大象传媒

鈥淭his story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Diana Bransby from the Haywards Heath Library and has been added to the website on behalf of Alec White with his permission and he fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions鈥�

Chyngton Farm, Seaford was the family farm since 1921 where I lived with my father William and mother, Martha Jane White and 13 brothers and sisters. Farming was a reserved occupation and I think that my father got an exemption for me because I never heard anything from the call-up. When war broke out 4 farm workers had to go since they were in the territorial army. I didn鈥檛 have a medical even, so out of the 13 of us 5 stayed on the farm, Alec, Bob, Reg, Horace and sister Mary, because she didn鈥檛 pass the medical. The land girls, about 5, stayed nearby in lodgings. They got on quite well really, considering they were mostly from town (Brighton). In fact, one young girl got on so well she ended up marrying Bob. That was Edie.

At one time before the war, we would have as many as 18 horses working but when war came we were already mechanised, although the fuel supplies for tractors became scarce. It was a 1200 acre farm: arable, dairy (75 cows), pigs, chickens, sheep. We used to send our milk up to London. It was too much just for Seaford, but that stopped when it got dangerous and our milk went to local outlets such as schools where servicemen were billeted. There were British, Canadian and American. A lot of women and children were evacuated either further inland or farther afield when the bombing got too bad. By 1942 food was becoming very scarce, even for us on the farm. We had a very good vegetable garden however. People from the town would come up to the farm and ask if we had anything to spare, such as rabbits. I think there was probably a lot of black-marketeering around us.

On a clear day you could see for miles. I remember the battle of Britain 鈥� planes overhead all day long. We could see the bombers coming over towards London. August 1940 Jerry came over dropping flares, lit the place up like daylight, followed immediately by bombers flying over. They seemed to keep coming. From the noise I鈥檇 think there were about 40. They must have been going on up to London.

Once a machine gunner came over during the day, firing 鈥� letting rip as he came. Reg saw him in time and Horace and I dived behind a wall and he was firing into the barn. We lost some tiles but nothing worse luckily. You could see the hit-and-run raids coming in across the sea. They would be going for Brighton or Eastbourne. They would be flying low and drop their bombs then turn tail for home. Another trick they had was to fly inland, high, turn round, come back low and drop their bombs on the towns before heading back over the sea.

Just before D-Day the farm was surrounded by troops for about 2 days then suddenly they were all gone. Gone over there, I suppose.

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