Don was born on August 18th 1928 at 5 New Town (which Paddock Road was known as at that time). He is the youngest son of Arthur and Jane Warner and he had two older brothers, William and Herbert, and two older sisters, Dorrie and Kitty. Don’s father was a Foreman employed by the local Council to do maintenance work in the town and he was a very keen gardener. His mother Jane was very religious and she served on the Committee of the local Mother’s Union and W.I. for many years.

Don went to the infants school along the Causeway (which has since been pulled down), where there were just two classes, Class 1 with Miss Anthony and Class 2 with Miss Baker. At the age of 7 the family moved to 24 Sunny Hill and Don progressed to the ‘Big School’ which is the older building at the present Layston School and he remembers Miss Davis and also Mr Dennis (who for some reason was given the nickname of ‘Hockey’). He says Mr Dennis was a brilliant teacher and he organised pantomimes and the school choir, of which Don was a member. The choir took part in county competitions and on two occasions won the shield. Don started singing in the St Peter’s choir and used to sing solos as well as duets with Arthur Miles.

During the summer there were services at Layston Church, under the Reverend Barff, and Don was in the choir there. He said Reverend Barff was a brilliant young vicar. His father was a Canon and when Bristol was bombed during the War he came to Buntingford and they lived in the old Vicarage. It was apparently a lovely old house with a long drive and occupied the site of Vicarage Road. There was a big green on which bowls were played. The house was probably cold and damp and had stone floors and a terrace at the back which dropped down to a vegetable garden. It was pulled down when Sainsburys wanted the land for housing.

When not at school, Don and his friends were more often than not playing outside. They used to try and catch rabbits in the cornfields and watch the threshing at harvest time, when rats and mice would run out. They spent a lot of time by the river, either fishing, collecting newts or simply walking in the water – either with or without wellingtons on – but their main pastimes were tree climbing and football. There was a rookery by ‘the ramp’ (which was close to the bridge on the road to Wyddial) and they used to pick up baby rooks which had fallen and take them home to feed, although they invariably did not survive more than three or four days. One of Don’s childhood friends was Gordon Sibthorpe, whose father was a train driver, so they spent a lot of their spare time on the railway, riding to Westmill (for twopence or threepence) and going into the signal box. Games at school included throwing milk bottle tops or collecting and playing with cigarette cards.

In the winter, w-th the permission of the owners, they played on the various ponds which had frozen over, in particular the three ponds at Alswick Hall. They used to make slides on the frozen Market Hill and Mr Hartnett, who lived in the Manor House, used to come out and tell them off. It sounds as if Mr Hartnett had a bit of temper as he apparently also shot a soldier in the leg when he caught him picking apples.

At the age of 11 Don took a scholarship for Hertford Grammar but unfortunately missed out on going there by one mark and was separated from his two school friends, Stan Ward and also Gordon, who both went on to Hertford. Instead, Don went to the newly opened Secondary Modern School (now Edwinstree) and was one of its first pupils and one of the few who were allowed to go to school by bike. In fact, they had an extra week’s summer holiday because the school’s blackout system was not finished. The War had just started and they were worried about putting on their newly issued gas marks but everyone in Buntingford had one and they soon got used to carrying them to school. It was a bit daunting going from a small school to the newly opened Secondary Modern school with to 300 pupils and children were brought in from the villages in school buses, which had to drive along Norfolk Road from the High Street because at that time Bowling Green Lane did not exist. It was just a pedestrian track known as Back Lane.

On Saturdays Don worked from 7.45 a.m. until about 7.00 p.m. for Mr G J Shuttleworth, the local milkman. The milk arrived still warm in big churns which had to be ladled by hand into bottles – half pints, pints, 1½ pints and quarts – and a cardboard top had to be put on. This was all done by 11 a.m. and then it was delivered on the van to the various villages, Sandon, Chipping and Buckland. Don received two shillings and sixpence as his wages and he was a bit miffed because his friend Stan Ward worked on Saturdays for Harry Jackson the butcher, and his wage was three shillings plus a pound of sausages! Later, Mr Shuttleworth acquired a machine which was still quite primitive but enabled the ladle to be dispensed with!

One of Mr Shuttleworth’s sons tragically drowned at the age of 12 or 13 in the River Rib when he fell whilst walking over one of the pipes which crossed the river and they were not able to get him out in time. When you look at our river today it is hard to imagine that happening.

