THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — www.findonvillage.com  created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

FINDON CRICKET AND THE CANADIANS

Copyright Valerie Martin 2003

The 1st Canadian Division commandeered the local Findon Cricket Ground and their armoured vehicles tore up and down the green slope during practice manoeuvres.   The local people say that their tanks clattered up and down the Long Furlong road every day — which may or may not be an exaggeration!

The Canadians laid wooden railway sleepers to make a temporary roadway across the hallowed turf. The precious Findon cricket pitch was cut and gouged by tank tracking and resulted in a maze of muddy furrows and mire of ruts.  

This photograph is taken from almost the exact position of an army gun during the war at the entrance to the Findon Cricket pitch. The weapon was a light machine gun fitted on top of the barrel of a field gun, possibly a twenty-five pounder, and was towed into position for practice. The soldiers fired at moving targets towed on trolleys attached to a jeep on a narrow gauge railway track.  This track ran in a trench at the foot of Church Hill and only the target was visible above ground.  (The nearby Findon Place was at this time occupied by the Canadians. The local children loved to play on the track when it was out of use.  Michael Grand tells me that he and his friends spent many hours having rides down the slight incline. 

By the end of the war, the landscape of the Findon cricket pitch had changed considerably. The departing Canadian guests had left behind their debris: a concoction of cans, broken concrete and litter. At that point the Findon men forgot Hitler and despaired as their precious game of cricket appeared to be doomed forever.

Continue if you would like to read about Operation Jubilee — 19th August 1942.

This is Findon Village — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.