The following is taken from a book written by one Archie Greenshields, which he wrote in memory of his mother and father. Archie was born in 1920 in Chichester and shares with us some of his earliest memories:

Although Mother and Father could hardly be called well off and certainly lacked financial means at times, there was little evidence that their eight children were in any way deprived. Never once were they able to take us away on holidays, not even for a day's outing, and it was not until each of their offspring had left home, that they did so themselves.

It is true too that they did not display much open affection, but treated each of us equally to the best of their abilities. Father was only a general labourer for most of his working days, and what his employment was before he fought in the Great War, I have no idea.

He worked as a woodsman for a local timber merchant when I was small, and I remember being taken by my mother and grandmother to a wood near Brandy-hole Lane, just outside the city boundaries of Chichester, to give him his dinner. He must have been poorly paid, but Mother, raising a growing family, still managed to clothe and feed her children on what must have been a meagre housekeeping allowance.

Mother left school at the age of 12 to enter into service to help her mother and I have possession of her certificate authorising her to do so, after she passed a labour exam, which was required in the early years of this century.

Just like countless other mothers and fathers of their generation they had a hard existence. From time to time, during the mid-1920's and the General Strike, our family was the recipient of meals from the March Charity, which gave food to the needy in Tower Street. Mother also received donated gifts of food and fuel at Christmas time from either The Lord Mayor's Appeal, the Round Table or The Rotary Club. Occasional visits to the local pawnshop had to be made when Father experienced short time at work too.

Each of us children received an elementary education. When the chance came for me to enter the local high school, Mother turned it down because the cost of the required school uniform was too heavy for her to meet, in spite of assistance offered by her sister. I am sure that she believed the rest of her family would perhaps suffer from some shortage if she had agreed, but I deeply regret her decision.

The house in which my parents raised six of us was infested with vermin in the latter years of its occupation. Most of the small cottages tucked away in the several Courts in Tower Street had no internal sanitation, with the few outside lavatories having to be shared by more than one family. Most were demolished in that location during 1934, and the families re-housed. The site where a few of them stood now forms part of the 'pay and display' car park, opposite the Chichester Library.

I think it was Duff Cooper who was the author of a book entitled 'Old Men Forget' and, of course, they do. Belonging to a family who, to say the least, have formed no great attachments to each other or each other's memories if asked, I am sure I have forgotten so much of my childhood.

An added difficulty I am sad to record, is that my father was not a great communicator and as a result it is now impossible to learn anything of my his early life or parentage. He was quite taciturn and seemed particularly unable to talk to his children, and the older we became, the less able he was to do so. Perhaps we are partly to blame for not persevering and not making any attempt to break the barrier that gradually built up between our father and us.

With Mother it was a different matter, you could talk to her and, if she was in the right mood, one could learn about her younger days. Unfortunately, by the time we had all left home and had families of our own, the opportunities became less and less for us to gather together and talk.

Father died in 1968 at the age of 72 and, although his health had been failing for two or three years prior to his death, I do not believe that his memory declined. Mother survived him for a further 25 years and died in 1993 at the age of 95. In her case, for 10 years prior to her death, her memory had gradually deteriorated with senility until in the end, it had completely disappeared.

Therefore, whilst it is within my power, I shall pass on that which I can remember to those who care. Often, in the past, my daughters have implored me to write my early recollections down, knowing that I like to compose articles. I have satisfied them to a degree, having at least completed two small exercise books, both of which were considered worthy to have been included in the County Archives.

Of course, many of my age can remember being pushed in their pram and I can just about manage that as well. I distinctly recall that it was a large black pram and perhaps it contained my sister as well. There is the likelihood that I was at the handle end, because I can describe a foldaway compartment there, designed, I expect, for shopping purchases. My memory tells me that I was once in the pram outside a cake shop near the Market Cross in South Street, Chichester.

