ELIZABETH ANNE WALKER (1929 – )
Daughter of an instructor at the former Royal School for the Blind, Anne Walker has spent her entire life in the Leatherhead district. She was married to a piano tuner who played in a local band and lived to be 100 years old. She still lives in the house in which he was born.
Interview date: 25 October 2017
Location: Ashtead
Interviewer: Tony Matthews
Family beginnings
Elizabeth Anne Walker, I was born in Church Walk, Leatherhead on 5 September 1929.
What were your parents names?
Arthur William Palmer and Isabel May Palmer. My father came down from London when the Royal School for the Blind moved to Leatherhead because his father taught the basket-making. My mother lived in Ashtead.
Did you have any brothers and sisters?
No
When did you move into your first home?
It was in Church Walk [number] 11. I went to Poplar Road School and Leatherhead Central School, as it was called then. It was all very happy. Poplar Road School was a lovely place for small children. They were very keen on music. I think every room had got a piano and a great big maypole with ribbons. It was a lovely school.
Old Leatherhead
What was Leatherhead like then?
During the war we had got the Crescent Cinema which was a great thing. We still had a little theatre in the High Street which was underneath Mould’s shop I think. Underneath the theatre there was another room where you could have a dance. Most of the little shops were very good. There was still plenty of countryside fairly near. You could go to Norbury Park and towards Ashtead Park of course and it was a very happy time.
But when the war came things were not much good. We had quite a lot of bombs around here. I went to start work in 1943 when I was 13. I went for a week’s trial and stayed 27 years. That was at Randall’s Park, Prewett’s Dairy. I went in the office there. It was a very happy time again but then of course the bombs. If you were in that office you were imagining what was going on at home. Anyway, we survived all right. We didn’t have a proper air raid shelter. We used to just go under the stairs.
When I met Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother)
Later on I joined the junior branch of the Red Cross. Mr and Mrs Drake were in charge. I think there were about 70 little girls in that group at that time. I have a group photograph. We are all sitting in chairs in the pouring rain. I don’t know why they took it then. The Red Cross was my main interest for a long time. There were five of us went up to Buckingham Palace – they had five from each unit – and we had to march along from the barracks to the palace. Then the Queen, because it was so terribly hot, [said] we all had to go in the garden at the back of the palace. That was a good day. I kept on in [the Red Cross] until I was about 18 or 19. I had been helping out at Leatherhead Hospital. It was all very happy.
Wartime in Leatherhead
There was quite a lot of damage in Leatherhead. A lot of the smaller bombs. The chapel in St John’s School, that was flattened by an explosion. In Grange Road, which is along here, there was the convent school and that was bombed as well. I used to cycle to work. Coming home in the blackout with bombs falling was no joke. But I think Poplar Road School made up for it all.
When I got to 11 I had to go down to the Central School. We were sharing with a big London school. So we only had half a day each. Then we had to meet in all these different halls, carry all our books from place to place. It was quite hard-going for little ones. Behind my old home in Church Walk there was a lovely little hall. It was like a little meeting place. You went in from The Crescent. There was a footpath going past the house and then there was this little brick building. I think it was a Toc H hall. Very tiny.
We were carrying our books from place to place for each separate lesson. Of course, half of our teachers had gone into the Army so we had the London teachers down with the London pupils. It all worked quite well really. A lot of the London children were billeted with us anyway. We had one of the pupils from St Martin in the Fields High School which was in St John’s at the time. Of course they were a girls’ school and St John’s was a boys school so they had to be kept separate. Our evacuees stayed with us until the end of the war. We were like sisters actually, it was lovely.
When I was at work, in the office it was very old fashioned, Prewett’s Dairy. It had a long desk with great big ledgers. When there was talk about an air raid we all got under this desk while the bangs were going on. I know one of our windows in Church Walk, a bomb fell in Aubrey Fields. When I got home my mother said look what’s happened and the whole window frame had got shifted in about six inches. That must have been quite a weight. But we managed.
Post-war rationing
Of course after the war there was all still a load of rationing of all sorts of things you just couldn’t get. I know when I was married in 1951 I had to go and get some extra rations for the wedding cake. I got six ounces of butter. That was it. Nothing else. All the neighbours, two of the ladies worked in the Co-Op and they used to get hold of currants and fruit. We finally got a cake but it was quite hard-going. I was looking through my Leatherhead book the other day remembering all the neighbours. I can remember them very well. I think it was about No 1 Church Walk, the lady had a little cellar. It was called the Jug House. You would see people going along with their jugs to fill up with ale. She was a funny lady though. Had a little old dog in there. She was forever going up and down Church Walk with these great jugs of ale. Mrs Fiddiment [?] by name.
Who was your husband?
My husband has only just died. [Actually three years earlier.] My father died in 1951. He worked at the cable company in Kingston Road. My husband was a piano and organ tuner. Geoffrey Walker. He was 100. He was actually born in this house.
Did you come to this house when you were married in 1951?
Yes, but he was born here in 1914. My husband’s father worked for the builders who built these [houses in] 1908.
So your husband spent his entire life in this house?
No, all through the war he was abroad. In the RAF and then he went on when they did all the big landings. So he went to North Africa, France and Italy. I think even the Orkneys, although what he was doing there I can’t think. Then when he came out he signed on for another six years because he didn’t want to go back to an office. He then heard about a college in London was doing a course for ex-servicemen on piano construction which was very unusual and he got a place in there. I think it was about three years. How all the bits fit together and the strings and everything and he loved it. Then when he came out of there he had a friend who worked in a music shop in Epsom who was going to retire so my husband took on some of his customers and we just went on from there. He loved his work because he saw different people every day. The friend who had then retired, if there was a church organ to be tuned it took two of them. One was up in the pipes and one was down at the console. I think they quite enjoyed that.
