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Does anybody know James Crow? He lived at Harpenden and went to Manland Junior school 1969 -1971 which is when I met him. A lovely boy with a beautiful singing voice.
Hello Lorna ,Very sad to hear that Raymond has died, am so sorry.. But so happy to hear that he went on to have a child. I was in the same family as him, with Sis Joan Vivash. from 1950-56. Please feel free to contact me if I can answer any questions for you, I will. Tho of course memories can get sparse with passing of time.
I see you have re-arranged the order of comments and I have lost my pole position!!!! Never mind. I have found the programme for the production of “Toad of Toad Hall” in February 1949 at Lourdes Hall. If you can give me an e-mail address, I will scan it and send it. It is only 2 sides slightly smaller than A4 as paper was in short supply. Jim Maxwell
Ed – the Comments are now listed in chronological order from the bottom (the earliest, by you) to the most recent.
Pyramidology V Ph.D. essay has been confirmed to be correct. Proving the Bible with Mathematics. Then came Covid19 and everything were stuck. Now in the year 2021 the essay has been confirmed but not defended. Hopefully this matter will be solved. Institute of Pyramidology has been setup in Iceland where Benjamin tribe is. Concerning Larry Pahl we met in Egypt 2020 and are in contract. This matter is in process.
In December 2013 Ray Ganderton wrote: “I was born in Harpenden and set-up home there after getting married in 1973. My second house was at 13 Roundwood Lane. There was a short stretch of off-road parking, in front, which ran from number 1 to number 19. One Sunday afternoon I happened to glance out of the front room window and saw a buff-coloured Rolls Royce, parking alongside my garden wall. It was Eric and his wife. They were close friends of the Hamersley family (well known antiques dealers) who lived at number 12 but they could not accommodate his Rolls in their driveway.”
I attended Batford Nursery school in the late 1950s. My parents lived in Grove Road and my mother brought me to the school in a pushchair, a long walk for her. I do remember napping on the camp beds.
I attended the funeral of both Harry and his sister Margaret who are buried together in the local cemetery. They were my Uncle and Aunt, and told us many stories about their house in Milton Road. We visited it once, and found some of Ronald’s old specimens up in the attic in glass jars.
At least one good neighbour told me of the antics of the Fisher tribe children in and around Milton road – still remembered 50 years later!
Many years ago, my parents had quite a lot of involvement with the Harpenden NCH. My mother was Joyce Nette, and taught at Batford Junior School, where she taught a lot of children from the NCH. Many of them were from Sister Ethel Smith’s flat, and fairly frequently they would come round for tea, always extremely well behaved. My father(Bert) used to get stuck in, and would make paper aeroplanes for the boys. The children whose names I mostly remember are Sharon, Christine, Vivienne and Maurice Webb, Peter Hampshire and Donald and Lennox Miller. I apologise if I’ve left anyone out. My name is Jenny, and my sisters were Rotha and Katy, and we all went to Batford Junior School, then Manland Secondary School. One of my abiding memories of Sister Ethel’s flat were the floors, they positively gleamed, when you walked through the door! If I think of anything else, I shall add it at a later date. We had a dachshund called Spatsy.
Pyramidology V has been published 2019 and due Covid-19 matters have been delayed. Anyway I am on Facebook Institute of Pyramidology. This essay is in fact proving the Bible within claim of Science.
I lived at Barclays Bank House, Harpenden from l951 until 1957 during the time when Mr. Barnwell was manager there but didn’t wish to live there himself. As my father had recently moved from the Luton branch of Barclays Bank to St. Albans, he was offered the accommodation. I remember when the young Queen Elizabeth drove through Harpenden in 1953, and my sister and I stood on the tiny balcony (which is still there on the corner of the building) and waved! Later, during the enlargement of the bank, which involved the pulling down of the old bakery next door, my mother was alarmed to notice from an upstairs window, several huge rats running around outside, and hastened to inform the council – who came to investigate in double quick time!
