So here’s the girl, and the boy is qualified and they decide to get married. So the first thing they want is to get a house—somewhere to live. In Wokingham, in those days, there were no houses for sale. They were all to be let and I would think that 99% of the houses in Wokingham were all let. In the part where I lived—Sturges Road and Crescent Road—I would say that practically every house round there was let. Quite a few of the companies that built the houses let them as they were built and that provided them with quite a nice income for when they retired.
I remember my grandfather, in 1914, probably had six or eight houses from which he collected rents. Gradually they were sold off because of situations that perhaps I will get around to later on.
Denmark Street looking towards the Town Hall in the 1920s
When you come to think that the pound in those days was worth fifty times what it is now, the rents were much cheaper than they are now. Because if you try to rent a property now, there’s such a demand and such a small supply that the prices have gone up.
But there was a house I called in, in Forest Road, Wokingham. The wife told me that the rent was 5/- a week. I would say that in the same period the rents in the town were probably 10/- to 15/- a week. Like everything else, they never went up because there were no rising costs. So these two were able to have a look around Wokingham. One would see estate agents boards up House to Let. Very, very seldom did one see a board saying, House to be Sold. And if it was to be sold, usually the locals knew all about it and they would say, “I see so-and-so’s house is for sale. What’s wrong with it?”
So the couple who were getting married had a good choice and they could go to the estate agent and rent their house. In those days, because there were few houses for sale there was therefore no need for a number of estate agents. The estate agent’s job was very much slower than it is now and there were only two estate agents in the whole of Wokingham.
One was James Watts & Son in Broad Street (now Martin & Pole). I remember old Jimmy Watts who had a son Harold, and in my time, Harold carried on the estate business. He had no staff because all he had to do was to let houses as people came in.
The other estate agent was down at the railway station. That was A .G. Hall & Sons and I very well remember old Edgar Hall. He was a very pleasant old gentleman. I had many a long conversation with him. He was a very knowledgeable and pleasant man to talk to and he had two sons, Garna Hall and Bert. They ran the estate agency. Bert Hall spent most of his time collecting rates for the borough council.
So there were only two in Wokingham. If you went to rent a house, all that happened—you would be given a rent book, and in the rent book, were the standard conditions under which you rented the premises. They were all the same. The price of the rent was written in, and once you had the rent book, you were the tenant. Somebody would come along either weekly or monthly and sign the book.
So you see that newly married youngsters didn’t have all the hassle that they have today. They didn’t have to put down a lump sum of money. They didn’t have a mortgage round their necks for the best part of their lives, so they may never own the house that they lived in. Many of them lived in it all their lives and never moved. But what of it? They were able to enjoy living in the place. They enjoyed living there. They could decorate it as they wanted and the landlord would look after the outside.
There was no profit in owning a house. If you did buy a house what of it? When you went, you left it behind, and someone else had it. You were no better off. So these youngsters were far better off in those days in being able to rent a house and pay a weekly rent.