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This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Roger Whitehead from Littlehampton Learning Centre and has been added to the website on behalf of Margaret McCarthy with his permission and he fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

As a teenager living in Littlehampton I realised that the War was serious because my father, who was a flower gardener, took on two allotments each of 10 rods — and planted one with potatoes and the other with mixed crops.
Because I went I to school in Chichester I was not evacuated, but along with about 6 of my friends helped to carry watering cans from the stop-taps to irrigate the crops. The produce from these two allotments fed both my own family and an elderly couple who lived next door.

Other war work for school children included working in the fields for about ONE SHILLING per hour — tasks included picking Brussels Sprouts at Christmas, mend and darn the sacks during the Easter break, and in the summer either picking tomatoes or being taken to East Preston to pick apples in the orchard (which has now been built over and is called Orchard Close).

Travelling to school to Chichester was often eventful — when we watched the Battle of Britain from the train windows! One morning we saw 5 or 6 squadrons of German bombers flying westward towards Portsmouth and Southampton being attacked by Spitfires. One Spitfire was unfortunately shot down, and another Spitfire protected him by circling around all the time he parachuted to the sea.

After Dunkirk many sailors came to Littlehampton to recover whilst waiting to regroup. Before Dieppe many Canadians were billeted in the town in the boarding houses which were empty of their usual holiday customers. After Dieppe very few came back - the town was very depressed and landladies openly cried.

In 1940 Ford aerodrome (Force Fleet Air Arm) was bombed about 2 o’clock one afternoon. We all took shelter under the camp beds in our back room, and afterwards when we emerged we realised that mother had been holding her dishcloth in her hand all that time! A family friend was killed during this raid — he had swopped his shift with a friend who had needed to go off early. It was very pathetic to see his wife standing at her garden gate waiting for her husband to return home — and my mother spent time with her waiting for the news of his fate to filter through.

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