George Polley’s life history, read by George Polley. Chapter three (4136a)
Highlights in this oral history recording include:

0.00Domestic life
2.30 Digging well
6.00 Description of The Limes, Neer Bakery shop, and Rice's Yard
9.17 Water supply, mains and post war testing of wells
12.30 Sewerage
13,55 Heating – electric connected 1936
18.20 Well construction
25.30 Use of water from wagon tank to flush toilet and for roof of air raid shelter – little used

This is GP starting on page three. School days again and earlier. Domestic life at Ellesmere: we had none of the so-called modern things in those days. No mains water. Our drinking water we had to bring from a pump that was situated a hundred yards or more down the Colchester side of us. That was in the garden of a pump within the garden of one of The Limes Cottages.

It belonged to a Hector Ellison who was an uncle of my father's. He charged five shillings per quarter for the use of the pump and the water. To get it to Ellesmere, we had the two buckets, held about two gallons each, and when we carried ‘em along we had an iron hoop, a lightweight iron hoop, which rested on the top of the buckets and kept the water from splashing up against our legs because it kept them that given distance from our legs.

And we then had to store that. Our washing up water and washing water and that sort of thing we caught in butts off the house, that was rainwater like that. Round about 1934, father decided that we should dig our own well for the drinking water. So we made ourselves a wooden, what was known as a vat, that was a circular framework about six foot high and about four foot across the inside of it.

And then we started digging. We had the vat was the shape and the protection while we were digging as we went down. We went down approximately 30 feet of solid, chalk clay and then we came to sand and gravel at, after a bit, another foot, making 31 feet in total, we came onto water, so a little more digging, and we had got a good supply of running water underground stream.

You could stand in the water and see it actually flowing through. That gave us a jolly good supply and, we were able to then use that. We had the old-fashioned type of windlass over the top, so we let the bucket down on a chain and it filled up and we wound it up and poured it into our own buckets.

So it was okay, and in the really hot summer that used to be our fridge because mother would put the margarine as we had in those days. We couldn't afford butter. The margarine, so it didn't get too soft was put in a dish in the empty bucket and lowered about 10 foot down the well. It was a jolly good refrigerator.

The only thing we had to remember was that it was in the bucket, the margarine was in the bucket, and we had to wind the windlass up and take the butter out before we let the bucket down to get some fresh water. Otherwise, we'd have finished up with the margarine in the bottom of the well. But I don't think that ever happened. I think we always remembered it.

The, in the direction of where the pump was in the garden of The Limes cottage just with the Wesleyan Chapel next door to us, as we went in the Colchester direction, there was a Limes house. It's called The Limes. It was, I would imagine built early 18 hundreds and there was the coach house and all facilities for stables. So obviously it was for somebody with a little bit of influence and the cottages went with the big house.

Next there was our local bakery and there used to be the living quarters in, shall we say, the central section. To the rear was the bakery and a chap by the name Mr Fred Neer was the owner and the baker. And his wife, she ran the shop in the front. And then eventually there was a second shop section built on the front of the property and the son-in-law, he had a cycle business there for a short a few years, which didn't last too well. He didn't get much trade. So I think that was a case of just something that was a trial but didn't work out.

Next there was to that, there was what we know in those days as Rices Yard, that was an L-shaped brick-built building with an open yard at the back and I think there was seven cottages altogether in that block. And they are still standing and they have been modernised. And I think there's about four cottages now instead of the seven. They've been put joined together and they're now known as Copford Court, quite posh. But it was, it was home to quite a few families in the early days.

The other properties that I've mentioned, The Limes (the big house) The Limes Cottages, their garden area, and the bakery and baker’s shop have all been demolished and new properties built in their place. Quite modern. So that's a bit of history that has disappeared from the old London Road.

Going back to the water situation, we enjoyed our own private water supply, so we didn't bother about having the mains put on when it became available round about 1937-38. It became available in the road along past our frontage. In those days it was coming up to wartime and so a lot of council facilities were overlooked and there wasn't a lot of change during the war years from that point of view.

There had been plans in 1932 for the village to be bypassed with a new road. That eventually came in 1968, which I can probably record later on, a few more details. But when the war years had gone by and things began to settle down a bit, the council started wanting to test all well waters in the district so that they could factfully enforce people to go on the main.

