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This is Maureen Burrell’s (née West) story: it has been added by Pauline Colcutt with permission from the author who understands the terms and conditions of adding her story to the website.

I grew up in the village of Fernhurst and was 11 years old when the war began. I was at a Guide Camp near Petworth when war was declared and much to everyone’s disappointment, the camp was cut short and we had to go home.

I attended Lady Margaret’s School — which had been evacuated from London (Parson’s Green) to Midhurst, where it shared both the Grammar School and Easebourne Priory premises. One day whilst waiting for a bus outside the Grammar School — the siren sounded and a German bomber flew over Midhurst. While on the bus I saw a low flying aircraft dropping a bomb which bounced near the ruins in Cowdray Park — the next day we were told that it had destroyed premises in the Petersfield Road opposite the Convent in Midhurst — about a quarter of a mile away. The school went back to London at the end of the war.

After I left school I started my first job working as a telephonist at Haslemere Post Office. There was no bus service from Haslemere to Fernhurst after 8 pm and sometimes my duties with the GPO did not finish until late in the evening and I therefore had to cycle home. One dark evening on my way home I heard the sound of a doodlebug which was approaching fast — I did not know whether to get off of my bike or keep going — I kept going and eventually it passed over — a very frightening experience.

From our home in Fernhurst, if Portsmouth was being bombed we could see the glow on the skyline as a result of the bombing, this was a distance of approximately 25 miles. Little did we know that my younger sister’s future husband was living in Portsmouth at that time.

One night our family were watching the bomber stream climbing out towards Germany and we saw a collision between two Lancaster aircraft, between Midhurst and Cocking. Years later my brother met and married an Australian (Shirley Head) and speaking to her mother she told the tale of how her brother, who was a pilot in the Australian Air Force, had died when his aircraft collided with another over Cocking. It was the only recorded Lancaster collision over West Sussex — an amazing coincidence! Later research revealed that the aircraft belonged to 15 and 514 Squadrons.

My mother and father were in the Royal Observer Corps as were my uncle Geoffrey Rapson and aunt Poppie Upperton and several of the neighbours. My mother and a Mrs Humphrey’s were on duty one day and plotted an extremely high and very fast flying aircraft. It was only later that they were told that they had seen one of the very early V2 rockets.

We did not have an air raid shelter at home — we used to go under the stairs when the siren sounded. We lived next door to my grandfather who together with the rest of the family kept chickens and pigs. He was a farmer and also owned Nappers Farm where he kept a dairy herd. All the milk was taken to Petersfield Co-op Dairies and then an allowance from this was brought back to the village for distribution to grandfather’s allotted customers.

Those in the village who grew fruit could take it to a Mrs Telling who lived at Hatch Cottage Kingsley Green where it was canned. For a large can you were charged 9d a can and less for smaller ones.

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