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I was born in May 1930, so was 9 years old when war was declared on Sunday September 3rd, 1939. I remember very well hearing the declaration broadcast over the radio that Sunday morning.

On the previous Friday – September 1st, the train had arrived at Hove Station from London, brining the first evacuees from Battersea. They were marched along the street with their teachers, stopping at each house to be allocated to a family, all clutching their little suitcases or bags and their gas masks. My parents had agreed to take 2 children, so in due course a brother and sister arrived aged 11 and 7 respectively – my sister and I, being 9 and 4 years, this fitted in quite well.

The following week, our school arrangements were sorted out – our school would have the building in the mornings and the evacuees’ school would take the afternoons. I attended the junior school – my sister did not start school until she was 5.

The first few months of the war were very quiet, so by Christmas of that year, many of the evacuees got fed up with being parted from their families and returned home, including our 2, and no more arrived.

After Dunkirk in 1940, the South Coast of England was the target for Hitler’s invasion forces. We were all barred from the beaches, which were protected with barbed wire and some of them mined.

In March 1941, our schools were evacuated this time – to Yorkshire. However, my parents decided that we should not be split up as a family – we would stay and take our chance. I took my 11-plus exam in 1941, which I passed, and started at the Hove County Grammar in September. We had a few bombing raids during 1940 –43 but nothing like the scale that London was suffering. It was a good job we did not know then, not until after the war, just how close the South Coast came to being invaded by the Germans.

The most vivid incident that I can remember is being machine-gunned by a German plane flying over our playing fields during a hockey match with Brighton & Hove High School. This happened in the autumn of either 1942 or ’43. The match was underway about 4pm and a few of us were watching at our school grounds in Nevill Road when the air raid siren sounded. At this stage in the war, we were used to this and took no notice at first, until we heard gunfire and bombs dropping. The teachers in charge stopped the match and shouted at us to run back to the school building. We were running as fast as we could when a German plane flew over us – the teachers shouted to us to lie down. The plane dived and opened fire on us – I remember looking up and I could plainly see the swastika on the plane and even the face of the pilot in the cockpit. I was very frightened.

Luckily, no-one was hit although 2 bullets struck the ground near the goal area between 2 of the players. It would have been obvious to the pilot that this was a group of school children – defenceless – yet he still attacked us. Luckily for us, he seemed anxious to leave our shores, so he didn’t linger after dropping a couple of bombs further down town.

After he had flown past, we all got our feet and ran as fast as we could back to the safety of the buildings. Needless to say, the hockey match was abandoned, but we did devour the tea, which had been laid out for us. I wonder whether there are any other pupils of the County School or the High School who remember that incident?

Behind our house in Hove, near to the Downs, an anti-aircraft station had been set up. Many nights were very noisy, with bombing raids and ack-ack fire, so them we slept in our Morrison table shelter night after night, until the raids ceased. Thus we were able to understand, to a very minor extent, what the Londoners had experienced in the Blitz, although our suffering was nothing compared to what they had to endure. I often wonder whether our 2 former evacuees survived, as their home was close to Battersea Power Station and we lost touch after they left.

Another vivid memory is of D-Day, 6th June 1944, watching the ships in the channel presumably making their way across to France. We had a Youth Club meeting scheduled for the evening, but this was cancelled and instead a church service was held in St. Peter’s Church, West Blatchington , to pray for our troops and eventual victory.

Although food and clothes rationing continued for some years after the war into the early 50’s, I do not remember ever feeling hungry (apart from the odd yearning for sweets), which has to be of great credit to our mothers for managing the rations so well – and very small rations they were!

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