At that time, I think it was round about 1948, after the war years, the council, that one sample they'd taken, they came back to us and suggested that our drinking water was unsuitable for human consumption. We'd thrived well on it since 1934 and never had any problems, and the water was still the same as far as we were concerned. But howsoever, they gave us so long to get connected to the mains because our water supply was condemned and we would be breaking the law if we continued using it for human consumption.

That's the voice of authority jumping in. We never did like the flavour of the mains water. It wasn't a patch on the lovely cool flavour of a fresh glass of water straight from the well. We didn't really need the mains pressure system because the main sewer wasn't available in the district until around about 1960. And of course when we did eventually connect to the main sewer, previous to that at Ellesmere we had just with the bucket closet and that was emptied regularly, dug into the garden. And of course the produce from our garden for home consumption was something to be enjoyed. It may not have, may not sound very nice, but by Jove it was far better than some of the stuff we had to buy afterwards and get it out of a bag to make the vegetables grow.

But naturally it, the soil and the emptyings and plots were rotated so that it had time to cleanse up, shall we say, before we dug potatoes. I mean we didn't attempt to dig potatoes from the plot where the pail had been emptied for until the next growing season. It was just the way of the country life and that was how we went on.

No central heating or anything like that. If we wanted extra heating, we had Valor oil stove because we didn't have the electricity on until, I think it must have been about 19, about 1936, I think, when we had the electricity put on, and then it was only for lighting,

But we still kept the open fire with the oven at one side and the water, copper, with a tap on it at the other side. So we'd all, when we got the fire going, we'd always got hot water. That used to be admittedly filled up with soft water, but it was still making good use of it. The fire, as we were in the firewood trade with the, combined with the thrashing business and then in the slack time filling up with firewood cutting and sales. When we were clearing the tree tops, all just tweak stuff was trimmed off but anything from three quarters of an inch diameter up to about two inches diameter was kept separate from the rest of the firewood logs.

And that small stuff was all used indoors. And Mum used to do all her cooking with that, and I don't think we bought any coal for three or four years. We had enough firewood to keep us going on plenty of heat. It was adjustable because naturally the wood didn't last as long as a shovel of coal, but you could regulate whether you had a big fire or a little fire. And if we wanted to leave the fire in, with a guard in front of it obviously, if we wanted to leave it in when we went out for a couple of hours, we used to put a couple of the bigger ones logs on, and then put the ash from underneath the fire, put the ash over the top and that would hold it, hold the fire alight while we were out. When we came back, we'd just rattle and we soon had a warming blaze again. But heating in the bedrooms and that sort of thing was unthinkable. If we got too cold a weather, perhaps eventually we would have the hot water bottle, but that was a luxury really. We used to get into bed and huddle up tight if it was frosty.

I have known me get the rag rug that we always kept. We used to make them ourselves cutting up old rags into pieces and then threading them onto sacking. And they were our regular rugs and they were as good as a blanket if it was extra cold and we put one of them on the bed. And there was no such things as duvets in those days, not in our household anyway, but we were none the worse for it. We were healthy. I sometimes think today there's too many pills and potions going. That's why we can't stand it so much now. But anyway, that's beside the point. I think I'd better be quiet for a little while otherwise I should get a sore throat. So I'll think up something else for later.

Going back to the time when I said we dug our own well for, to get the water, I said about making, we had to make it that, to work so that we could work inside it. The principle of that was that it was made up like a large tube standing on its end, and as we dug the soil out from the bottom, we just dug enough underneath so that the vat slowly dropped down and the main idea was to dig it evenly all the way round. It being about six foot tall was sufficient enough to more or less maintain the straight line down, once we started it and got it pointing directly down. The inside of the vat had got about three shelves, I think there was, round all the way round inside it. And we once we got to a certain depth, then we put bricks all the way round. They were then a circle as you laid the bricks round end to end they more or less interlocked one another. And then the next layer, obviously lapped half and half over. So they were tied in that way. We didn't put any mortar between them. It was just brick to brick.

And as we got below the six foot level, obviously the bricks had to be laid on and allow for it dropping, and sometimes when the, until we got a good weight of brick on, the vat would hold up a little bit, wouldn't slip down. And then when it did go it would be quite a queer sensation to hear the noise of it. That didn't used to worry us much as we were digging it.

