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The following are memories recalled by Bets Lattimore, as recorded by Hanover Housing Association in their book 'Tale of the Century' published in 1999.
I saw the first airship to be brought down in 1916. It happened in front of the full moon and fell like a burning rag in Potters Bar.
I remember also the General Strike, when the buses - driven by Oxford undergraduates - had the windows boarded up and a policeman on the platform because the pickets threw stones.
We sang ditties like 'We have no planes, dear Mother now but such an awful thirst, so connect me to a brewery and leave me 'till I burst'. Beer was one penny a pint and pubs had sawdust on the floor.
The milkman pushed a barrow with a churn. He called out 'Milko' to tell us he had arrived and ladled it out a pennyworth at a time. Deliveries were made by horse and cart. There were horse troughs filled with water on one side of the road for the tradesmen's horses and a urinal wall on the opposite.
Rich people had houses and mews for their horses but the ordinary folk lived in tenements. We lived on the top floor and had to walk down several flights of stairs for our water. The lavatory and tap was used by five families.
I remember Mum giving the coal-man one shilling for one cwt of coal and telling him to keep the half penny change for carrying it up four flights of stairs. I remember the workhouse on one side of the street and the undertakers opposite. Times were hard!
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