One of the things that my new found friends took delight in showing me was a grave in the local churchyard which was of some morbid interest to young boys. This was of three boys who at some date earlier in the war had found an unexploded mortar bomb, and unfortunately for them had decided to take it home by attaching a rope and dragging it for it was much too heavy to carry. Unfortunately for them the bomb did not like the bumps in the road and it blew up, killing them in the process. Also in the churchyard was a grave for several local firemen who had lost their lives fighting fires in the London Blitz of 1940. (See NOTE 1 at end)

It was also around this time that I had my first ride on a motorcycle (or rather alongside one). One of our neighbours was a jobbing builder, and although petrol was severely rationed he was allowed to use a motor cycle for his business. This motor cycle had a box sidecar in which he carried his ladders, tools etc. Some days, if he passed me when I was going to school or coming home, he would give me a lift, not on the pillion seat, but in the sidecar where I sat happily with his ladders, pots of paint etc.

In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s Poliomyelitis, (or Infantile Paralysis as we came to know it) became quite rampant which meant that until a vaccine was developed it was quite serious. It was said that one source of catching the disease was in the public swimming baths and for a while my parents would not let me go swimming, which unfortunately is the only sport I enjoyed.

Our next door neighbours kept chickens in their back garden, and some time after we had moved there my father noticed some holes in the ground close to the back of our house. On examination he came to the conclusion that they were made by rats which were attracted to the area by the chicken feed. Although officially it was a matter which should have been reported to the health inspector, as it would have cost money to have the official rat catcher in, my father and our neighbour decided that they would deal with it themselves. This they did by blocking up all the holes except one after which my father lit a paraffin blowlamp and allowed it to get really hot. He then blew the flame out which produced a stream of hot paraffin smoke. Pointing this jet of noxious smoke down the remaining hole he allowed the paraffin gas to penetrate the runs. Apparently after a few goes, the rats must have all been gassed for we saw no more after that.

During the spring of 1945, in the field opposite the farmer grew wheat after the field had been ploughed. On the opposite end of the field was the farm known as Layhams Farm and we got to know the children of both the Farmer and the farmhands. When harvest time came, we children all stood around the edge of the field as the big carthorses pulled the reaper which went around and around from the outside of the field, gradually getting closer and closer to the middle. I could not understand why, as the circle of uncut corn got smaller and smaller, several men stood around the outside with guns. I soon found out why of course, for they were waiting for the rabbits, which were staying inside, until they had no choice but to run for it. That was the first time I had seen wild rabbits and shotguns, and I certainly learned a bit about country life that summer and autumn.

The cut straw was be put into bundles called sheaves and we used to help stack these on end (with the ears at the top) in groups of six, where each group was called a stook. Later when they had dried, the sheaves were put into the threshing machine and the grains taken out. The thresher was a big red box like machine, which was towed into the field by a tractor and then operated by means of a great big belt attached to a driving shaft on the side of the tractor. The sheaves were fed then into the top of the thresher and the grains of wheat shaken out. Afterwards the straw was stacked up onto carts and taken away. We children used to help with stooking and loading the carts, and I remember coming back from a field on the top of a cartload of straw. Another time riding home from the fields on the back of a cart horse and another evening I recall leading two cart horses back to the stable after they had finished for the day.

Years later in 1957, when I went on holiday in a caravan on a farm in Devon, the man who gave us the key seemed vaguely familiar. I mentioned this and he said that he seemed to recognise me also. After saying things like, had he lived in Sussex where I lived, NO! Had he been in the army at the same camp as me, NO! We finally traced it back to his having been a very young farmhand working at Layhams Farm at the time I was there in the late 1940’s.

Just down the road from the requisitioned house where we lived, was a large building called Wickham Court which had been the home at one time of Anne Boleyn and Henry the Eighth. Around this house were large grounds which must have been beautiful in their day but then were very overgrown for this building had been taken over by the army and the grounds which were surrounded by a high brick wall had been used for army training. There were slit trenches in the ground and ropes and rope bridges in the trees and since by the time I lived in the area because the army had long gone we had a great time climbing over the wall and playing in there on the ropes etc, but we had to be careful of the caretaker who used to patrol the grounds as the place was so overgrown you could not see him. One other reminder of the occupation by the army was a burnt out truck in the forecourt and story had it that a schoolboy had put a lighted match in the petrol tank with the inevitable result.

Adjacent to the entrance road to Wickham Court was a tiny brick cottage, and in it lived a mother and two sons who must have been late teens or so. Once when walking past my friend said to me, look at all those dead animals in his back garden, and when I looked there were all these tiny bodies without fur. It turned out that the sons used to catch moles and skin them then cure the skins. However I never did find out what they used the skins for.

Another thing, which comes to mind of my days in the Requisitioned House, was the day I fell out of a tree and knocked myself out. In the field near to Wickham Court, were two Walnut trees and of course we were into climbing and in this case getting walnuts. On this particular day instead of throwing sticks up to knock them down like sweet chestnuts and conkers, I said I would climb up into the tree, pick them and throw them down. Having done this for a short while, I found it easier to break off small branches with maybe a dozen nuts on and throw them down in one go. This went well for a short time until the chap on the ground turned round to pick up the branch, which had just come down behind him, only to find it was me. What I did not know then was that walnut wood is particularly brittle and snaps very easily, and the branch I was on just gave way under my weight.

I do not remember falling, but I have vague recollections of being wheeled home on a bike though I did not really come to until I was being undressed and put to bed. The doctor was called and found that generally I was OK except that when I looked upwards, I could see double. However this went away after a couple of days. One of the other boys who was there gathering the nuts saw me fall, and it seems that when I fell, I came down in a horizontal position facing upwards. Then about half way down I landed with a branch in the middle of my back, which is what must have jarred my sight. Then I rolled over and finished up face down on the ground. The bike ride that I vaguely remember was apparently a soldier who was passing on a bike whereupon he sat me on it and pushed me home.

The house we lived in was one of the type which were referred to as “Jerry-built” which had been put up just before the war at very low cost by scrimping on materials. In this case, there were no soffits around the eaves which meant that birds used to be able to get into the loft space. We found that starlings especially found this a very good nesting space and there used to be lots of eggs in the spring. (Oh the number of starlings eggs that I have blown.)