The digging was done either by myself or mother, Dad being 18 stone plus, we didn't think it advisable for him to go up and down. He said that he would go down if we thought we could manage at the top, but of course, all the dirt had to be winched up. So that was, reasonably hard work. So either myself at school leaving age, shall we say, just over, and mother we took it in turns to do a bit of digging. I suppose it took us, the best part of the month to dig the well completely.

But when we got it done, it was something to be proud of. And we'd, we had achieved something. We used to have, when we were digging, in case anything fell down, we had an old tin hat that father had in the war years, and he was allowed to keep that with some of his uniform when he was demobbed. And so we had a so-called hard hat. It was hard too, but not much padding inside the top of it. We used to have that on. Very often as we were bent down and digging, it would fall over our faces, so we had to like, re-position it. Under our breath. I was we probably swore about it, but, there that was part of the game, and that well didn't give us any trouble until we had a drought session.

I think, if I remember rightly, it must have been, about 1938 when we had a real drought session, and at that time there was more properties had been built. One was a nursery, Livelands Nursery, at the complete west end. And they were using quite a bit of water and so we lost the water level that we, that it got so that when we dropped the bucket in, we could only get about a third of a bucket at a time.

So, down we went again, we put the ladders down and went down to deepen it. No trouble digging it, whatever, it was beautiful, silver sand that we got in the bottom where the water was running through. And I was down one day and father always had a rope down the, that we had attached to our belt round our waist as we were going down the ladder. And the same for coming up in case we slipped on the rung of the ladder.

I was down there digging out a little more, and I’d just sent a bucket of sand up and the vat decided it was obviously the brickwork had been hung up against the side, the clay side, and all of a sudden it slipped down. It was nothing to be afraid of, but I'm afraid I raced the bucket of sand to the top. I didn't wait for the safety rope. I just went up the ladder like a bat out of hell, and I didn't go down any more. But we, as luck had it, we had got enough water by then. So that was the end of my well-digging days.

Going back to the old steam wagon that we had, when that was broken up, the water tank for that, I suppose it would be in the region of about getting on for 500 gallons, I would think, that held. And Father had saved that. It was oblong. I suppose it would be about three foot wide and it must have been a good eight feet or more long. And, the depth of it getting on for three feet. So it held quite a bit of soft water.

When father thought that was an idea, when we'd done a bit of modernisation to get running water on tap indoors. He had the idea, he put this tank up at the back of the bungalow, built it up on two brick pillars, just so that the top of it was level with the eaves of the bungalow. And put water troughing along so that all the water that fell on that side of the roof came along and filled our tank up.

Then we had a modern type hand basin in what we called the scullery and with a rubber hose connection from the bottom of the wagon tank outside underneath the back path. And up into the, through the bungalow floor, we had running soft water. But of course we couldn't pull the plug and it just ran away. We had to have a bucket underneath there and woebetide somebody that pulled the plug and didn't check whether the pail wanted emptying or not. But there, that was luxury and that was progress.

The only snag was when it was frosty and then we couldn't get any soft water because the pipe was frozen up. But that was another thing we got over with a little bit of lagging and a little bit of forethought. It was surprising how we got by these sort of things.

When the war started, the water tank was quite convenient because that formed the roof, sheltered roof, of the entrance to our air raid shelter dugout. And so that was a little bit of protection. I dunno how we would've managed if the brick pillars had been blasted away so the tank came down. But father had thought of that one as well because we'd got an escape tunnel out the back of the dugout, out into the open garden. But we didn't use the air raid shelter, not, but a very little. Father was an air raid warden, so he was out on duty. Mother was with the WVS and I eventually was in the Home Guard.

We used to get more or less used to the raids at night, and we just didn't bother. We just took our chances and we didn't use the shelter. It was a case of if things got too close, we would get undercover. But not always in the shelter because there was just as much fear that if you was in the shelter and something came too close, well you'd had it, so you might as well be eating out.

And but that was only the way we lived it and that was our way. But at the same time, we could see what was going on around us. And if anything close by did happen, we were in a position that we could probably render a helping hand that much quicker. Thankfully, we were fortunate, we didn't have anything too close to us. A lot of noise.