It's been a few months since I posted one of these blogs - and it doesn't get any easier trying to recall the significant events of nearly 40 years ago. However, let's go - but forgive me if I overlook something important.
The first few months of settling in to our new semi in Broxbourne were quite fun, despite the cul-de-sac being a bit of a building site for a while as we were one of the first families to move in. The other half of our semi was taken by Eric and Mary Lawrence, who just happened to also be Jocks - albeit they had been living down south for a while. Just along from them were the Barries - Ray and Chris, who eventually had a girl and a boy (Sasha and Karl) about the same ages as our Lucy and Gary. But I'm getting ahead of myself again.
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| This is immediately across the road from our house - Lucy seemed to be having fun |
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| This is the front of our house |
I was now officially a commuter. In the mornings, I would walk up alongside the New River up to Broxbourne railway station and catch the train in to North London - Tottenham Hale or Seven Sisters - where I'd pick up the tube to Green Park. Our offices were on the 5th floor of Devonshire House, which sat right on top of the tube station. Our floor was the only one with a large balcony, looking out over Green Park itself and beyond to Buckingham Palace.
Of course, it was the Directors who had their offices on that side of the building, but, occasionally we would be asked to join a cocktail party on the balcony. I recall one evening we were entertaining the touring New Zealand cricket team and I got chatting to this chap, who turned out to be (later, Sir) Richard Hadlee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hadlee#Test_career).
On the walk to the station in the morning, I would regularly come across this older guy who got on the same carriage of the train as me every morning. Now, South-Easterners are not renowned for their open-ness - think of the image of all the commuters sitting with their (broadsheet) papers open as a kind of protective shield. I understand now why they did that, but it wasn't like commuting in Glasgow. Anyway, this chap - George Pritchard was his name (I think) - was a chatty sort, and he used to make a point of talking to me as we walked to the train. I was a little wary at first, but he was OK. Turned out he had a nephew playing professional football - at the time for Leyton Orient - name of Glenn Roeder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Roeder), who went on to greater things.
Back home, Lucy was no longer a baby, but she did have one annoying habit that meant I very seldom had any time to myself in the evening. She would insist on having her hand held whilst she fell asleep in her cot/bed. Not just any hand, mind you - it had to be mine. Often, it would take hours before she was out for the count. Just as you thought she had slipped in to sleep and you were gently trying to extract a hand or a finger from her grip, she would sense the movement and wail again. A few times Jo tried to secretly swap hands with me and give me some time downstairs, but Lucy was well aware of that trick and would have none of it.
Lucy seemed to develop a dependency on me for a while. She didn't like me leaving for work in the morning and Jo had to distract her whilst I dashed out the door.
We enjoyed discovering our new surroundings - it was a completely different way of life for us. We no longer had the local support network of the family and had to make our own way. Broxbourne was very nice - and the weather was great too. Our first summer there (1974) was very nice but we really got a shock with the heatwaves in 1975 and 1976 - they were scorchers.
There weren't many big shops in Broxbourne so we would often walk or drive to Hoddesdon to get our weekly shopping. They had a Sainsbury, which was new to us at the time - there were none north of the border at all in those days - and it seemed so much better than the supermarkets we had been used to in the West of Scotland - particularly Grand Fare!
The local pubs were also very nice - the Bull in the centre of Broxbourne, and the George on the edge of the river. Going for a beer before Sunday lunch was something of a tradition down there. The pubs then opened at noon and closed again promptly at 2pm so there wasn't much scope for over-imbibing. The bars usually had nibbles on them - biscuits, cheese etc - very nice. Here's an old photo of Lucy and I in the beer garden at the George:
(I have no idea what that man in the brown jacket is doing!)
Note the carefully folded-up McLaren buggy - they were all the rage then - the first ever truly portable pram. No doubt H & S would condemn them now.
South of Broxbourne were the small villages of Turnford and Wormley - we would occasionally stroll down that way too. This is about the time I first became aware of CAMRA and real ale. I don't think I was aware of this much when we were in Scotland where lager - mostly Tennent's - had become the national drink.
I recall one of the pubs in either Wormley or Turnford had Burton Ale - and rather nice it was too - but the local Hertfordshire brewery was McMullen's, and that was a bit more of an acquired taste - but it didn't take me long to get to like it!
Before we all moved down to the South East, I was commuting down on a weekly basis, getting to learn my new job and also sussing out where we could buy a house. During this period I met up once or twice with my pal Roddy MacLeod, who had got married before us and moved down to London - in fact you may recall me telling you that Jo and I stayed with him and Carole for a weekend in 1972 when we were on holiday with my parents at Folkestone?
Once Roddy took me to Fleet Street for a few beers. This was a bit of an eye opener to somebody who, up until then, mostly drank Tennent's Lager and licked his lips when he saw a pub displaying a "Tartan Special" sign. One of our first stops was Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, located up an alley off Fleet Street:
As you can see, its a very old pub - "rebuilt 1667" it says on the sign above the door - just after the Great Fire of London. Jo and I went there a couple of years ago, and whilst it's still quite atmospheric and you can get traditional Steak & Kidney pudding and the old fashioned steam puds - Spotted Dick etc - it's obviously part of a chain nowadays and has lost a little of its charm.
Roddy next took me across the road for my first taste of Old Peculier - nowadays it's brewed at a comparatively modest 5.6%, but I'm sure it was much stronger back in the 70's - the beer was black and looked flat - definitely an acquired taste.
Of course, we were not entirely alone down south - we did have the occasional visitors during the years we spent there. Jo's Mum and Dad came down a few times. This photo may have been taken a bit later in 1975 or 1976, judging by the state of our back garden, but it's a fairly typical scene anyway:
When we didn't have visitors, however, it was more difficult for Jo and I to go out in the evening - we didn't have a babysitter, so eventually we joined a babysitting circle. The downside - as Jo well remembers - was that she had to do her turn sitting for others, in order to earn points to let us go out occasionally.
We had bumped into and befriended a couple who lived locally - Joe and Margaret Postlethwaite. Margaret was from Glasgow but had married a local and lived down south for quite a few years. It transpired that her younger brother - Sandy Newman - was at school with me. I didn't know him all that well, but had bumped into him a few times, once at a party in Blawarthill, I seem to recall. Sandy was a musician and had recently joined the group Marmalade, who had had several big hits (including a number one) in the 60's. Their singer (Dean Ford) and main songwriter (Junior Campbell) had left the group and Sandy was recruited to replace them. See him in action on Top of the Pops in 1976 - Sandy's got the 70's louche, moustache look - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H1uesC7xHE
We had also discovered that we were living in a hotbed of footballing talent. The training ground of Tottenham Hotspur was just down the road in Cheshunt and many of their players lived locally in the Broxbourne area. Big Mike England (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_England) had a large-ish house no more than a couple of hundred yards from us, and Pat Jennings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Jennings) went to the same church as Jo.
I think that's as much as I can do today - and I think we have pretty much covered 1974 now. The following year didn't start off so well and a couple of incidents could have changed our lives forever, but fortunately it all worked out in the end. Read all about it in the next exciting instalment of Renshaw's Chronicles!
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