| Collection | Winstanley Oral History Collection |
| Description | Mr. F. Honey, born 1902, interviewed in Sturry. His father was an iron moulder, and came from a family of nine surviving children. His jobs were child part time jobs, then tailor boy and electrician apprentice.
Sum,mary. Track 1: [46:37:00] [Session one: 26th June 1975] Frank Honey, born Gainsborough, Lincolnshire in 1903. Describes where he was born and when the family came to Canterbury. Describes his father’s job and the various jobs he himself took up while living in Canterbury [03:09]. Describes a typical day in his life in Canterbury and what he got paid. Jobs include: a houseboy at Biggleston’s, an assistant to a veterinary surgeon, weeding at a farm and delivering parcels. [04:40] Describes cleaning shoes for a family he worked for. [06:02] Describes getting the best job of his childhood after accompanying a friend to a house to deliver shoes. Describes the jobs he completed there and the breakfast he was given. [08:11] Describes buying sweets with pocket money. [08:37] explains that as a child he was expected to work to support the family. Comments on not being allowed to be a newsboy. [09:28] Comments on the food the family got. [09:55] Story about giving stationed Canadian soldiers Bombay Oysters to sober them up during the war. Story about his father supplying the barracks with fresh eggs. [11:40] Describes his father’s employment at the foundry and what he was paid. [12:12] Describes what food he could get as a working class family in Canterbury. Story about cooking a cods head from Webb’s and leftovers, fish and chips and sausages and mash from various hotels and shops in Canterbury. Describes that the children did the grocery shopping in his family. [15:17] Describes family including those who died and what the siblings did for employment. [16:21] Describes chores children completed in the house. [17:05] Comments on doing very well at school and having to do homework without help. [17:47] Explains his father drank heavily as did many working class men at that time. Comments on working class society and drinking culture. States that women rarely came to public houses. Explains his father’s drinking caused the family problems. [19:45] Describes the whole family going hop picking at Hoath Farm in the summer and what they were paid for it. Story about getting tipped out the truck in a storm. Comments on not being allowed to eat from the orchard at the farm and what they took to eat there. Comments on his Norfolk Suit. [23:57] Explains how hops were good for health and for sleep. Explains that the hop picking occurred during the school holidays. [25:14] Explains how schools were strict about child attendance. [25:57] Explains how school teachers were respected in those days and how the standard of education has declined since. Explains there was no career advice and how he was put in charge of a shop at age fourteen straight after leaving school. [29:08] Described being apprenticed to an electrician. Story about not being allowed to return to work in the shop. [30:40] Explains why his father moved to the Isle of Sheppey for work. Comments on using a van to move. [31:39] Story about brothers getting apprenticed to moulders against their will. Comments on going into drafting after his own apprenticeship. Comments on Biggleston’s in Canterbury producing cutting tools for coal. [33:32] Comments on father’s unemployment and his own. [34:35] Story about the glasswork’s union strike in 1919. Story about his father not striking with the moulders in 1920 to keep the business going. Explains never joining a union himself but having to fight them as manager at West Ham. [28:03] Describes father’s working conditions. Describes his working hours, pay and conditions at a job in a gents outfitter’s shop. [40:45] Describes how he helped out in parent’s shop in Canterbury. Comments on the hours the shop was open. [41:27] Story about NCOs sleeping in the shop and being given a crocodile skin wallet and a knife from a Canadian soldier. [42:31] Describes the day the First World War broke out and how a cricket match was stopped. Comments on the barracks and military hospital in Canterbury. [44:15] Story about a bombing witnessed in the Isle of Sheppey while going to get navy suits from an outfitters. Story about the foundry furnace going cold during that same bombing raid.
Summary created by Emma Jeffree, volunteer, in 2025. |