In the Picture I am the boy in the picture on the right on the top row
I have many memories of the school during the war as a one of the 13 Boarders
Living in Cross-way, the field (and indeed all the area surrounding Harpenden East Station) was my (and my friends) adventure playground. I would play cricket with a couple of local lads (Peter Timms and Robert Gibson) and often play football with a number of those of us who went to Manland Junior and Senior schools.
A few of us would often go ‘hunting’ for slow worms, which were prolific on the railway embankments. One summer evening my mate and I were whiling away ‘resting’ on the railway line (head on one rail and legs on the other’, when I looked to my left to see this green glow. Was it something radio-active we thought. I carefully put it in a matchbox I had with me only to discover when we got home it was a glow worm! The trains at that time of the day were very infrequent and anyway with your head being so close to the rail you hear one coming from a mile away!
One day, when I was on my own walking across the footpath at the bottom of West Way towards the station a small snake slithered in front of me. It was a smallish grass snake, probably about 10 – 12″ long. I have never seen another, anywhere, since.
I loved my life in the 1950’s and 1960’s in Harpenden which was at that time a really lovely place to live. Sadly, whilst still pleasant enough I would swap it tomorrow for as it was then. Graham Major (1947- ?).
Ed: Graham has sent in a picture of him and a friend playing cricket, which we have added to the photos above. Thank you Graham.
I remember you Chris, at least the name. I attended between 1948 and 1957 when I moved on to St Georges.
Bill Batchelor posted his appreciation of the James Marshall Trust on the Old Harpenden Facebook page on 4 February 2021 with these words: “When I was a Sheet-metalwork Apprentice at de Havillands Hatfield in the late 1950’s I was told about the Marshall Trust that gave grants to young people to help with their training. I applied for money to help towards the cost of some of the specialist tools needed for my work as a Sheet metal worker such as hammers and metal snips. I have also attached a just about readable, scan of my receipt from Gibbs and Dandy in Luton that shows I just managed to use up the large (at that time) amount of £10.”
Immediately there were many more comments of gratitude for grants for tools (still in use), books for a college course, a hairdressing apprenticeship, a typing course.
All are delighted that the Foundation is still going strong - https://www.jamesmarshallfoundation.co.uk 
My father, Peter Brett, joined De Havilland as chief propeller designer in 1951, and I imagine would have worked alongside your father. He always said that it was the happiest time in his working life. There was “tremendous esprit de cours within the firm”, and he felt privileged to be there working with “a youngish collection of very competent, very nice, and more or less eccentric people”. He used to say that propeller science was regarded as a ‘black art’ and attracted the sort of people that were great fun to work with.
Major Charles Henry Lord is buried in Bournemouth East Cemetery. His grave says he ‘died on service at Moordown’ which is a suburb of Bournemouth.
I hope this will be of help
John Henshaw was born in 1837, in Wilmslow, Cheshire, and was baptised there on the 24th of September 1837. He was a son of James Henshaw (1786 – 1867), and his wife Margaret (nee Hewitt, 1798 – 1857), who were married at Manchester Cathedral on the 22nd of February 1824. His father was a Blacksmith.
At the time the 1851 census was taken, John was living with his parents and siblings at Reddish, which is just over 2 miles north of Stockport. –
John Henshaw in household of James Henshaw, “England and Wales Census, 1851” — FamilySearch.org
His mother died at Stockport in 1857. John Henshaw had moved to Harpenden before the 1861 census was taken. –
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M7NN-TW1
His father died at Harpenden in 1867, and was buried at Wilmslow on the 20th of February that year. John’s sister Harriet was baptised on the 2nd of October 1831 at Wilmslow. She was living with John by the time the 1901 census was taken at Harpenden. - John Henshaw, “England and Wales Census, 1901” — FamilySearch.org
When John retired in 1903, he was also presented with a gold medal inscribed: ”John Henshaw, headmaster Boys’ School 1861 – 1903.”
This was presented to him by Colonel Durnford. - ”Prize Distributions: School Master’s Wonderful Record.” Herts Advertiser, Saturday 26 December 1903, p.8. - The British Newspaper Archive: Findmypast Newspaper Archive Limited in partnership with the British Library.
