Albert Arthur Thomas Fowler, 1896-1965.
 
Mr. Fowler is one person who lived in Heyshott for the greater part of his life. He was a man who would help anyone he could, young or old alike. I can only tell you of memories I have from the age of 5, until his death in 1965.
 
When I was a small boy, I was given a glider kit for Christmas, a Daily Express G.B.1. It being in kit form, I was too small to build it myself so my father suggested we take it and ask Mr. Fowler if he would make it for me. Off we went and found him in his workshop, busy as usual. We asked him if he could make the glider and after looking at the plan he replied that he would. The fuselage was soon built and standing on its nose it was as high as me. Week by week it gradually took shape until it was ready for a test. One calm day we went into a large field behind 'Berrywood' and gave it some hand launches, Adjusted the nose weight and trimmed the wings and it was ready to be launched with the long string and a ring. It flew very well and stayed up for some three minutes many times. To Mr. Fowler I owe many thanks for building the plane.
 
I often went up to the Cobden Club to chat to him in his little workshop and whenever I called he was making something. I recall one occasion when he was building a short wave radio receiver; just a valve, a few pieces of wire , resistors, a copper coil and an aerial trimmer with a set of earphones.
One day, we heard a pilot in a Harvard training plane saying he was lost, a one way conversation!
 
This gave me a quite a thrill and I enjoyed tinkering with the radio on many occasions.
 
Mr. Fowler made a game of Monopoly using Heyshott place names, which we used in the club on winter evenings.
 
Apart from helping the local farmers with the haying and harvest Mr. Fowler was always willing to do any jobs around the farms, like hoeing, sheep-shearing and dipping, mangold harvesting, etc.
 
He was a member of Heyshott Church choir and he had a very good tenor voice he would sing away on his own if he thought that we boys could hold the tune. I joined the church choir when I was 7 years old and sat in the front choir stalls but later on when I was about 11 years I was allowed to sit at the back with him. He especially enjoyed the Harvest Festival with a full choir and procession. There is no doubt that he worked very hard to get the harvest in.
 
Mr. Fowler, being a hunchback, was very good at packing the sheaves into the corners of the barn and behind the beams as well as into the apex of the roof. He and I would often sit and chat outside the barn waiting for the arrival of the next cart of corn.
 
When I grew up a little I joined the Cobden boys club in about 1938-39. When the war broke out I remember helping Mr. Fowler make the wooden frames which we covered with thick black paper to black out the windows at night, and also to make a light trap for the door.
 
He was the chief Air Raid Warden for Heyshott and gave out gas masks, he fitted and showed us how to put them on and keep the visor from steaming up.

 
He instructed everyone in the use of stirrup pumps and how to tackle incendiary bombs, besides looking after the Home Guard equipment, such as it was.
 
Mr. Fowler gave the boys instruction at the club in identifying silhouettes of aircraft and he also got the boys making a model fleet of ships to scale of 1/10" to 1'. We built some 20 ships in all, among them being the two 'Queens', the aircraft carrier Eagle, the battleship 'Hood', many tankers, destroyers and even aircraft for the carrier, as well as two flying boats.
 
The war years were hectic, living in the south of England we saw many dog-fights in the sky above us. Mr. Fowler and I used to count the number of aircraft and identify them. I recall an instance at Larkins barn when waiting for a load of corn to arrive. We could see a single enemy aircraft flying over the Havant area and we were discussing why the fighters had not gone up on the attack, when an almighty barrage opened up, the plane was hit and began to smoke, lost height, and turned away out to sea.
 
Mr. Fowler, being what we know today as Youth Leader, ran the Cobden boys club, and used to take us out for cycle rides on Sunday afternoons to visit churches and other places of interest. We could go for some 10 or 20 miles, as far as Bognor to the south, Petersfield to the west, Haslemere to the north, and Northchapel and Duncton to the east. We took a little book of Sussex churches with us and looked up all the interesting points. In all it was very educational.
 
The number of boys in Heyshott of club age, was very small and at a special meeting it was agreed to make the club a mixed club. This was rather nice as we boys could now bring our girlfriends along. Of course, the number doubled. The girls played all the games and took part in all the activities and came on the cycle rides also. They played table tennis, billiards, chess, darts, cards and lawn tennis in the summer. Together we had a grand time.
 
