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Harold Taylor was born in 1926 and started life in Arundel with 2 half-sisters, a half-brother and 2 brothers. His mother had previously been married before she met his father, only to lose her husband during the First World War of influenza. The family moved to Chichester when Harold was about 18 months old and most of his young life was spent here. Harold tells us some of his recollections of the grand cathedral.
My half-brother, Bill, with whom I worked as a plumber's mate, was a plumber and sheet metal worker. He had been employed to re-roof Chichester Cathedral with copper. That was before the war, before I started work. I went to the Cathedral several times to do work with him, as well as most of the houses in the vicinity.
I recall one occasion when we had to go to the spire. As I stood at the bottom of the ladder, I was told that there were six ladders up the centre and they had been condemned 10 years before, being unsafe. Each ladder, which was of the pole type, went up through a small square platform, from which the next ladder proceeded higher. I am afraid my nerve did not allow me to proceed beyond the second ladder.
At the top of the spire there is a small opening, through which the steeplejacks gain access to the outside and are able to climb higher to the weather vane.
Since I retired back to the Chichester area, I recall an article in the local paper concerning a missing model, which was a skeletal construction of the cathedral. I recall this, which may have been an architects model, having first seen it when I was quite small. It stood in a side room of the building, which, I presume, was the verger's office. I suppose it was about 4 feet high and stood on a low table. I saw this several times afterwards, the last time being around 1942, when I was working for the Electric Company.
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