Arthur Sidney (1898-1988 ) & Ivy Maud Anderson (1898-1998)
Ivy Weller was born in Leatherhead, the daughter of a rose nurseryman who had successive small businesses there and in Ashtead. Her husband Arthur Anderson, also son of a gardener, moved to Leatherhead as a young man and they later ran the village store together in Effingham. They recalled life in the district over more than 70 years. The son Keith became a well known local doctor.
Interview date: 3 December 1981
Location: Great Bookham
Interviewer: Edwina Vardey
Beginnings
Mrs Anderson, you have lived in Leatherhead for most of your life?
No, till ten years old.
Your name was?
Ivy Maud Weller.
Mr Anderson, you came to Leatherhead just after the First World War.
That’s right, yes. I had visited before but I came to live in Leatherhead in 1919.
What is your full name?
Arthur Anderson: Arthur Sidney.
Mrs Anderson, you were one of eight children?
Yes, the second of eight children.
Your father was Henry Weller, a gardener.
That’s right.
He had a nursery in Epsom Road, Leatherhead, a rose nursery. He was just getting on nicely there working up a very good business when it was sold. He paid a rent for it. It was several years then before he got another place at Ashtead in Ottways Lane. It was called Ordnance Cottage and he worked up a very, very good business there growing roses. Then the same thing happened. You see he hadn’t enough money to buy a place, he was renting it. Then they came along and saw what a lovely place it was and of course they got a lovely lot of money for it. Before he left, he did run a place in Lower Ashtead, that was Green Lane. That was an old brickfield, disused because the water came in. It was fed by springs that used to come through. Natural springs all the way from Headley.
Arthur Anderson: So the geologists told us.
They told us because they used to come and test it. Then my father and my brother, the one next to me, they used to go with storm lantern late at night on clay, very hard clay. They built up another nursery but this time, he still couldn’t buy but he had in the deeds…full compensation for all the work he put in if they sold it. So he got up a good running concern again – 10 3/4 acres.
This was where?
Green Lane, near the railway. They have built on all the new estates now, right opposite Agates Lane.
School days and children’s games
You went to the British School.
The British School, the Poplar Road, Leatherhead and I left when I was 14. I didn’t want to go to another school. I had a lot of ill health then. I have had all my life a lot of ill health. I stayed at home then from 14 until I was 18. I helped my mother with the big family. We had a big house then, five bedrooms there were.
Then I got a job on the railway because the war was on, you see. The war was on. I worked at Vauxhall first, then I moved to Waterloo.
You ran all the way to the Poplar Road School?
More or less yes, if it was raining.
Arthur Anderson: It was very common. Any amount of children did it.
Mr Anderson, you were telling me about metals hoops for boys and wooden hoops for girls.
Yes, that’s right. Almost invariably. They used to hang outside sweetshops like they do spades and pails nowadays. Bundles of them. Only a few pence each. We hadn’t any money so we couldn’t have spent very much.
A short stick, any old stick, the girls did but the boys had what they called a skid. It was something like a wooden handle, like a little fork handle, with a curved iron piece which went round the hoop. You actually didn’t hit it, you skidded against it below the level of the centre so you kept going forward. If you went above the centre it stopped it, naturally, so if you wanted something you did that. You’d go skipping along ever so fast, you’d keep up with it, you see. If you wanted to stop you simply raised your hook up there because it stopped the thing going round. The biggest trouble was horses – there were no motor cars in those days – but horses and carts used to come up the street and sometimes your hoop would escape from you and you watched this hoop going up and perhaps getting tangled up in the horses’ hooves. And you would bolt like anything until you were round the corner and the cart had gone by, afraid of getting hurt from it.
You told me that when the hoops got broken you’d take them to a ….
Blacksmith usually. There was one on our street, happened to be. He had a big cone about five or six feet high from a point right down to about a yard across. A spherical, pure cone and any size hoop would go on it, pretty well, because it gradually got bigger and bigger. You put this round, you heated it up, put it together round here, banged it together round here, smoothed it round and charged one penny for it was done.
I bet the girls didn’t pay if they broke their hoops.
I don’t know whether they were available. They were thin wood.
Ivy Anderson: They would be no good, you see, because we had tried and you put a bit of wire round but that would make a bump you see and they wouldn’t go properly so that was finished, their hoops.
