Betty Kennard

Interviewed by Eve Klein on 5th March 2001
Subject: Housing

Betty Kennard. We built our own home only four doors from where we had rented. That was after the war. We had to wait until the restrictions were lifted to allow us to build a house big enough for a family of six. It was a very difficult time to build because materials were hard to get. My husband would watch the paper – we did get some face bricks, but then he’d see some second-hand bricks advertised, which would be bought and had to be cleaned. Some friend was able to come up with a bit of timber, some friend had a stove that he’d bought before the war –everything was very hard to come by, and workmen were very independent. At one time my husband was working on the stone work on the land where the builders were building the house, and he came home, and he said: ‘I’ve been sacked. The work-men think they’re being spied on’. They wouldn’t have him working there. It took a year to build the house.