Those of you who have met me and know me at all well have probably heard me talk of the “old boy” who was our local builder when I was a kid. He was called Maurice Maxfield and to an average child seemed aged, although he would have been only a few years older than my parents. In fact I also remember Maurice’s father (Charles), although as he died when I was about 9 I doubt I ever spoke with him. Despite always looking fairly disreputable (well he was a builder) Maurice was a real gentleman and a confirmed bachelor; he would always tip his hat to my mother, even from the other side of the High Street!

A lot of this was brought back to me recently as I found a copy of a book** on the local characters of Cheshunt and Waltham Cross where I lived. What follows are some edited quotes about Maurice from the book; some of the things they relate I didn’t know.

Maurice Charles Maxfield was born in Trinity Lane (his father, Charles Maxfield, who came to Waltham Cross in 1888, was born in Yorkshire, in 1873). On the death of his father in 1960, Maurice carried on the family business in the building trade, first established in 1850. Maurice Maxfield owned around fifteen houses in ‘the lane’. His main hobby was his electric organ, which he had built in his home. ‘The Mighty Maxwell’ organ was an enormous construction, stretching from the ground floor to the attic.

Maurice hated television, but he took an interest in local affairs. He died on the 9th of March, 1995 at the age of eighty-four […]

From Ron Bunting (one of Maurice’s tenants):

He was a very sentimental man, who kept a low profile. But he looked after himself quite well, with the help of all his lady friends, who also took good care of him! He used to get Loganberry wine and Mince tarts from me. Yes! he was well liked and well loved in ‘the lane’ […]

Maurice loved skating and often went skating at Richmond ice rink [quite a trek across London even now!]. He was a great fan of Sonja Heini, whom he once met. And about twenty years ago we had a very severe winter with lots of snow and ice around, and Maurice, finding his old-fashioned ice skates, was to be seen boldly skating up and down Trinity Lane.

From John White, who I remember as one of Maurice’s workmen:

I come from a little village called Wyke near Bradford in Yorkshire. I came down to Cheshunt just before the war in June 1936 and I [worked] for Maurice […] from 1947 till 1995 […]

I remember Maurice s father, Charles, and his mother well. His mother was a Miss Storey before she married, and her mother and father ran a baker’s shop at the top of Windmill Lane.

Maurice had two cars, a Ford model ‘A’ and his father’s car, a 1927 Clyno. Maurice […] drove the old Ford around, with all his building ladders on board, he didn’t seem too bothered about its value or its age.

Maurice played in cricket matches and his father was president of the Cheshunt Cricket Club, with Maurice as the vice-president.

Maurice also sang with his father in the choir at Christ Church and later played the church organ there. He built an organ in his home […] the inner works of which has 200 valves in it. If it was taken out of the house, they would have to remove a window and half the wall with it. Maurice used to play the organ every Sunday night, until about two months before he died.

From Bryan Hewitt:

I knew Maurice Maxfield during the last ten years of his life […] His mind was quite extraordinary as was his house. His propensity for trotting out unsolicited vintage local scandal and historical fact was staggering […]

Maurice’s house was spooky. With its verandah and bell-pull, it reminded me of the time when I did a paper-round there in the early 1970s. I thought then that the house was a cross between Herman Munster’s and the Boo Radley House in To Kill a Mockingbird.

The gates to the yard on the left-hand side as you face the house consisted of the cast iron ends of a Victorian bedstead, complete with casters! Beyond his vegetable patch was his two storey workshop, built from corrugated iron.

At the opposite end of his massive garden stood his air-raid shelter. Dotted around the garden were bits of carved masonry mostly of an ecclesiastical nature. No doubt Maurice had saved them in the course of his building career. In his office at the front of the house, he had on the desk a candlestick telephone (still working). The room was panelled in dark oak which he had built. None of the rooms were large, but all suffered from insufficient light and the need of a jolly good dust! The kitchen was a health hazard, as was Maurice’s handkerchief. Bakelite electrical plugs hung precariously on their fabric-coated wires from the wall.

[…] Strangely there was a communication tube which connected the kitchen with the master’s bedroom. Sealing the tube was a whistle, which you blew, in order to catch the attention of the person at the other end.

Famously, there was the organ which Maurice Maxfield had built in the cluttered front room. He told me that he had started building it in 1947, and still had not finished it in 1982, because of small details yet to be added […]

When Maurice died, Peter Rooke [another local historian, who I also remember] and I gained permission from his family […] to remove anything of local interest and hand it over to the [local] Museum. It was an Aladdin’s Cave! There were masses of local photographs, some of which were of the Cheshunt cricket team, there were old programmes, local ephemera and his precious sign, all of which were saved […]

Of course we must not forget the two vintage cars that Maurice drove. Both cars were from the 1920s. One was a Clyno, which I am led to believe was one of only five left in the world; the other was a Ford model ‘A’ and it was not unusual to see him driving it about for work, with his ladders, and several feet of plank sticking out ungraciously from the rear of the car […] In his 70s and 80s, he was going to lots of vintage car rallies as far afield as the USA. Maurice Maxfield was also an expert skater and had once partnered the Norwegian film star, Sonja Heini (1910-1969).

Maurice Maxfield (right) with his father (Charles) and their cars in Trinity Lane. The left hand car is the Ford Model A and the one on the right the 1927 Clyno. The small gable roof (with 3 windows) just visible behind the Clyno is the front of Maurice’s house. This must have been taken in the mid-to-late ’50s as the road has clearly been well surfaced which it wasn’t when my parents moved there in 1950.
The cars were amazing. The Ford Model A, dating as I recall from 1920, was a deep polished blue, and was indeed always seen with ladders and planks protruding from the back of the soft top (which I never saw down).

The 1927 Clyno was an equally polished deep green (darker than British Racing Green) and always immaculate as it was only ever used on Sundays and special occasions. Again it was a soft top.

Maurice once gave me a lift home from the shopping centre in the Ford. We chugged the mile or so at a very stately pace even for the time (probably early ’70s); I could almost have walked it as quickly, but I wasn’t going to turn down the chance of such a ride. I noticed that the speedo had a top speed of 40mph; I don’t think we got up above 15mph! And Maurice used to regularly drive from north London to Yorkshire for the weekend in these cars! I also remember him saying that even in the ’60s and ’70s spares were not a problem: the c
ars were so simple if he couldn’t buy a part he could make it!

The picture above is typical of Maurice. It had to be really tropical before he dispensed with his grubby-looking overcoat and he was never without his trilby. I also remember him riding along the lane on his father’s old “sit up and beg” bicycle. He also had a hardcart which he trundled around carrying building materials. He would go anywhere for a vintage car rally or to hear or play a church organ.

My mother was another who, in a small way, looked after Maurice and benefited from his generosity. Every summer he’d say “Mrs Marshall there are more strawberries in the garden than I’ll eat. Just wander in any time and help yourself.” So we had a supply of strawberry jam and of course Maurice had a few pots as well. It was a similar story with the grapes on his vine and the quinces.

One final story. I remember him once telling me that he went to Hertford Grammar School in the 1920s (the best part of 15 miles away and the nearest grammar school). He had to walk across the fields and marsh to Cheshunt Station (a good 1½ miles), get the (slow) steam train to Hertford and then walk from the station to school (probably another 10 minutes). And he did this return journey, every day, 6 days a week (yes, grammar school on Saturday mornings in those days!) and in all weathers.

They don’t make them like that any more!

** Dave Field; Cheshunt: Its People, Past and Present; Gaillet Press (2000); pp 47-55