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This story was submitted to the Peoples War website by a volunteer from Hastings Library on behalf of Beryl Saunders and has been added to this site with her permission.

I was born on 10th December 1934 at Council Cottages, in Crowhurst, E Sussex. I started school after the War began which would have been in September 1940, when I was about 6 years old. You didn’t start school in those days at the age of 5 as they do now.

Call Up.
I can remember my father George Saunders being ‘called up’. He was church organist at Crowhurst at that time. He actually started playing the organ when he was 11 and then became organist when he was 14 and continued doing that until he died. There is a plaque in memory of him at the church. We came out of church one Sunday evening and the Battle police were there. They had gone to our house and found us not there so they had come to the church.. They told him he had been called up - he was nearly 40 then. The younger men had been killed so now the older groups of men had to go and fight for their country. So off he went for his training with the Royal Army Service Corps as a driver. He was also a ‘D Day’ man + 4, which means he went over on the forth day. He sailed along from Newhaven to Dieppe and passed Hastings, wondering if he would ever see Hastings again. The ships towed part of the Mulberry Harbour (consisting of 73 individual prefabricated concrete blocks which when assembled would make up the port, breakwaters and pontoons where ships could tie up and unload. Ramps were then put on them. The harbour was assembled at Arromanches in Normandy. Over 40,000 men were involved in this project overall.) My dad was attached to the 30th Corps and they landed at Gold Beach. There are still pieces today of this harbour. I’ve been back there for the 50th and 60th anniversary and it still makes me very emotional. There were soldiers there of 20 who are now 80, marching with their flags — its really something to watch it.. We should always be grateful to them. Although my dad came back a lot of his friends did not. I’ve still got names and addresses of his buddies.

Bombing
On the 16th October 1943 there was bombing. There were pictures of the devastation in the local newspapers, but no location was given due to the secrecy at that time. It was a Saturday evening and my brother Robin who is a bit older than me, was doing his homework. We had the blackouts up & this loud explosion came and we all ducked under the table (we didn’t have a reinforced table at that time). My father was away in the forces at this time so there were us 2 children and my mother. The windows came in and we ended up with glass in our hair. We had to leave the house because the roof had come in. We went up to my Gran and Granddad Stone, my mother’s parents who lived in Crowhurst near the Station, within walking distance of our house, thankfully. They managed to get most of the glass out of our hair which was very difficult. We were given a little ‘tot of whisky’. We stayed there the night and the next morning my mother went up to our house and found that we couldn’t go back there so she gathered together a few things and returned to her mum’s house. We were soon allocated another Council House.

My Granddad, Jessie Stone (born in the late 1800’s and a Kentish man) was having a drink. At The Plough Inn when a bomb dropped. Thankfully he was uninjured but he lost his spectacles as the explosion caused the lights to go out. He went back the next day and found them on the floor and amazingly they were undamaged!

Doodlebugs.
I can remember the doodlebugs coming from Germany over Crowhurst on their way past St Leonard’s. This particular day one came over and we as children liked to watch them, not realising the danger, as grownups would. As it was passing Crowhurst playing fields its engine stopped, so we all ran indoors, (by this time we had a table shelter) and we heard the explosion, but the doodlebug had drifted by Crowhurst and fell at Catsfield, which is the next village.

Aircraft
This particular day we could see this aeroplane spiralling down to the ground from the sky; it eventually went out of sight. We later heard that it had crashed onto a house on the border of Crowhurst and Hastings near Upper Wilton Farm. It turned out to be a German pilot in the plane and unfortunately he died. I never knew his name. I found it quite frightening but as a child I didn’t realise the enormity of it. It happened and you watched it and waited for the explosion. Presumably one of our chaps had shot him down.

The Canadians
We had Canadian soldiers billeted at Crowhurst, near the church in a field. We had a searchlight battery there which watched the planes coming over the sea on their way up to London and other cities. The searchlight battery soldiers used to have dances at the village hall and my mother used to take my brother and I and that’s how we learned to dance. We would listen to Victor Sylvester on the radio and then practice our steps with the soldiers at the dance. Although my Dad was away in the war she must have felt safe taking us to the dance. I remember one particular soldier called Sergeant Black who always asked me to dance and danced with my mother too. I would love to know what became of him. Several Crowhurst girls married Canadian soldiers and I know 2 sisters who were daughters of the publican at The Plough; they married Canadians and went to live in Canada. Another girl married a Canadian, but she stayed here in England. I think they eventually lived in Sedlescombe somewhere. After the war the Canadians never forgot us and used to send us parcels of wonderful food and toys.

Food
One day I can remember that all we had to eat was a slice of bread. And I threw it against the wall and said to my mother, ‘I don’t want bread’. But that was all she had. My grandfather kept chickens and killed them so that we had enough to eat, but I didn’t like chickens as we had seen them running around the garden. We also had eggs and one day I was throwing the bad ones away and one burst all over me and I really stunk, We had no running water, so the water had to be pumped up from the ground. No proper bath, only a tin one and we dried our hair in front of the black stove.

I can remember my father coming home on leave for 24 or 48 hours. Because of this we were allowed out of school. My father was waiting for me and I ran across the playground and he picked me up and swung me round. A very happy memory for me.

Prisoners of War.
We had German prisoners of War working on the farms at Crowhurst. By that time the war was over, obviously. I think they had a load of them up in what is now the Grove School. Another group stayed Robertsbridge way; they used to come down every morning in a lorry and work on various farms.

Beryl Saunders

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