PAT LORD

Surname

Lord

Forename

Pat

Date of recording

Jan 2008

Year of birth

1928

Place of Birth

Muswell Hill

Occupation

Retired

Fathers occupation

Worked at Snape Maltongs

Present Address

Blaxhall

Location Interview

Blaxhall

Interviewer

Summary

John Waddell

Duration

62 Mins

No of tracks: 10

​Detailed Contents (times in minutes and seconds)
This recording consists of 8 tracks.  
Track 1. [[3 mins 6 secs] 
Pat Lord was born Pat Pope in Muswell Hill where her father was working for Snape Maltings managing  the London Office until he moved to Snape, living at the Station House. 


Track 2   [8 mins 15 secs]
Station house was at the end of a branch lane serving the Maltings. It had a ticket office within it but was never used for selling tickets to passengers. Apart from serving the Maltings it was used to bring in coal and ship out sugar beet. The Army used it during the war to bring in equipment  on what was called " The Snape Express"

Pat and her brother used to be given rides in the cab  and allowed to shovel the coal.

The trucks for the Maltings had to be moved from the station yard  to the Maltings drawn by Suffolk Punches -which sometimes she was also allowed to ride.

Where the rail track crossed the road to the Maltings arch tanks on  their way to  Iken and the battle school would often skid. The Station House fence was damaged by this every few weeks and  once a tank's gun  broke down the front door.

The Battle School was set up to help troop training and  residents of Iken and Sudbourne were forced to leave their homes.


Track 3  [2 mins 26 secs]
The Maltings had its own large air raid shelter and Snape Bridge was mined so that it could be blown up if a German invasion occurred There were always two soldiers in a rail truck by the Plough and Sail ready to press the button if there was an invasion.

The Maltings railway lines  went both through the arch and ,  via a turntable, along the front of the Maltings. 

The Alde  by the bridge was a favoured swimming spot for youngsters and, during the war, of soldiers and even men from the Maltings. 

Diving off the bridge was commonplace but Pat's brother hit his head doing so and had to be rescued by one of the on-duty soldiers.


Track 4 . [5 mins 17 secs] 
Pat went to three schools in Snape , the  village school. the Barn School , which was private , and a smaller private school  run by Mr Irving. She also went to school in London for 18 months - " spending all her time in an air raid shelter" and in Wales at a school where they did not speak English 

The Barn School was run by Mr and Mrs  Norsworthy. Among the pupils was George Gooderham who was to buy the Maltings. Some childen used to come to school on their ponies  -"It was a lovely friendly private school which finished about 1948 or 49."


Track 5. [10 mins 5 secs]
Collecting for charities at the Maltings." We did a roaring trade". Men started work at the Maltings at 6.0 am and finished at 4.0pm.

Women worked on the floor during the war turning over the barley and doing all the toughest jobs the men had done.

During the war the river traffic ceased. After the Maltings were bought by George Gooderham in 1965 it began again bringing  soya to be milled.

The Maltings was bombed several times. . Pat once saw the bombs leave the aircraft.The Germans believed it to be a factory. Pat gives details of  various attacks and also the crash of an American bomber which almost hit the Maltings and landed on the marshes. The crew had  bailed out and she was among the first to reach it. The Americans , when they arrived, gave her a box of chewing gum and a first aid kit. 

Track 6. [15 mins 13 secs] 
Pat talks of watching the doodlebugs ( flying bombs) which came in over Aldeburgh and Snape on the way to London. She watched several explode in the air  after being hit by the anti-aircraft guns at Aldeburgh 

Floods at the Maltings  in 1935 and 1953 .

The resumption of river traffic with one or two barges  a week bringing 250 tons of soya bean a trip. 

Discussions of the  growth of the Maltings retail outlets and the eventual  conversion of the concert hall. 

Benjamin Britten when living at the Mill in Snape." Nobody took much notice of him". His nephew Sebastian was at the Barn School.

When it was still a maltings,  men  were given a token which could be exchanged for a pint of beer at the Plough and Sail public house.  Also they were given 3 pence for any rat's tail they could produce since rats were attracted to the Maltings.

During the war Pat and her brother used to go round the Maltings with the night watchman as he stoked the fires in what is now the concert hall. There were enormous drums roasting the barley. It tasted like toffee.


Track 7.  [10 mins 42 secs]
Pat , who is now 80 worked at the Maltings for over 30 years. However she recalls her close associations as a child . She  and her brother were allowed to sound the air raid warning from the ARP post  in the building to the right of the Maltings arch.  It was the Maltings  hooter used in this instance to warn of possible attacks and could be heard in the surrounding villages. 

 Returning to Snape Bridge Pat says that the huge amount of army traffic cracked the superstructure . She was sitting on the bridge one day and saw Sir Winston Churchill and Field Marshal Montgomery come over it presumably on their way to the battle school. They were followed by another car with General Eisenhower in it.

She recalls Princess Margaret water skiing  at Iken when staying at Sternfield House  and Grace Kelly at Snape for a poetry reading in the Maltings. 

When the Concert Hall caught fire she saw it happen . She was standing on the quay at the time and describes  the flames running long the roof until it collapsed.  

 People living in Snape were invited to provide a free studio audience for  programmes like " Jazz at the Maltings ".when the BBC recorded prominent North American musicians there.

Track 8  [7 mins 3 secs]
Houses owned by the Maltings in Snape.

When the previous Snape bridge was demolished in 1960 a Bailey Bridge was  put temporarily in its place. Bricks from the old bridge were used to build the bus shelter by Snape's church crossways.​