Growing Up

Growing up in a new town had advantages and disadvantages. There were lots of children, there were still woods and streams and later there were youth clubs and neighbourhood shops.

Brian Foster talks about the earwig invasion of the summer of 1959 in Stevenage
“But by the end of that summer the earwigs were mutating and every house was surrounded by lines of white insecticide powder and by the end of the summer new earwigs were emerging with white stripes on across their backs and they would just plough through this stuff”
Clare Marsh talks about her exhibition in Stevenage Museum spring 2015
Clare Marsh talks about her exhibition in Stevenage Museum spring 2015
Clare Marsh talks about playing on the green
Clare Marsh moved to Stevenage in 1965 when her dad started working at the College
Donne Buck about fundraising for Bandley Hill adventure playground
My salary was funded from the shilling a week lottery by the time I arrived in Stevenage they had about a thousand pounds in the bank, which was enough to pay my salary for a year plus some of the overheads ...
Donne Buck about Lady Denington visiting the adventure playground
... the whole site was covered it was also very muddy and when Evelyn Denington saw the site, she was pretty horrified because it just didn’t correspond with her idea of what a nice tidy new town should look like ...
Donne Buck about the founders of Bandley Hill adventure playground
...the local families in Bandley Hill decided that they needed a place for their children to play, which wasn’t just formal swings and roundabouts type of playground, but a place where the children could determine their own play ...
Gerald Model - setting up a new business in Hatfield New Town
Setting up a business in the new town in the late 1950s
Jessie Axford - Hatfield's Mother and Baby Clinic
A baby clinic was initially held in Hatfield at St John’s mission hall. In 1959 the Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) started a Mother and Baby Clinic at Hilltop. Jessie Axford describe the development of the clinic and the activities it ran:
Jessie Axford - Rural Hatfield
Jessie Axford describes exploring Hatfield's local countryside with her young family.
Sharon Taylor about going to London in the sidecar of a motorcycle
When Sharon first lived in Stevenage the whole family would go to London in her dad's motorcycle with sidecar - wrapped in blankets.
Sharon Taylor about playing by Aston Brook
In the school holidays we’d just go off down to Aston Brook or we’d get our bikes and go down to what is now Fairlands Valley.