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Harold Taylor arrived in this World during the decade before the Second World War. He started school at 4 years old at the local infant school in Chichester, but his mother took him away from his first school after an unfortunate event, but that's another story.
Following St. Pancras, I attended St. Richard's Catholic School in St. Paul's Road, which my brothers were already attending. Oddly enough my first teacher there was later to be my children's first teacher in Worthing. Her name was Miss Nevin then, and she lodged in the same road as the school. Later she was Mrs Dear, the wife of one of my police sergeants.
There were only three classrooms covering the ages of 4 to 14. There may have been three age groups in the infant class, certainly seats and tables were set around three sides of the room. When I moved up to the next class, each row of desks from front to back carried a different age of child, or standard as I believe it was called.
At the same time the sexes were split up with the boys being one end of the classroom, and the girls the other. One of our teachers was a Miss Moore, who seemed to have no time for boys, and spent considerably more time with the girls. Nothing seemed to give her greater pleasure than to cane boys for the slightest thing, especially getting a word out of place when reciting the Catechism.
She lived quite near me in Melbourne Road, and so filled me with fear, that I would always cross over to the other side of the road, or run past the house long after I had left the school.
One of the things I recall of that era was religious prejudice. To come home, one's path crossed those of the Lancastrian and Central Schools, which resulted in us always receiving the jibe of 'dirty Roman candles'. Us little ones would also be chased, so I would have to wait outside for my elder brothers to see me home.
There is one good period that I remember about my early school days, and it was prior to the Parklands Estate being built. Across what is now the wide access to the houses, there were tall, iron railings. On a sunny day Miss Moore would walk us up there from school. Whilst most would enter the field or park by the gate, others would squeeze between the rails into the grassland. There we would sit in the shade under a large tree and she would read to us.
Whilst she was doing this, the Hawker Harts and the Hawker Fury's from Tangmere would manoeuvre overhead like so many buzzing bees. It was a dreamy time and very pleasant. The period must have been 1932/3.
I recall about that time attending an open day at Tangmere and one of the competitors in the sports was a pilot, D O Finlay, who was a hurdler of great repute. I think he represented the country at the Olympics.
Whilst at St. Richard's I remember when the Isolation Hospital was being built. The floors of the hospital were lined with rubber and there would be off-cuts of this, which my father brought home to sole and heel our shoes with. It was a good quarter of an inch thick. The only real problem with it was the colour; you had a choice of pale green or two shades of marbled green.
I do not know where my father learnt his 'snobbing', whether it was in his youth, the army, or after the war, but he always repaired our shoes, as did many a father. I vaguely seem to remember some indication that after the First World War, one of his jobs had been with a shoe repairer in Arundel.
Harold's family was not poor, however, though nor were they well off, being a family of six children. They must have kept a good standard, for Harold can remember that after each mealtime the children would brush the tablecloth for crumbs, and also sweep the floor after each meal.
I wonder, do children get so involved in household chores these days - I suppose some probably still do.
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