Surname
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Fletcher
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Forename
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Colin
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Date of recording
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March and April 2016
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Year of birth
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1945
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Place of Birth
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Aldeburgh
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Occupation
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Teacher, electrician
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Fathers occupation
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Builder
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Present Address
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Knodishall
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Location Interview
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Knodishall
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Interviewer
Summary |
Nick Hubbard
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Duration
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285 Mins approx
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No of tracks: 25
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This recording is in 25 tracks from three separate interviews.
Track 1 Introduction: interviewing Colin at his home, The Old Post Office, Knodishall. Track 2 Colin was born 9th March 1945 in Aldeburgh at 35 High Street at the bottom of Church Hill. He describes being a twin and one of five children, how they were bombed out of their house and lived with neighbours. Colin’s father was in the navy during war and went to Dunkirk and was torpedoed – both devastating experiences. Track 3 Colin describes his paternal and maternal grandparents and how his father was semi-fostered by a family in Snape and became a bricklayer and foreman at Reade. Colin’s father was a founder member of the Labour Party in Aldeburgh. Track 4 Colin talks about his father and his political views, and how Colin himself was influenced by these views. He describes the meetings held in his house and how his parents had a very strict sense of right and wrong. He goes on to talk about how when the council houses were built in the 1950s and people moved into them it reinforced the class divisions in the town. Track 5 Colin reiterates how his father’s politics rubbed off on him and his brothers and sisters. He then describes how his mother had support from her sisters while Colin’s father was away during the war. He describes the life of his mother’s father and how he became an ostler at the White Lion Hotel and lived in a cottage where the car park is now, and how Colin knew him in the 1950s when he still lived in the cottage. Track 6 How his father was affected by his war experiences is then described by Colin, and how he used to get very tense at work and home when he became a foreman and how he was a perfectionist at work and home. Colin describes his life as a child in the 1950s: how at that time he would go out to play with his friends and because everyone knew everyone the children were safe. He describes how he liked being at home, helping his mother and how he liked making small newspapers, writing little stories and playing football in the garden and writing reports afterwards. He then describes parents’ ambitions for their children at that time although it was considered wrong to put pressure on your child to go to Grammar School. Colin’s father contracted MS in the 1950s and Colin describes how his father tried to hide it. Track 7 Colin’s father was foreman on the building of the council houses in Aldeburgh in the 1950s but when he contracted MS he had to be moved to the stores at Reade. His father had to give up work in the late 1960s and Colin’s mother looked after him. He was visited often by people at Reade. In 1963 the family bought the cottage (45 Lee Road) which they had rented since Colin was a few months old. Colin lived there until he was twenty four. He then describes how his maternal grandfather retired from the White Lion and moved to a council house in Leiston Road and how his daughters thought this was a retrograde step. Track 8 Colin talks about his aunt permanently drawing the curtains on the landing of the council house where their father moved so they couldn’t see the other council houses. He talks about moving into Lee Road when he was a few months old and leaving when he was twenty four, how he loved being at home. Colin describes the house in detail and how there was no electricity and how the toilet and washing was done in the scullery across the yard. There was gas lighting, no central heating and it was only later that they got a proper cooker in the kitchen. Colin mentions playing football for Aldeburgh Town, and describes playing with his friends when he was young including the two gangs (Uptowners and Downtowners) in the town. Track 9 Colin describes his memories of the 1953 flood and how the town was flooded and people had to be evacuated from the High Street and the street behind the Brudenell and how the beach had come over the wall into Crag Path. His sister was at a dance at the Jubilee hall and had to leave because the water was rushing down the alleyway next to the hall. Track 10 Colin remembers one person being killed in Aldeburgh trying to repair the wall after the flood. He remembers large American fire engines on the Sunday pumping water out of the cellars of people’s