Chestfield And Swalecliffe. The War Years,

A Memory of Swalecliffe.

Have many memories, some happy, some sad, culminating in the death of my mother, Ivy Maud Smith on the 16th August 1944 when a V1 destroyed a railway bridge causing the train she was on to crash.

Had two aunts, one lived in a house, Stafford Cottage, Chestfield, on the road leading to the railway bridge, the other in a bungalow at 27 Dovedale Road Swalecllffe. Remember the triangular, concrete cone tank traps on the beaches, riding my first bike along the deep pavement to the arterial road as far as the two pillars I think to the West of the railway bridge on the Chestfield side.

Overhead 'activity', a patchwork of vapour trails, noise and planes crashing to earth was, to me as a young lad, just a normal day as I knew no other kind. Remember being first on the scene to a crashed Junkers on a golf course. Was 'chased off' by Dad's Army on their arrival but not before I'd collected my souvenir, which turned out to be the joystick although I had no idea at the time.