'When I was young, we had no street lights,' wrote Olive Sharman (nee Hewitt) who was born into an East Grinstead neighbourhood in 1908.

'Ours was a lane with hedges, and after it got dark, the big boys (youths including our Creasy cousins), used to take a large net fastened between two poles and while some would beat the hedges, others would hold the net over the top. Frightened birds flew out and the boys would kill them and pluck them for the pot. I hated this, as we all liked birds land animals in our house.

    We had lots of stewed food, more vegetable and soup powder than meat. Plenty of suet dumplings, Spotted Dog with currants in and eaten with butter and brown sugar or plain with jam and black treacle or cooked in cloth filled with apple, rhubarb or gooseberries, etc.; or a delicious lemon pudding made in a basin lined with suet crust and inside put sugar, butter and a washed lemon, pricked all over with a fork and covered edges damped and squeezed together and covered with a pudding cloth and then gently boiled for three hours. It was called Sussex Pond Pudding.

    A bowl of hot soup followed by a large scrubbed baked potato, cooked in a fire-oven slowly for hours with a piece of butter or lumps of dripping put in when ready to serve. The joy of this on a cold day had to be imagined. Food was simple, filling and fattening. No thought of calories.

    Chesty colds were treated with home-made hot elderberry wine (lemons were dear and we had to walk up to town for them) and chests and backs were rubbed with goose grease or camp oil and covered with flannel (red) nearly drove us made as it tickled so much when you got hot.

    You ate what was put in front of you although two of my sisters, Grace and Ansley, were 'pick-some' and had the best bits picked out for them. I was mostly too hungry to refuse although I hated fatty food. Mum was a good cook with not much to manage on but Dad grew lots of vegetables which were a great help. We ran errands to local shops and bakers for neighbours without children, or to East Grinstead to chemists or butchers, either before school or when we came home in the evenings.

Sometimes we got a farthing or half-penny, more often an apple or piece of cake.