Early in the last century four children enjoyed an idyllic childhood growing up in Well End's The Mops & Brooms pub.

84-year-old Bill Wayman was born in The Mops & Brooms in 1918, the eldest of landlord Arthur Wayman's four children.

The pub had been handed down from Bill's grandfather. Although it had been trading for around 400 years, it barely made a profit, and Arthur had a second job in Kentish Town, making pianos.

Officially called the Lord Nelson, the pub had been nicknamed The Mops & Brooms after, according to legend, an argument broke out between local farmworkers and gypsies, and both sides fought with mops and brooms taken from a peddler's barrow.

When Bill lived there, between 1918 and 1932, Well End was just a collection of cottages, and Boreham Wood was still a village.

People used to take long walks through the countryside from Barnet, Shenley or Boreham Wood to go to the pub at the weekends, and often caught rabbits along the way to pay for their drinks. The pub had no gas or electricity, and tables in the bar were lit with oil-lamps, while the upstairs rooms were lit with candles.

Regular customers at the pub were good friends, and often took days out together: "They used to put the beer in the charabanc and take a run to Southend," said Bill.

"I wasn't very old so I couldn't go, but our mother used to take us to Exhibition Hall at Olympia for the circuses or the fair instead.

"When I look back on it, it was a different life from today, and it was better. We didn't appreciate it in those days."

But Bill's childhood was interrupted in the early 1930s, when the pub's brewery, McMullen's, decided it wanted to build a much larger pub to replace The Mops & Brooms. Arthur was adamant that Well End could not support a larger pub, and only took tenancy for six months, to help the brewery hang onto The Mops & Brooms' regular customers.

With his wife Eleanor and their children, Rita, Phil, Bill and Jack, Arthur took over a greengrocers' shop in Stanford Le Hope, Essex, but the Great Depression was at its height, and the shop did not make enough money to support the family.

"There was a lot of unemployment, and the Labour Exchange was next door to our shop. Every day there used to be 300 men outside queuing up to look for work, so we left and came back to Boreham Wood," said Bill.

The family moved back into the pub, which had been converted into a private house and renamed Nelson Cottage, and ran a village shop.

Bill joined the Navy in 1938, and spent 20 years in the service as a Chief Petty Officer. He now lives in east London, and keeps in touch with members of the Wayman family who still live in Borehamwood.

The Borehamwood & Elstree Times would like to hear from anybody who recognises Arthur's passengers in the charabanc photograph.