Barbara Greenshields (nee Jupp), born in 1924, the eldest child with three brothers. 'They always seemed interested in the whereabouts of other children's births. Surely a skittle alley must be a most unusual place to be born. They were not as popular then as now and my explanation was given with an air of self-importance.

This long low building was (and I believe still is) bordering the road by the Britannia Inn which overlooks the Fishermen's Hard and the River Arun at Littlehampton. With double doors at one end it resembled a very long garage.

My paternal grandfather, John Jupp was landlord of the 'Brit' and shortly before my parents, Edith and Horace, married in 1923, he and my father converted it into a bungalow for the newly-weds. An old insurance policy reveals that it was known as 'Britannia Cottage'. Subsequently I made my appearance there on 10th March 1924.

From a small square yard a steep step led into the kitchen at the double doors end and from there to the living room and then to the bedroom. It seems to me now that this conversion was achieved by putting up two partitions with doors leading from room to room.

As far as I remember the only facilities for heating were the round type of oil stove, and I suppose my mother must have had a similar arrangement for cooking. There was an oil lamp in the living room and possibly smaller lamps or candles for the other rooms. Water was fetched from a tap in the yard.

The yard extended under the 'Brit's' kitchen, which stood on stilt-like pillars. Four cellars led off this part of the yard, one where Grandpa kept the drinks and, next to it, one with a copper where Grandma did the washing. Leading from the back of this was the 'bogey hole', the only light coming from a small grating by the bar steps.

In later years when electricity was installed in the cellars, a passage was found leading from the 'bogey hole' towards the river and suspected of being used for smuggling. No wonder it sometimes flooded when the tides were high!

We children were very annoyed that we hadn't found it during Grandpa's time there. The coal cellar was at the bottom of the brick steps that led up to a landing with a 'lav' to the right, then wooden steps to the left going in the opposite direction which ended abruptly at the kitchen door.

Grandma's kitchen was long and narrow. A door to the living room, a yellow sink and wooden draining board where she and my aunt must have washed up thousands of glasses; then a chest of drawers, a black steely looking gas cooker, and a cold grey table where Grandma prepared the meals and rolled her pastry.

All these items were lined up along one wall of the sloping roof which reached the floor on the other side, making it impossible to have anything there except odds and ends in boxes and baskets, which were tucked away as far as possible underneath. There was just room for a cupboard at the other end.

The living room and bars boasted electric lighting but it was candles and night-lights in the bedrooms.

My mother was ill for a good deal of the time before I was born and sometimes delirious. 'Put some sugar between my toes', she demanded of my aunt one day. 'Two old ladies told me that if you put some sugar between my toes I'll get better'.

My father had to resort to asking St. John's Church (the 'Fishermen's church') next door, to stop ringing in the New Year. When he was eventually told, 'you've got a little daughter,' his reaction was 'How's Edie?' However his natural concern for his wife did not diminish his affection for me. Not long before he died in 1991 he commented, 'We were a happy little family'.