Oral history: Dorothy Hargreaves

INTERVIEWERYou remember the hall before they took it.

HARGREAVESOh, it was a ruin. Birds in it. My father sat on the grange committee and they'd been trying to give it away for years. Then this woman came and she didn't want to be given it, she wanted to pay for it, which caused a great deal of confusion.

INTERVIEWERThat was Dr. Vale.

HARGREAVESShe never used the doctor. Not once in twenty years. My mother found that suspicious and I found it restful.

INTERVIEWERWhat were they like as neighbours?

HARGREAVESBetter than us. They came out for the barn, they came out when the Peltiers lost the roof, they came out in the ice storm with soup, which everybody remembers because there was rather a lot of soup. Nobody preached at me. Forty years and nobody once asked me to come to anything.

INTERVIEWERDid that seem strange?

HARGREAVESI thought it was manners. My husband thought it was — [pause] — well, he said you don't get invited to a house you're already useful to.

INTERVIEWERIs there anything you'd want on the record?

HARGREAVES[bells] — sorry. [pause] What was I — yes. In the eighties there was a spell where you'd see far fewer of them about. Two, three years. Then it went back to how it was, only different faces, and nobody said anything about it, and you don't ask, do you. You don't ask.

INTERVIEWERThe bells are the noon observance.

HARGREAVESI know what they are.