The Middy August 19, 1999

Rural Life changed forever

As the poet Edward Thomas prepared to leave England's shores for the great war he was asked my friend what he was fighting for. He picked up a pinch of Earth and, crumbling it between his fingers, said: "literally, for this."

Rural life was changed by the war, never to return to the romantic ideal he held so dear.

Caroline Dakers writes in her book the countryside at war 1914 to 18 "thousands of acres were requisitioned for army and prison camps, munitions factories and airfields, extensive area areas of of woodland were devastated to provide extra timber for use at home; country houses were turned into hospitals; in the fields labourers were replaced by land girls in breaches, able-bodied pacifists and German prisoners.”

Early in the war inmates from the Brighton workhouse evacuated to Hassocks’ exclusive Downs Hotel much to the scandal of Keymer Parish Council, who ‘passed a resolution of horror at this profanation of their stately neighbourhood’ . Brighton Herald, January 5, 1915.

Private houses, such as Beechhurst in Haywards Heath, were turned into temporary hospitals, and army camps were set up all over Sussex. The London Rifle Brigade "occupied" Haywards Heath for six months and the Post Office Rifles descended on Cuckfield.

The influx of young men fuelled fears about a decline in moral conduct. In Hassocks, residents started a petition calling for early closing times for pubs. The initiative infuriated Keymer Parish Council who thought it was an insult to the soldiers giving up their all and possibly their lives in defence of the country.

In Fletching, the peace and tranquility of village life was shattered by army manoeuvres at the nearby camp in Maresfield.

Fletching headmaster Robert Saunders wrote in his diary: ‘every day there is bomb practice… and then there is the rattle of machine guns, forcing you to remember we are at war, ‘

The army recruited thousands of horses for pulling guns and supplies. "They (the army) have been round to taking everybody's horses, "recalled Mr Saunders.

"They took the horses out of carriages and carts. “

Sussex men too old to go to war enlisted in the volunteer home defence movement and spent their weekends drilling, camping out in barns or learning to dig trenches.

One fletching man quipped to Robert Saunders: "if England has to fall back on they chaps, we are done. "

When conscription was introduced in 1916, farmers were exempt but their sons and labourers were not.

To help fill the gap, the Women's National Land Service Corps, the WNLSC, was created in January 1916. Women in breeches were a new phenomenon for Mr Saunders: "you would smile to see them, they wear thick boots, leggings, knee breeches (corduroy), short smock, and a soft hat. The one I saw would've passed for a man anywhere.”

When the Germans stepped up their submarine warfare in 1917, employers were urged through the press to "find out the expounding on their payroll, and release them for temporary work on the land.”

German prisoners of war in temporary camps in Lindfield and Keymer were marched off daily to help with crop growing.

George Cragg from Keymer remembers the German prisoners detained in barns behind Lodge Lane. "Three soldiers with rifles used to be in charge of about a dozen German prisoners and they used to march up Lodge Lane every morning to go towards Ditchling. Where the new cricket ground is, they grow sunflowers. I think it was for the oil.”

April 1917 saw the highest loss of British shipping since the start of the war and sugar stocks went down to less than ten days supply. By Christmas long queues were forming for essential food stuffs and shoppers had a miserable time.

In Haywards Heath, wrote a Middy reporter: "grocers were not in a position to supply customers with large quantities of anything. At some shops enquiries for lard, margarine, oatmeal and flaked maize were met with: "we have some in order, but none on the premises,“ Cheese and tea were difficult to get hold of, and so were sausages.

The butchers displayed some tempting meat, and poulterers a number of fine turkeys. The latter however, could only be purchased by millionaires. Middy 25.12.1917.

Rationing was introduced fully in 1918. Yet, through the hardships, families rallied round to supply what they could to the men at the front.

Thousands of women made Christmas puddings, knitted socks, balaclavas, mittens and scarves.

At Fletching School, Robert Saunders organised a penny collection to buy tobacco for old boys at the Front, and in Hassocks an egg collection was started.

Newspapers like the Middy became a lifeline, supplying use of new initiatives on the home front to help the soldiers.

The paper also contained heavily censored reports on the "progress "of the war.

Such reports, which omitted details of mounting death tolls or the horror of the trench warfare, contrasted starkly with the Middy’s weekly list of the fallen which ran to 2 broadsheet pages by 1918.

Over time, the phrases "having already lost "and "yet another gallant soldier“ crept into the paper’s tributes to the war dead.

Chailey soldier Spencer Smith was one of the last Mid Sussex soldiers to lose his life before the Armistice. The phrase "having already lost "applied with particular poignancy to his parents.

Spencer was killed in action on April 26, 1918; his brother Frederick was killed in action in April 1917; another brother George died of wounds in July 1916 and a fourth brother Sydney was killed in Gallipoli in August 1915.

The two remaining brothers, Leonard and Cyril, survived the conflict.

Credits: the Great War compiled by Kim Leslie.

The countryside at War 1914-1918 by Caroline Dakers