大象传媒

In May 1943 I moved to Sompting with my mother and took over The Old Sussex Guest House. It was owned by a German lady who was interned on the Isle of Man. My mother was a businesswoman and leased the restaurant, which began to take off. It was re-named The Smugglers.

One day all the ceilings of the restaurant came down when there was bombing in nearby fields, so these needed to be re-built.

In early 1944 we put out an advert for vacancies for rooms, at 30 bob a week. The rooms were filled frequently with families bombed out.

Opposite the restaurant huge camps were set up for German Prisoners of War. They were never really used for this purpose so instead were utilised by the ATS and WRAF. The facilities were fairly rotten. These women would make an appointment to have a bath at the restaurant for 9d. The restaurant had a copper attached to a gas pipe. It was my job to put this heated water in to the bath.

Soldiers also used to queue up outside, and asked for 2 buckets of tea, costing 2/6d. It was my job to toast the tea cakes. These would be supplied every morning at 7am by horse and cart.

As we were an eating establishment we were allowed extra rations. We obtained our rations from Mr Attenbury who owned the shop opposite. One day I remember seeing a side of bacon being brought in through a side window by a soldier. My mother a very principled woman told him to take it back.

Evacuees from Guernsey also rented some of our rooms. Sergeant Traisell was based at the camp and he and his wife rented the front bedroom and two more bedrooms for 30 bob a week. While they were there they had a baby that they named Rosemary after me. Towards the end of the war we took in doodlebug victims. At the end of 1945 we took in returning Chindits.

My story ends when in the summer of 1946 we moved from the restaurant to another house in Sompting.

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