did you have, you said you had a motorbike?
Mr B: Oh I had a bike [???], started feeling my feet, when I was in Crittall’s that was, when I was getting an extra few shillings. And my first new motorbike didn’t cost me more than £150. That time of day. (Q: [???]
Mrs B: It’s a lot of money in these days.
Q: Did you go on the motorbike and all?
Mr B: Yes. [???] Yes, she used to ride tandem.
Mrs B: We come round Catholic corner one day and there was all stones on the road, just coming slowly round, but they scraped my knees.
Mr B: They weren’t smooth roads like they are today. There were a lot of stones about, especially on the sides of the road. Used to give you a nip sometimes, or the ditch.
Q: You enjoyed it then did you?
Mr B: Oh yes, had to be with the rest of the lads.
Mrs B: No faster than thirty miles and hour they could go. Not like that now.
[chat about motorbikes etc today, not noted]
Mrs B: I can’t remember a lot but my brother he remembers everything. Remembers everything. Cause he went to Courtauld’s when he was thirteen[?] he done fifty-two years. at Courtaulds.[Braintree] And he can remember everything. [???] They were ever so pleased with what he wrote up at Braintree. I’ve got some of the sheets here somewhere.
[chat about health, children etc, not noted]
Mr B: I think that was Mrs Raven put that in [photo of end of Powershall End near the Victoria from newspaper]
Q: Is your house on there?
Mr B: That one there. That was the old cottage. Course it’s all green now. Then they put bungalows, I mean Council houses. Of course that was all open, that’s the fields, there’s more Council houses there, comes all down to the estate [???] [???] lived there, Jack Turner lived in one here. (Q: I see, off the edge]. That was given by Mrs Raven. It says here. She lived up Cressing Road.
Q: She died?
Mrs B: Is she dead?
Q: I think so three or four years ago.
Mr B: I think we see May her daughter. She married a Rallings didn’t she, Ted Rallings. We see her out yesterday, didn’t we, her in her husband. That’s typical dress, you know when we went to school.
Q: Was there a pub in Faulkbourne as well or did you have to come to the Victoria.
Mr B: No, Victoria [Witham] and White Notley. Crossed Keys, White Notley. Albert Love kept the Victoria.
[chat about new building, and getting the house in Pattisson Close, didn’t like Dengie Close because of school children, etc. not noted]