In 1938 at the age of 17, Archie Greenshields enlisted into the Army. The teenage years of his life up to that time were not particularly happy, with life at home becoming untenable. Archie shared his humble home in Tower Street, Chichester with 7 siblings, his parents finding it extremely hard to provide for their large family. Archie tells us: -

I soon became aware that earning a living was quite different from being a schoolboy, for one thing the hours were much longer, and far worse. From the first day at work, as a labourer, I missed the company of my school friends. I worked with my father for Fred Shippham, a jobbing builder. What I had not bargained for also, was that I was often called to task by a stern father for any misdemeanours, not only at home, but at work too.

The five or six men that formed the building gang had been strangers to me, and with whom I found I had nothing in common. Of course, it was to be expected that they would have little time for one so young, but in retrospect, they must have been sympathetic and understanding. It did not take me long, however, to realise that learning to be a builder was a job for which I was definitely unsuited.

Our home backed onto similar properties in a neighbouring Court known as Spring Gardens. By the simple task of creating a doorway in the party wall between the two properties, more living room was obtained.

Of course this must have meant an increase in the rent, but it gave scope and room for a further increase in the family, which soon happened. But at least now we had an outside toilet on both sides of our enlarged home, even if they were shared with the neighbour.

By the time I was 14 I was earning a small wage of 10 shillings, (50p), for a 44 hour week in the winter months, and during the summer a 49 hour week, for which I got no extra; a fact I considered was grossly unfair.

After 18 months Mr Shipham was forced by regulations to reduce my working week, when it was discovered that due to my age, I was being made to work too many hours. I was therefore given Saturday morning off to reduce them.

At the time of leaving the firm to join the Army I was still only receiving the princely sum of 15 shillings (75p) a week!

In the late spring of 1935, there was a great deal of slum clearance in Chichester, and Mum and Dad were allocated Council property - a new four bedroomed house with the added luxury of a bathroom and electric light. I felt like a king by being allocated a bedroom of my own, which gave me the first privacy of my life and somewhere that I could shut myself away.

Although our new home was a little less than 15 minutes brisk walk from where we had previously lived, I quickly realised that I was being left out of the group of lads who met each other in the evenings or at weekends.

If we had made arrangements to meet, I often found that by the time our family had lunched and finished the task of drying the dishes afterwards, the group had already left. I had much heartache by being left behind, through the insensitivity of friends not making allowances for my predicament. Sadly, my parents did not notice the situation, which, as a result, made me desperately lonely.

There was also the mixed emotions of adolescence to contend with. Although I was well aware of the differences between the sexes, I had had absolutely nothing to do with the opposite sex whatever. In those early teenage years, girls frightened me. It amuses me and others now, when I talk about this period of my life.         

My Grandmother used to take me to the cinema quite often when I was young. The type of films she liked all seemed to have a similar plot, boy meets girl, girl and boy fall in love. A few scenes later, the audience sees them gazing into each other's eyes, the hero bursts into a love song and they are married. It therefore occurred to me that perhaps singing was an essential part of courtship.

So it was no wonder I suppose, after a surfeit of such films, that I began to believe it must be usual for grown-ups to get married once they had fallen in love. And falling in love of course meant singing love songs to each other.

For me there would be very little chance of finding someone to marry, as I knew I could not sing. What better proof would I need to know that my fate was to remain single, for no girl would surely want a non-singer for a husband.

Before long came the natural and subtle changes in my adolescent body that I pretended not to notice, but could hardly avoid. Bath nights in our house was normally a speedy wash down with a flannel in a tin bath, by our small kitchen range.

Towards the end of our tenancy of Rose Court and Spring Gardens, Mother had 6 children to keep clean. How she managed to do so and keep the water reasonably comfortable with kettles of boiling water, was a feat of ingenuity.

She started with the smallest and worked her way to the eldest, which meant there were 3 sisters before it was my turn. There came a time when I had a fleeting glimpse of my eldest sister doing her turn whilst Mother was supervising her drying.

I was meant to be reading a comic, but saw that her physical development was rather more advanced than mine. I suppose Mother had noticed my interest, as she sharply ordered my sister to turn away from my prying eyes. From then on the bath routine was altered.

Another thing that puzzled me was the prevalence of certain incidents that seemed to regularly occur to characters in Father's pulp American detective magazines. These were passed onto him by his brother-in-law, my uncle, George Hall.

When I was about 12 or 13, I picked up one of these books and looked through it. On the inside, behind the lurid covers, were advertisements for guns and other fascinating items of interest to a child.

From then I was always allowed to look through any that Father wasn't reading. On reading a story in one of them, to my astonishment I read that a gangster character had a moll (a girlfriend, I was told, when I asked) whom he kissed, and then was allowed to 'cup her naked breast'.

My mind boggled with imagination of the Moll walking about with a cup fitted on to her breast, and wondered if this peculiar action was a common occurrence between men and women.

Did that sort of behaviour occur between Mum and Dad? What if indeed it did, which of our cups were used by them to suffer this indignity?

None of the facts of life were passed on to me or to my other brothers by our parents as far as I am aware, who I am sure took the unhealthy view that we would find them out by ourselves sooner or later. Already I was in danger of firmly believing that I was mal-formed through spotting obscene graffiti in public toilets, just as common then as it was in Pompeii-an times and the present day.

The juvenile drawings of erect phalluses seemed always to be depicted as being horizontally proud, when I was more than aware that when this pleasurable sensation occurred to me, it was perpendicular! Surely my member should never be like this, but who could I ask? All this worry and shame was enormous and could easily have been avoided had proper information been given at home or at school as it is today.

As a result, much mis-information was gathered on sexual matters in school playgrounds and later at street corners, which lasted for more years than I care to relate. Is it any wonder then that by the time I was seventeen, I was a thoroughly mixed up and a very unhappy teenager?

On a Saturday morning, in the early summer of 1938, I found myself being drawn towards South Street and in particular towards the Recruiting Office, (which I believe is now occupied by Age Concern). A Recruiting Sergeant wearing a red sash, was at the door and somehow I summoned up the courage to ask him if I could enlist. Within an hour, I was on my way home again, with a beating heart to break the news to Mum.

To my utter amazement she said, 'You wait till your Father comes home, he'll have something to say about that!' I felt that was a rather strange remark to make as his past threats, often held over me when I had stepped out of line, was that one day he would march me up to the barracks to get the King's Shilling which an entrant received. I took these threats of 'press-ganging' seriously.

As expected, when he was told the news, I was warned that I had better get accepted or leave home. Luckily they did enlist me and on my first leave, I returned home to be welcomed back with pleasure, resplendent in my new khaki uniform and could see that Dad was pleased after all.

Archie Greenshields in walking-out uniform taken in the early summer of 1939