And other games you played?
Hopscotch.
Arthur Anderson: Marbles, of course. Girls played hopscotch.
Here we come gathering nuts in May, all that sort of thing. They still do that, I believe.
Your brothers and sisters all got on well together?
Oh yes……… We all stayed at home until we married, each one of us. There was only one in the family that didn’t get married.
There’s only four left. I have three brothers left.
Remembering teachers
Can you remember the teachers in the British School?
Oh yes. Miss May and ……the other lady…..it came to me, Pat when she was here. …..Not very many children. We were all in one room, I remember.
All ages in the same class?
Yes, I remember Ivy Moncrieff was 14 when I was there. I do remember that. They lived in The Crescent, Leatherhead. Afterwards, Miss Moncrieff, the older one, older than Ivy, after the British School closed she set up a school in The Crescent. Naeburn [?], gone now, the house has gone. It was a private school.
Boys and girls. My son and daughter went there because we knew them afterwards. But she packed that up when the Second World War started because they had to have many alterations for children then. So she stopped. So then my children, one went to Linden’s and the other one went to Rosebery [Epsom].
How we met
How did you meet?
Arthur Anderson: I came to visit my grandfather in Leatherhead. Ivy lived in Ashtead and frequently on a Sunday you used to go there to meals?
Ivy Anderson: We used to go to church three times a day.
Arthur Anderson: Morning, afternoon and evening.
Ivy Anderson: It was Congregational then.
Arthur Anderson: The same building the school was in, actually.
Ivy Anderson: The British School was in the school room of the Congregational Church. I used to go to …
Arthur Anderson: My grandfather’s.
Ivy Anderson: Yes, we were very friendly with them, you see. I always used to go there for Sunday lunch because it was a bit much for me because I wasn’t too well.
Who was your grandfather?
Mr Solomon. He was a solicitor’s managing clerk, I think he called himself. He lived in a cottage in Linden Road, number 20 Linden Road.
How many children had he?
Three – my mother, my aunt and my Uncle Arthur.
Ivy Anderson: Then he married again. He married his housekeeper and had two children. That’s when I used to go there. I didn’t know his first wife, she had died. He had a housekeeper and in those days he thought it advisable to marry her. Otherwise, scandal.
When did he die?
I was in Scotland at the time. Could be about 1924 or 25.
Are any of his family still in Leatherhead?
No, they have all died. All the family went to Australia, all my own family except one brother and one sister and they are still in England now.
Growing roses
Mrs Anderson, you said that all your family had roses named after them. What about your rose, what colour was it?
It was white and it was called Ivy Weller.
Do these strains still exist?
No. We wanted another one and my father said I’ve lost it. It was a shame really. I suppose he had sold what he could. But the first one he brought out he named Mrs Henry Weller and he got a certificate of merit for that up at the rose show.
Very proud. It was a lovely rose, lovely scent. That was pink. Not all were scented. Mine wasn’t scented. But my sister’s – Freda Weller – that was a climber. That was a lovely scented rose. Used to be very free flowering.
Could I have the names of all your family – just in case anybody comes across these roses?
Well I think they all got lost. Rather difficult. I’ve never seen them in print now at all in catalogues. You see, when he sold them he didn’t catalogue them.
So the only one that is really well known is the one he won……
Yes, that might still be – Mrs Henry Weller.
Are any of you rose growers?
Cyril, my eldest brother was but he died fairly young unfortunately. We’ve got a lot of roses and I’ve got some cuttings out there now. I used to be able to bud and that sort of thing. My youngest brother went in for it but he now does more landscaping. His business is at Norwood. Ronald, my youngest brother. There’s 18 years between us, you see.
He’s a landscape gardener?
Yes, Norson Weller, that is. Quite a young lad. These two boys set up on their own …..before the war.
Living with deafness in the family
When the war started this partner of his went into the RAF. He was in one of the first Mosquitoes and he was never heard of again. Sad. My brother was so upset that he joined the RAF and left a manager in charge of the business. He was shot down. He was in the Lancaster bombers. He was shot down over Germany and was a prisoner for about 18 months. He was married then and he had a little girl born dead. We think it was the shock at the time as she was pregnant. It’s a shame really as she is a lovely girl. She’s married, she married a deaf chap, and has got two boys. They were thrilled to bits. The first one could talk until he was about two and a half and there was another one on the way. She said she would never have another one as the first one was deaf. But unfortunately on the Sunday before my brother was reading a book and he was saying all the things in the book like “apple” and all the different things and talking well. But then he had a cold and he went deaf. He has never spoken since and the other one was born deaf. Her husband’s family were a lot of them deaf, his mother and father were both deaf. They think it’s from the male side, you see.
