OUR new book, Watford in the 20th Century, including south west Herts, will be out early next month. It is volume three in the series and covers 1960 until 1979, decades that proved particularly traumatic for the doyens of Rickmansworth and Watford.

It is said that Watford and the surrounding areas were fortunate to escape the worst excesses of the overspill from the Blitz, but 20 years later, Rickmansworth Urban District Council and Watford Borough Council achieved what Hitler had failed to do and changed much of the centre of their respective towns.

Certainly there was not another decade in the 20th century to rival the sheer volume of change inflicted mainly on Watford but also on Rickmansworth. We watched amazed as the planners were given their head and the very nature of Watford was changed, and the majority of people who lived through that time, will tell you it was not for the better.

By the end of the 1960s, pillars appeared next to Clements and opposite what was once stately Upton Road, and these were quickly followed by the foundations of the fly-over that was to cut the main town in two. Much was to be made on the psychological effect of the fly-over which became operational in the early 1970s for there were those who felt it divided the town and destroyed the ambience and character.

It most certainly did although to many people who did not know or remember the High Street prior to 1969, it seems just like a bridge over a road.

If that was not enough, the once controversial edifice of the Town Hall, which stood majestically at the top of The Parade/ High Street, was to cut adrift from the main hub of the town. Happily, purely because of the cost and not by reason of the aesthetics, the planners opted to drop the scheme for a fly-over, which would have brought ugly concrete ramp to the fore, partially obscuring what I think is quite a noble building in 1930s style.

But as we can see from the centre of Watford now, aesthetics were never a primary consideration. The Central Redevelopment Plan was introduced to disperse the traffic and cope with the predicted volumes which would have produced grid-lock at the Town Hall roundabout.

At the other end of the town, Bushey Arches was renovated and something of a roundabout made of the meeting between Bushey, Watford and Oxhey but this did not prevent the area becoming another junction tending towards grid-lock.

It was to be the same with the one-way system developed at the junction of Vicarage Road, for the overall effect of the new traffic, eased the problem in front of the Town Hall but there followed a succession of other bottlenecks around the town.

The effect on the High Street caused The Parade, by The Pond and down to the fly-over, to lose its claim as an important part of the shopping route. Whereas buses dropped passengers off at The Pond or the Library at the outset of the 1960s, as they had for several decades, this area became starved of footfalls.

Shoppers were deposited nearer Market Place, and The Parade lost its importance until it became the centre of the cafe quarter, as the area was designated that side of the fly-over.

So the fly-over did change the nature of the High Street, producing two different and contrasting areas: the northern section being more popular after the shops closed.

But all that was some way into the future when the 1960s dawned and even by the time the 1970s came to an end. Not only Watford and Rickmansworth but Britain and the world in general were never quite the same after the 1960s had run its course.

All this and more are featured in the new book Watford in the 20th Century which will be launched on October 3.

Now you may say to yourself, I have those old booklets somewhere in a cupboard, the shed or perhaps in the attic, but apart from having them together in book-form, this latest volume, as with the others, includes much more than just the copy from those decade supplements we issued some years back.

This latest book in the series, priced at £12.99 includes many, many more photographs, features, readers’ memories and over 50,000 more words in addition to the updated and extended articles we published previously. In short the total of extra wordage is in itself on the way to a fair-sized novel, and the total at well over 110,000 words, constitutes a substantial read.

If you would like to register your interest in this forthcoming publication please see our "Watford in the 20th Century, Vol 3" page.