D-Day in the Sussex Countryside as the Soldiers Left

D Day I remember as the day the aeroplanes went over the sky, for what seemed like all day, frightening and unexpected.

My mother, sister and myself were living in a game keeper’s cottage in Hooksway, a hamlet in Sussex, nine miles from Chichester, several miles from any other towns or villages.

We had come from Portsmouth where my father was a pawnbroker. He became a policeman in the Dockyard after our shop had been bombed and destroyed. My mother, sister and I had left Portsmouth at the start of the bombing and were living in this small flint cottage in a fairly deserted countryside.

Before D Day hundreds of Canadian soldiers had suddenly appeared in the woods around us, camping out in tents with lorries and motorcycles and camouflage netting to cover them up. Every wood and hedge end had camps and tents for miles around. We had been told by my mother not to go anywhere near them and not to talk to them. Well, you know what children are like, when we walked to and from school two miles away, with several other children, we were given sweets and chocolate and our first chewing gum! In the time they were there we got quite friendly with them and they with us. They made gardens around their camps, and put up flagpoles and planted flowers. They built rustic fencing and had fires to cook on. I once saw a deer being roasted and they shot rabbits and made delicious smelling stews. I’m not sure how long they stayed but one night they just all vanished as if by magic. We were very upset when we woke up next morning and found them gone and were told they had gone for good and wouldn’t be back. No more sweets, gum or anything; just the fences and flagpoles.

Then the planes started and went on all day. The sky was covered with aeroplanes, a constant droning, heading towards the coast. I remember hiding under the table in fear. When we turned on the wireless to hear the news later that day we were told that this was D Day and that all our soldiers had gone to France.

Years later I still remember where they camped; odd rustic poles rotted away in quiet green corners of fields in Sussex and you could pick up old shell cases and rusting gerry cans.

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