Harry Charles Higgs 1915 - 1996
Ninth of Nine Harry, my father was born 9th November 1915. He was the last of the nine children of Willie Hull Higgs and Willie himself was also one of nine children!
Actually, it's likely he's the tenth child - go and look at Cissie Higgs
Harry's mother Emma is shown on the 1911 Census as blind. She died in 1931 when he was just 16. A few years later when Harry was 21, he lost his father Willie.
At that time the family were living at 19 East Street (later re-named Dombey Street). The informant on the birth certificate is shown as A Walker. I think it likely this was his half-sister Annie who, three years earlier, at age 19, had married a Charles Walker
In 1942, aged 27 he was living just around the corner from Dombey Street at 43 Lambs Conduit Street.
That year he married Kate Amelia Peterson (my mother "Kitty"). The Petersons lived right next door to where Harry had been born, at number 18 Dombey Street. His witness this time was another sister, Elizabeth.
Shortly after the wedding Harry went off to war, serving with the Sherwood Foresters, and not returning for about three years.
Archive:724 Kirk Street in 1950
Read here about how we were evicted in the sixties! in fact, the whole front page of the paper is interesting too...[Courtesy of West Sussex Library Service]
Read also how Harry managed to open his car door, hitting a poor cyclist!...[Courtesy of West Sussex Library Service]
Harry died in 1995, aged 80.
Archive: 790