properties on the east side of the High Street and how the water receded quickly except on the marsh where Colin used to play with his friends and light fires because the grass was allowed to grow after the flood. He would help his father on his allotment when he was a teenager and did a lot of the digging because of his father’s MS. Colin talks about his twin brother whom he still sees regularly, how they looked after each other when they were youngsters and how his brother would get into trouble. He remembers his brother having the courage to tell his father he no longer wanted to remain as a plumber’s apprentice but wanted to be a bricklayer and how his father accepted that. Track 11 Colin talks more about his twin brother, how he succeeded at his jobs, how he and Colin enjoyed working for Reade and how good Colin’s brother is with people but like his father, he is a perfectionist and wants things done a certain way. Track 12 Colin remembers when he was taken into Borough Hospital when he was four and was transferred to an isolation room at Foxhall Heath when he contracted chickenpox and measles at the same time. He describes how lonely he felt and eventually his mother taking him home in a taxi when he was better and how on the way they went to see Colin’s father who was foreman on the building of the council houses at Westleton. Colin recalls the lifeboat in the 1950s. It was on the top of a slipway and it could be a dramatic launch. Colin describes how the boat was launched. He also talks about the land rescue crew. He describes the rescue of the Kentbrook which ran aground on the Aldeburgh beach. The new building for the lifeboat was built in the very late 1980s. Track 13 Colin describes the men who were in the land rescue team and how he can remember their voices as so many of them worked for Reade. In the 1960s the beach level was much lower than it is today and there is a shorter sea wall half-way down the beach which has been submerged by the shingle. Colin remembers how he used to enjoy playing on the beach with his friends and how some of the boys would swim out to the lifeboat buoy and climb up the pylons on the beach and jump into the water. Colin didn’t learn to swim until he was ten or eleven. His family would often go to the beach and swim before breakfast and Colin remembers when he was young his mother having to go out and save his twin brother. He would also fish with his brothers in the sea and buy bait from the local fishermen. He also recalls how a local man had a flat thirty feet square leisure raft with a tower on about thirty yards out from the shore and people would climb the tower and dive or dive off the side. It was originally for visitors and they would hire things and there were changing huts. Colin went to Aldeburgh Primary School and then moved to Leiston Secondary Modern School in 1956 and left in 1960 when he was fifteen. He describes his time at school and how his love of English led him to win a Cadbury’s composition competition. Track 14 Colin describes his school life and some of the teachers he remembers. He also describes how he and his twin brother when they were eight or nine used to explore and get up to pranks in the Primary school grounds. Colin had a lot of time off school because of illness. He remembers one of the Primary school headteachers being a socialist and a supporter of the women’s movement and and how she started folk events and an orchestra at the school and married a well-known composer. He describes how she became an HMI and visited Colin on one occasion in his own classroom when he became a teacher. Track 15 Colin describes his life at school and how he refused to go into the O Level class at Secondary School. There were a lot of male teachers who had probably been in the forces and he describes the teachers at both Primary and Secondary schools. He remembers taking up boxing at school and then joined the chess club. Colin enjoyed English at school, where he won the Cadbury’s composition competition. Track 16 Life at school is described further and how Colin did well in tests but didn’t have to take exams. He talks about his first girl friends. He describes how he left school when he was fifteen and wanted to work as a television engineer but became instead an apprentice electrician at Reade. Colin was fifteen on 9th March, 1960 leaving school immediately afterwards to work. He describes how on his first day at Reade he was sent over to the Jubilee Hall where the firm were carrying out renovations for the premiere of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Aldeburgh Festival. He describes the work involved in the renovation and the look of the hall before it was changed. When the Festival started Colin and some others were seconded to the English Opera Group to help with the production. Colin describes how they controlled the lights for the production. Track 17 Interview with Colin Fletcher 20th April, 2016. Track 18 Colin talks about how Benjamin Britten knew the family through Nelly Hudson, Britten’s housekeeper and how Britten had written a little message in Colin’s and his twin brother’s autograph books and that he would wave if the family were going up Victoria Road and he was coming up in the car with Peter Pears. Colin describes how through the tutor’s encouragement at a creative writing group he joined he became interested in and applied to Training College to become a teacher and how he spent a year studying part-time for the O Levels he needed for entry to the College. He started at Keswick Hall in 1969 when he was twenty four. He married in August of that year and moved with his wife to a flat in Norwich. At that time Colin won the George