Official opening of Ferring pillbox by Arun District Council chairman Dr James Walsh on Tuesday, May 28, 2024

SussexWorld

Transcript

00:00 Today we've got our opening ceremony. We are going to be having an official opening of our

00:06 interpretation board here and the absolutely official opening of the pillbox itself right

00:13 behind us here. So a great day for ferrying I think. And we've also got three very special guests,

00:19 local residents with a local connection to our our Home Guard here in Ferry. They are Eva Grout,

00:27 Peter Phillips and Ruth Arnold and they will be unveiling the interpretation board for us.

00:35 And you're probably aware this is a joint project between Ferrying History Group and Ferrying

00:39 Conservation Group. This is really important for ferrying, it's part of our local history.

00:44 It's the only remaining pillbox locally and I think I'm right in saying one of the very best

00:51 preserved in the whole country. So we're very lucky to have it. It's a great educational resource as

00:58 well for our youngsters to learn a bit more about how close we came to being invaded. And it's

01:05 already being used as that educational resource and the plans looking forward will be to continue

01:10 with that. Just give a bit of background. In May 1940 there was a guy called General Ironside.

01:17 He was the Chief of the Imperial General Staff until he went to France, spoke to the French

01:23 officers, upset them and was given a different job which he volunteered for as being the General

01:29 Officer Commanding of the Home Front. His plan was what they called a static defence. So it was to

01:34 set up the defences, try and stop the Germans landing on the beach and take from there and then

01:40 hold them there. Churchill didn't like that plan. Churchill wanted a more mobile force to sort of

01:45 come and attack where they were going on. It's a funny old thing. Churchill visited General Alan

01:52 Brooke who became Lord Alan Brooke later in life. He was down Dorset Way in charge of that area

01:57 having come back from Dunkirk and having active experience of the German attack. Alan Brooke

02:04 preferred a more mobile defence with reserves sat back in the hills of the South Downs in this area

02:11 then coming to attack wherever the Germans landed. Funny old thing, that's what Churchill liked.

02:16 So in July 1940, two weeks after Alan Brooke had been visited by Churchill,

02:21 Ironside was promoted to Field Marshal and sent on gardening leave. Alan Brooke became

02:28 full General in charge of the home defence and he served on that for most of the war.

02:33 By then they'd already built a lot of the defences so there was a thing called the Coastal Crust

02:41 and if you have a look later on in the tent, basically there were scaffold poles out of

02:45 seed stock boats landing, there was a pillbox here, you're now stood in what was a minefield

02:52 and then behind you would have been the tank blocks, the five foot by five foot square blocks

02:55 of concrete which were there to stop tank getting into land. Those defences were built. There were

03:01 8,000 pillboxes built nationwide by July 1940 with another 17,000 planned.

03:09 There were 27 pillboxes and gun positions between Sea Lane Cafe and Onslow Court, the other side of

03:16 Splash Point. So that's the level of defences that are along this part of the coast alone.

03:21 We know this was built in July, sorry in the summer of 1940. We know that because the Luftwaffe

03:29 took aerial photographs which we found copies of, we got copies of now. It was a major task.

03:35 There is, sorry but I built things when I was in the engineers and my job was looking after

03:40 construction materials. There's 42 cubic metres of concrete in this which means it weighs 98 tonnes

03:47 so and it was all poured and laid by hand. There was no ready-mix trucks in those days so you can

03:54 imagine the amount of work that was done. We believe this was built by civilian contractors

03:58 under Royal Engineer supervision because there was a lot of work going on that way.

04:03 Manned, you look inside later on, it's six foot by six foot inside, manned by probably three or

04:08 four guys with weapons and later on it was used by the Home Guard as a patrol post. In 1943 they

04:15 decided to start clearing the minefields and this is where it gets a bit sad. There was a Royal

04:20 Engineer Bomb Disposal Unit working in East Preston clearing the minefields. Five of them were

04:25 killed in one explosion, a sixth guy died the following day. That's how dangerous it was for

04:31 the bomb disposal guys. There's about 150 bomb disposal operators killed between 1943 and 1953

04:39 lifting the minefields so you see and even in 2011 they found another mine in Cuthbert so they did

04:47 exist for a long time. You'll be pleased to know this has all been cleared, you have the paperwork

04:51 to confirm it. Ferry beaches were reopened in October 1944 and then following that in 1945

05:00 Worthing Rural District Council demolished the 27 that sat between C Lane and the other side of

05:07 Worthing. They didn't do this area because we weren't really in part of Worthing Rural District

05:12 Council at the time so other than Lansing we're left behind. The one in Lansing is basically buried

05:17 by the sand now. Our three guests here, Eva, her late husband was in the Home Guard, Peter, both

05:26 his grandfathers and his father were in the Home Guard, Ruth, her uncle and grandfather also the

05:32 Home Guard so we have clear links still to the Home Guard that operate from here during the war.

