Five generations

Joyce was only 13 when she met George. They became school sweethearts and she fell pregnant at 17.

It was the early-Forties and during the Second World War, Joyce had a job at the local factory. She hid her bump under her girdle.

"No one knew until two hours before the birth," she says. "It was really looked down on in those days and I didn't dare tell anyone. Sex was a completely taboo subject in our house. We weren't allowed to mention it, let alone do it. I thought to get pregnant you had to do something very, very special."

The crunch came when Joyce started to feel poorly at work. "I left early and rode home on my bike. My mother asked, What's wrong?' I said, I don't know'. The next thing she said was, You're having a baby'."

Two hours later Pat was born and, being completely unexpected, she was wrapped in a sheet and laid in a drawer from the sideboard.

Once they got over the initial shock, Joyce's parents were fully supportive - in stark contrast to some neighbours. Joyce recalls the lady of the manor calling in and branding her the village slut'.

"You were made to know if you made a mistake in those days. People said some terrible things," she says.

"It was hard but my mother and father were brilliant. Pat never wanted for a thing."

Joyce's boyfriend George was working in the mines in Yorkshire at the time and had no idea about the pregnancy until her mother wrote and told him. His job kept them apart for four years and they couldn't afford to get married until Pat was seven.

"We were both young rebels in shock," says Joyce. "Had it not been for my Dad, I would have had to give Pat up for adoption."

Over the years, Joyce has formed a close bond with her daughter. "She is our one and only," says Joyce.

"She was a very pretty girl. All the boys were after her and I was worried the same thing would happen to her that happened to me. I sat her down and talked to her about getting pregnant but in a similar situation to me, she was 20 when she had Julie."

Pat Palmer, 62, lives in Maresfield. She is the mother of Julie, grandmother of Rachel and great-grandmother of Mia.

Pat met her (now ex) husband Keith when she was 15, got engaged at 16 and married at 18. It was the mid- Sixties and by 19, she was pregnant.

They met at the Rose and Crown pub in Norfolk. "We wanted to be together but I was frightened I'd end up pregnant like my mum - that's the reason we got married," says Pat.

They had two daughters, Julie and Katie, and a son Sean, but after nine years of being together they parted and got divorced when Julie was five.

"I thought I was in love and that it was going to be for life," says Pat. "With hindsight, Keith was ten years older than me and I was far too young."

Pat moved out and took the children with her, although they continued to see their dad on a regular basis.

"Julie was a brilliant baby," says Pat.

"The test came when she was 13 and turned into an alien overnight. She became really moody. She'd go up to her bedroom, refuse to speak and then want to stay out all hours. I didn't approve of the type of people she was messing around with. They were smoking and drinking and didn't seem to have any morals."

Pat recalls: "I'd ask her to tidy her room.

She'd spend a couple of minutes doing it and shout Finished!'. I'd open the cupboard door and everything would pile out like an avalanche. There were a few years of door-slamming. If push came to shove, she'd toe the line but not without a lot of argy-bargy."

When Julie was a baby, Pat says she could never understand why other mums had problems with their daughters. "It wasn't until she turned 13 I found out. But I can honestly say she's one of my best friends now," she says.

They've also had their fair share of laughs, one incident which sticks in Pat's mind was the time Julie dyed her hair.

"She wanted to dye it a reddy auburn and I wouldn't let her so she got hold of some red cochineal - some food colouring I had in the kitchen cupboard. She went out, it rained - of course - and she came back with red streaks all over her face and clothes.

We had a good laugh about that."

Julie left home when she was 17, then went back when she was 18. Like her mum, she got pregnant at 19 (as, bizarrely, did her younger sister Katie).

As her mother had done before her, Pat supported her daughter all the way.

"We always look on the positive side in this family, no matter what," she says.

Asked what the key is to being a good mum, Pat says: "We all think we're going to be different as a mum. I think the key is to love your children unconditionally but when you say no - mean no."

Pat now has eight grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.

Julie Lawrence, 42, lives in Peacehaven. Julie is the mother of Rachel and grandmother of Mia.