Don was a cub and then progressed to a scout and meetings were held on the top floor at Bridgefoot House. When the Scoutmaster, Mr Barber, was called up the scouts continued for a while with Mrs Barber and when he was old enough Don helped out and had his own troop for a while. When he was 13 he joined the Cadet force which met in the Foresters Hall next to the Post Office. Mr Wheeler was the Captain in charge and there was quite a large battalion of about 30 boys. Don rose up the ranks to become a sergeant.

During the War the majority of the homes in Buntingford took in at least 2 evacuees. Don says that a lady named Miss Courtney-Clark organised where the evacuees stayed but she herself didn’t have any! Don’s family had a teacher staying with them.
The school had to be shared with girls from a school in North Hackney and they commandeered the Gym to use for keep-fit classes. To cope with the influx of children the week was split into three days for the locals and three for the Hackney children. Homework was given out for the 3 days off but Buntingford children were allocated one classroom in which to come and do their work. The Hackney girls did not have their midday meal at school but used to go to the room at the back of the chapel (the U.R.C. Church Hall) for their meals.

The head master at that time was a Mr Wheeler, who was a fine man. He was apparently one of the shortest men to have been in the guards. Don particularly remembers Mr Appleton, who taught carpentry. He was quite a character but was known to give boys a ‘knuckleduster’ hit on the head or a clout with a nearby piece of wood. He helped older boys make tables which were sent away and used in various places. A lot of practical things were done by pupils – daily weather readings were taken; leftovers were taken from the school kitchen, mixed with meal and fed to the pigs which were kept in the school grounds in a pig sty made by the woodwork class.

Don says the War years in Buntingford were full of life. The Americans were at Nuthamsted and children could visit and touch the aircraft and were given sweets. They used to count the planes going over and then again when they come back, to see if any were missing. Don says he and his friends used to go to the REME depot (now Sainsburys) and watch the testing of bren gun carriers in the big sand pit behind the depot. Boxing matches were held there every couple of months. There were several camps in and around Buntingford and the Army Headquarters was at Aspenden Hall, where they sometimes used to go for parties.

Fund raising events were held and during ‘wings week’ army tanks and aircraft were brought in on the back of a lorry and you paid sixpence to look around to raise money for the War effort. Don’s mother worked in the canteen in the High Street three or four evenings a week and she used to collect money for National Savings stamps. Mr Tottnam (of Tottys) used to save every threepenny piece he took in his shop and bought National Savings stamps.

All in all, Don has happy memories of his time at school. He was made Head Prefect by Mr Wheeler, the first boy to hold this title as previously they had been known as ‘Captain’ of the various classes of green, red, yellow and blue. He left school in 1942 when he was 14 and went to stay with his brother in Cambridge to train to be an electrician. However when his brother joined the RAF he had to come back to Buntingford as he could not afford to stay in Cambridge. He was lucky enough to get a job in Moss’s grocers shop which he says was “the best shop in Buntingford without a doubt”. Most of the other employees were female and included Mavis Hearne, Beryl Bruce and Dorothy Pledger. Initially, Don’s job involved getting the orders ready but after 12 months he took over as Warehouse Manager.

Don can remember most of the places around Buntingford where bombs fell. A stick of bombs came down near Hare Street about 50 yards from a glass wool factory which made unbreakable glass for submarines. He wonders whether the target was the factory or the main road through Buntingford. Two bombs came down near Mutfords and Stoneberry and Don says you can still see where they landed if you know where to look. At aerial bomb landed in Corneybury Park just beside the A10 near the original Throcking turning but did not go off. A bomb disposal squad came down and it took some time to detonate it because it kept sinking, but it finally went off at 1.00 p.m. Various land mines came down, one at Tannis Court and another south of Westmill beside two gardeners cottages. It struck some trees and split them open but didn’t break any glass windows of the cottages.

He remembers a British bomber aircraft coming down between Luffenhall and Walkern but it landed in a hedge and, miraculously, the pilot got out unhurt. A lot of doodlebugs went over and Don said you could clearly see the sky all lit up from the bombing in London.

Mannings Fair came to Buntingford and it stayed there permanently during the War, in a paddock at the bottom of Hare Street Road (roughly where the Carters Close bungalows are). Don remembers a girl from Norfolk Road who they used to call ‘Tosser’ Manning (how do some of these nicknames originate I wonder?) who used to help out on the stalls and ended up staying with the fairground family of Mannings. There was a roundabout permanently on the site which was started up every now and again for the children and also a steam engine. The steam engine was commandeered by the Government and used for carting wood around cut from one of the thickets just outside the town, which was used for making brushes, brooms and gun stocks.

