Four trophies – including the championship – for Swillet FC back in 1963. Pictured here are: (back) F. Darvill, J. Dobson, J. Samms, J. Hance, M. Adams and A. Windmill. (Front) D. Hutton, W. Phips, J. Redfearn, D. Cooper and G. Bird.

 

It’s been while since I last caught up with correspondence so this week, among all the other excitement, it’s time to hand the column over to you.

Before I do, however, I’d just like to thank everyone who writes, either responding to something we’ve published in the column or because you think it might be of interest. I’m always pleased to hear from you so keep ‘em coming!

We begin with a letter from regular correspondent Ernie Mackenzie, of Gammons Lane, Watford. After a few kind words about the column (thanks, Ernie – it’s nice to know we’re appreciated), he writes concerning Tony Quick’s piece a few weeks ago about Watford FC’s old East Stand.

Ernie writes: “Tony gave a very accurate description of the contents of the stand and some lovely memories of past players and backroom staff, but I do feel he was most modest in not mentioning his own achievements.

“As a boy I can remember sitting in the East Stand in the 1950s watching Tony play for Watford at left back in the combination league.

“Tony was a very cultured, intelligent player with an excellent left foot. But the most important statistic of that team, was that Tony and the rest of the team were all local boys.

“In goal you could choose from Keith Warn, Peter Storer or Dodger Beament; full backs – Tony Quick, Colin Bateman; half backs – Peter Barnes, Bill Barber, Ernie Bateman, Johnny Meadows, Vince McNeice; forwards – Mick Benning, Fred Bunce, Bob Howfield, Dave Pygall and John Fairbrother to name but a few.

“Little did I know that years later I would be working with Tony Quick, and also his late, dear brother Ray, in the printing trade.

“I would like to say how much I enjoyed Tony and Ray’s company, and I have many fond memories of them over many years.

“I also would like to thank Oliver Phillips for doing such a splendid job of memories of dear old Ken Furphy (Furphy memories came flooding back, Oliver Phillips ‘In Passing’, Watford Observer Sport, January 10).

“As a player, Ken was not very pleasing to the eye, but certainly made up for this with maximum effort on the pitch. As a manager, Ken was an astute and shrewd person who had great skill in dealing with people or situations.

“My first memory of Ken is when he arrived in Watford after travelling down from Workington for his interview for the vacant manager’s job at Watford FC.

“Before his interview, he decided to have a wash and brush up in a local public convenience, taking the opportunity to ask the attendant his views about Watford FC.

“He replied that they didn’t seem to want promotion. Ken said that if he got the manager’s job, he’d certainly put that right. Of course, dear old Ken did just that, as Oli reported.

“My last memory of Ken is of him taking criticism from the fans on one occasion, and he tells them using the words of a hit song of the time: ‘I beg your pardon; I did not promise you a rose garden.’

“I am so sorry to hear that Ken’s memory is not as good as it used to be, but very appreciative and grateful that he decided to have a wash and brush up in a local public convenience that day, and ask the attendant his views. I feel the comments were all the inspiration Ken needed.

“So I would like to say thank you Ken and I know I speak for all Watford FC supporters who remember you; thank you for your decision to become manager of Watford FC one day in November 1964.”

And thank you to you, Ernie.

While we’re at Watford FC, I also had an email from Mike Jackson of Kingsfield Road, Watford (“still a season ticket holder after all these years,” he writes) concerning our piece about Watford fan Alan Holt.

Alan had just celebrated more than 51 years a Hornets fan and sent in the programme from the first ever game he attended   as a seven-year-old, on October 27, 1962.

He was one of 19,015 people who saw the Hornets beat eventual Division 3 champions Northampton Town 4-2 in a thrilling encounter refereed by H Webb from Leeds who seems to have been current Premiership referee Howard Webb’s father.

Anyway, Mr Jackson writes: “Your story of Alan Holt brought memories back for me.

“Northampton, as I recall, were riding high and brought a huge following who were mostly at the Vicarage Road end.

“I was 14 at the time and we used to stand on that bit of terrace near the Red Lion corner flag. Although fans were not very well separated in those days, the Rookery end was the Watford end so reasonably secure.