Like her mother, Julie was just 19 years old when she became pregnant with Rachel.

It was the Eighties and she was living with her boyfriend Vic, who she married when she was four-and-a-half month's pregnant.

"I was the youngest mum on the ward. It wasn't planned but everyone rallied around and was very supportive," she says.

Although Julie was working for a bank, she had no career ambitions and gave up work for 12 years to raise her children.

"If you have children when you're older I think it's often harder to give up your job because you've got a much bigger salary to sacrifice," she points out.

"I went through such a long, painful labour having Rachel. I also didn't want to miss out on the good bits - seeing her first smile or take her first step.

"I was lucky - I think it's really sad now a lot of women don't have that choice and have to work."

Sadly, Julie and Vic drifted apart and got divorced when Rachel was four and a half and her sister Jessica was two.

Although it was difficult at the time, Julie says they were determined to put the children first and Vic saw the girls virtually every weekend.

The hardest thing to deal with as a mother, according to Julie, was the fear of outside peer pressures, such as smoking and drugs. "But that's the same for any generation," she says. "At the end of the day, you teach them right from wrong and hope they remember."

Discipline, she claims was never an issue because Rachel was always well behaved.

"Rachel never gave me any trouble as a teenager but I think that was more to do with the fact she studied performing arts and is a natural actress. She can turn on the smiles and tears. I'm convinced she did a lot of things I never knew about when she was a teenager."

Their biggest fall-out was when Rachel went to university in London to study drama and quit after three months.

"At the time I felt she should have given it longer," says Julie. "But with the benefit of hindsight, she'd only just turned 18 and it was a huge culture shock. I had to accept what she wanted."

Julie is now happily married to Tom, she has four children of her own (including Rachel) and two step-children.

Asked to describe her relationship with Rachel now, Julie says they're very close and see each other every two weeks.

"She's very independent. She rarely needs me now - only for babysitting," she smiles. "It was a bit of a shock when she said she was pregnant at first but we just got on with it. It's wonderful having a granddaughter because you get all the nice bits and none of the nasty bits."

Rachel Hammond, 21, is a single mum and lives in Saltdean with her 15-monthold daughter Mia.

Surprisingly like her mum, gran and great-gran before her, Rachel was also a teenager when she got pregnant in 2005. She had been dating her boyfriend James for just a year.

"My mum did sit me down and talk to me but it was an accident," she says. "I'd just got a place to go back to university to study performing arts so I was really scared. I didn't know what to do. I knew my mum was the best person to talk to so I told her straight away."

After the initial shock, Julie said she'd support her whatever she decided to do. As did the rest of the family.

Although Rachel was living with James before, during and after she had the baby, they split up four months ago and she now has a new boyfriend Darren. "There's no point staying together for the sake of a child if you don't get on," she says.

"I've always been close to my dad.

I don't think it matters if you live with a parent or not - as long as they're there for you. I hope Mia grows up to have the same relationship with her dad as I had with mine."

Rachel now loves being a full-time mum - more than she ever thought she would.

"I didn't go out that much before so I don't feel like I'm missing out. My friends still come round or if I do go out, I'll ask mum to babysit," she says.

"Mia is quite a character, she acts like butter wouldn't melt but she's quite sneaky. I think she takes after me," she laughs.

"She's always in the saucepan cupboard and playing with the DVDs - I've had to completely rearrange my flat. She's also got a habit of taking all her clothes out of the wardrobe and messing them up and she thinks it's hilarious when I have to put them all back."

She adds: "It can be tough at times, you constantly feel like you're saying no' - but you've got to tell them or they won't learn. She even tries to tell me off sometimes in her own little language."

If there's one thing Rachel says she hopes to do slightly differently, it's to be less overprotective.

"My mum was really strict and overprotective of me when I was a teenager and because of that I'd say I was somewhere and always be somewhere else," she says.

"It's only recently the truth's come out. I'd like to try and not be quite as overprotective with Mia so I know exactly what she's up to and who she's with. But whether I'll do it, I don't know. I definitely want more children but I'd like to go back to uni and have some money behind me first."