The Growth of Rent Collection

While all this was going on, Bob and I were collecting more and more rents every week as more and more houses were built.  We were now collecting almost three and a half days a week, that is from Monday morning to Thursday lunch time, which gave us precious  little time to do anything else.  In addition, the rents were rising so we were carrying more cash around with us. We were getting very hard pressed and it was getting particularly hard on Bob who was much older that I was.  A job came up at Basildon and Bob applied for and got it.  A house was available with it which was a better prospect for Bob and his wife, having regard for her poor health.  I kept in touch for some years and we often had a laugh about some of our exploits together.

Bob's replacement was a different character altogether.  Arnold Bracey Cardy was a Baptist pastor who I had known on and off  for some time.  Like many church people in the Rochford area he worked in the drapery and clothing trade, for the now defunct firm of Coopers in East Street, Rochford and we sometimes met on the same door step.  He was a very likeable chap, and we got on very well.  Apart from doing his work well, he got on well with people, many of whom he knew well being a local man.  Also we were ing able to keep up with each other and I found we could get through the work a lot easier.  It was due to him that I gave up smoking.  He did not smoke himself, and one Friday when we were cashing up and balancing the rent account for the week, I said that I would do something after I had rolled a cigarette.  "You and your fags" he said "surely you can wait for a smoke until we have finished this."  "Just for that" I said, "I won't have a fag for the rest of the day."  I put the tobacco back in my tin, and I have never smoked since.

Bracey had a lot of friends in the area, and relations, both in and out of the Church.  His family had been members of the Peculiar People's Church, which by then had changed its name to the Essex Evangelical Church.  His mother and father had known my great aunt, who had lived at West Hanningfield, and who belonged to the Peculiars.  He  told me that she had stayed with them at Prittlewell once and had been amazed to see the street lights.  She rarely left West Hanningfield and had probably never seen them before.,

A Change of Circumstances

Although I did not then know it, I was rapidly heading for the end of  my time in housing, after 12 years which I had enjoyed very much.  My health had been getting worse for some time, and I had to enter Broomfield Hospital in March 1963 to get cured of tuberculosis.  I did not return to the offices until September 1964,

When I returned to work after my illness it was obvious that I could not go back to Housing again, much as I would have liked to.  The outdoor life, I was told, would be too much of a strain, which was probably right.  There was a vacancy in Committee Clerk's, which I filled, and as the Section dealt with the Local Searches, and the fact I was working for a solicitor, I always look on 1964 as my entry into the world of the law.

So we carried on through the 1960s. The Council had over the years acquired nos. 1 to ll South Street, and some of these buildings were converted to offices so that we were all eventually able to leave the Court House and enjoy decent office accommodation.

David Collins

Born August 1930, died Sept 2013

Started work, 1946, finished work 1993

Not only have we found David’s account fascinating in terms of what life was like working in the Council post World War 2, but noting some of the changes that have obviously taken place in Rochford, not only since those post-war years but also since the time he wrote.  What is a shame is that he never completed his writings to bring us up to the end of the twentieth century. We thank his wife Anne for making these writings freely available to us. We hope you have enjoyed reading them.

Disclaimer: Rochford Life cannot be held responsible for any of the facts included in these writings. While we have no reason to doubt their accuracy and authenticity, we invite readers to write in, using the e-mail link at the top of the front page, and add details to this work by David. If you have things you feel you could add of purely historical detail we would be happy to add them at the end here, with links in the original text to these additions.

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