THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — These Chronicles are created by Valerie Martin and contain scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN FINDON

Copyright Valerie Martin 2011.

Snow fell in Findon all day on 23rd January 1945 and it was intensely cold for the next few days with the worst frosts within living memory for the inhabitants of the village and was called the Great Frost.   More snow fell over the week ahead while Findonians awaited the outcome of the war.

Oh dearie me, again!  In 1945 it was reported in the press that the Findon Women's Institute voiced its concern about the welfare of girls aged under 16 who were constantly hanging around dance halls frequented by soldiers..... what about the ones over 16 I wonder !

In 1945,  a young lady who shall be nameless (she lived in Worthing) was due to marry her beau, a soldier stationed nearby who came from Canada.    Oh dearie me !   It is said that the heartless Canadian got cold feet and thought better of it and jilted her at the last moment but all was not lost.  It was a case of keeping one in reserve.  On the 6th February she walked down the aisle on the arm of another lover.   She wore the same dress and the guests ate the very same wedding cake that had been intended for her first attempt at expected matrimony.

On 13th March 1945 a great procession of 4-engined bombers passed over the skyline on one of their raids on German soil.

On 24th March 1945, an even greater number of aircraft went over the district on their way to drop their bombs on Germany and it seemed that the end of the hostilities were in sight.

It is not unusual for a postman to be chased by a dog and unfortunately bitten.    Mr. A. Francis was Findon's postmaster in 1945 and was bitten on his leg by a fox.    The reason for the attack was..... he was attempting to spear the animal with a pitchfork while it was worrying geese in the village.

The fox was eventually killed and this prompted a commentator to write...

"There being no local hunt nowadays to keep them down, foxes are proving a considerable nuisance to local farmers".

The year is c. 1944 towards the end of the Second World War and the view is from the Findon Road (A24) looking up to High Salvington.

On 30th APRIL 1945 Adolf Hitler shot himself dead in his underground bunker beneath the Chancellery in Berlin. Eva Braun, whom he had married the previous day, died beside him by taking a cyanide pill.

On 7TH MAY 1945 everyone in Findon had been listening to the 6 o'clock news on the radio when it was reported that the next day would officially be VE-Day. It had been expected.   Aircraft had been doing "victory rolls" in the sky overhead.

The Nuremberg War Crimes trial of Nazis started on 20TH NOVEMBER 1945 including Goering, Hess and Ribbentrop and and continued until for 218 days.

The Findon downland remained under the auspices of the War Department for a while after the conflict for the clearance of bombs and other missiles.  It was to be expected that some were, unfortunately, inevitably missed in the clearing up process.

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Aerial photograph showing the site of Buddington in 2010

The cottages at the nearby tiny hamlet of Buddington (to the north of Findon over the downland) had received friendly fire but were not rebuilt and the community went out of existence.  (Whether this was by the Canadian army I am not sure).   The Mill Cottages adjoining the Findon Windmill site, received the same friendly gunfire and were demolished and the site was forgotten. 

In 1946 plans were revealed to re-open Cissbury Ring and the surrounding downland.   The hillsides had been prohibited areas following years of being a restricted military training ground.  I am wondered if the local inhabitants flocked to their favourite haunts as they were warned to beware of unexploded munitions lying about!

In 1946 the cry was..."Who wants a cuppa cocoa?".....A massive load of five tons of cocoa arrived in nearby Worthing 64 years ago.   

What on earth was it for?    A bit late for the war effort to throw in the eyes of the invading Germans!

Rather amusingly, it was a present from the inhabitants of Canada ..... to be shared among the town's school children after the Second World War.   I wonder what they thought it was going to do for them..... build them up after the wartime rationing perhaps!

1946 was a time of post-war rationing and the arrival of oranges, lemons and grapefruits in the shops made the front page in the local press.

Also in 1946 the local Divorce Court heard a steady stream of local cases when soldiers returning home from the trenches found their wives had been "carrying on" behind their backs in their absence!

While clearing up the debris after the war in 1947, bulldozers turned up some flint axes and other implements from the days of the Neolithic flint mines on Cissbury Ring.  It was thought that Cissbury Ring would never recover but it did and the trenches were filled in at the termination of hostilities.

Above Findon, Chanctonbury Ring had been used as an ammunition dump during the Second World War and was surrounded by barbed wire. After the war, some boys made a camp and fire at the area before they returned home. It was discovered the next day that only a gaping hole remained in the ground where they had been playing. They had inadvertently blown up some of the store of wartime bullets, shells or grenades.

In 1948, plans were unveiled to remove the large tracts of barbed wire from our downland.

On 25TH JULY  1948 bread rationing ended in Britain after the war.

In 1951 a wartime German sea mine containing 660 lbs of explosives was washed up on the shore opposite the Marine Gardens in nearby Worthing.  It was safely defused by a bomb disposal squad.   According to the officer in charge of the very risky operation, if the mine had gone off much of West Worthing would have gone also and provided a spectacle for us four miles away in Findon.

click on pic to enlarge

I am not quite sure of the date of the above photograph but it is St. John the Baptist Church in Findon and the solemn occasion is the unveiling of the War Memorial.  

Compensation was received from the Government after the war and the aptly named New Cottages were built in 1953 to replace them on the Muntham second drive entrance.

Sweet rationing did not end until 3RD FEBRUARY 1953.

In 1961, two unexploded hand grenades were discovered by workmen clearing scrub at The Gallops in Findon Valley.   (This area where they had been working had been used during the War as a training ground by the troops during the hostilities).

As late as FEBRUARY 1973, there was a public warning concerning the possible danger from unexploded mortar bombs on a large area of the Findon downland. This was issued by the police and army. The affected area was some 2,500 acres of downs and farmland between Cissbury Ring and Worthing, and Chanctonbury in the north. The warning followed a call to agricultural land near Cissbury when twenty-six mortar bombs were dealt with by the Ammunition Inspectorate from Hounslow.

In 1975, it was reported that workmen attempting to dig up the A24 Findon Road, southbound carriageway, were met with opposition in the shape of reinforced concrete 3 feet deep.   At the time it was considered the road had been strengthened during the war to accommodate the passing 30 ton Churchill tanks........ but no one could vouch for this with any certainty!

A bomb disposal team were called to Muntham Farm in Findon at the end of SEPTEMBER 2000 following the discovery of a Second World War bomb.  This was believed to have belonged to the Canadian Air Force when they were camped there during the war.  

The discovery was made by a metal detectorist enthusiast, Patrick West age 37 of Broadwater Street East in Worthing.  He stumbled upon the unexploded bomb in woods between the farm and the site of Muntham Court (now Worthing Crematorium).  It was a formidable 1 ft. long and 4 in. wide and lying in undergrowth and he missed hitting the detonator by an inch.   It gave him a tremendous shock at the time.

After conducting tests, the bomb disposal team discovered it was only an anti-tank shell, and therefore, did not pose any threat.   How many more are there around?

Up until this date, Patrick had only come across old solders' buttons and knives and forks with names inscribed on them.

As recent as 1997, a friend of mine, Ron Gardiner of The Well House in Nepcote, discovered the fin from a mortar in the area of Cissbury Ring.  It bore the date 1942 and was found on the track heading east from Canada Barn below the Ring.  It was a reminder that troops were deployed on Cissbury during the Second World War.  Obviously, the mortar fin would have been a small boy's collectors' item back in the 1940s and was one missed by the local village lads.

In June 2002, Tony Hammond told me of escapades in Nepcote — centred on the property of the artist, Frederick James Aldridge...

Continue if you would like to read the tragedy involving Leonard Thomas Sheppard of Findon.

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