Following her mother’s death in 1984, Frances Greenfield (nee Sharman) discovered among her papers little jotted down memories of her childhood in East Grinstead. Her mother’s family were a close-knit, loving family who were fairly typical working-class country people, and her memories reflect the kind of ways in which their work, school and leisure time was spent. These jottings Frances turned into a booklet about the life of her mother, Olive Sharman (nee Hewitt) entitled “A Girl Called Tom” from which the following has been extracted.

Although Olive Sharman (nee Hewitt) was born at East Grinstead in 1908 and brought up there, she recalled frequent visits to nearby Newchapel.

'When I was young, I remember some of the relations living near in Sussex and Surrey. Mum had most of her people living in Surrey, which wasn't far from where we lived. She had her father and Brother living at Newchapel in a house with a large garden.

To go there we had a very long walk. If Mum took us, we used the road because of the pram and when we came to the cross roads by the pond, went along an unmade road, thick with white dust in Summer and mud in Winter, then across a common and down the two fields, keeping to the footpaths.

It was on the dusty road one day we saw a man sitting by the roadside breaking stones into small pieces ready to mend potholes. He had a pair of homemade glasses to protect his eyes. They were made of twisted wire and fine horn.

Granddad's house called Parish Cottage (now known as Crofters) in East Park Lane, had a chimney you could look up through - and see the stars. A large hook that hung down was used to hang a large oval iron pot on. In this, most of the hot meals were cooked and over this open fire, jam was made. This was the only place for cooking.

At the side was a small oven where any baking was done if the wind was in the right direction to draw up the fire and produce enough heat. When we went over on a visit, we had many a nice meal that had been cooked in the old iron pot.

We used to pick the little red hairy gooseberries in season or collect eggs. The hens ran wild and nested in the old thatched roof, cart sheds or old carts. Granddad had a deep well and several wild cats, which he shot sparrows for. There was often also a whole half side of bacon hanging by the fireside to cure.

The room had a stone-flagged floor and 'rag' mats. These were made of strips of rags, pushed into (and twisted through) sacking with a sharp piece of wood.

Granddad used to make us little stools to use when we were there. Mum's mother (my Grandmother) was dead, but Granddad's sister Millie and her son Fred, lived in a tiny part at one end of the house and she looked after the house.

Granddad had big wooden latches that you pushed down on his doors and one very large ginger tomcat that jumped up and opened the door for itself. He was the only house cat. The others (the 'wild' cats) always vanished when strange people appeared.

Across Newchapel Common, where we picked harebells, heather, pincushions, blackberries and sloes at various times, also lived a cousin of Mum's with her Uncle. It was a tiny thatched cottage with an owl in the thatch and a garden full of scented flowers and herbs and a thatched hive of bees and rabbit hutches. After the rabbits were killed for the pot, the skins were cured and made into mitts and hats by cousin Daisy.

Also, off the common, in a little cottage with a steep roof one side and a huge walnut tree, lived Mum's Aunt Frances (called Fanny). A widow with one son (Charlie) - and a very tall man, our great grandfather Skinner, one of the dearest gentlemen you could meet. We all loved him and Aunt Fanny.

In the little field outside the garden fence were wild double daffodils. The garden was very neat and tidy, edged with box hedging, kept cut to about one foot high. Old fashioned apples, pears, soft fruits and herbs all grew well. One apple we all liked was a small rosy orangey one called a Forge. All these houses had wells and a privy, which none of us liked as we thought we would fall through it.

We liked going to see these Aunts and when Dad took us we went through woods that at times were blue with bluebells or we picked nuts, blackberries or wild straw berries or a bunch of cowslips, primroses or pussy willow and looked at birds nests.