Crabb Memorial Poetry competition. Track 19 Colin describes his experiences at Training College and how he became friendly with a group of mature students who had a more serious attitude to their work than the younger students. For a short while he became involved in the local Baptist Chapel but was unhappy about their strict view of things. His belief in progressive education sometimes made teaching practices difficult but he became qualified and never regretted going to Training College. He did Philosophy for his main subject for which he had to do a special study. Track 20 He describes how he found Philosophy disappointing but qualified to do an extra year for a B.Ed at Homerton College, but he refused the place because by that time he had two children and wanted to get back to work. He describes his return to Suffolk despite wanting to work in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He remembers the difficulty in getting a house while he was travelling from Norwich to Wrentham Primary School, his first teaching post. Eventually he rented a house in Yoxford and then came back to a Council house in Aldeburgh on the Plantation when that was being built. He describes his interview for Wrentham Primary School and the workings of the school and how in 1975 he moved to Leiston Middle School to be with younger teachers. Track 21 Colin describes the system that prevailed in Middle Schools in the 1970s and how the first two years were Primary orientated, which he preferred. He worked for fifteen years in Leiston and then moved to a Middle School in Norwich for four years. He retired in 1995 when he was fifty to spend more time on writing. He worked part-time in Primary Schools in this area for many years. After four years of retirement Colin had something published and during the following years he had four children’s books published. He still writes everyday although he has not been published for some years. Colin talks about his past life as more a case of coming “to the next turning and which way should he go.” He feels he could have done with some advice. He emphasises that his first wife worked all this time, running Tupperware parties and until recently as a Community Nurse. Colin also talks about his two daughters, one of whom works in the NHS and the other lives locally. Track 22 Colin talks some more about his two daughters, and how he sees them regularly although he sees his daughter in Leiston more. He and his former wife share taking her to work and bringing her home. He also met his other daughter in London the other day. Colin and his present wife have been married for eleven years. He describes their wedding at Snape Maltings (the first marriage to be held there) and their reception with their respective families at Knodishall Community Hall. Their two days honeymoon was spent at Kesgrave where Colin’s elder sister had lent them her bungalow. Colin describes his typical day which consists of writing in the morning, reading , perhaps some DIY and he is learning French. He and his present wife love to go to France. He doesn’t have too many demands on him and feels at ease with himself, although he would have carried on teaching if he had had to. Now Colin turns to the changes in Aldeburgh over the years, for example, housing development. The council houses were built in the early 1950s and then The Plantation was built on the field called the Plantation and was built as a result of the Council reorganisation of 1974 and the Borough Council had some money left over for development. As it was being built the new District Council took over and the Plantation became a development of mixed Aldeburgh people and outsiders which was not the original intention which was to provide housing for local people. In the second half of the 1970s Mariners Way was built which had been Reade’s yard after the railway station closed. Colin and his first wife had a house on Mariners Way. The Church Farm estate was then built. Track 23 Colin describes his belief in and commitment to affordable housing in Aldeburgh, and when he was an Aldeburgh councillor he set up Aldeburgh Housing Advisory Service where people could go for help in finding a house in the Town. He was a councillor for five years and describes his experiences as one as well as his personal campaign to make Church Farm an estate for affordable housing. He talks about other people in the town who achieved more and were not on the Council. Track 24 Colin describes how he felt pressure being on the Council but how he loved the elections. He left the Council and was involved in setting up and running a local cricket club as part of his ongoing commitment to helping others. Colin now describes the old railway. His family always travelled on the train either to go to Ipswich or once a year directly to Great Yarmouth. Colin remembers how he and his friends waved to the train when they played football nearby. The train not only carried passengers but also fish to Lowestoft market. Colin would use the train to go to school in Leiston when he was eleven and later travel to Ipswich to watch Ipswich Town when he was working at Reade. Colin comments on how he views the world and the future. The world is an unpredictable place now but he feels there are lots of opportunities for people and he would want them to be optimistic and there are chances to have simple pleasures in life. He would say to his grandchildren that two things are important: firstly their family should be nurtured. Track 25 Colin emphasises that family is more important than status and possessions; secondly, his grandchildren should learn to know what makes them happy and to be brave enough to go for that. 9 |