05:37 Let's hope this pause in the weather continues today, it's a bit like the run up to D-Day from

05:42 what I read in the history books. It's a particularly poignant timing for many around here because

05:50 exactly 80 years ago the South Coast was home to some 150,000 servicemen from all over the world

05:57 preparing for the largest ever seaborne invasion which this country and others are going to

06:02 commemorate next week at the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France. My father was a

06:11 fleet air armed pilot and spent D-Day and period before and afterwards flying from Lyon to Solent

06:18 covering the D-Day beaches and gun spotting for the battleships and others preparing for the

06:23 landing there. This is a very important part of the totality of the UK's defences and Pete's

06:32 book explains a lot more about that and I commend that all to you to read, it's a really good read.

06:38 It's Maturitas that was sealed up because like many of the pillboxes they've either

06:46 disappeared or were wrecked by vandals, by kids, by the weather, the elements and everything else

06:52 so you're very lucky to have this one so well preserved in ferry and the fact that it was

06:57 sealed up meant that the entire inside couldn't be vandalised and a great deal of effort's gone

07:02 into it from the two groups into restoring it. In the 50s or maybe 70s when it was all

07:16 bricked up, the doorway was bricked up as well at that time, just remember when the guys were in

07:20 there there were no blocks in the windows, there was no door, it's pretty hideous to be in there

07:25 on a wet and windy ferrying night in November I imagine. So basically in 2007 a team of guys

07:34 broke the door, broke the block work out and put fit in the door, they went no further, inside there

07:40 was a bit of rubble, there was a lot of water and it was left at that point. So last year we managed

07:45 to gain entry because the locks had actually seized so we couldn't get in there with the keys we had

07:49 so we gained access into it and we found there's about nine inches of water in there and then we

07:54 had a little day, a nice sunny day where a lot of people are here now, helped with buckets, so the

07:59 bucketeers as we called them, we bailed all the water out and I'm pleased to say it didn't come

08:04 back so we managed to solve that problem. We've also done some trials, some very successful trials

08:11 on sealing or waterproofing the exterior part of the building. You might notice two squared patches

08:16 at the moment on the pillbox that look quite dry, that's the area to be tested. I'd like to thank

08:21 Safeguard who've got representatives here for their technical product support in doing this work

08:26 so we've got you know a good plan there on how we can make this even better. Then we decided

08:33 unfortunately the plaque on the side of the pillbox has one slight error on it, it says the pillbox

08:38 was built in 1941, we now know it's built in 1940. That aerial photograph wasn't available until

08:46 January of last year, that's when it first appeared, so it was based on the fact they had

08:50 a time. So we then decided to give a bit more of a story and that's why the interpretation board

08:55 was installed and again I'd like to thank Ferry Parish Council for the grant and support in getting

09:00 the board and placing that here. Since then we've removed inside, those that want to go in, it's

09:06 quite narrow getting in there, there were three shelves, we've moved one shelf for safety reasons,

09:12 for access and we put steps in there because you drop down about three foot as you go inside there

09:17 into the actual interior of the pillbox. About two or three weeks ago now a group of us broke open

09:24 the front, we took out the block work and brick work that was in the front to open that up and

09:28 as I said we've now got a metal sheet we put on there to protect it, it's open now. The side ones

09:33 we drilled holes in to allow ventilation to keep the moisture down to try and keep it dry inside,

09:38 that appears to be working really well. Our main aim then really is to engage with local schools,

09:43 to utilise the potential of the pillbox as an educational asset and generally as a talking

09:49 point for everyone to keep our heritage alive and also to act as a reminder of how close we were as

09:57 a nation of suffering at first hand the horrors of war and I'm sure we all see it on TV with Gaza

10:05 and other places around the world, it's been going on forever and we want to use this to educate

10:09 people about you know this could have happened here but for the sacrifice of the work of the

10:13 people of those days and the RAF, the Navy and everybody involved in that, it could have come

10:18 to our doorstep even more so. We also intend to hold special events on the 6th of June,

10:26 which is obviously D-Day, the Worthing Radio Event Group are going to set up a link to the

10:30 Normandy beaches, for those that don't know if you go 102 miles due south of here you are on Juno

10:37 beach so and bear in mind the Canadians were in the village, Canadians landed at Juno beach so

10:42 there's a nice sort of synergy with with that going forward and on the 15th of September it's

10:47 National Heritage Day and we will be doing a similar sort of display on that date here.

10:54 Also we're willing and able to do talks and visits to interested groups or small parties,

10:59 there's an email address on there for fairing for pillbox so if people want to do that or look on

11:05 the history and conservation group websites it's on there. Well I'm very proud to be able to do

11:11 this for you and on your behalf.

11:15 [Applause]

11:28 [Dogs barking]

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