Ten, Montague Road.  A tall three floors of Edwardian style.  On the ground floor a long hall with two reception rooms with a kitchen in the middle. and a moulded glass window screening a utility room.  On the first floor three double bedrooms, one with a dressing room, and a bathroom.  On the top floor, two single attic bedrooms.

The house had been divided up into flats or bed-sits and this showed in the way the decoration (such as it was) had abrupt breaks halfway along a wall.  Since that day when we first saw it the house has undergone many transformations, not least being the conversion of the back room into a kitchen- breakfast room and the change of the kitchen to an extension of the front room.  The window between the hall and the utility room has been removed and replaced by a door at a later stage.

One disadvantage was that there was no garage or space for parking the car but this was solved later by demolishing the front wall and running the car into what was originally the front garden.  This was not such a good ideas because later the number of cars parked in the road made it very difficult to turn into the parking space or to back out of it.  There was also the possibility of being boxed in by careless parkers.  After David took over the house he parked in the road and reinstated the garden but the wall was not rebuilt(1).

10 Montague Road in 1975, before the wall was demolished.

We soon found the Methodist Church, only to discover that it was going to be closed shortly(2) and a shared building scheme was planned with the large brick Anglican church of All Saints.  This came about in due course and produced a variety of situations, some helpful and some not so helpful.  I was later a Society Steward and Secretary of the Finance Committee, At one time I was Secretary of the Men's Fellowship but enthusiasm waned until the day when the members suggested the meeting should be ended.  One or two may have regretted its passing but most did not seem worried.

Marilyn was also concerned with things at All Saints and for a time was leader of the Sunday School.  She introduced several new ideas, one being the complete rearrangement of seating for the Anniversary services, very successfully.  While at Berkhamsted she also became a Local Preacher which involved her in services throughout the Circuit.{fwb notes here 'Illust'}

I was able to combine Church and drama on a couple of occasions, when musical presentations were put on for 'While Shepherds Watched' and 'Crows and Methodists'.

In 1979 on 24th March David married Susan Williams at Christ Church in Radlett.  He had kept up contact with his Radlett friends since moving to Berkhamsted and had met Susan there, even though he had not known her when we lived in Radlett.  They made their home in St. Albans but unfortunately things went wrong and they were divorced in 1987.

A little later in 1979, on 4th April, my mother died at the age of eighty-five.

In 1982 I was offered early retirement.  At that time Hertfordshire was trying to shed a large number of teachers and I was getting increasingly concerned at the way education was going.  In one instance, the school was heading for computer- madness and I protested that I wanted my classes to do practical 'hands-on' chemistry, not to watch simulated pictures.  I spoke to County Hall and made arrangements to retire at the end of the summer term.

Almost immediately I had retired I was approached by the Headmaster of Berkhamsted School (the public school) to ask if I would cover a few lessons for one of his chemistry staff who had to go into hospital for a few weeks.  I was there for five weeks and enjoyed seeing a little of the private sector in education.  Then shortly after this I was asked to do a little supply work at the Watford Girls Grammar School.  These two short episodes confirmed that I had been right to retire when I did.  I didn't want to go on with teaching.

Pippa's academic career started at Gill's Hill {infants school in Radlett} and then later moved to Ashlyn's, via Greenway School and the Thomas Bourne School.  Later she moved to Chesham High School which, although in Buckinghamshire, accepted some out-county pupils and she did very well there.  It meant a certain amount of ferrying to and fro but it was worth it.

In 1985 on 23rd March Hilary (who had been working as an occupational therapist) married James Lindsay Binyon, a police officer.  Hilary had been living in a flat in Watford anyway and David had been at Bedford so there were only the three of us in the large house.  We decided to look for somewhere smaller when Pippa had finished at Chesham and in 1988 after she had gone to Loughborough University Marilyn and I moved to Bourton-on-the-Water.