Archie Greenshields was born in 1920 and brought up in Chichester, West Sussex.

It has become impossible to trace my father's forbears and what little factual knowledge I do possess was confirmed when my son-in-law, David, applied for my father's birth certificate. Dad was uncommunicative and taciturn and as a result little information was passed to us children.

We did not think to ask questions, and had we done, probably would not have got sufficient answers. When my children grew old enough and began to ask about their great-grandparents, it was already too late.

I asked my mother before she died if she could tell me about my paternal grandparents and gleaned so little information to be almost worthless. As a result I have to rely on my mothers sister, Aunt Florrie's memory. However, Mum was always proud in her belief that Dad's father had been a sea-captain and came from Portsmouth.

Some bearing of his calling was revealed in David's searches. My Grandfather was Archibald Greenshields who was born in 1855. He married Louisa Ryan in St. Paul's Church, Chichester on the 4th June, 1893, when he was aged thirty-eight and Louisa was only twenty-one. On the Marriage Certificate, his address was recorded as No. 32 Guildford Street, Portsmouth, and that he was a Mariner. My Great Grandfather is named in the certificate as James Greenshields and was a gardener.

The presumption is that Archibald and Louisa took up residence upon marriage in the Somerstown area of Chichester and may have even lived with Louisa's parents, whose address on the marriage certificate is given as being No. 22 High Street. Their names were Thomas and Mary Ryan who had two sons, my Uncle Archibald and my Dad, Thomas Percy.

Some time after their births my paternal grandfather died, and I suspect soon afterwards my Grandmother re-married into the Challen side of the family. The Challen's also resided in High Street, Somerstown, and by the time I was able to understand relationships, learned of an Auntie Nell, Uncles Jim and Fred.

These were my Dad's half-brothers and sister. Dad seemed closer to Nell than his half-brothers, Jim and Fred, and I have a vague recollection of Nell and her husband being put up in our home for a short period. Nell married a Stan Tyler and they too had a large family but sadly lost some in a diphtheria outbreak in the mid 1920's.

Dad had very little to do with his half-brother Fred who worked at Shippam's Meat Paste Factory. This Uncle by marriage seemed to me to be famous for he was prominent on an advertising poster displayed on most Southern Region Railway platforms, stirring a caldron of paste that was shown in the process of being cooked.

Dad did not appear to have much contact with his other half-brother Jim either, especially in our earlier years. I believe he was a serving member of the Royal Navy and in 1934 he too was given a council house in Kent Road, just opposite to the one allocated to Mum and Dad. I believe Mum had little regard for him and the suggestion was given that Jim was a hard drinker and encouraged Dad to do the same when they met in a pub.

There were cousins of my own age from Dad's side of the family, but of them all, Bill Tyler, a boy just a little younger than me, was my closest playmate in childhood. Although I cannot recall that he visited our home often, I certainly did visit him and was invited to tea on more than one occasion at his home in Rose Court and at No. 2 High Street, Somerstown to which they moved afterwards.

A shadowy figure in the background of their Rose Court home is of a man with one arm whom I was encouraged to refer to as Uncle Henry, but I do not believe he was a true relative of mine and may have been a friend or relative of Stan.

After the Tyler's moved to High Street I became aware of an old lady and man in their home which must have been my Grandmother and her second husband but there was little affection shown and these two disappeared from memory.

I have a photograph which came into my possession after my Mum's death, taken earlier this century I suspect, which forms my only memory of my grandmother. I can vividly recall being taken to High Street and being persuaded to wriggle the carrying handle of a box camera, the very camera that may have taken the photograph I have just referred to.

I was promised that if a wriggled it long enough, the view I had seen in its little glass window would be produced for me. Greener than my name, I persevered to the annoyance of Auntie Nell who had a softer heart for me than my tormentors.

It in Rose Court or High Street where I had been invited to tea, when offered bread and butter or cake, that I saw Uncle Stan shove his hand up Auntie Nell's skirt, only to quickly remove it on her shriek of annoyance!

I know absolutely nothing about Uncle Archibald but lately wrote to the Records Office in an attempt to discover exactly where or when he was killed in France. His name is included on the Chichester War Memorial and also is on The Lancastrian School Old Boys Roll of Honour.

I learned that Uncle Archibald had been a Lance Corporal serving with the 7th Battalion of The Royal Sussex Regiment and was killed on the 8th September, 1917. He was buried in Duhallow Cemetery, Ypres, Belgium. I am sure that information had never been made aware to my parents.

Archie Greenshield, West Sussex, 2001