Worthing Under Attack: Historian draws on personal testimonies to tell the story of Worthing in the Second World War

The Second World War was not just something people in the town read about in newspapers, it directly impacted on their lives. From the first bombs that dropped in Chapel Road in September 1940 until the exploding of a V1 ‘flying bomb’ on the Charmandean estate four years later, Worthing was not unscathed by war.

In my book Worthing Under Attack, I reveal the story of those challenging years, including the days of economic gloom and political extremism of the 1930s, that paved the way to war.

Worthing had a very active branch of the British Union of Fascists and both the movement’s leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, and its head of propaganda, William Joyce, were frequent visitors to the town.

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The local fascist leader, Captain Charles Bentinck Budd, was a Worthing councillor. Mosley’s spokesman on agriculture and his parliamentary candidate for Worthing was Angmering farmer Jorian Jenks. His 1939 book Spring Comes Again warned of the dangers of industrial and chemicals-based farming, decades before such ideas were popularised by the modern Green movement.

In writing my book, I relied on the personal testimony of people who had lived through those times and who I was privileged to interview; but also on the accounts that appeared in the local newspapers of the time.

The Worthing Herald was a valuable source of information. Between 1932 and 1967, the Herald was edited by Frank Cave, who never shied away from a difficult story and was relentless in holding local authorities to account for their actions or inactions.

The war changed lives for everyone. It obviously changed the lives of those who went to war but also those who stayed at home. Women of fighting age could join the female wings of the Armed Services, or they could serve in the Land Army. The Herald reported the efforts of Land Girls, who had to get to grip with heavy farm machinery and ensure the harvest was successfully brought in each year.

Older men joined the Home Guard and were trained to repel an invasion that never came – had it come, very few would have lived to tell the tale, as they were woefully underequipped at the start of the war. The Herald often carried photographs of Home Guard activities in the town.

It interested me greatly that when the war ended, the town’s servicemen had little interest in parading around the town, marking anniversaries, or having a memorial erected to their fallen comrades, as had been the case after the First World War.

A Herald cartoon from 1946 showed a man tending his allotment rather than going on parade. What these men wanted was a better country to live in, good housing, good health care and secure employment. Largely speaking, in the years that followed, that is what they got.

Worthing Under Attack costs £10 and is available to buy from Worthing Library, Worthing Museum and Steyning Bookshop.

• Chris Hare is giving a talk, Wartime Worthing: a town under siege, at 7pm on Wednesday, September 28, at Worthing Library. Tickets are £5, available from Worthing Library.