NOSTALGIA: Pickfords depot bombed during German raids on Eastbourne

The war years were very busy for the company as Pickfords was responsible for clearing and shutting down many large Meads properties.

One such day – September 27 1940 – my father was at the Pickfords storage depot in Commercial Road having seen my mother, grandmother and I off on the station for evacuation to Gloucester.

The article from Eastbourne Wartime booklet by surgeon L A Snowball gives details of the bravery by a Mr H Homewood who saved my father’s life after being buried under rubble after a bombing raid on the station.

Mr Snowball wrote, “I am reminded of an incident in Commercial Road when Pickfords warehouse was bombed. The floor, a huge solid block of concrete had to be jacked up before a man underneath could be released.

“A former member of the hospital staff now retired, Mr Homewood crawled in and found the victim’s leg had been squashed up to his shins and that his whole body was covered with tin-tacks scattered from the upholstery store.

“Mr Homewood bandaged and boxed the legs with splints but when he tried to ease his way out he thought he himself was trapped until he found that another rescuer, so petrified with the fear the jacks would collapse, was partly lying on him and too frightened to move. The injured man was finally conveyed to hospital and recovered.”

We were also bombed out of our home in Kerrara Terrace in Whitley Road and lived in Queens Road when my father often made trips back in to hospital where staff insisted the leg should be taken off below the knee.

My father never looked back and ran a successful driving school until his early death in 1976.

He led a very sociable and busy life and was well thought of by all he met.

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