But the children are able to learn?
Oh, yes they live a happy social life. A very happy little family. Ordinary people because they don’t come up against the nasty things that an ordinary child would.
Married life and local shops
You met your husband at his grandfather’s in Linden Road. Did you fall in love straight away?
Arthur Anderson: After a while she found it was too good to miss.
Ivy Anderson: I didn’t want to get married at the time. I was carrying five brothers and I wasn’t interested but I suppose he was so persistent that in the end I fell for him.
Where were you married?
Arthur Anderson: Leatherhead, the same church that had been the school before.
Ivy Anderson: Where the Coop was, that was the building. But of course they sold it. It became very noisy too and the Coop wanted it. That’s when the they built the one at Epsom Road.
We lived at Effingham.
Arthur Anderson: I managed a grocery shop over there. The Village Stores at Effingham. 1928 this was.
During the First World War what did you do?
Arthur Anderson: I was in the army all the time. [France] and Belgium.
Ivy Anderson: We were there [Effingham] five years.
Arthur Anderson: I was managing this grocery shop there. The old gentleman who sold the shop to the then owner wanted to hang on and wouldn’t leave go. So all I did was odd jobs, went and did the baker’s round.
In what they call Effingham High Street, there’s really no high street. Just the village street. It’s still a shop but I it’s not used. The Village Stores it was known as. It was established in 1850. I’ve still got the shop bell which is over 100 years old now. One of those old dangling bells. I’ve still got that in the garage now.
What was the name of the old man who wanted to hang on?
Arthur Anderson: Mr West. He had the previous Village Stores. He was quite an elderly man compared with us.
Ivy Anderson: It was Mr Whitehead you worked for.
Arthur Anderson: Whitehead the baker who used to have a shop where Harrington’s now are in Bridge Street.
Where the Congregational Church was, was there not a baker’s there too? Wild’s.
Ivy Anderson: Yes, that’s right. Wild’s, right on the corner.
Arthur Anderson: I remember the shop had pillars outside, a sort of veranda over the pavement. Then it became Hart’s the butchers after that.
Ivy Anderson: No, that was the next shop. I think your friend has got in about slaughtering the pigs while the service was on.
There was a lot of slaughtering in Leatherhead.
…………..yes, used to be Sam’s, it’s Humphries now.
Having children and running the shop
When were your children born?
Ivy Anderson: Both were born there. The baby was five months old [Dr Keith] when we came to Leatherhead. We took a shop at the roundabout in Kingston Road. It was new. Bridgers bought the shop from Mr Whitehead. Arthur managed that for a time. Then they wanted to come and live…..
Arthur Anderson: He retired.
Ivy Anderson: They wanted to come and live [there]. We lived over the shop…
Arthur Anderson: Over the side.
Ivy Anderson: One of the bedrooms went over the side of the shop. They wanted to live there so we had to move. These were new shops. My brother had got one and he told us there was one going next door. Were we interested? He ran the street’s tobacconist and paper shop. We came to Leatherhead and saw Mr Presland. There were three brothers. This one we had was awfully nice. I remember going over there. On November 1st we moved in.
Arthur Anderson: 1933.
Ivy Anderson: He charged us, only the flat was ready. The shop wasn’t ready then. But he said we could have the flat for a pound a week. He paid the rates. He said when the shop is open you will pay another pound. So we paid £2 a week for the shop and the flat. Three bedrooms, a big lounge and kitchen.
How long did you run that shop?
Arthur Anderson: From 1933 to 1960 something. Nearly 30 years or perhaps a little over 30 years.
Was your daughter born before Dr Keith Anderson?
Ivy Anderson: Yes, four years before. Joyce [Youngman]. Lives at Dorking with two children of her own and an adopted one.
Rural surroundings
You were at that corner in Leatherhead, was there a farm there before then?
