In from the Cold
HAYDON LUKE & PAUL DRAPER of the Fairlight History Group explore the mystery of the Fairlight Memorial to the dead of two world wars
Just over a year ago, on 30 November 2024, the village of Fairlight fulfilled a long-standing pledge to honour all the Fairlight men and women who died in the two World Wars. The Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex, Andrew Blackman, CStJ, unveiled the memorial at a dedication ceremony held both inside and outside St Andrew’s Church.
But why, so long after the two wars, did Fairlight feel the need to erect a new memorial? The reason was that, when investigated, the existing situation was found to be unrepresentative and incomplete. For reasons no one can explain, a mere 23 people of the Fairlight casualties were named on the existing memorial plaques. Detailed work by the Fairlight History Group with the support of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission uncovered an increased total of 48 names.
Fairlight’s new memorial was the culmination of almost six years of activity to research the names, raise funds, commission a design, and obtain the necessary permissions from Rother DC and the Diocese of Chichester.
But, as it turned out, the dedication event was not the end of the story. Even as the two-metre-tall Cornish granite memorial was being installed, a 49th name came through the mists of time, and shortly after that, yet another name revealed itself to us. Consequently, a supplementary tablet recording both names was commissioned, and this has recently been installed on the memorial.
So the memorial now has a total of 50 names inscribed on it: 30 from WWI and 20 from WWII.
The latest two names are of older men. The first, Captain Harold Burleigh, 47, had also served in WWI. A Royal Engineer, he was one of thousands who had not been evacuated from Dunkirk in May 1940, but with countless others had made his way to St Nazaire, hoping to get out by ship. On 17 June 1940, he embarked on the RMS Lancastria, which, although vastly overloaded, set sail for England only to be sunk by the Luftwaffe a few miles offshore. It is estimated that between 4,000 and 7,000 lives were lost (different accounts vary significantly) – the largest single-ship loss of life in British maritime history.
The other was a senior officer, 51-year-old Air Vice Marshall Arthur Clinton Maund who died on 13 December 1942. Though English, he had emigrated to Canada, where he joined the Canadian forces in WWI. He returned in 1919 and joined the newly formed RAF, in which he served with distinction in many senior positions, including in the Middle East. His last posting was at Technical Training Command – the branch of the RAF responsible for keeping the aircraft flying. He is remembered in Fairlight in the naming of the road, Clinton Way.
In WWI, the ages of the victims ranged from 15 to 46. They represent all three services and almost all the major battles of the war, as well as three ship disasters, which each occasioned a huge loss of life. The WWII names, though fewer in number, are nevertheless similarly representative of that conflict. Their geographical spread underlines the global nature of that war: northern Europe, the Far East, North Africa, the Mediterranean.
There are no surviving veterans of WWI, and from WWII, there are fewer with each passing year. Yet the need for the rest of us to remember, to do justice to the sacrifices made by local men and women from villages and towns all over the nation doing their duty irrespective of the personal cost, remains as strong as ever. With this memorial, Fairlight remembers. Lest we forget.
The memorial was constructed and installed by EB Sculpture of Broad Oak, Brede. It was paid for entirely by village fundraising, public subscription and many generous individual donations, collectively enabling the village to honour its pledge to remember.
To complete the work on the Fairlight War Memorial, the Fairlight History Group are preparing a Book of Remembrance to be lodged in the church with as much detail as we can muster of each of the casualties from both wars. It’s a long process and we are doing a lot of other local history research meanwhile.
If you want to add further information or to get involved, see fairlighthistory.co.uk/contact-us
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