This website, created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K. 

Copyright Valerie Martin 1999

First published in Along the Furlong in November 1999.

Henry John Pull was born not far from Findon, in Arundel in 1899.    The family moved to nearby Worthing in 1910. At some point in his lifetime he changed his name to John Henry Pull. 

He was in the Rifle Brigade during the First World War and was gassed in the trenches and captured by the Germans.

In September 1925 he married Alice Florence Quelch at nearby Broadwater Church in Worthing.

I have found that after serving in the army, he worked in the Post Office and his name became inextricably linked with the downland of Findon because he had an unusual hobby.

This initially involved the antiquities of Blackpatch Hill between 1922 -1932 and it was here that he discovered Neolithic flint mining had been carried out on countryside owned by the Duke of Norfolk.  He went on to excavate clusters of prehistoric flint mines in the area.  The results were published in 1933 in The Flint Miners of Blackpatch Hill. 

Later the amateur archaeologist spent many hours of his spare time toiling on the slopes of Cissbury Ring and Church Hill above Findon.    As he was not a qualified archaeologist or even an antiquarian this made him rather unpopular, to say the least, with the archaeological fraternity of the day.   His work was somewhat laughed about and his "finds" were conveniently lost for ever.

The local Findon boys of the 1940s can still recall how they came across John Pull and his friend, Barclay Harry Wills, (1877-1950), the naturalist and writer, hard at work on the downs above St. John the Baptist Church. The older men shared an interest in archaeology on the hillside as they dug deep into the Neolithic mines. The two were well respected in Findon.

John Pull eventually became an authority in his field of archaeology and he became the President of the Worthing Archaeology Society in 1952.  When not busy with his favourite pastime, he was by now employed in the responsible position of security guard at the Durrington Branch of Lloyds Bank (near Field Place).   Just weeks after starting this job something terrible happened.

A character of a different kind was a 20-year-old Londoner named Victor John Terry, already a hardened criminal in the mould of Ronnie and Reggie Kray, the notorious twins who ruled the East End. On the 8th November 1960 he calmly strolled into a shop in Chiswick and purchased a shotgun and fifty cartridges for five guineas. The young gangster was planning a bank robbery with his two fellow blaggers. 

Early in the morning, two days later, a stolen Wolseley car left the well-lit streets of London behind and proceeded down the A24. It sped through Findon and headed for Worthing. The occupants were intent on their mission. The ringleader was Terry on his way to see his 18-year-old Worthing girlfriend. Perhaps more on his mind was his intention on hitting a bank. He was so exuberant about his plan that he fired a few random shots out of the car window at trees as the car hurtled along. This scared his two accomplices in the car and they made him promise that the gun would only be used to frighten the bank staff.

The young Londoners collected Terry's girlfriend from her house at 7.30 a.m. and the Wolseley purred onwards to the Durrington Branch of Lloyds Bank. There the young cashier, Andrew Baker, was preparing to open the doors at 10 o'clock. In the back room, sixty-one year old John Henry Pull, the bank's security guard, was busy making a cup of tea on that fateful day.

Terry and one of his 17-year-old accomplices alighted from the Wolseley, walked casually into the bank, and headed towards the safe. The cashier attempted to stop them. There was an immediate scuffle. John Pull heard the commotion and appeared in the doorway, still holding the kettle. He took a step forward and Terry produced the single-bore shotgun from under his coat. Without hesitation he pointed it at the security guard. In cold blood he pulled the trigger with the gun no more than 9 inches from John Pull's face. The bank guard died immediately and slumped forward with blood trickling from his face. He crashed to the ground at the feet of his killer. Terry's partner in crime shouted to the cashier demanding money. Baker told them where it was and the raiders fled leaving the scene of carnage behind them.

Terry's accomplices were not very bright and were later arrested as they stood waiting for a bus on the Worthing seafront — with their share of the stolen money still in their pockets.

Terry and his girlfriend were more elusive. They boarded a bus to Littlehampton where they enjoyed lunch in a café and entertained themselves by playing tunes on a jukebox. A taxi was then hired to take them to Portsmouth and en route they blatantly passed through a roadblock set up by the Chichester police. Once in Portsmouth they set off in another taxi for Salisbury. Suddenly, they changed their minds and returned to London where they were dropped off at the Edgware Road. Meanwhile, the police were hot on their trail. The culprits were finally cornered in Glasgow and Terry was flown back to London and committed for trial for the murder of John Pull.

Terry's case was at Lewes Assizes in March 1961 in front of the Trial Judge, Justice Stable.   The trial was comparatively short and only lasted from 20th March 1961 until 28th March 1961.  The court heard how Terry, drugged on "purple hearts" was obsessed by the legendary and ruthless 1930s Chicago gangster named Jack "Legs" Diamond (pictured here).   I can see a certain similarity in the appearance of them both. 

This notorious speakeasie operator was responsible for many deaths and developed quite a reputation for himself for survival by escaping attempts on his own life..... he thought himself invincible....  before being shot down in a blaze of gunfire in 1931 when a rival gang took no chances and held his head while firing bullets through it.

A psychiatrist claimed that Terry was suffering from schizophrenia and was not responsible for his actions..... and another psychiatrist equally claimed he was absolutely sane. 

Terry was found guilty of the capital murder of the man who had spent so many hours working in the flint mines of the Findon countryside. The prisoner was condemned to death and was hanged at Wandsworth on Thursday 25th May 1961 by the hangman, Harry Allen with his assistant Samuel Plant.  Terry was one of the last Sussex murderers to be hanged.

His two accomplices were found guilty of non-capital murder. One was jailed for life and the younger was detained at the Queen's pleasure.

In November 2007, Valerie Grose emailed....   "Victor Terry......His name seems to get a mention now and then when local people (in Hanwell, west London) remember the name - Victor Terry.

Interestingly, there were four Valerie's (popular name of the late 40's/early 50's) in our class at school which could help to date the young Terry.

He was in our class at Oaklands Road Junior School in the late 1940's. I remember him, aged about 9 or 10, dark haired, but do not recall him standing out in any way - either academically, sporting, etc.

Our headmaster, Mr Dowling, saw to it that we children did not misbehave so it would have been difficult to distinguish from well behaved children to those who were not. Somehow we knew our place.

School started each morning with assembly. Classrooms were centred round a hall and children lined up at the entrances. Mr Dowling would say, "School, quick march", the teacher at the piano started to play a suitable tune and we positioned ourselves into orderly lines to sing a hymn and hear the head's announcements of the day, if any.

Mr Vale was the teacher/pianist and when he married we were all invited to take one penny (old money) which purchased a table lamp as his wedding present.

Local children have/had happy memories of those times (a few of us left around here) but the name Victor Terry will not be forgotten, for all the wrong reasons".

 

No further excavations of Findon's Neolithic flint mines would be carried out by John Pull who was struck down in the course of his duty.

Continue if you would like to read about  Roger Moulds Reporting from the C.I.D. of the Met.

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THIS IS FINDON — was launched in January 1999 and will grow to be a historical record of life in Findon, West Sussex, U.K.