I also recall a time when we lived in Rose Court, Tower Street, which must have been a considerable time before our home was enlarged to accommodate our parent's growing family. I was perhaps two or three years old and was sitting on the step of the only door of the house. It was very sunny; the tiny cottage faced south towards the Cathedral and it may have been after or before bath time.

As far as I remember I only had a vest on, which did not cover the mysteries of life. I was playing with a very young puppy, probably only a month or two old when it started sniffing round my genitals. It was then that either my mother or some other adult shouted and startled me and the dog, for why I did not know and could not understand, but I was quickly picked up and hustled indoors. The animal perhaps was owned by a neighbour who Mother most disliked, and no doubt the reason for it being given the order of the boot.

I must have been a year or more older when I can remember being in a bath and left for a while to lie in the cooling water. I felt a sharp pain in my back up by a shoulder blade and screamed out loudly. Mother rushed to see what the trouble was, for she could not have been very far away, with only one room downstairs. On discovering that I had been stung by a wasp, in no time at all she administered treatment in that good old fashioned way, by rubbing the sting with a Reckits Blue Bag, unheard of today, no doubt.

When he came home, I was quite proud to tell Dad what had happened and that a man had made it better with a magic spell. Immediately afterwards Mum and Dad started to quarrel and the row was all to do with that incident. I did not understand why at the time, but today would guess that jealousy played a large part.

Right opposite the door of our cottage was a washhouse that we shared with our neighbours. On Mondays was washing day, when the copper boiler fire was lit to heat the water. Left to my resources I strayed near the washhouse on one of those Mondays. To my horror I was grabbed by someone and held, face to the open boiler door, with its fire burning fiercely and told, 'I'm going to put you in the copper fire!' You can imagine, being only a toddler, I was scared out of my wits and consequently have never forgotten this incident, now indelibly fixed in my mind.

It must also have been in this washhouse that I discovered crystals that looked like sweets and helped myself. The unfortunate mistake could have been more serious than it was, but luckily either Mum or a neighbour stopped me from having more than one mouthful. Hence, the awful taste of washing soda remained with me for a very long time. Perhaps Mum remembered this incident quite a few years later when Father Christmas brought me a chemistry set that I had set my heart on.

Soon after Christmas I had been ill with one of the many children's illnesses they are prone to and was lying in bed in my attic bedroom. I had been calling down two flights of stairs for help of some sort, but more probably for perhaps a little comfort or sympathy that I believed I needed. Getting no response from repeated calls down to Mum, my last was to the effect that she had no need to bother, for I was going to eat all the chemicals in the set and commit suicide. This silly claim soon brought her racing upstairs, not to offer comfort, but to snatch the set from my bed.

At the age of 4 years it was decided that I was to attend a school that was barely two minutes walk from home.

During that first year a medical examination was arranged for the young children. Perhaps I had learned of this in advance and was determined that I would not be among those to be examined. For, on the day the doctor and nurse were due to visit the school, I told Mum that I was not well and ought to stay in bed, strangely she agreed. Probably only a little later in the day, I was encouraged out of bed with the lure of a fancy cake that had three circles of coloured jam on its top. Before very long I remember being undressed and examined by the doctor with the usual stethoscope.

The ordeal was, after all, not so frightening as expected and I told my sister that I had been 'tempted' by the doctor, confusing the use of his stethoscope with the 'temptations of the devil'. I can guess that by that time I had been encouraged to go to Sunday school, but my childish brain was not in any way able to establish what on earth they were teaching.

Some little while ago now my wife (Barbara) and I watched a television documentary on life in the first half of this century, when a mother described how she cooked a cod's head for her hungry children in the 1920's. Another described how she did the same with half a pig's head. This rattled my memory and I know that my Mum prepared similar meals for us too.

For some parents it is difficult enough to get their children to eat a decent piece of cod of pork. Can you imagine their disgust if you served them up the head of either?

Archie Greenshields, aged 10