It is with regret we have to announce the death on 22 April, at age 91, of Ken Green, one of – or more precisely the – founder of our Society.
Ken was a proud Cicestrian, being born in this fair city in April 1932 and receiving the classic education for a Chichester boy – Central Junior Boys then Chichester High School for Boys. Both schools have sadly ceased to exist, but the buildings of the former live on as the New Park Centre which is of course, inter alia, our meeting place.
He married Sheila Weston in October 1953 and lived in Chichester all his life, and latterly worked for himself preparing planning drawings for house extensions. In this he often engaged his old friend Garry Long as an assistant.
For the Silver Jubilee edition of the Society’s journal Chichester History he wrote, with some input from Garry Long, a piece about the inauguration of CLHS. The inspiration had come to him on a family visit to Upper Beeding where he spotted a poster advertising a meeting of the Bramber and Beeding Local History Society. He remarked in the car on the way home how strange it was that a place the size of Beeding should have a local history society whereas Chichester hadn’t, to which his 13-year-old son Giles retorted pragmatically, “well, start one”. And that’s exactly what Ken did; beginning with a letter to the Chichester Observer to gauge what interest there might be and calling an initial meeting for 14 November 1984 at the New Park Centre. The support was overwhelming, and there were not enough chairs to go round. Appropriately the room they had booked was one in which Ken had been taught over 40 years previously! A committee was formed which included Ken and his wife Sheila plus Garry Long and his wife Doreen. Although that committee long ago ceded its powers to a (relatively) younger group they all continued to attend meetings, and Ken regularly appeared , sitting with Garry Long, until a couple of years ago.
As a local historian Ken published five books about Chichester, three were collections of old photographs, and the others were An Illustrated History of Chichester and The Hospital of St Mary, Chichester – the last being an Otter Memorial Paper. He contributed no fewer than 19 articles to Chichester History and in 2012 authored the first New Chichester Paper which was about the day in 1944 the Liberator bomber crashed on Chichester, an event he had witnessed as a boy. Three years later he wrote another New Chichester Paper, this time about the Second World War bombings of Chichester.
Over his long life Ken had amassed a formidable collection of books and ephemera about Sussex and Chichester in particular. This included his famous ‘box’ which was a collection of photographs of Chichester; a veritable goldmine which he made freely available for fellow authors such as myself to draw upon. He was also a fount of knowledge about his native city and was an essential consultee for researchers into 20th century Chichester. Not long before he died he very generously invited me to visit his house to choose books and documents from his collection before he began to dispose of it. Many items were added to the Grumpium collection that day.
Ken was heavily involved in St George’s church in Whyke and served several times as churchwarden. Indeed he wrote a book of instructions for churchwardens; a manual which was essential reading for all who were rashly considering taking on this onerous task. It is still in print.
Both of us being Greens, and both having published books on Chichester, our identities were often confused, or it would be assumed that we must be related. As it happens we were not related: it was just a happy coincidence that we were both Cicestrians, both went to the same schools (albeit at different times!) and neither of us ever saw the need to move away from the city of our birth..
Sheila had died several years ago and Ken had been quite ill for over a year involving several spells in hospital in between which he was looked after at home by his family. A notable Cicestrian has been lost and one who will be sorely missed.
Alan Green
April 2024