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Harold Taylor was born almost a decade after the end of the First World War and served in Merchant Navy in the Second World War. He shares with us some of his working day memories after the War.
The job of labourer on Chichester Rural District Council, was one of the most enjoyable occupations I have had. It left me with the declared ambition, that if ever I was wealthy enough, I would always work as a labourer, one without responsibilities.
The head office was Pallant House, the depot being in Stane Street, Westhampnett, where the District Council still has a depot. It was the site of the old Isolation Hospital, which I believe was still in use until replaced by the one my father built.
The particular job I was engaged on became very interesting. It was the conversion of Tangmere Vicarage into four flats and a house. There were initially 6 of us on the job, two bricklayers, one of whom was the foreman, two labourers, a carpenter and a scaffolder. The foreman took me to work with him much of the time, as the other labourer was a bricklayer's labourer.
This led me to be involved in the removal and re-erection of some nice marble fireplaces.
I also went as labourer to the scaffolder, a man whose family I knew, although he was much older than me. This was interesting work, before tubes and clamps were commonplace. We used pine poles, tubs of sand, and Spanish beech.
I was also tea boy, using an open grate fire fed with all the debris, a big galvanised coal scuttle and packets of tea, which we must have been able to get off ration. The carpenter made a big wooden lid to cover the water, but sometimes other people would make up the fire too high, with the result that the sides of the bucket above the water level got red hot and scorched the lid. I learnt to counteract the taste of burning wood in the tea by adding a clean slither of wood to the brew.
The carpenter was a nice old boy, taken on at the same time as myself. He had been the estate carpenter at Oakwood House, which was a school on the Ashling Road just outside Chichester. I was later to meet him again in Worthing when I was in the Police.
Eventually another Carpenter, Norman, was taken on, whom I had worked with at Hills. I subsequently learned that he had been a company sergeant major in the Royal West African Rifles, and had been at Appapa when I was there on my second visit. With him I learned to pitch and batten a roof.
During the conversion of an old scullery or outbuilding into the kitchen of the house section, we broke through the floor into an old and concealed cellar. This had either not been properly infilled, or there had been settlement, with the result that there was at least two feet of brick arched roof visible. In consequence, we left this till the surveyor had a look.
The outcome was, that the find was not inspected and we threw some makeshift reinforcing over the hole, then laid our concrete floor. What mysteries lay beneath one will not discover, till the old vicarage is ultimately demolished in years to come.
We were right on the boundaries of Tangmere Airfield and had the constant pleasure of watching the modern jet aircraft taking off and landing.
I suppose at sometime the vicarage had been a requisitioned property, as one could walk through the garden and straight onto the airfield, and to the now disused blister type hangers. In fact the area was so deserted that whilst some of the chaps were breaking up wooden objects to take home for firewood, I was dismantling good staging for carpentry of my own.
We had a fairly long running dispute over rationed food whilst we were working there. Under certain regulations, it was possible for workers working away from home, and under special circumstances, to get an increased cheese ration. Off hand I think this was about 10 ounces per week.
A lot of the argument was based on how far one was away from the depot, rather than the distance you had to travel to get there, i.e. a compass circle rather than road network. We were refused, but provision was made for the local shop to stock certain meat pies for our purchase, which we never did. Whether it benefitted the shop, I have no idea.
Can you imagine having rations today? It would be a huge shock for everyone in this day and age with so much and every type of food, readily available in the many large supermarkets.
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