Cecil’s reminiscences are taken from three interviews by his old friend and historian, Ken Goatley. The first two were recorded on audio tape in 1996 when he described his life and reminisced about Wokingham during the first twenty-five years of the 20th century. The second was on video in 1999 when he again reminisced about everyday life during this period. I have integrated both reminiscences to avoid loss of information.
Ken—Today I’m going to be in conversation with Mr. Cecil Culver, a long time resident of Wokingham, speaking of his reminiscences of his life in the town, and the general behaviour of people and the way of life.
So Cecil, where would you like to start? With cars or something of that sort?
Cecil—No. I think this is designed to show people how things were in Wokingham at the almost turn of the century—conditions that prevailed and the way people lived. And I think there are two things that one should bear in mind as a kind of background to our talk and that is—in the first place there were no cars whatever in Wokingham when I first came here in 1914. And another thing is that there was no electricity at all in Wokingham until 1925. So whatever we tell one another, we’ve got to remember that these two things just hadn’t arrived. And I think the best place to start, to give people an idea of what went on in Wokingham, is to start with, perhaps, the youngsters at school.