Below is Kathie Hatfield’s written history of her recollection of living in Egglescliffe. You can follow what she says in her oral history by clicking the above and sitting back and enjoying what she says.
Kathie Hatfield was interviewed by Ian Reynolds on 24thJuly 2017.
In 1976 my youngest child was going to nursery and three women who lived in Martindale Grove had the opportunity to go and work at the Nursery. One of them was the daughter of the owners of the Nursery, and her name was Janet MacLaren. She had been a Redfern and I believe her mother had been a Binch. And that’s how the Nursery, through her grandfather, got its name.
It was the year of the very hot summer and after Easter we went to work there. It was the growing season and everything that was grown supplied the shop in Yarm and the shop in Stockton. The staff at the Nursery: there was Ted, who was the Nursery manager and he lived next-door-but-one to the Pot & Glass. Ted was single and he was very knowledgeable about growing plants. There was also somebody from University who lived in one of the houses at the back of the Nursery and he had a little bit more expertise. I believe he got his accommodation with his job. And apart from the three of us who lived in Martindale Grove there was a supply of casual labour who seemed to come and go. They were people who lived fairly locally and stuck it out for a few weeks. I suppose when the three of us decided to go and work there they thought it was continuous labour for quite a number of months. I worked there from after the Easter until the Christmas, which in the growing season sees most things happen.
They supplied fruit and veg and also flowers to the shops. The shop in Yarm was quite a decent size. We grew salad crops and tomato plants and there were root vegetables that we didn’t have anything to do with. We would pick lettuce and bag it up, and Ted used to tell us about all the diseases and things that would eat the lettuces so it was important to look out for things that would destroy the crops. Inside, we would side-shoot the tomatoes and wind them up the supports until eventually we would be picking them. They were in the main greenhouse. The other greenhouse had the chrysanthemums, which were single bloom, and we would go round taking off the little side-blooms so we would eventually end up with a single bloom which they sold in the shop. The other thing they had, leading down from St Anne’s House to the Nurseries, was a hedge of sweetpeas. Every day when they were in bloom we had to pick them as a priority job and they would be taken to the shops in Yarm and Stockton and sold. They also had a field leading up to the allotments and running down the lane to the farm past Eastbourne Avenue and that had a low greenhouse in it that was given over to salad crops and root vegetables.
As the season for tomatoes, salad crops and flowers came to an end we did some indoor work. During the holidays we could take the younger children, who were off school, round and he would give them a job in the outhouses, dusting out the plant pots for a few pence. It was a very hot summer in the greenhouses but we treated it as a bit of fun and we learned quite a lot. But I don’t grow chrysanthemums myself! It’s very time-consuming to get a single bloom chrysanth. But they smelt absolutely delightful.
We got very little produce to take home. They were business people. Occasionally we were allowed to have a lettuce, but not very often.
The Nursery was probably winding down in the early ‘80s because in 1983 we came back from living abroad and St Anne’s House was on the market and the semi-detached houses at the back were on the market or sold. The shop in Yarm closed I believe because of a death in the family. The daughter who lived nearby had no interest in running a market garden and the other member of the family didn’t live nearby so it was broken up and sold. Nothing has been grown on that land since, which is a shame, because they were beautiful big greenhouses. But I know the field that runs up to the allotments is farmed, so that’s being put to some use.