Harriet died at Harpenden, in the 3rd quarter of 1907. She was the sister who John was buried with at Harpenden in 1911. John died on the 24th of May 1911.
John’s father James was a brother of one of my 5x great grandad’s Henry Henshaw (1773 – 1849). Some information about Henry, uncle of John Henshaw can be viewed here. –
Cheadle Hulme – Interviews & People
Thank you very much.
Think I might be the “Valerie” on Gavin’s list. Can remember many more than he has listed. Families Potter, Tett, Freedman are among quite a few that come to mind.
I was a pupil at Moreton End from 1972 through to 1978. A full Tour of Duty.
I have some fond memories of teachers at the school. Days such as the School Sports Day or the Christmas Carols Service were always exciting. There were some really weird days though.
Some [radio-friendly] highlights: We turned up to school one Monday and Mr. R. A. Cansfield had moved all the desks out of the class and put down his electric train set. All part of the Greta period. It stayed down for more than that one day – no lessons were taught in there. We had to occupy ourselves while he played/showed-off.
Another time he walked into a classroom and fired a starting pistol (a new one bought ready for Sports Day) I was the poor soul nearest the door. We were only about 8, it was quite upsetting.
He took us on a school trip on a boat and got blind drunk. The engine broken down and the teachers tried to row to shore – but dropped one of the oars. We got towed in by a passing boat.
Sadly my enduring memory is the vindictive system Cansfield adopted in his Maths classes. The theatrical way he’d start every lesson by writing (on the blackboard) a ranking of the pupils in the class. Presumably under the impression that it would “build character” or “ambition to succeed” or something. There may well have been other influencing factors.
His ranking system worked as follows: He’d teach the class then set a number of exercises (groups of questions) to be done. He referred to these as “Sets”. When you handed them in and got the marks back you would be expected to do the corrections of *all* the answers you got wrong.
Sounds fair enough – you don’t want to just gloss over any gaps in the child’s understanding. But – if you didn’t correct *all* the answers, you’d now incurred an outstanding “Set”. Even one incorrect answer meant you had that “Set” incomplete.
Several more would be set the next day. It was hard to keep up with the corrections and the new work. And every lesson he’d write up the list of boys’ names. Top of the list was the boy with the least Sets, bottom of the list was the boy with the most.
I think the ranking would reset every term (or year?). I would mostly be at the bottom of the ranking, I was in a state of panic most of the time. Once a Set was more than a week old you had little chance of going back to clear your “debt”. Oh the joy I felt when my final day ended and all I could think was “I don’t have any more Sets”.
However, with the passing of time, I’ve discovered that being the bottom of his list was a good thing. I’ll say no more about that, it’s well documented.
I went to Putteridge High School in Luton after Moreton End and loved it. But when I think of Moreton End I do see it in dark colours. Shame.
Lovely to see these photos – I was a pupil from 1962 to 67, and I’m actually pictured in two of these, together with several of my friends. I was happy at St Dominic’s; Sister Mary Francesca was such a kind person. I have some really good memories of both the old school and the new building.
I was also at the school as a boarder from aged 6 yrs old to 9 from 1968 to 1971. I remember Mr Harris, firm but also very kind. Still have my tuck box. Great school.
I have vivid memories of 1958. The Pope died in that year so a successor had to be elected from the College of Cardinals numbering around 70. Mr Harris saw an opportunity and organised a sweepstake amongst staff, parents and others. The consistory lasted a number of days but eventually white smoke went up. When Mr Harris heard he announced the result, a win for Mrs Jones!
Shortly afterwards the Archbishop of Canterbury retired but, to great disappointment, his successor was named before Mr Harris could sell any tickets.
Thank you so much for restoring this icon of Harpenden’s hidden history. We do intend to add more about the embassy, and other notable residents in Milton Road as featured in our exhibition on the Parkview Estate in December 2019.
I, too, am descended from William Abbott and Bryanna Borders — my third Great-Grandparents. My second Great-Grandfather was Jane Abbott’s older brother, William, born 1845. Greetings, Cousins!
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