Ivy Anderson: No, not a farm. It was fields. There was a group of trees there and a public house opposite. They had a son who was always on a stretcher – a bed really – they used to wheel him out under these trees. I don’t know what was wrong with him. As a child you don’t remember do you?
Arthur Anderson: There used to be a pound where they impounded animals that strayed on that corner. I can’t remember just where it was. I think it was on the corner of Barnett Wood Lane and Kingston Road. There used to be a rectangular thing about the size of this room or smaller. Also one at Fetcham that’s still there, as a matter of fact. Animals that strayed got put in there – horses and cows – and you paid to get them out again.
It was quite safe for you to walk along the road?
Oh. There was no traffic at all.
Ivy Anderson: We stayed in school until half past four. We didn’t come out. Imagine winter evenings we used to come all through this dip and this long passage. It was a bit scary sometimes, we felt scared but nothing ever happened. It was safer then, far safer. But sometimes we used to go round Grange Road that way. My parents liked to go that way if possible. But we liked to go through this way because it was to us a shorter cut.
Did you visit other towns?
No. Occasionally we went to Epsom but there were no buses then. We used to go by train. But I remember one big event. My father took us one Sunday afternoon to Boxhill. I remember he met us from Sunday school, took us by train to Boxhill. We walked all up there. My mother came afterwards with all the food for all of us, five children. My father brought the children but my mother carried all this stuff right up the hill. This chalk path. My father had a young one, a baby, and I expect he carried the baby. But I thought why didn’t my father carry all that stuff?
Memories of Ashtead
Did your mother live to old age?
72 and my father 94.
Where are they buried?
Ashtead parish church. They lived in Ashtead. They wanted to sell again when he made a lovely place down at Green Lane but the compensation would be so much that nobody would buy it. So my father got his own price. In the end. Then he elaborated more. He opened out and made a swimming pool. First of all he made a lovely tennis court. He was very clever really. He trained at Frank Kent Nurseries in Colchester. This is where he got his training. He was apprenticed there so he learned it properly. He made a beautiful tennis court and first of all he used to let that out to people and he got a bit more money that way. Then afterwards he had diving boards and steps down.
Arthur Anderson: You know you go down Green Lane and there is a level crossing at the bottom. Well adjoining the railway on that side is this big estate now called Rose something….
Ivy Anderson: Rather nice. They have named it Rose Walk and Floral Road?.[Rosedale and Floral Court]…It was well known.
Arthur Anderson: You can go there and still see this pool. There’s a high wire fence and you can’t get into it now.
Ivy Anderson: They pulled the house down that we lived in. It was a very tall house.
Arthur Anderson: The old engine house, three storeys high.
Ivy Anderson: It was very upright. Rooms built out and whatnot.
Your father managed well from this. When did he retire?
At 92. He went with my sister who didn’t marry to Malden to live. His garden was everything to him. He loved his roses…… And my mother. I think they were both very hard working.
Arthur Anderson: The majority of people did work hard in those days. Those that had got work.
Outings
Ivy Anderson: We never went for holidays as children. A great event was Sunday school outing. Several places. Seaside, always the seaside.
Arthur Anderson: Littlehampton, Worthing, Bognor.
Ivy Anderson: And Eastbourne. By train.
Arthur Anderson: Special train – 3/6.
Ivy Anderson: I was secretary of the Sunday school. All children, if they had made proper attendances at Sunday school, all went free. Up to a certain number of absences you were allowed but otherwise graduated…..but I don’t think anybody paid more than about 3/6 top price.
Arthur Anderson: That included the mid-day meal, no tea. Lovely tea.
Ivy Anderson: The other churches as well. Usually you would have a train
Places and people
Was Leatherhead a nice place?
To us it was. I never went anywhere else. I’d never been to Ashtead until we moved. Before I had ever been down to Lower Park, Kingston Road or anywhere there. I remember going down there to a girl who lived down there to her house for tea. Amazing isn’t it?
Are the people you were at school with still alive?
Some of them I think are…… One of them, Ella Jenny, she’s five years younger than me. She lives at Ashtead. They lived at Kingston Road. He was a plumber, her father. Where they have built now – I don’t know if you know Kingston Road down that part – as you leave the island and go across, you know the roundabout go down Kingston Road it’s on the left.
