FULL NAME – ERIC JAMES HOLLINGSWORTH

DATE OF BIRTH – 16 APRIL 1927

PLACE OF BIRTH – ROCK FARM, COTTAGE LANE, WESTFIELD CLOSE TO WESTFIELD PLACE

I first went to school at Clive Vale School, Clive Vale because we moved to Shearbarn Farm when I was 5 or just before so that’s where I started school. Shearbarn Farm was a working farm, a dairy farm more or less, and the man who had the farm had the name Funnell; and the milk he produced on the farm, he took to a dairy in Harold Road, Hastings in Clive Vale then delivered it on a milk round around the town somewhere. The milk was in bottles but I was only 5 so I don’t know if they had his name on them (MS – you had containers). Mr Shearer in Church Farm (you’ve met Alan) -he did the same thing. (MS – They were containers rather than bottles weren’t they? You poured the milk – you had containers.) Some used what they called a hand can which was oval in shape, inside was a rail and hanging on these rails was a half pint, a pint and a pint and a half. If it was bottled it would be a pint, a pint and a half and maybe a quart. The half pint, pint and pint and a half would be glass but the other container would be metal of some sort but I don’t know – it would probably be tinned outside so it didn’t rust; it might have been brass or copper I don’t know. That’s what happened at Shearbarn Farm. There was – about 150/200 yards away from the road – there was an old farmhouse. Mr Funnell didn’t live in the farmhouse but an old lady lived there when we moved in when I was 5 years old. As far as I can recall it was doodle-bugged.

There were three cottages at Fishponds Farm and as far as I know, they went with Place Farm, Fairlight which was Fairlight Place with the Sayer Milwards or Major Sayers; they are to do with the Milwards who owned bits and pieces in Hastings hence Milward Road. Also with the same family is a farm called Platnix Farm between Westfield and Sedlescombe; and who was the famous lady who went there? The flyer – Amy Johnson – and the writer – somebody pretty famous anyway – the sort of people the Sayer Milwards used to entertain.

Fishponds – three cottages – one was occupied by my grandmother and my grandfather who were more or less retainers by the Sayer Milwards family. The middle one I think was rented to Mr Funnell for his cowman; and the end one – the other end one – I can’t be sure.

In 1941 I would have left Fairlight School and it was Clive Vale School that I went to afterwards that had been evacuated. I went to Westfield School when I was 11, took my eleven-plus and failed; father had to move up to Fairlight because of whatever in those days. So Fairlight School was up to 11 so I had to go to Clive Vale School, to the boys school; they were evacuated so I come back, finished my last couple of years’ schooling in Fairlight School – the two rooms. (So when you were there, was there a plaque remembering the soldiers?) Yes in the First World War. Alan Shearer must have remembered it because we sat in the same class together. I can only remember it was made of wood but I can also tell you that whether it was the teachers or whoever – I think it was the Beeching family lived in the bit immediately facing the big school room and there was a little sort of serving hatch that went into, although it was never opened, into the house next door because one side as I understand it was the Verger, Mr Luke Beeching; and the other side, at one time, was the teacher’s residence. He was the man who would go from farm to farm – thatching, ditching, you name it; he was also a grave digger for a lot of the undertakers in Hastings locally.

(Looking at a aerial photo of Fairlight Church and the quarry) In this piece that’s what we called the factory, with all sorts of machinery in it. It certainly wasn’t opened at the outbreak of the war; it must have been developed while I was working at Westfield and that would have been from 1941-2. There was always someone in there quarrying the sand –  supplying I should think for building but when the war broke out, they could no longer get sand from France and Belgium for glass making so whoever it was fell upon what they were doing in the quarry close to the church with the sand and they decided it was good enough as I understand what they told me when I was working there. The sand was good enough for glass making although it did have too many little specks of iron but anyway, they did the factory; there wasn’t enough sand close to the church so they opened up the one by Warren Cottage and they quarried that bit; took all the overburden off and quarried that bit and excavated it, put it into trucks, then pulled it along next to Warren Cottage and they had endless cable; and then this cable on a 2 foot railway. One could move the trucks that went up the 26 acre field and fairly opposite to the farm they built up a bank the trucks went up; then they built a crusher sort of by the old sand quarry and the wagons were tipped up and it went down through the crusher to be washed and classified; and the machinery in the factory – we had a big pump for sucking the water out of the sand before they put it on a conveyer to be piled up ready to go onto lorries to go to Ore Station. There were three or four five ton lorries; all sorts of electricity motors for compressed air and vacuumed to suck the air, suck the water out the sand; pneumatic drills for drilling holes to blast down the quarry.

