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I came into this world as quite a shock, being poorly from the start and pronounced by Dr Pearson, as more 'cannon fodder', recalls Harold Taylor.
I do not know what the medical profession called my trouble, but my mother would quite vividly describe me as having maggots crawling over my forehead, which even quite recently my eldest half sister confirms. I am sure, however, that it must have been only some sort of tremor passing through the veins. I gather I was so poorly that my mother took to her bed, only emerging four days later when I showed some signs of survival.
Harold has very kindly lent to me his memoirs from the days of his parents' upbringing in the late 1800's, through Harold's time as a police constable, then lighthouse keeper, to his retirement in the 1980's. In this story Harold tells us of his father's background.
My father was born and bred in Arundel, was 13 years younger than my mother and came from a large family. He was the youngest of nine. He was in training in the clothing industry in London when the war broke out and joined up by putting his age up. He enlisted in the Royal Army Service Corp, and did most of his service in the Middle East, although I do seem to recall him talking of France also.
He was involved in the Dardanelles Campaign and also the evacuation of Gallipoli. When he arrived at Alexandria the only clothes he had left were his boots and shorts. Whilst standing in the street he saw the Royal Sussex Regiment march by and recognised many of the lads from his old home town. They 'adopted' him and he lived with them for sometime before being found out and court marshalled. The offence could not have been taken too seriously because he was soon back again with his corporal stripes - something he seemed to be in the habit of losing.
After the war he returned home and, I suppose like a lot of returning soldiers, found himself with no job and little prospect of getting one. He finished up as night watchman at Arundel Castle, where many of the family had worked, and where as a child he would have played with the later Duke Bernard.
It was apparently a habit for local children of employees to be taken in for this purpose, as Bernard was an only child. Dad lost his job however; apparently the then Duchess had a particular dog, which I think was a Dacshund, that had a habit of pushing doors open. One night I suppose my father had had a couple of drinks and endeavoured to get the dog to close doors as well, which the Duchess did not appreciate!
I have managed to trace my father's side back to around the 1600's in Worcestershire, although at one time this was part of Staffordshire. The earliest record almost suggests that they may have been gypsies or tinkers, as the reference of Taylor alias Gypsy Smith, and Smith alias Gypsy Taylor, makes the question very confusing.
When my eldest brother, Henry, knew I was doing this work, he asked if I had done anything on my paternal grandmother's side, and whether I had heard the story that her grandfather had been the huntsman or jockey for the first Duke of Richmond. I had not, so commenced enquiries, and with the assistance of the West Sussex Archives Office, found the reference I needed and have been able to trace that side of the family back to around 1650.
My great great great great grandfather, although not the huntsman, was a constant companion of the Duke on all his hunting excursions and is recorded almost everyday as being there, and also at Fox Hall where many of his ballads on hunting were read.
During the course of subsequent enquiries, my quest crossed that of a Canadian who was making approaches to another family. I was able to link these families together and established from them that that side of the family, according to a professional genealogist, goes back to that of a local Anglo-Saxon chieftain, whose camp was at Easebourne.
In the book entitled, History of the Charlton Hunt, by the Earl of March, in 1908 my ancestor is mentioned on almost every page. I have also heard a story that the family may once have owned the Trundle. This I have yet to look into, but certainly when lightning struck the mill on that hill, one of the two people killed was of the family Budd.
I am not certain how my parents met, though there is a story that she was going out with his older brother, a petty officer in the Navy, who died of pneumonia in 1922. I don't know off hand the date of their marriage, but I gather that my eldest brother was all ready on the way.
Here a bit of a mystery arises. My father's family were very much Catholic, although his parents were both converts, and therefore, my mother was expected to go through an induction process into the church before they could marry. When she attended the convent for the classes, one of the nuns recognised her as having been brought up in the faith before, although her mother as far as I am aware, was Church of England.
In due course the marriage took place and they lived at 8 Woodside, Arundel.
Harold was born in 1926, at which time his eldest half sister, Florence, was attending Worthing High School and her younger sister, Kathleen, was about to start there. His half brother, William, attended a school in Bognor, before being apprenticed to Duke and Ockendens at Littlehampton.
Harold's half brothers and sister's education was partially assisted by Army funds, as children of a widow of a serving husband. Her first husband did not die in the war, however, but of influenza.
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