This article was first published in the West Sussex Gazette on 15th July 1993

The several replies to the request for information about the Tarring puzzler picture published in the 13 May Remember When feature were quite revealing, not least of all the response from Tarringite Doug Marshall.

Now in his 79th year, Doug produced an identical photograph handed down to him by his late father (Fred) who had told him that it was taken in the grounds of Church House next to Tarring Church.

Even though the house has since been demolished and replaced by a block of flats of the same name, ornamental grounds are still there next to bowling greens between the church and Tarring recreation ground.

Doug's father had also identified several of the characters in the picture. 'The posh-looking bearded gent on the right and wearing a hat was Squire Gardner who lived in Church House,' announced Doug, 'and to his left is my father; then there's my uncle, George Goldring, standing to the right of the flagpole.' He was a member of the West Tarring Brass Band who entertained at such celebrations as the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, the coronation of King Edward VII, and perhaps even the ending of the Boer War.

Doug Marshall loves meeting people and is probably best known for his humorous banter over the shop counter at the newsagent and tobacconist at Tarring level crossing which he ran for 38 years until his retirement in 1984.

Laughing so much that he wobbled like a jelly, Doug set about divulging the story of his family's involvement with the paper shop business, beginning with his grandfather, another Fred Marshall, who started the business in that same shop by the railway at the bottom of South Street, Tarring in 1904.

'Later on, when the Great War finished,' said Doug, 'my dad took over the running of the shop and his sister Mrs Kay Pink ran a sweet shop next door, while my grandfather went to Montague Street Post Office (now Poland's) selling tobacco alongside the post office'.

Doug's father Fred Marshall joined the West Worthing Working Men's Club situated in Elm Grove, a road in which fellow member Charlie Botting ran a competing newsagents.

After World War II, Doug took over the running of the shop from his father and continued to serve the public until retiring nine years ago at the age of 70.

'It was quite an interesting life,' he said, 'you met all sorts of people.'

Although Doug, who loves Tarring and still lives in the parish, had a good repartee with regulars, he was well aware that not all of the customers were pleasant all of the time: 'I always reckoned that anyone who came in the shop and had a go at me was doing so instead of having a go at their husband or wife.'

The story of the papershop Marshalls continues next week with the opening of another branch, initially in a shed before Fred Marshall ventured capital into building a proper shop.
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