As you drive out of Petworth on the Horsham Road towards Wisborough Green, just beyond the last roundabout of the town, there is a rather compelling and grand gateway set into a wall. It opens directly onto the road, where there is no pavement or verge and certainly nowhere sensible to stop. It is one of those places I have passed countless times, usually mid-whizz from one place to another, thinking, Gosh, I must stop and go in there one day. So, eventually, I did.
I had another reason for wanting to visit. I knew the story of the lost children of Petworth and, with the anniversary of their deaths approaching, I wanted to find their graves and remember them.
The Petworth Boys School tragedy
On the morning of 29 September 1942, Petworth Boys School was full of children. It was a normal day with lessons proceeding and no air raid siren went off before the bombs from a German aircraft fell and hit the school. Twenty-eight pupils were killed, along with their headmaster, Charles Stevenson, and assistant teacher Charlotte Marshall. Many more children were injured.
The boys who died were aged between just seven and twelve. Eighty-four years later, it is difficult to comprehend the horror that must have engulfed this small Sussex community that morning.
The cemetery on the Horsham Road
Rather than risking life and limb walking along the busy road to the main gates, you can approach the old cemetery more safely from a private road nearby (Old School Close) and enter through a gate at the bottom of the road. The cemetery (known as Petworth or Horsham Road Cemetery) is compelling. It dates from the Victorian period, having been established in the 1850s when Petworth needed additional burial space. In 1863, Lord Leconfield provided the money for a cemetery chapel, and by the end of that year the little building had been completed.
Today, however, the tiny chapel is fenced off and in a dangerous and deteriorating condition. Around it, the cemetery has an air of abandonment. When I visited, someone had recently cleared pathways through the vegetation, but there is still something wonderfully atmospheric about the place. Paths disappear beneath arches and tunnels of yew. And then you find the children.
In a long, narrow line are the graves of many (but not all) of the boys who died that September morning and among them are three sets of brothers. On the day they were buried, Canadian soldiers carried the coffins to the communal grave. They had been stationed nearby and had rushed to the scene to help with the rescue efforts.
The boys that died that morning are:
-
- Alfred Charles Ayling
- William Maurice Balchin
- Albert Burgess
- Frederick C. Bushby
- Bryan Dennis Cross
- Roy Gumbrell –
- Edward Cecil Hamilton
- Sydney Ralph Hamilton
- William George Herrington
- Charles Hillman
- Donald E. Holden
- George C. Hunt –
- Brian J. Moore
- Mervyn Allan Moore
- John B. Morey
- David C. Moss
- Peter Penfold
- Ronald Penfold
- Dennis Albert Richards
- Robert James Shane
- Allen R. F. Simmonds
- Ronald H. Speed
- Dennis J. Standing
- Richard C. A. Stoner
- Brian C. Strudwick
- Keith R. Taylor
- Paul Thayre
The two teachers that died were:
Charles Stevenson, headmaster and Charlotte Catherine Marshall, assistant teacher.
Two other people died in the bombing, namely Eva Streeter (61) and Walter Adsett (64) who were both working at the nearby laundry.
Lost opportunities
Had they survived, the boys would, of course, be very old men today and many would themselves have died by now. But standing beside their graves, it is impossible not to wonder about all those missing years in between. What would they have done? Who would they have become? Who might they have loved? What families might they have had? Where might they have travelled? What adventures would they have enjoyed and what might they have contributed to the world? There is nothing we can do to answer those questions. But perhaps, 84 years on, we can remember their names. The people of Petworth do and there is an annual remembrance service held at the graveside.
Sit and reflect
When I visited, I felt the need to say the boys’ names out loud, which I did and as I left, I was glad to see a small group of young children playing and laughing innocently in the corner near the road. I hope their laughter and happiness was somehow carried to the lost boys. Back out in the street, and at the entrance to Old School Close, there is a memorial stone, together with plaques bearing the boys’ names and a couple of benches where you can sit for a while and reflect. Most of us don’t have time to do so but perhaps we should.
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