Having to move away from Hemel Hempstead

Tony and Sonia Waterton recall the issues facing local first time buyers wanting homes in Hemel Hempstead, compared to how easy the process was for the 'New Towners'

The Dacorum Heritage Trust Ltd.

How difficult it became for local people to buy homes in Hemel Hempstead.

Where the Watertons lived, with Sonia's parents, after getting married

Transcript:

(S): Our contemporaries, young couples, were having to go to live outside the town. Some were going to Kings Langley, Tring, Berkhamsted, anywhere but in Hemel. We tried to find somewhere in Hemel, cos we both worked in Hemel, we went and had a look a place in Apsley and it was just like slums. We’d arranged to get married, so, and we’d waited a long time anyway, we said, well we’ll get married and we appealed to our parents and we ended up in Adeyfield Gardens with my parents. But, as I say, all our contemporaries were spread about, so there was a whole, I suppose, generation of ‘Old Town’ people who were pushed out. You see there was a rule that the ‘New Town’ people were not allowed to sub-let to their adult children when they got married, so they couldn’t go and live in two rooms or in the slum-like sort of conditions that we saw down in Apsley, they immediately and automatically got flats.