Ros Hoy’s memories of the war years
Nostalgia
Ihad the great pleasure of meeting Ros a few years ago while researching local history. Her real name is Rosamund (but she prefers to be called Ros) and she was born in the small hamlet of Wepham just a couple of miles from Arundel. Much is written on the history of the town and castle but it is the unique outlook of individual memories that capture the social history. The sights, the smells, the sounds, the feelings; no researcher can express these senses and emotions so vividly as those who lived them. It is with this in mind that I would like to credit Ros for the following fascinating and vivid memories of her childhood during the Second World War.
Ros was born in 1927 at Perryvale in Wepham and grew up in the area while attending the private Rosemead School in Littlehampton, about four miles away. She recalls, “I was about 12 and arrived at school one day to see an enormous crater in front of one of the buildings where a bomb had landed on the tennis courts. It was around this time that a school inspector visited the school and insisted that all children must be able to carry out lessons while wearing our gasmasks. This included physical exercise lessons. What a funny thing.”
“My father was a farmer whose family had moved down this way in 1861 from Selby in Yorkshire. Farming was, “Very bad at that time, awfully hard and he was losing a lot of money so he gave it up. If only he had hung on. Things improved during the war years as farmers were paid large sums to grow crops. Various friends suggested that he take up writing and in the 1950s and 60s (under the pen name of Newell Duke) wrote regular articles about the countryside and country folk for the West Sussex Gazette as well as articles for the County life and Sussex Life. In 2001 Ros assisted Chris Hare to publish a book of his stories called ‘The Good, Bad Old Days’ by Lawrence Graburn.
When I first met Ros I recall asking her what she used to do for entertainment during the war years considering Wepham is a tiny country village. I had to smile at her reply, “Oh, no different from any other child really.
Ros and her family in the mid 1930s in their back garden at Wepham
I would take my horse for a ride over the downs with one of my few friends and sometimes take a picnic along with us.” This was of course Ros’s world and perfectly normal for her and her friends growing up in and around this small farming community.
Ros’s memories of the war years were still very fresh in her mind as she described one encounter...
“During the Battle of Britain my friend and I, aged about 12, were riding our horses on the Downs when a dogfight took place overhead. We took cover in Rackham Clump. The noise was terrific with the machine guns and diving of the planes. We could see the marking on them: red and white and blue circles for the RAF and black crosses for the Germans. Empty shell cases fell down around us hitting the leaves and branches on the way. Our horses were alarmed and so were we. We got home about two hours late, but no one even appeared worried.”
When a German plane was shot down in Burpham Ros rushed over with her friends to have a look. She recalls, “When we arrived there were two good looking blonde young men smoking Players cigarettes having been captured by the Home Guard. We climbed all over the plane and took pieces of it away with us. I still have my piece somewhere.”
“1940 was a beautiful summer and I remember sitting in the garden with my parents watching 12 Spitfires in formation going out on patrol from Tangmere. We waited anxiously for them to return and counted them in. Some were missing and one limped back with smoke pouring out of it. We hoped that he got back safely.”
Like some of the other children from the village, Ros used to cycle into Arundel, catch a bus to school in Littlehampton and then cycle back home again. On one occasion she had only just boarded the bus when there was a terrific burst of machine gun fire and the conducted shouted, “Get under your seats!” Ros was sitting next to a rather stout lady and got stuck while trying to dive for cover.
“I saw what looked like small tongues of flame darting along the road. There were lots of hit-and-run raids like this all along the coast at the time. Later during the war, on my way to school, I was surprised to see soldiers with lorries and camouflage netting under the trees all along the route. I found out later that they were waiting to go to France for the D-day landings.”
On another occasion, Ros remembers standing in her garden as “...we watched gliders being towed over to France. There were hundreds of them going over our house. It was a fantastic sight and we all knew what it meant; we were very excited.”
Cycling into Arundel with a friend they stopped to look up at a “ghastly” Doodlebug. “It had been hit by British guns which had knocked it off its course which made it fly around and around. It finally crashed into Arundel Park somewhere.”
George Goodyear was the local wheelwright when a stick of bombs landed on Burpham. One of them landed in the bank of his garden. “The ARP’S tried to get him up from bed so they could remove the bomb and he said, ‘I ain’t getting up for no bloody bombs.’ So he just stayed there although he did put on a smart shirt and sat up in bed. Luckily the bomb was removed without causing any damage. Funny old boy he was.”
Ros knew several Land Girls who worked at Peppering Farm. “One was a very good friend of mine, called Marjorie Cobby. There was a strict class distinction in those days but I liked Marjorie very much and she remained a good friend for many years after the war.” Ros told me that she could never understand the class system or why she could not make friends with whoever she liked. As an only child in a small village, she recalls being’ “Desperately lonely” at times.
“The Home Guard used to have their headquarters at Crossbush somewhere and would practice manoeuvres on the recreation ground. One of these men was lord Gorrel who lived in a large house next to Burpham church. On Above, Ros and other Rosemead School students in front of the crater where the tennis courts stood
Below, Ros as a baby in 1928; Ros and her dog, Mitzi; Ros and a friend in the family garden in Wepham; and Ros in 2017 one occasion all the home guards had to quickly bundle into a lorry and one man said, ‘I’m gonna sit on Lord Gorrel, I ain’t never sat on a Lord before’. “Lord Gorrel was a nice old chap and very well liked.”
The Southern Cross was an Australian organisation who would arrange for servicemen on leave to spend it staying with a family. “I always remember one”, said Ros. “I was about 15 and we had a bit of a party. He took me to one side and became terribly serious. He explained that he was an Australian bomber pilot and asked if I would write to his parents should anything happen to him. He gave me the address and I later found out he was killed on his next mission when his plane was shot down.” Ros told me recently that she did write as promised but never heard back.
“When the war ended, we all celebrated VE Day in Arundel. My goodness yes, everyone was dancing around, terrific excitement, thrilling you know. A bonfire was started by the war memorial in the town square. When the crowd ran out of wood people went into the Norfolk Hotel, grabbed some chairs and threw these on the fire. Awful! I remember an irate manager came out and soon put a stop to that. We all danced around in the street. It was so thrilling and exciting, the atmosphere. Absolutely wonderful, it really was. I must have been around 17 – so many memories, so long ago.”