Living in Elmwood

This memory was donated to the Welwyn Garden Heritage Trust by Richard in October 2009.

Richard’s parents came to the town attracted by the publicity about the new Garden City. They “wanted to come out to a place that had a social life which had a heart to it and of course coming to the Garden City in 1927 things were beginning weren’t they?”

“My mother in those days didn’t work of course and we had a girl who cleaned and looked after the house and drank my father’s special beer. My father died of course in 1937 and it was very sad and left my mother very much a widow but thank God the firm he worked with took on, they were very socially conscious, my education and saw me right through school which was absolutely marvellous. At the end of my school days the firm invited me up so they could see me.

So my mother was covered in that way but she had to go back into what she was originally trained for was teaching and lo and behold she joined Parkway school as a teacher. She was well known for cycling in the early days of the war with a plastic bag and it was on the handlebars with a dog’s head poking out of it. This was Toby who went everywhere with her and became amongst other things an official firewatcher in the school – single handed of course. All teachers had to do a night. I’m not sure what my mother would have done had a fire started in Parkway, I don’t know, as she suffered from the family disease which was sleeping well!”