Arthur Anderson: It was 113, the number there. Ronson’s had it for a while. Rentakill had it. for a bit.
Were you happy in the Kingston Road?
Oh yes, bringing the children up.
Where did they go to school?
Miss Moncrieff’s. My daughter when she was ten, the war started but then she passed her exam to go to Rosebery [Epsom]. You had to pass an exam and you paid. It was a grammar school. You paid £4 a term. A lot to us, especially as we were building up from nothing. Keith, was only small, about six, and he went to Linden’s School. He went first of all to a school at Ashtead. They evacuated then to Lyme Regis and they warned me to let them go and they said that Joyce could go too. It was the beginning of the war. But I didn’t want my children evacuated, I wanted to keep them with me. So then Keith went to Linden’s when they evacuated. Park Rise but it’s now Downs End. Then he went to City of London Freeman’s School.
Arthur Anderson: That’s where he met his wife actually. She was there too.
Were there any doctors in your family?
Ivy Anderson: It’s on Arthur’s side. In Scotland. We don’t know them but we do know there are doctors there. Really he always wanted to be a doctor but his father hadn’t the money. You had to pay out a lot of money in those days.
Arthur Anderson: We have three now – Keith, his wife and his daughter, all doctors.
Ivy Anderson: His daughter had qualified, Juliet, she’s in Scotland.
Arthur Anderson: She’s in one of the infirmaries in Glasgow.
Ivy Anderson: I’ve got six lovely grandchildren. I am lucky.
Our customers and local doctors
Did you serve the big houses in Leatherhead from Kingston Road?
Some of them. From Tyrell’s Wood. The roundabout at Leatherhead was nice wide and they could park outside, no restrictions. They used to come down where the by-pass is now and it was fairly easy to get to our shop. There were quite a number up there. I used to deliver a few. Mr Davies was one of them. But most of the people used to do their own shopping and we had a post office as well.
Ivy Anderson: There were the Reeves……………..
You said your father named a rose after Lady Beaverbrook.
Yes the first Lady Beaverbrook.
Do you remember the doctors?
Yes Doctor Potts with his horse and trap.
Arthur Anderson: He used to live Church Street, where the shops are now, the electrical place, somewhere near there
Ivy Anderson: Then there was a Doctor Henderson, our doctor. He lived in Station Road.
Arthur Anderson: Doctor Von Bergen.
Ivy Anderson: Doctor Ormond was with Doctor Henderson for a time, I think his partner.
There were a lot of doctors?
Ivy Anderson: There were but they all had private patients. There was no National Health then. There were a number of doctors in Leatherhead. …..You didn’t go to a doctor unless it was very, very urgent.
Arthur Anderson: You had to pay usually.
Ivy Anderson: You tended more to go to a chemist. There was a chemist’s shop – Mr Cole. He was a very nice man.
Arthur Anderson: It was nearly opposite where the International is now, where there’s the fish shop.. ..it’s a butcher’s shop now, isn’t it?
There’s a betting shop somewhere near there. Just along from there. He used to live on the corner of Church Road and Epsom Road where The Crescent comes out. That’s an estate agent’s place now, I believe, Norman and Huddings [?]. Mr Cole’s house, the first house on the corner.
Ivy Anderson: He had a son and a daughter. The daughter went to Leather Lock Shop. She came to see us once when we were at Tanglewood. Miss Cole. She never married.
Suffragettes
Can you remember when the Suffragettes came to town?
Oh yes. I remember that time. Yes on Epsom Downs one threw herself under the horse’s foot.
Arthur Anderson: Miss Davidson I think it was. ….Ethel Davidson I think it was.
Emily Pankhurst was in Leatherhead police station for the night.
Ivy Anderson: ……No I didn’t know that.
You don’t remember that? 1912.
Well I’d be 14.
I knew all about what was going on. Yes. My parents talking, you know.
Arthur Anderson: It was disgraceful the way they treated them. Just because they wanted the vote.
Old families
Did you know the Hendersons of Randalls Road?
I didn’t know them. I knew they had cottages there for their staff. The Bridgers were there and I had been to their little cottage.
Quite nice. Very old fashioned types.
Was Randalls House lovely?
You only saw it. You never went near it. It was a huge place. These cottages were well away from there. The Bridgers were there. Old.
