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This article was first published in the West Sussex Gazette on 29th July 1993.
Selling papers and cigarettes from a wooden shed may not seem a very sophisticated way of expanding a business into a new branch but that is exactly what local man Fred Marshall did in the 1920s to 'test the water'.
Business at the South Street newsagent and tobacconist shop by Tarring level crossing had been so successful that a new branch was opened at the opposite end of Tarring parish, by the crossroads at Thomas a Becket on the Littlehampton Road.
'Houses in Offington Lane had only just been built then,' said Fred's son Doug, who was to run the shop by Tarring level crossing for 38 years after the Second World War, 'so my entrepreneurial father saw a golden opportunity and put up a wooden shed for a shop. It was run by my elder sister Dolly. (Bank of earth/ earth mounds opposite?)'.
This temporary wooden shed housed Fred Marshall's cigarette and paper shop at the Thomas A'Becket crossroads when the family business expanded to this area in the latter 1920s when house building began to boom. The branch was run by Fred's daughter Dolly pictured in the doorway.
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After a few years, when trade there flourished, Doug's father invested in bricks and mortar by having a permanent building constructed by local builder Sparks in 1929. It housed three shops: Mitchell's the bakers was on the left, while the other two were occupied by Marshall's the newsagent and tobacconist. A post office was then incorporated into the shop, and was run by Dolly.
Her brother Fred with the help of his sister Joyce then took over the running of the paper shop, and soon became a popular figure with customers. After the second world war, their brother Ken, on coming out of the services, went to work with them, continuing to serve there for 28 years until the two brothers sold the business in 1974. At that time, Fred retired after 45 years of running the shop, but Ken went down to Tarring crossing and continued working, helping his brother Doug in the original family paper shop there.
This proper brick-built newsagent and tobacconist shop replaced Marshall's temporary shed at the Thomas A'Becket crossroads in 1929, and was run by brothers Fred and Ken Marshall until 1974. Today it is a Dillons shop, still selling papers and cigarettes and still containing a sub post office.
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Fred, who was the third Fred in the family after his father and grandfather, died in 1982. Ken is in St Barnabas Hospice.
Their friendly, pioneering family spirit lives on, for today the business opposite the Thomas A Becket is still there, now owned by Dillon's.
I am pleased to be able to report that Crawley reader Mrs Sybil Rouse has managed to trace her long lost relative Michael Parker with the help of other Remember When readers. It was after a certain amount of detective work that she was given a Hampshire telephone number.
'I was afraid to ring at first,' she said, 'afraid of being disappointed or that maybe he would not be interested, but we had so much to talk about, my phone bill will be enormous, but worth it!
'My thanks to everyone, what a lucky day when I started buying the WSG.'
Tarring reader Tom Davey wrote in following the article on Dads' Army (13 May): 'How nice to hear about the Busters Cafe mob again after all these years. Yes I was in No. 1 platoon. I wonder if anyone can remember when we were first issued with our new rifles (Canadian Ross's)? R.S.M. Stanford was giving us instructions on loading same in the downstairs hall (it must have been raining that day).'
'He gave the order to unload and pull the trigger. Unfortunately, I still had one up the spout --- the bullet went through the ceiling and missed Capt. Lance Cattermole's typist by about a foot!'
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