The local Cosy cinema (which is now Benson Hall) was extremely popular. Films which were shown in London came to Buntingford within 2/3 weeks and there were often queues stretching out in the main road. During the War the Cosy was commandeered by the Army for three nights a week and civilians could not go on those nights. However, because Don was in the Cadet force he could put on his uniform and go on one of the ‘Army Nights’ and he can remember paying ninepence for a 2½ hour show.

When the War ended, Don was amongst the crowds at Trafalgar Square on VE Day and on VJ night he joined in with several other young people to build the huge bonfire on Market Hill which (it is alleged) melted the paintwork on the nearby chemists shop. There were many celebrations in Buntingford at the end of the War and big street parties.

After the War scouting in Buntingford came into its own again and was re-organised under Mr Greensmith (the local chemist). They used to meet in one of the empty army hunts in ‘B’ Camp and various scouting trips were organised. The photograph shows Don on a trip to Guernsey and he recalls that the local policeman, Tom West, also went as well as Chris Woods, who became Scoutmaster for six years.

Shortly after his 18th birthday Don received his call up papers and joined the RAF.
He was kitted out at Padgate in Lancashire and then posted to Yatesbury in Wiltshire where by chance he was reunited with his old friend from Buntingford, Stan Ward. He stayed there for about 10 weeks and enjoyed it, despite having to get up early every morning running before breakfast. When he left there he went to Compton Basset on a 20 week training course as a wireless operator. He then had several postings including one at Bletchley Park where the enigma was (although he didn’t see it) and a satellite station at Stonebridge. The central signals area was 100ft below ground and they had to come up every half hour to breathe fresh air. He then was posted to Hereford for about 10 months, which he says was very strict but enjoyable, and then Chicksands Priory in Bedfordshire, where there were huge wooden aerials some 200ft high.

He was in the Air Force for 2¾ years altogether and when he came back to Buntingford he got a job with Charles Hummerstone, builders based in Westmill. He stayed there for six years, working with Archie Poulton, and says he learned a lot. He then joined a larger firm, George Davies, which was based at Stanstead Abbotts and a lorry was sent round to pick up the local people from this area and take them to the various building sites.

In 1957 he married Molly Bentley, who came from Hare Street, at St Nicholas Church in Great Hormead. He had known Molly since schooldays and she also worked at Moss’s for a while until she and her sister, Lucy, took over the running of the general store and filling station at Hare Street when their father died. Archibald Bentley was also the local undertaker at one time as well as having the shop and he used to dig the graves and had his own horse drawn hearse. The shop was not always a general store; Archibald mainly sold sweets and cigarettes. Villages were more self-contained than they are today and Hare Street at one time three pubs, its own bakery, butchers and cobblers

After leaving George Davies, Don worked for various building firms including Mowlams which was based at Stevenage, a much larger company building around 1,000 houses a year, Miskins (based at St Albans) where, amongst other things, he worked on the new part of County Hall, and he also worked for Rialto at Hertingfordbury. The Rialto boss, James Barham, selected Don to work on a new mansion he was having built and this took about eighteen months.

However in 1978 he left the building trade to help Molly and Lucy with the shop. In addition, he started up a private car hire business for about seven or eight years, which was well used for airport trips and the like. The site was altered and modernised; the petrol pump used to be on the roadside, as there was no path.

In his spare time, Don was a Great Hormead Parish Councillor for about fifteen years, giving up only three years ago. He served on the Great Hormead Village Hall Committee for twelve years and was also a school governor for twelve years. He also instigated the local Neighbourhood Watch, long before Buntingford joined.

Don is the only surviving member of his family, as his older brothers and sisters are no longer alive. His brother Albert (known as Bert) came back to Buntingford and took over the jewellers shop in the High Street which had been run by the Lawrence family since 1908 and ran it with his son David.

The shop and filling station in Hare Street is still being run by Molly and Lucy, with Don helping out, and it still opens 7 days a week. Don says they have got used to this way of life. They meet lots of people and still enjoy it, although business changed when supermarkets came in. Don still sings in St Nicholas’s choir (he is a tenor) and he sometimes helps Lucy with flower arranging at the church. He inherited his father’s love of gardening and one of his passions is growing dahlias (although he doesn’t sell them in his shop) and is a member of the Great Hormead Gardening Club.

I would like to thank Don very much for talking to me.