Are there any Bridgers alive now?
Mary Bridger
Arthur Anderson: Mary does some of the work that you are doing.
[Discussion over Mary Bridger’s name.]
Ivy Anderson: Effingham Common. Mary Rice Oxley. She could tell you if her father told her. [Mary Rice Oxley died in 2016]
She’s doing the book. On pubs.
She was doing churches at one time. She was my bridesmaid, one of them.
Arthur Anderson: About three years old then she was.
Ivy Anderson: One of the jobs I got her father got me in London.
He used to be superintendent at the summer school. Then there were the Bullpins. Have you heard about them? They had the grocers shop in Bridge Street. There was a change of hands. Lambs had it after that and then Stevenson & Rush.
Arthur Anderson: It’s not a grocers, I don’t think now.
Do you remember Emily Moore who owned The Swan?
Ivy Anderson: No
Arthur Anderson: She lived in the house where John Wesley preached his last sermon which is the Council house in Leatherhead.
Ivy Anderson: Oh yes. She died there – she worked there didn’t she?
Who died this year? [1981]
Evelyn Sayers. I tell you who would be able to tell you. She was five years younger than me but she lived in Leatherhead longer than I did. She lives in Barnett Wood Lane, Ashtead. Ella Jelly. Her father was a plumber. She might know a lot.
She might remember Emily Moore?
Yes she might. Her stepsister lived there but she only died this year. …..Darbilay [?] We used to go out. A lot of the children used to go out and shout “Throw out your mouldy coppers!”. They had a drink from these big coaches as they came through.
Horse-drawn?
Ivy Anderson: Yes. Big ones.
Arthur Anderson: Often four horses.
Ivy Anderson: These would be going towards Guildford. They had left the races. They would pull over for drinking so they used to throw to the children coconuts and coppers and that.
What would you call out?
Ivy Anderson: Throw out your mouldy coppers. I remember wanting to go. My brothers used to go you see. But my mother didn’t like us doing this so she came out – cause living in Poplar Road. I remember she came out to stop us calling out you see. She wouldn’t let us do that.
Arthur Anderson: We used to have a week’s holiday from school for Derby Day. A whole week’s holiday because there was so much traffic. You imagine nowadays. There was so much traffic in those days – it was coaches and horses, that sort of thing. But no motor cars hardly at all.
Gypsies
What about Gypsies?
Arthur Anderson: Oh Gypsies, any amount of them. They usually arrived before the race – say a week before the Derby. Then you would go up there and find them after the Derby. Not during Derby Week so much. They were up on the Downs, hundreds of them then.
Ivy Anderson: They would go to the houses with pegs and things to sell.
Read your palm?
Arthur Anderson: Yes, all sorts of things.
Ivy Anderson: And bring a baby with them. Wouldn’t you give something for the poor baby and if you gave them something it was all right but if not it was bad luck.
They were real Gypsies?
Ivy Anderson: Real ones. They were the real ones.
Arthur Anderson: I don’t know if they were the real Gypsies. They were dark looking. A lot of them were. The real Romany type, I suppose. But you never had the trouble you get at Young Street now. You never had that sort of thing.
Ivy Anderson: It’s getting worse and worse.
Arthur Anderson: They never appeared like that. They were out of our sight somewhere.
Ivy Anderson: Somewhere up on the Downs chiefly.
In the woods?
Arthur Anderson: There was one place near Hampshire, where Lord Montgomery lived. Bentley. There was permanent Gypsy camp there. I saw them many times. That’s the only one I know.
Christmas
Did you ever go to the dances in the big houses?
Ivy Anderson: At Christmas time in the Epsom Road. Hue Williams.
Arthur Anderson: They are still about now, the Hue Williamses.
Just past the Epsom Road from here there is a cul-de-sac. The other side of Grange Road.
Ivy Anderson: I don’t think it was one of the bigger houses but they were well known big people. I think my father used to go and do something in the garden, probably prune their roses or something. I know he had some connection there. They gave a party for some children and I remember going there. They brought in a big tray with raisins all alight. I always remember this. I wouldn’t take one, I wouldn’t have them. I was too frightened. Of course I was young then. I remember them taking one up, blowing it out and giving me this raisin.
Did you go carol singing?
Arthur Anderson: Yes I did.
With the church?