When I left the garage at Westfield, I worked there in the fitter’s shop maintaining the three lorries and helping lubricate and maintain the machinery. There was also next door to the fitter’s shop an electrician who used to deal with the electricity for the buildings and everything and rewind some of the smaller electric motors by the name of Frank Pettitt, and he lived in Hollington.

 I was working there from 1942 to 1945 until I was called up. Because I was working there and because I was keen on the army cadets so they didn’t call me in to be a Home Guard but I used to do shifts of fire waters at the factory in case of fire bombs coming down, with another member of the staff; and in 1944 I was on duty with a member of staff when the first doodlebug come over. We heard the noise and we dashed outside to see what was happening and that was it. Had no idea what it was and at the time it was just something making a bloody lot of noise and the flames out the back. It was just something up in the air that made all this noise. You know I told you about the hump where the skips were tipped up into the crusher, during the day if the doodlebugs would come over, the people who would be on top tipping the trucks had to get off that lump a bit bloody quick as they were afraid they were going to be hit! And the farm cottages – well we lived in the one nearest the farm buildings; well one night one of the doodlebugs hit the cliff and blew my bedroom windows in cos they faced out to sea. There was a Messerschmitt or a Fokker Wolf came over and had a little go at the end room of the Coastguard Station which was the Watch Room – fired a few bullets. The Church was an Observation Post for the army. They were just soldiers about – they were in the bungalow next to what is now the (Church Café) Coastguard Café. The café then was just a little shop with a few lunches but after the war it was developed a bit by the two old ladies (MS -Harman) – they lived on the corner of Hill Road and what was then the Coastguard Lane. They used to sell tobacco and sweets – their granddaughter or niece – Nancy – she sort of took it over into the place that is now the Coastguard Café and made a little shop of it then it grew into doing a few lunches. Nancy – she employed a Polish refugee as a chef and in 1950 the Station Officer at the Coastguard Station said to me (cos I’d just got married in 1953 – I got married the Saturday before the Coronation and lived in St.Leonard’s for ten months, still being a member of the cliff rescue team) in 1954 you’re going to have a job getting here as a rescuer. Number 3 cottage he said will be empty before too long so if you want to take some training to be a Watch Keeper, that cottage is yours. So we moved in in April 1954; they were doing a few lunches then, Nancy was, so she asked me if my wife would like to go up and do a bit of waitressing which she enjoyed. That had to finish when we adopted two kids. I got married from Church Farm Cottages in 1953 when I was 26, got married, went to St.Leonard’s for ten months then into the Coastguards Cottages.

You know Warren Cottage and the field that goes down towards the cliff edge – it’s a sort of a wide field and the butts – they used to be fired towards the bank at the Coastguard Station – that was before the war by the Territorials. I can remember the four big iron things that went up and down for the targets – there used to be little places for people to lay from there up towards the cliff edge up to about 600 yards. When the war broke out they used it as a training area – Canadians especially as far as I can remember because Bob Shearer that would be Alan’s next oldest brother, and I, would go down there after they had been and pick up bandoliers of 300 ammunition; ringless cartridges where 303 British with a flange on the end but the American’s 303s got a ring for extracting the cartridge when the bullet had been fired. That narrow field that was used for training purposes because they thought it was dangerous firing towards the Coastguard Station so they did away with the butts there and they built a big bank just this side of Lover’s Seat to fire at so any stray bullets got over to sea.