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I started school in 1943. At that time Crawley was just a large village. Much of the worst bombing was over by then, we had control of the skies. But there were still the ‘doodlebugs’ — V1 pilotless flying bombs — that flew frequently over Kent and Sussex on their way to targets in London. Crawley was hit several times in the course of the war, they were aiming for an underground fuel storage tank, which they never got. The doodlebugs had a very distinctive noise, a deep-throated roar, as they were rocket propelled. When that noise stopped we knew that it would fall straight to the ground. It was very frightening. I have a vivid memory of one particular morning, of the air raid siren going off while I was at school, and we were marched crocodile fashion, down to the air-raid shelters which were at the end of the school playing field. As we walked we saw a doodlebug directly overhead with a Hurricane or a Spitfire, I can’t remember which, flying right beside it attempting to tip the wing so it would change direction and head out to sea. (We were about 25 miles from Brighton). I don’t know what happened, as we went into the air raid shelter, but it didn’t come down as far as we knew.

I also remember a teenage evacuee from Brighton staying with us, named Freddie Frinton. My mother worked for part of the war at Gatwick Aerodrome, as it was then called, repairing Mosquito aeroplanes which were made of wood. She would bring offcuts of wood home to make toys out of.

The whole area was surrounded by Canadian army personnel. They always laid on a plush Christmas party for the local children. You had to be chosen at school to go, and I was lucky enough one year to be chosen. There was better, ‘exotic’ food than we were used to. I remember the jelly. And each child was given a hand-made present. Mine was a wooden battleship, painted grey.

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