No, three or four of us used to share out what we got.
Were they strict?
Ivy Anderson: I wouldn’t call them too strict but things like that, they wouldn’t let us go for money. To go carol singing or anything of that sort. We were kept very much at home.
You didn’t resent that?
Oh no.
Arthur Anderson: You just accepted it I think.
The family Ralli
Arthur Anderson: Another big family. At Woodlands Park, Ralli. Greek people. One brother had Craven School – Ashtead Park. The other brother had Woodlands Park on the way to Oxshott. Woodlands Road. Surrey County Council have got it now I believe for a home…. I used to serve..
Ivy Anderson: I went to a fireworks display for the Rallis at the school, Freeman’s School. It was beautiful. One of the finest fireworks display I have ever seen. We were thrilled to bits. That was when I was living in Ashtead.
Arthur Anderson: Was that King George V’s coronation? We had one at Ewell.
Ivy Anderson: They moved soon afterwards. No. For one of them’s coming of age. They were very rich.
Arthur Anderson: We didn’t think much of them. They were Greek ship-owners, weren’t they.
Ivy Anderson: I don’t know how we came to be invited now. I know we went up there.
Arthur Anderson: Didn’t they have a flower show there once? At the Rallis’ place at Woodlands Park?
Some of the big houses used to open their grounds for the annual flower show, didn’t they? There was one at Ewell.
Ivy Anderson: But we didn’t used to go very much to that.
Did your mother think it was unsuitable?
Well I don’t think she had the time you see. Looking back I think what sort of a life did she have?
My mother’s background
What did she do before she married?
She was a housemaid I believe. Only for a little while because she was called back home. She lived down in Hampshire. I think they had a farm. My grandfather was kicked by a horse. He was in his forties. It set up cancer, I think. [!!!]
They died much younger. I remember my grandmother was a little old lady and she was only in her fifties when she died.
You got into the “decent” black rather early?
Yes, children even went in. When she died, I know my mother had all those children. There were five then. This is before I moved away. I remember once we were all five in one bedroom. I don’t where my parents slept. They gave up their bedroom to my grandmother. There was a little box-room so one of them must have stayed in there. I think my mother must have stayed with my grandmother and Dad had that tiny bedroom. For a time she was in Leatherhead Hospital, Victoria House. That was the cottage hospital. When she died we had black coats and little black fur hats with a bit of white in it. I have photos. We went to the funeral and I was only eight. [1906]
Unemployment
Was there much unemployment?
No not really.
Sales on tick?
Arthur Anderson: Once or twice we got caught on that but mostly we had cash sales. There used to be the march of the unemployed. We didn’t know what unemployment meant in those days but these men, there used to be whole groups of them came marching by the house. Like an army in civilian clothes. When we were quite small. Somebody said that’s the unemployed. I wondered if there was some sort of association. We didn’t know.
Giving up the shop
Arthur Anderson: My father was a gardener. He often used to talk to Ivy’s father over the garden fence at Ashtead. He used to walk to Ewell. That’s how they got to know one another. But I’m not a good gardener by any means.
Ivy Anderson: He did have an allotment and then he couldn’t.
Were you sad to give up that shop?
We had to give it up in a hurry because he was in hospital and we lost our assistant. It was a post office as well. It got too much so we sold it.
Arthur Anderson: I used to deliver before I went work, open the shop till one o’clock, have lunch between one and two and do some more delivering, go back to the shop until six or whenever it was, then delivering again after the shop was shut. It went on for days, weeks like that.
Ivy Anderson: We worked hard when we were young. Bringing our children up. WE wanted them to have a better education and it paid off. My daughter does social welfare work, her husband’s a barrister, and I’ve got a grand-daughter solicitor. She married this year. And a grandson who is in Germany, he married two year sago. He is doing microbiology. (Dixons. That was where my father got very friendly with their head gardener. I’m glad I remembered that name.)
Arthur Sidney ANDERSON born 12 July 1898 in Rayleigh, Essex.
Married Ivy Maude WELLER in the September quarter of 1928 in Leatherhead, Surrey. Died in the September quarter of 1988 in Surrey Mid Eastern.
Ivy Maude WELLER born 26 July 1898 in Leatherhead, Surrey. Died in the June quarter of 1998 in Mid Surrey.