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'Throughout the year mother bought extra packets of this and that to be stored away in a tea chest ready for father's railway holiday in Southsea,' said Sybil Rouse of Three Bridges. ' Always the same boarding house, the same faces, the fares, the transport of the chest were all paid for. Mother paid for clean linen, hot water and bought bread and butter. The year when she had packed butter in with cheese and the newly boiled ham, was another disaster.'
'I think it was the year of the General Strike, when one of the twins shut my fingers in the carriage door.'
'Father returned home for urgent meetings, leaving the family there. No hardship to him as the meetings were held in his local pub. We spent days on the beach and one year watched the Schneider Trophy race where the red Italian plane came down in the Solent.'
'Our free rail ticket also covered a day on the Isle of Wight, another disastrous day was spent on Hayling Island. A hot windy day, the fine sand ruined the sandwiches and lemonade. We were finding sand in peculiar places long after the holiday was over.'
'On the occasion of my maternal grand-parents Diamond Wedding in 1952 my 'Granpop' claimed direct descent from Roger of Montgomery, the 1st Earl of Arundel. It is a lovely thought and makes me feel very close to Arundel. I have spent years wondering why the family is so poor.'
'We spent many holidays with Uncle George Parker and Aunt Jane at their home, Chipper's Castle, in what is now Castle Road, Tarring.'
'George and Jane, my maternal grans' sister, moved from Tarring and for a time took a small holding at Walberton, near Barnham. The family at the farmhouse were named Upton. I can remember the father being gored by a bull. The son Ralph Upton, he is about my age, lives at Pumpkin Cottage in Slindon where he grows melons and pumpkins and has been on television several times.'
'George and Jane came back to Tarring on his retirement, they may even have lived again at Chipper Castle. George was in his eighties when he died, Jane about ninety four.'
'It was lovely at Walberton, where I could get away from mother and the horrible twins. I even managed to mess that up. There was a long, long driveway to the two farmhouses, the largest walnut trees I have ever seen. I wonder if they are still there.'
'A black bull behind a wire fence strolled along beside me quite peacefully, a different story when they tried to get him in at night.'
'Left to clean the house whilst George and Jane were hay making, I knocked a box of tiny sweets on the floor. I picked up as many as I could and put the box back. Seeing several on the floor and hearing footsteps on the path, I popped the sweets into my mouth. The sweets were Beechams Pills. I went home much thinner then when I started out!'
'One last holiday there was also a disaster. It was just after the Battle of Britain. A dear cousin, we had become engaged as children when he gave me a ring from a Christmas cracker, had just been killed over France. An only child, he was engaged to some one else.'
'I was married with a small son when war started. It was a hot summer; there was a searchlight battery where the bull had been.'
'My small son who suffered from asthma was very ill when hay-making began. We had to return home. It is safer to stay at home, maybe there is something in the No. 13 thing after all.
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