Barbara Greenshields (nee Jupp) born in 1924, tells us about her mother's family, the Coopers.

'My mother, Edith was born on the 6th May 1894, the eldest child of Charles and Kate Cooper. Her sister, Annie was married to Jack Baker, a leading steward in the Royal Navy. Brother Frank and youngest sister Margaret, known as Maggie, were still single.

There had been two sets of twins in the family. Sadly one little girl was stillborn and the others, two boys and a girl, died in early childhood. My mother was only four at the time but remembered her father making a tiny coffin for the two year old, Charles. When she was older she tried to comfort her mother for the loss of the twins. 'If I have a little girl I'll call her Ivy' she told her. She remained true to her word and that is how I got my second name.

As a small child she fell out of a bedroom window, landing on a water butt below. Apart from a bump on the head and some bruises she didn't appear to have come to any harm, but later when aged about ten she was found to have poor eye-sight and the doctor who examined her told Grandma it had been caused by the bump on her head. She couldn't see at all well without her spectacles.

Mother and her sisters and brother all attended the schools in Lyon Street on the site now occupied by the Laburnum Centre. After leaving school she went into service locally and at some time, in London. During the 1914-1918 war she was employed by the Norman Thompson Flight Company at Middleton where she met my father. After the war and before their marriage she worked in a baker's shop, 'Goldsworthy's' on the corner of High Street and Norfolk Street in Bognor.

Charlie and Kate lived in a cottage in London Road, Bognor, where Mother and her brothers and sisters were born. A grandfather clock stood in the corner of the living room, but what interested me most was the stuffed birds in a glass case, which stood on the cupboard next to the fireplace. Poor little things. Grandpa Cooper was a carpenter but my chief memories are of him indoors smoking a smelly pipe or pottering in his greenhouse where he liked to grow geraniums.

Now that we were living at Flansham it was easier to visit each other. At that time buses would stop almost anywhere on request and Grandpa had the cheek to ask the conductor to 'Stop at number 24 please.'

Sometimes Grandma Cooper would come by herself. Her hat fascinated me and it's pins, quite sure that when it was time for her to go home and she pushed the hatpins in place they were going right through her head. 'Doesn't it hurt Grandma?' I would ask anxiously.
'Not a bit', she would reply with a funny little smile. I'm convinced she knew the reason for my concern but she didn't enlighten me and I went on thinking how brave she was for quite a long time.

Auntie Maggie came, sometimes with her friend Ethel. I loved their visits because they usually brought a large bar of chocolate for us all to share.

The Coopers were an old South Bersted family. My great great grandparents' graves are in South Bersted churchyard. They and their descendants lived at 'The Farm' by The Friary Arms, formerly the 'Bacon Loft' in the part of Shripney Road which is now by-passed.

My great grandfather farmed copyhold land over quite a wide area around the farmhouse. As a child, Mother spent a good deal of time at the farm with her cousins and told me of the times she rode on a hay cart along Westloats Lane. Cows grazed in the 'Nunnery fields' now Marshall Avenue and were brought from there along Green Lane, now Towncross Avenue, and South Bersted Street to the farm for milking twice a day.

When Mother and Dad were courting she took him to meet her grandparents at 'The Farm', - according to him for approval! Grandpa's sister Clara would always fill a pipe for visitors and Dad was expected to smoke it whether he liked it or not.

Poor Auntie Clara had been crossed in love, not quite left waiting at the church, but almost. The wedding and bridesmaids' dresses were ready and the cake made. Mother was to have been a bridesmaid; instead she helped Clara bury her wedding dress and cake in the garden. I was intrigued by the story of Clara's unfortunate love life but couldn't help commenting. 'What an awful waste of a lovely cake.' Clara did eventually marry much later in life and, I believe was very happy.

Sometimes Dad would look after my little brothers while I went with Mother to visit her family. Occasionally we would walk with Auntie Maggie to 'The Farm' to see Grandpa's brother Herbert, his wife Polly and the cousins who were living there then. By this time the outlying fields had been sold for development, but land adjoining the house was used for growing things.

My impression now is that it had become a market garden, as I don't remember there being any animals around. I recall seeing Uncle Herbert in bed and he died shortly afterwards. According to Mother he was buried holding an ear of his favourite dog. I thought this very strange and puzzling. Did they kill the dog especially so that Uncle Herbert could have an ear? Or had the dog died first and they'd saved it up for him? The latter is probably the more likely explanation - (I'll keep his ear and I'll take him with me when I go)?

One fine summer evening there were rows of sweet peas blooming in the garden and we were invited to pick some for ourselves. To this day the smell of sweet peas transports me back to that garden. Mother, me aged five or six, Auntie Maggie and Auntie Polly gathering bunches of those fragrant flowers.

The earliest reference I have found of Coopers living at 'The Farm' is in the 1851 census. My Uncle Frank's only child was a daughter. Only one of Herbert's sons married and he remained childless, so there has been no one to carry on Mother's branch of the family name.

In 1989 'The Farm' was auctioned and planning permission had been sought to build in the garden. 'I wonder if they'll dig up Clara's wedding dress' mused Dad.'