This article was first published in the West Sussex Gazette on December 14th 1995.

'I remember Mr & Mrs. Lock who owned or ran the Newburgh Arms that was right opposite Surrey Wharf,' said former Arundelian Ron Greenwood (74) who told us in last week's column about the Surrey Wharf community and the working of wheelwrights there.

Continuing his nostalgic 'journey' back in time Ron recalled Mr & Mrs Spence who ran a sweet shop next to the dairy, and Mr Reg Martin who had a butchers' shop next to the Newburgh Arms.

'Later, Mr Martin had a garage built next to his shop with the old wind-up type petrol pumps, selling petrol at about one shilling and threepence a gallon. When we were eventually able to get a radio set I used to have to take the accumulators to the garage for charging for threepence. Opposite was a newspaper shop owned by Mr & Mrs Stokes.

'Mr Lawrence had a shop opposite the top entrance to the school. He sold vegetables and sweets, and during summer made ice cream in one of those wooden buckets, adding cracked ice to the ingredients before turning the handle. The ice was delivered off a lorry by a man who carried the large block of it on his back.

'This shop was quite popular with the children especially in summer. We used to buy Sharps Bluebird toffee there. It came in a tray with a small hammer which Mr Lawrence used for breaking it. We only used to spend a penny or even a half-penny but still got enough to stick our jaws together for a bit.'

In those pre-NHS years it was difficult for the working classes to obtain treatment on strictly limited income, but Ron's household was luckier than many.

'Our family doctor was Dr. Townshend whose surgery was about halfway between Surrey Wharf and River Road. He was a big jolly man and he never pressed for payment of his fee. Mind you, we did not call him in or call on him unless it was really serious. You learnt to put up with it or treat it yourself.

'If my mother had to call him in for us two boys she always made a point of paying him even if we did go without meat or something for a few days. I think he was a wonderful man by today's standards. His standard fee used to be half a crown for just about everything. You did have to pay the chemist for your medication though. Dad belonged to the Oddfellows Friendly Society, so that was a help.

'Just alongside of the doctor's was a dirt and gravel road that went down to the river. There were some allotment-type gardens and the barn buildings and sheds belonging to Carver & Jacob who were in the building trade. When my father came out of the army, he worked for them, having been trained by George Carver. When George had a stroke and could no longer carry on, Harry Jacob had to take over completely.'

This was in the middle 1930s when not just Arundelians but the whole country was suffering from a severe depression. The first Labour government had bankrupted the country. Ramsay McDonald had fled to Scotland and the nation had to borrow money from the French and the Federal Reserve Bank.

'There wasn't much building going on, but what work there was was very poorly paid. Carver & Jacob went bust and Harry used a shotgun on himself in the carpenters' shop. This was about 1933/4 and in the previous years C & J had been a thriving firm.

'They had had a great deal of work from the two breweries, Friary and Henty & Constable, keeping all the pubs decorated and in good order. So much so that there was a Mr Ellis with them, an artist, who refurbished all the pub signs. I used to be allowed in the studio to watch him work. The application of the gold leaf always intrigued me.

'There was of course The Norfolk Hotel where my father did most of the decorating, mostly at night to avoid disrupting hotel business. Dad used to feed quite well on those occasions.

'But after Carver & Jacob went under, my father was jobless, amongst many others of course. For a time, dad managed to get work on his own, painting and decorating for old clients who valued his work, but in the circumstances it was all very much cut price. I worked with him for a while, unpaid of course. I was 14 and worked for my bed and board as it were.

'At l4½ I got a job in Littlehampton at the new Odeon Theatre which had just opened, as a rewind boy. The pay was 15 shillings and ninepence for a 60 hour working week.'

Ron's recollections of Arundel past finish in the year 1936 when he was almost 16, for in that year he moved to Essex with his parents.

He stayed with Odeon, which subsequently became part of the Rank Organisation, for 23 years before leaving to join 20th Century Fox in Africa in 1959.

This article was first published in the West Sussex Gazette on December 14th 1995.

At play on a street corner: Tarrant Street, Arundel circa 1914. The large building in the centre of the picture is the Newburgh Arms. To its right stands Reg Martin's butchers shop, and he later pulled down the neighbouring building to put up a garage selling petrol. Further along is a dark, large shop-type window where a Mr. Leggett lived. He was the insurance collector and also a meter man emptying all the pennies from the Arundel Gas Company meters. 'When you could not get another penny in the meter you sent for Mr. Leggett, even late in the evening,' said Ron Greenwood, whose Aunt Violet is seen here as little girl standing by the gas lamppost.