Mr. Fowler taught us all to play lawn tennis on the court that he made from a part of the field behind the Cobden Club he also made a small putting green along side. Mr. Fowler made an umpires chair from small pieces of wood which was about 10' high with a nice seat at the top.
 
Mr. Fowler was the main prime mover behind the building of the first tennis court which was sited between Marsh Pond and the Rectory, the entrance being from the green and the court was behind the hedge in the Glebe field. Many people helped to build this, among them were Mr. A. Gumbrill and Mr. E. Parry, this took place in the early 1930s. Mr. Fowler also had an interest in the village cricket team, as the main scorer at the cricket matches which were held on the green just north of Marsh pond.
 
He ran a savings group for many years which started during the war, when he used to go round the village collecting the money each week. Among other things he went round the village with a little cart attached behind his push-bike delivering parafin for the village shop on a Saturday morning. On the other days he also delivered groceries in the same way. Mr. Fowler sold 'Pinks' drinks at his home, his mother would sell them in his absence.
 
Mr. Fowler took part in stage plays put on in the school and usually made the scenery and equpiment. He also played the violin on occasions; he was very versatile and good company. He came to my 21st. Birthday party, also to my wedding reception when I married Josephine Flux at Heyshott Church. She was also a member of the Cobden Club.

 
We were very sorry to hear of his death, after we had moved away from the village. We had many years of real friendship. Josephine and I were only too pleased to contribute towards a memorial fund in his honour. The funds raised £62.17.3. A seat was bought and erected between the Cobden Club and the Church by the side of the road facing the church and the school, with a view of the Downs in the background. The seat is engraved "To a friend of Heyshott", which he truly was. Mr. A. A. T. Fowler is buried at Heyshott Church in the central part of the graveyard. The headstone is also engraved "Friend of Heyshott" and was bought from the memorial fund. Mr. Fowler was 69 when he died in 1965.
 
Mr. & Mrs. Stubbington of Heyshott.
 
Mr. Stubbington was born in a cottage opposite Hoyle Farm in 1883. His earliest memories are of his mother taking him to school at Heyshott. which was a good mile or more for him to walk at the age of five. The school, in his day, taught its pupils to read, write and do arithmetic. It was not long after he first went to school that his family moved house and went to live in Peace Road, the first house on the left. This was to be his home for the next 40 years.
 
When he left school he began to work on the land, but when the first world war broke out he joined up in the army.
After his demob in 1919 he came home and went back to farming. His father was employed by the Fishers of Hill Top farm, Midhurst, who were working Cranmore farm in Heyshott, which was of some 50 acres. It was later sold to Mr. Adney, but Mr. Stubbington continued to work there for the next 6 years. He felt that this was only right so that his parents could continue to live in the tied house.
The farm again changed hands and Mr. Stubbington now worked for Mr. Smallwood who had bought it, but only farmed it for about 2 years, when it was resold.
It was about this time that the little meadow at the South-West corner of the cross-roads was sold to the Misses Hut, who built a house called Upper Croft in the early 1920s.
A little later Mr. Stedman bought the house and resold it to Colonel Gorringe in 1935, who renamed it Corner Meadow as the meadow was originally called. This house had a well in the garden but when piped water came to Berrywood farm it was laid on to this house. Cranmore farm was bought by Mr. Butler and he farmed it for many years he sold it to Mr. Hills who to this day farms it. The little house that Mr. Stubbington lived in is now a private dwelling.
 
Mr. Stubbingtons sister married a Mr. Chaplin who bought the cottage next to her father's in Peace Road from R. C. Fisher of Hill Top farm. Mr. Stubbington told me of the well in his brother-in-laws house that was in the kitchen floor; it was only a few feet deep. The only summer it went dry was in 1922 and they thought of filling it in, but it came to life again and an overflow had to be built for it. This overflow came out at the other side of the road. I recall how this road to the farm buildings was always wet and muddy. In his sisters house they went down a few steps with a bucket and removed the wooden lid, like that of a copper, and scooped up the water. Today the well has had the floor to a large new room built over it. It is strange for this well to be so good in such sandy soil; it must have had a spring very close by.