The memories of the years of World War 2 and of people’s experiences during those times will remain and will be recorded for posterity. Many thousands of members of the armed forces were away fighting for freedom in far away, foreign lands from Europe, the Middle East and Far East. At the same time, those left at home were being constantly reminded of the worldwide conflict by the sound of sirens warning of frequent air-raids and the presence of all the measures that the Government had put in place to protect the civilian population.

Many memories will no doubt be rekindled by an interesting project now taking place at the Whitehawk Primary School, which during the war years was the Senior School. The project is to open up and refurbish an old wartime air-raid shelter that has remained dug in the grassy banks at the back of the school. Way back in the era of the Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine Spitfire, of the German Messerschmitt and Focke Wulfs, the frequent trips to the underground tunnels and the lessons on the wooden benches alongside of the concrete walls, were taken for granted.

Of course the Whitehawk experience was by no means unique, all schools throughout Brighton and indeed throughout the whole country were experiencing something similar. In those days of gasmasks and earplugs, the standard mask, the blue Mickey Mouse for toddlers as well as the piece of equipment that babies were put into and air pumped in are now distant but clear memories.

School property manager Dudley Button who is leading the project hopes to set up a museum of World War 2 memorabilia, which will be of great interest to the Whitehawk pupils. However it is envisaged that other schools will be interested in making visits to the refurbished shelter and the museum of memorabilia. Dudley has already had some historic items donated to the project, including an old gas mask and a wartime stirrup pump. Stirrup pumps were issued to some households for fire fighting. Sandbags are something that everyone will remember and stacked up to cover the windows in order to provide a refuge from flying glass and other debris in the event of local explosions.

There were also of course the large steel table shelters that many homes had. People could get under these during air raids and with a mattress in place they could be slept under as well. Throughout East Brighton, Moulsecoomb, Bates and Saunders Park Estates, as well as Whitehawk, many people will have similar memories, wherever they were during the war years. We would like to hear about those memories, there must be a lot of them.

Written by Fred Netley.