“However, fights would regularly break out on the Vicarage Road terracing. The whole ground was highly charged. There was anticipation as Cliff Holton had returned after being sold a couple of years earlier (a decision that had led to fan protests and a boycott).

“On that day, though, the best fight was on the pitch. After a melee, Bobby Howfield, who played for the Hornets on the wing, ran half way down the pitch to thump a Northampton player.

“The supporters cheered as he ran towards the cluster of players who were near the now Rous stand. There was then a proper fight. Nothing like the handbags of today. The ref had no alternative but to send them off (fighting did not necessarily mean a sending off in those days).

“Howfield was a local lad, born in Bushey, and a big crowd favourite having recently returned to the club from Aldershot. He was tough, fast and never pulled out of a tackle.

"He went to Fulham a year later for a big fee, I recall, and eventually ended up in the USA where he became a ‘kicker’ in American Football for Denver. I believe he is still alive aged 77. His son was also an American football kicker in the 1990s.

“Watford put four past Northampton that day although it didn’t stop the ‘Cobblers’ winning the old Third Division that season.”

Leaving Watford FC, but staying with football for one more letter, Don Cooper wrote to me with a picture of Swillet football team back in 1963.

As you can see in our picture at the top of this column, the team (with Don in the front row, second from the right) is pictured with four impressive looking trophies – and he tells me the team won three of those cups within four days.

And modest Don clearly had a lot to do with it, since I managed to get it out of him that he scored three hat-tricks to help them do it.

The first trophy came in a 3-2 win against Bushey Rangers (in which Don scored a hat-trick and all three goals were headers, which must have been something of a feat in itself).

Then came wins in the Chesham Charity Cup (6-0) and the Watford Challenge (3-1), which took place at Vicarage Road. The fourth trophy was the Watford District Championship. “It was a good team,” he told me. “We won 15 medals in five years.”

Had a letter from Canterbury over the Christmas period, from Jennifer Soan who wonders if any readers can help her solve a family mystery.

She writes: “The mystery concerns the Lane family, who kept the Cart and Horses pub in Rickmansworth High Street in the early years of the 20th Century.

“There were parents William and Mary Lane with their daughter Elizabeth and sons Alfred, William, Henry and Joseph.

“By 1918, William senior was dead and his son Alfred was publican. He was a gunner in the First World War. Also that year, Alfred’s  wife Jessy (nee Cowley) died.”

Ms Soan continues: “My maternal grandmother Alice Hammond (1883-1954) had a cousin Beth who had four brothers. My mother and aunt remembered her visits in the 1920s. She always wore black and would talk about the pub in ‘good old Ricky’.

“My grandmother’s mother was born Ellen Lane in Warwickshire where all the family remained during the 19th Century in their villages or the Birmingham area.

“However, the Rickmansworth William Lane was born near Salisbury in 1855 as was his mother. He was in the army.

“I am at a loss as to how the two families could be related. I know it’s all a long time ago but even the smallest snippet would be most welcome.”

If any reader can help Ms Soan find out more about her family, please get in touch via the usual channels (see the box on the bottom right of this page) and I’ll pass any letters on.

You may recall back in November, I ran a story about the pregnancy diagnostic toads at Shrodells Hospital, Watford.

Briefly it all stemmed from a short piece headed Big Toads For Sale from the Watford Observer of November 4, 1960.

That took me, via the Winter 2013 edition of Wellcome History and a piece headed When Pregnancy Tests Were Toads, to the story of Audrey Peattie who, as a young woman in Watford in the 1950s, injected urine into toads as a technician at an NHS pregnancy-testing laboratory.

Well not long after the piece was published, Audrey got in touch. She still lives in Watford and was able to give a few more details about the process.

The toads had to be Xenopus toads and basically Audrey, a laboratory technician, was one of a team of about 10 who worked on various tests. There were only three hospitals in the country which performed these “toad tests” – Shrodells and two others in Sheffield and Edinburgh. So just about all the referrals from the south of England ended up in Watford.