When did you meet Geoffrey?
In a dance up at the hall in Ashtead. About two years before we got married. He didn’t come out of the RAF until 1950 because he had signed on for some more service. When I had to arrange his funeral I found a wonderful letter from his commanding officer about how good he had been.
What rank did he have in the air force?
I think he was a sergeant.
Did he continue as a piano tuner for the rest of his career?
Yes
When did he retire?
Age 85 [actually 82]. He had absolutely astonishing hearing. He gradually dwindled down a bit. He had had pretty good health. He went into hospital only about a month before he died.
Geoffrey Walker, born 15 November 1914. Enlisted in the RAF July 1940 in air traffic control and became a sergeant. In the letter dated 18 March 1949 his commanding officer wrote: ‘Practically the whole of Sgt Walker’s spare time is devoted to his studies of music and to the development of interest in the subject. His work in this context has been much appreciated.’ An accomplished pianist and organist in the late 1930s he and four friends formed the Rhythmic Five dance band and had many bookings for concerts and dances, often accompanying singers. Geoffrey and Ann met at a dance in Ashtead Peace Memorial Hall. His career in tuning and repairing pianos continued until his retirement aged 82. He and Ann went to music festivals around the country in their camper van and founded the Kingston Organ Club. Geoffrey died at Epsom Hospital on 22 January 2014 just two months after his 100th birthday.
What were you doing while he was tuning pianos?
I did have quite an assortment of jobs actually. I think I left Prewett’s when my mother was ill. After she died a lot of the big houses around here needed help with household things so I had quite a steady employment really. I’d be going around doing a bit of house minding and a bit of dog minding. One house was on the Epsom Road. He was a doctor and they wanted someone always in for the phone. I had quite a variety of things. I wasn’t idle for very long.
[There were] two houses in South View Road and I helped both of those ladies out. There was a lady called Mrs Annersley who was very well known in Ashtead. Her husband died and I said to her what are you going to do? Oh, she said, I’m going to live in Canada. I’m going to go and buy myself a house. She must have been 80 at least. She was a lovely lady. Bit of a mixed bag with all the different houses. There was one up near Stag Leys. Doctor Best, I think his name was. He worked in London and his wife was in one of those very smart clinics in London. They were very nice.
Used to be an office around the corner which is now a dentist. They had a little card advert in the village. Only had a staff of about six. They wanted someone to pop in and cook them lunch every day and I thought well I’m only around the corner from there. That was very good fun actually. They sold all contracting food from overseas – rice and all sorts. They would say we’ve just got the message, Mrs Walker, that a lovely shipload of something has just left San Francisco or somewhere like that. It was a lovely little job. I think they got into difficulties money-wise and they packed up, or they moved anyway which was very sad. I had quite enjoyed that.
Were all of your jobs in Ashtead?
It was all things close by. By that time my mother and father were not very well and I paid more time with them.
Were they still in the house in Church Walk where you were born?
My father died there, yes, and then my mother couldn’t manage very well so she went into Brookers House down here which is sort of little flats. I think they came from the council. It was a little bedsit with its own little kitchen. She was there about two years but she needed a lot of help and it wasn’t a suitable place really. I was quite close.
Was there a special celebration for Geoffrey’s 100th birthday?
In the hospital. Yes, he actually was sent home from the hospital with some carers. Anyway I phoned the hospital and said I want my husband to come back in as he was not being properly looked after. So when they got back the sister in the ward said this is disgraceful. I’m going to make a case of it. Will you back me up? I said yes. Then he was back in the stroke ward and there was a very nice male staff nurse there, he really was a treasure. He found out about the birthday. So they set aside one of their staff rooms and some of our neighbours all came over and a niece came down from Oxford with a cake shaped like a piano and we had a very nice afternoon. This wonderful nurse made sure my husband had a proper shave, a proper haircut and new pyjamas. It was wonderful. He died very shortly after that.
What sort of music have you always listened to?
His was mainly piano and I think he played the church organ at Banstead or somewhere. Then he joined up with his colleague and they both did little concerts and tuning. When my husband died I had got a house full of music. I thought there’s no way I am going to throw this out. So I phoned the lady in the little Leatherhead-Ashtead [Local] book and I said this man who writes about the concerts in it, do you think he would mind if I asked his advice? She said you will never find anyone better. Peter [Glyn Steadman]’s life is music isn’t it. I think it was the next day he suddenly appeared at the door [with] the computer, listed the whole lot of the music and then sent the list up to the Royal Academy of Music. We found homes for I think three-quarters of it. Music now is terribly expensive. I think the students were quite delighted to suddenly get all this music. But of course his music was a bit of a mixture because it was mainly classical stuff but he and his friends also had a little dance band in Ashtead called the Rhythmic Five. They had dances right up until the war started and then they had to go of course. He loved all that. I hope he would have thought I had done the right thing with his music. Peter was absolutely great. He knows so many people.
Do you remember going to concerts that Geoffrey gave with the Rhythmic Five?
No, I don’t think I was old enough to go to dances. He had been in the RAF. I used to go to the dances at the [Letherhead] Institute. It had a lovely beautiful proper dance floor in there. During the war that was used as an office for the Ministry of Food or something awful and they ruined that lovely floor.
Geoffrey’s family, Hawkins the undertakers
Over the front door, they have got this big concrete lintel. They were all made by Mr Hawkins who was my husband’s uncle. My husband was a cousin of all the Hawkinses. There are 12 of them. My mother in law she was a Hawkins as well. Mr Hawkins used to be down in a house in the Kingston Road right opposite the Central School. I remember my husband saying that before the Hawkins had their chapel and everything up there, Grandfather used to have these huge blocks of stone on a little handcart trudging up and down into Highlands Road from Kingston Road.