9th January 2003.

Thank you for your return letter and yes, I have remembered some more episodes of my early days at Findon.

I believe I can recognize some of the Home Guard, the first one from the right on the 2nd row from the bottom, I am sure is old Mr. Fred Budd.  The one second from the other end looks like Tubby Rose, who used to drive Harris' the bakers van and in his spare time, the N.F.S. fire tender.  When I was 14, I used to be Mr. Budd's carter boy at Tolmare Farm, that is the reason I can recognize him (my wages were 12s per week).

Another idea at this time was to guard all the river bridges with pill boxes (many are still there), one can still be seen at Bines Bridge near Ashurst, but really the rivers are very small, only wide enough to take a rowing boat, certainly not for landing craft or tanks.

Also the government had all the road signs removed, but all they gained by this was to get us all lost and confused as well as the Germans (who never got here anyway).

Another incident was the vicar at Stopham Bridge near Pulborough being killed by enemy action (as it says today on a post in the lay-by outside the Garden Centre) when he was cycling along the road (I suppose he must have been machine gunned by an enemy aircraft or some similar thing).

We also spent one Christmas night in a dug out on Church Hill.  As it was bitter cold we gave up and went home frozen on Boxing Day morning, even though we had a fire in the dug out.  As we didn't want to be seen we had no proper chimney and were like kippers with the smoke.  We also had plenty of food and candles etc. as one of us was the local grocers delivery boy (and I see the shop still exists under the original name) so when he got this job he was soon promoted to being in charge of supplies as he was sort of in the trade so to speak.

Another time, one night a land mine was dropped from an aircraft passing over Findon on its return from London.  It drifted down in the bright moonlight, finally landing at Broadwater.  There was an enormous bang and where used to be a number of large houses, you will see a vets surgery at the junction of Warren Road and Charmandean Road, these houses were all flattened.  Several people including our Land Army girl's mother, were killed.

There were several other bombs dropped round here, near the hospital and gas works, all round Park Road, and all along Lyndhurst Road.  

I also remember Mr. Rose or Len Barnard (when he returned from the war) driving the N.F.S. fire tender one night, when they crashed into that huge cedar tree that stands in the Manor Club opposite the Village Hall.   Although, why they ended up there, I don't really know.

I remember when the troops went to St. Nazaire and also the first Dieppe raids.  They were all pleased to go, but not many returned, as the Germans were waiting for them, because it was said at the time, they were all talking about going there beforehand (even though there were notices everywhere saying "Beware, walls have ears!").  If this was the reason, I don't really know myself, the same happened when some of them went to Arnhem, although most of these were English paras, but even so the Germans seemed to know they were coming, but of course it may have been spies at the top (in the offices).

Another Sunday we came across some D8 Caterpillar bulldozers and one bren gun carrier, these being used for clearing the fence stakes, barbed wire etc. off the training area before returning the land to agriculture by burning it all in large holes.  So we soon got them running and dug them some more holes, but we never heard anything about it.

They used to clear the Downs by having men from Poland, Latvia, Ukraine etc. who lived in the old army camps around Sussex called displaced persons, who spread out and walked a section at a time, picking up shells and bits of scrap etc. and putting it all in small heaps for later collection by lorries.  These men were very thin, when they arrived in this country but they soon looked a lot better with some improved food.

Another way the Canadians used to amuse themselves was to fire at the farm tractors with tracer bullets, also straw and hay stacks, setting them on fire as we were going along ploughing etc.  A puff of smoke used to come out of the side of the exhaust pipe meaning that we were being used for targets. 

It was about this time that farmer John Heath used to remove his tractor seats on the old type Fordsons to keep his drivers awake, which I supposed he thought improved their production.

Also when the Land Army girls arrived from the dress shops in London, they stood the corn upside down (ears on the ground) until Mr. Wills the manager spoke to them in his worst voice, so they soon learnt all about the country ways.

Once I spoke to a man in Portsmouth, who helped build the blocks along the beaches.   To make a gap in the concrete ones, they thought of an idea of using just the shutting boards and when turned inside out they looked like real concrete ones but were light enough to move out of the way and get onto the beach if required.

Another time, a tank crashed into the wall of the paygate cottage at the bottom of Long Furlong, so the back of the piano was showing to the main road, and the tank was towed back to Findon roundabout on the A24 and looked after by two soldiers in a tent for about two months.

About this time, an army lorry ran off the road, out in the field on the Long Furlong hill and turned over, trapping the driver and so causing him to lose a leg and scattering tins of jam and loaves of bread etc. all across the fields.

Also about this time, a Lancaster bomber crashed on Blackpatch Hill in the bushes, where the rabbits were trying to run away with their fur burning with all the fuel burning.

We were having a tea break one afternoon when a German plane came out of the clouds and shot at the gas works at Middleton near Bognor setting the holders alight and then disappeared back in the clouds.

Also the Vls used to come over Findon and one or two shut off and landed near Southwater and around this part.

One day we used to visit Buddington Farm near Chanctonbury Ring and drop 2 inch mortar bombs down the well, jumping back just before they went off, this was on the way to another dew-pond which used to drain into a large tank underground.

There used to be six tank turrets used for target practice on the hillside just below the road at the top of Maudlin Hill, which were finally buried on the spot when they cleared the Downs.

Also I see you mentioned the shells passing over the village.  I remember these being fired from Nepcote Green across the village and the bypass road to Lee Farm.  Also they were firing in the other direction when they overshot the Downs and some shells landed in Steyning, killing a man in his chicken run in Laines Road.   A motor bike came back to the guns and told the gunners to cease.  We were standing behind these guns when he came and told them about it.

When we were ploughing up the Downs after the war ended, it proved very difficult as the grass was very long and with a multi-furrowed plough we could only go a few feet and unlock it again.  In the end they got some prairie busters, being one furrow and extra wide, which soon did the job with bigger tractors, for which we used to get an extra 5d per hour to cover us if any bombs exploded.  Although I only remember one that did at Shoreham.

Peter Shayler.

Peter Shayler, Upper Beeding, West Sussex.