The process involved injecting a toad with the urine of a pregnant woman (or one who thought she might be). The toad was then left overnight and if the patient was pregnant, the toad would lay eggs as it reacted to a hormone only found in the urine of a pregnant woman.

There were other types of pregnancy tests at the time but the big advantage with this, was the toads would not only survive the operation, but could be used again and again.

“They were treated very well,” Audrey recalled. “They had a good rest in between and were fed chopped liver.”

Since speaking to Audrey, I’ve stumbled upon other stories concerning the Shrodells toads, as we’ll call them.

In February 1959, we ran a story about a consignment of toads from South Africa which had such a bad journey that when they arrived, 150 were dead and a further 500 were “in such a poor condition as to be useless” (I think they mean useless for testing...)

The piece continues: “The toads ... were an emergency consignment to replace a large number lost at Shrodells through a disease known as ‘red leg’.”

The report explains that while the toads could be flown into the country, that would prove “very, very expensive” so they came by boat. However, the West Herts Hospital Management Committee, felt the main reason for their demise was not the sea voyage but a five hour rail delay when they got to the UK.

“‘They must have got pushed into a siding somewhere,’ declared Mr I.C.Pigden (Shrodells House committee chairman). ‘When they arrived at the station it was as much as we could do to approach the van.’”

There, no doubt for reasons of good taste, the story ends.

A second story, from January 17, 1958, brings rather better news.

“Toads will have a better tank” is the headline, and reveals that “to provide a better tank for overcrowded toads, £1,650 of your money is being spent.”

But, the story warns, “before writing irate letters to the papers, it is as well to remember the toads are very useful and active members of the community. They are used for testing purposes at the Pregnancy Diagnostic Centre at Shrodells Hospital.”

The story goes on to say: “The West Herts Hospital Management Committee foresee a ‘considerable expansion’ of the diagnostic centre’s work, which has already increased to about 13,000 specimens examined a year.

“They feel the centre should limit itself to its present level of work and any increased requirements should be met by developing another centre.”

Watford Observer: robot

An advert from the Watford Observer of December 1, 1961.

Finally this week, just before Christmas I wrote a piece on Watford’s early supermarkets – and especially the Waitrose which opened in the old north Watford Odeon cinema building in 1961, the event being so exciting “there was a long expectant queue”. That was from the Watford Observer  of December 1 that year.

The original piece included, you may recall, the following intriguing couple of paragraphs:

“In case you find your cupboard is bare when the Supermarket is shut, there is also an automatic shop which offers all night, seven days a week, service.

“This grown up version of the slot machine is completely electronic and automatic. It is fed by endless belts and sells any variety of goods. A novel feature of the machine in its ability to take any combination of coins and give change.”

This automatic shop appears to have been called “electRobot” but I was unable to find out anything more, so I asked Waitrose, whose senior press officer Rob Cadwell contacted me this week to confirm it was all true.

He wrote: “Waitrose in north Watford opened with ‘an electric selling assistant’  in 1961. It was a vending machine which took 1d, 6d, 2s, and 2s 6d coins and would dispense any one of 24 items including butter, cheese, bacon, fruit, bread, chocolate, fruit juice and sausages. The machine was refrigerated and restocked every day.”

Sadly, although that takes us a little forward, I’m still no nearer finding out exactly how it worked.

So I’ll repeat my appeal from a month or so ago. If anyone reading this used the machine back in the early 1960s – or even better restocked it or worked at the branch – please get in touch.

Both I, and the Waitrose archivist, would love to hear from you.

MORE NOSTALGIA ONLINE TOMORROW

This column formed part of the Nostalgia column first published in the Watford Observer on January 24, 2014. The next Nostalgia column – with information about neurotic South Oxhey, the beginnings of Charter Place and an appeal for information about a couple of war memorials  – can be found in tomorrow’s Watford Observer (dated January 31, 2014) or read online here from 4pm next Thursday.

If you have anything to add – or would like to tell us anything you think our readers may enjoy about Watford’s history – we are always pleased to hear from you. Contact Nostalgia, by clicking here watfordnostalgia@london.newsquest.co.uk