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Barbara Greenshields (nee Jupp) born in 1924 remembers her first days at South Bersted, after having lived the first years of her life at Felpham.
'New friends were quickly made at South Bersted. The girls at school seemed quite pleased to have a new girl to join their class. Some of them lived nearby and called at our house after dinner and we walked together to afternoon school. They took us to the recreation ground in Hampshire Avenue where there were swings and a roundabout. We weren't particularly interested in the swings as Dad had put ours up in the garden, but the roundabout was new to us.
You had to run round pushing it until it reached a reasonable speed, then stand on it and go spinning round. When it began to slow down someone would get off and give it another push to keep it going. One day David looked quite white after a particularly energetic spin on this contraption, and one of the older girls sat down with him until he felt better.
In our road there were still patches of land that hadn't yet been built on. Here the grass grew tall and we bundled the tops into a circle and tied them together, flattened the grass in the middle and hey presto! there was a wigwam just big enough for one small person to get inside.
We weren't as close to the sea as we had been at Flansham, so sometimes we went by bus to the end of Nyewood Lane. On our first Sunday walk across the fields Dad showed us the shed he had built for our garden at Flansham. We were surprised to see it in a garden bordering a footpath at North Bersted. Before we moved he had sold it to the gentleman who lived there.
That summer Auntie Maggie and Wally were married at South Bersted Church. This caused great excitement for me as I was to be a bridesmaid, along with my cousin, Olive. The two older bridesmaids were Wally's sister, Sophie and his niece, Dorothy. We wore daffodil-yellow dresses and carried posies of mauve sweet peas. I had a new pair of black patent leather shoes for the occasion. How I loved those shoes, so beautifully shiny, I was determined to do everything I could to avoid scuffs and scratches to them.
As we followed Maggie on Grandpa Cooper's arm up the aisle, I noticed that she was trembling, but the ceremony took place satisfactorily. Afterwards we went across the road to the Vicarage garden opposite the church for the photographs, then on to the church hall in Gordon Avenue where the reception was held. I felt quite important that day and loved the luxury of riding in the wedding car. My bridesmaid's present was a necklace - a chain with a small spider's web and a tiny gold spider in the middle. I still have it among my treasures.
Later that year we moved house again, but only to one at the end of the road. Our first move had only been temporary while another house was being built with some alterations that Dad wanted. This one had the airing cupboard in the bathroom instead of the kitchen and the roof tiles were different. 'I knew those others would only last about forty years', Dad told me forty years later. By chance, an acquaintance of mine had bought one of these houses at that time and had told me that the roof had recently had to have some treatment applied!
Our house was named 'Lei Lani', as Mother had wished. There were trees at the bottom of our garden, a mature oak, a sycamore and a larch. Dad fixed our swing between the trees and put up his ex-naval hammock, which we soon mastered the art of getting into, without promptly falling out again. A strong rope hung from the oak tree. We shinned up it from where there was a good view of the surrounding gardens, or we perched in the sycamore tree, which was easy to climb. All of these were inside the chicken run, which the end of the garden had become.
The hens didn't seem to mind us being in their territory and paid little heed to us as they went about their scratching and clucking. When one of them became unwell Dad operated on her by cutting her crop and removing a piece of rather murky looking rag which she had swallowed. After being sewn up again she made a good recovery, but instead of returning to the chicken run she was given the freedom of the rest of the garden. Dad called her Mrs Cluck and one day Mother found her very useful.
Dad was at work, we were at school and there was a huge spider in the living room. Mother was at her wits end and didn't feel able to wait for us to come home and remove it. In spite of her reluctance to kill spiders she solved the problem by carrying Mrs Cluck into the living room and placing her in front of this dainty morsel which she rapidly gobbled up, but I think Mother felt guilty about it.
In the autumn the lady whose orchard was next to the end of our garden, gave us apples. The oak tree yielded shiny brown acorns and, with the addition of some matchsticks, we created an assortment of acorn men and animals. The off-cuts of wood, which Dad brought home, made splendid building blocks before they were chopped up for the fire. The boys liked to build roads across the floor with them.
With four of us children and a mortgage, there was not much spare cash and our pocket money was one penny (about ha'penny) per week. This was occasionally supplemented with gifts from visitors and, for lucky me, my job as 'Ladies' attendant at the 'Brit' (Britannia Inn in Littlehampton, which was run by my grandparents). I mustn't give the impression that we didn't have any toys or games from the toy shop, however, and these usually appeared at birthdays and Christmas. Relatives gave presents which I later learned helped to fill our stockings and Nan (Auntie Hilda) was particularly generous. We spent happy Christmases at the 'Brit', though Dad had to cycle home and back to attend to the chickens.
I had a dolls pram more modern than my original model, and twin dolls. One summer, dressed in a nurse's cap and apron I won a prize in a 'Doll(s) in a Pram' competition.'
Barbara spent a large part of her school holidays staying with her grandparents and her Auntie Hilda at the Britannia Inn in Littlehampton, where she was born.
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