Hazel Perry interviewed about living in Hemel Hempstead

Interview for the ICO project New Towns, Our Town: Stories on Screen

Interviewed for the ICO New Towns project, Hazel Perry says her father got work at the Rotax factory in Hemel Hempstead. He travelled to work by coach from London for a few weeks until his wife and daughter were ready to move. They arrived in August 1957 and their new house was on Warners End, Boxted Road. Adeyfield was developed first, and Warners End was one of the later New Town developments. It was a two-bedroom house. The family asked at the Town Hall about the possibility of a three-bedroom house but were told they would only be eligible for the two-bedroom house as they had one child. Hazel Perry says it was easy to get a job. You could leave one job on a Friday and start a new job on the Monday. She was seventeen when the family moved to Hemel Hempstead and had left school the year before. She worked at the factory of Alford and Alder Engineers (on Marylands Avenue) where she did typing and filing. Then she worked in the offices of a shop in an old building in the High Street (cannot confirm name - sounds like Channels). The interviewer mentions the scenes of the water gardens in the archive film. Hazel says they were very nice, but then they got neglected for a long time until people started working on restoring them a couple of years ago. When Hazel’s family moved to Hemel Hempstead, did they find the people welcoming who were already living there? She says they did not have any problems but her friend has told her that locals referred to the Londoners as foreigners. Hazel Perry says the New Town development did a lot of good for those who were already residents of Hemel Hempstead.