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'My father took over as Manager of Messens Farm, Lunsford's Cross (just north of Bexhill) at Christmas 1942,' recalled Norman Allcorn, who was just 10 years old at that time.
'The farm had been requisitioned by the War Agriculture Committee and it certainly lived up to its name, it was a MESS. The hedges were up to ten yards wide, the fields were full of weeds with anthills a foot or more high, and many of the land drains were blocked.
The farm still relied on horsepower and milking was by hand. The workers however, responded to the challenge, using all of their traditional skills and learning new ones like tractor driving. Hedges were cut back, new fences erected, drains were cleared and fields ploughed.
The newly introduced tractors did get stuck in some of the wet patches, but mainly the farm began to perform as it should. Farm workers have always been very versatile, doing many tasks, like rick building, thatching, threshing and ploughing.
The Cowman was so good with a scythe that he cut the over-grown lawn as close as a mower. A skill not really needed in the middle of a war.
So successful was the regeneration of the farm that it was let to a new tenant at Michaelmas, that is the 29th of September, the normal time for farms to change hands. My father was asked to reorganise another farm and we moved to Priory Farm, Rushlake Green.
If Messens farm was an agriculture nightmare it was a schoolboy's dream, especially for one like myself, used to the dry chalk Downs.
Messens was in the wet Weald with plenty of water. There were three ponds and two streams. One stream was only a little trickle of clear water across a meadow but the other was a slower wider one in which I tried to catch some elusive eels.
The first pond was in the stack yard under some trees. This was shallow and black due to the falling leaves and dried out in summer so had no fish. The other two were in the fields.
The nearest to the farm had Minnows, Roach and Tench, the latter living on the bottom and stirring up the mud so this pond was a muddy colour.
The last one was higher up and bigger, and had Minnows and Goldfish, so many Goldfish that when they were basking in the sun the surface of the pond was turned red.
We wanted some goldfish for our garden pond but catching them with a barbed hook damaged their mouths. I made up a fishing net using a hazel rod, a circle of wire and the foot of an old stocking. My father said that I would never catch anything with this and he would give me a shilling (5p) for each goldfish that I caught.
Farm workers wages were about £3 a week so a shilling was worth around £3.50 at today's prices. I chose a hot day when the fish were basking in the sun and managed to catch two. I ran home and claimed two shillings whereupon my father said all bets were off. I had been rather hasty because I returned and caught another half a dozen!
It was at Messens that I saw my one and only Fox Hunt kill. The East Sussex kennels were at Henley Down and as petrol was short, and not allowed for sport, the hounds had to hunt within horse riding distance. This meant that they often came our way.
One Saturday the fox went to earth at the bottom of Kiln Wood just north of the farm. The terriers were put in and the fox dug out and thrown to the hounds. After a brief but bloody few moments one terrier emerged dragging the brush (the tail).
The Master of Foxhounds was the ex Olympic sprinter Lord Burghley, who asked me if I wanted to be 'Blooded', that is have some blood from the brush smeared on my cheek to show that I had been 'in at the kill'. I declined and have never been a fan of hunting since.'
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