THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — these Findon Chronicles are created by Valerie Martin and contain scenes from her home village of Findon,
West Sussex, U.K.    Everyday stories about real people.

KING ALFRED'S LADS IN FINDON

Copyright Valerie Martin 2010

Published in Sussex Local in January 2011

During wartime the defence of the area was mainly in the hands of the Canadian Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highland Regiment encamped in Nissen huts under the tall trees at the Muntham Estate ....and also the 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at the Cissbury Estate. They were actively engaged in battalion exercises on our downland.

The unrecorded human stories are always the best. The following was told to me many decades later by Reginald Charman a local boy in the navy during wartime. He was detailed to go on a course in his home village! The last servicemen you would expect to find in Findon during the Second World War were sailors as the community is four miles from the coast. Reg together with his naval colleagues was based with other officer training cadets at the HMS King Alfred in nearby Hove. For the uninitiated, the HMS King Alfred was not one of our fighting battleships..... but a shore based training establishment. The lads in question were sent up country to the Canadian camp base at Muntham Court (the site of the present day crematorium) and ordered to partake in a seven-day endurance course at the battle training area situated on the Muntham Estate.

Reg and nine other sailors became landlubbers and endured an exhausting time completing the practice exercise. Their course wound up doing some night time grueling orienteering around the Chanctonbury Ring and Cissbury areas of the South Downs. Reg came into his own during this assessment and quickly and effortlessly guided his accompanying comrades home in the dark to their base with his sense of direction, via Rogers Farm and the two Rings. The naval lads cheerfully returned earlier than expected and our intrepid Reg strode into the guardroom at Muntham Court and was promptly and cordially complimented on his achievement by his superior officer. He had beaten all records in his accomplishment. Well done, Reg!

Reg conveniently forgot to mention to his superior that he had been born in and bred in Findon. His father had been Arthur Gregory Charman of the old Black Horse public house at the southern end of the High Street with a horse and cart bearing the name Charman Bros. Local knowledge would have told the officer in charge that after the race meetings the jockeys were said to go to the inn and drink in the bar and the Charman family were well-known in Findon.

The Black Horse public was run during the war by Reg's mother and by the time of the orienteering Reg knew the local terrain like the back of his hand.

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This is Findon Village —  a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon and beyond.