War-time memories of Yvonne Elliot
From The Round Hill Reporter December 2014
Sadly, we have heard that Yvonne Elliot who was over 90 has died recently. She had lived in the Round Hill since before the Second World War and in Princes Road for many years. It is thanks to her that there is a handrail at the bottom of Princes Road on the right hand side at the Ditchling Road end and I am sure that her letters (type-written by herself) will be missed in several Council offices!
I was able to interview her in November 2003 when she described some of her experiences in Round Hill during the war. Unfortunately these were not included in the local history book that was being produced at that time (Rose Hill to Roundhill: a Brighton Community) but here are some of them, in her own words.
Here is her memory of the bomb which destroyed the Franklin Arms in Lewes Road on September 20th. 1940.
“The blast came up and it blew out all the windows. We lived on the lower side of Roundhill Crescent, our back windows went but the people on the other side their front windows went and that was where the upper windows were literally framed in feathers. I remember that we were laughing about that, it was about 12 or 12.30...The fire people said, “You can’t go up there!” We said that we had to, we lived there and besides we’ve got the cat! So we went up there and we stayed there...We moved into Ditchling Rise in 1941, the 13th of January. We hadn’t been there long when they dropped the bombs in Viaduct Road and blew our windows out again. We thought “Here we go again!”
As a young woman in the war there was fun to be had though. Yvonne worked at Allen West on the Lewes Road and told me about the Allen West Rifle Club* that ran for employees.
Planning permission was granted in 1926 for a miniature rifle range on the narrow strip on elevated land at the back of the Tivoli laundry site at 28 Crescent Road.
“You went up beside the laundry in Crescent Road and it was behind there. I was deputed to make the tea. Some of the girls were jolly good, I could get it into the target but I never got it into the black... I got one of these as a booby prize [shows me an ashtray]. ...It was great fun, I used to go every Tuesday evening.”
She also mentioned spending time outdoors.
“We had wonderful summers during the war but you couldn’t get along the sea front, it was all full of tank traps. We were only allowed 3 days leave at a time so you couldn’t go away. We used to go and sit at the back of the King Alfred and watch the dog fights, watching the tracer bullets going along the macadam road, it was all spurting up. We must have been crazy but we thought we were quite clever, it was fun lying up there in the sun, watching the dog fights.”
Marigold Rogers