FT72


Every once in a while, I discover a seemingly unique fortean story that gets under my skin. One such account is the tale of a very mysterious something – not quite a UFO, not quite a ghost; in fact, not exactly like anything else.

There is a possibility that the report is a complete fabrication that was written to stimulate the imaginations of teenage boys and leave them shivering under the covers at night. After all, the source is a children’s annual – hardly the type of thing to be considered of unimpeachable reliability.

In any event, here is the gist of the story, followed by my attempts to get to the truth of it. According to the account, it happened one night in 1940, at the beginning of World War II. The scene is set with an eerie description:

“Bright moonlight gleamed upon the desolate Sussex country­side and on the top branches of that strange wood known as Birdless Grove, so called because, for as long as local man had recorded such things, no bird had ever nested amongst its trees.

“Rising high above Birdless Grove, its bowl-like top giving it the appearance of a small volcano, was Trundle Hill. A man-made hill, for it was in fact a series of earthworks built one upon the other. They were perhaps the oldest earthworks in Britain, for excavations had revealed evidence of man going back to the very dawn of hist­ory. Only wiry grass and a few stunted bushes grew upon its steep sides, which undulated here and there to show the edge of each successive earthwork.

“An ancient and somehow sinister place, Trundle Hill. And lonely, too, for the lights from the nearest cottages could only just be seen, small and far away between the trees and lesser hills.

“In the centre of the 50ft-wide bowl at the top of Trundle Hill, the Army had erected a small wooden shack, placing this upon a loose layer of massive timbers, each one much bigger and heavier than any railway sleeper.”

In this spooky setting, four soldiers “of a famous rifle regiment” huddled around a radio in the isolated hut. They had been assigned to report on any enemy aircraft that they spotted in the area.

The night was still. Only one man was on duty, while the others rested in their bunks. It seemed very unlikely that there would be anything at all to report that night.

“Suddenly, for no reason he could think of, for he had heard not a sound, the soldier by the radio felt his hair rise and an inexplicable shiver sweep his body from head to toe.

“His first thought was that the door of the hut had been blown open to let in the high, chill night air. But the door was closed, fastened from the inside.

“Then he saw that he was not alone in the eerie sensation he had experienced. His companions were sitting bolt upright on their beds, their eyes reflecting the same nameless fear that he felt. One man had even been aroused, seemingly without cause, from a deep sleep.”

They swiftly moved to investigate what had roused them.
“Conquering his nervousness, one soldier thrust up the latch and pushed. The door would not budge. Peering through a crack, he gasped and whirled around.

“‘It’s one of those flaming great timbers! It’s jammed up against the door!’

“‘Don’t be crazy! It’d take two men to lift one of those things. And we’d have heard them if some twits were playing a daft joke on us.’

“‘Look, I don’t get it either. But it’s there, I tell you!’

“For a moment, there was only the sound of laboured breathing up there on the top of high Trundle Hill… It took three attempts before the enormous slab of wood was toppled. The door crashed open, outwards.

“For a second, as they stumbled out from the brightly lit hut, they could see nothing. But the air was icy cold; far colder than they had ever known it before on their earthworks lookout.

“Then they all saw it! Lying at the foot of the wall of the hollow. A round ball… black and glistening… perfectly round… at least 3ft in diameter.

“And as they gaped, it began to move up the slope to the top of the hollow. For a second it paused on the very lip of the bowl, then disappeared over the other side.

“The four men stood transfixed, amazed… as the ball seemed to defy the laws of gravity!”

After exclamations of amazement at what they had just seen (undoubtedly toned down for publication in this children’s book!), the men ran up the slope of the hollow where the hut nestled.

“Hearts pounding, they dashed to the spot where the ball had rolled itself over the top of the wall. Far below, glist­ening in the white moonlight they saw it bouncing, bouncing… until it vanished into the lifeless gloom of Birdless Grove. For ever!” [1]

I was 22 when this British hardcover annual came out. Even at that age, the story made an impression on me. Was it true? If so, what was the mysteri­ous black ball? Some sort of UFO? Then why did it bounce instead of flying away? It was a story quite unlike any other I had ever read before.

Action Annual 1983 was, as the title suggests, an annual book that sprang from the weekly British comic of the same name. Action attracted controversy from the start – garnering unwelcome attention from the likes of the Sun and Mary Whitehouse – and in the event ran for just under two full years from February 1976 to November 1977. Its mainstay was violent stories inspired by popular films – ‘Hook Jaw’ was a Megaladon-sized shark clearly inspired by the massive popularity of Jaws, while ‘Death Game 1999’ was an equally brazen rip-off of Rollerball.

‘The Mystery of Trundle Hill’, though, was a different propos­ition; could it have been based on a real event?

Trundle Hill (or simply ‘the Trundle’) is a real-life Iron Age fortification in the west of the English county of Sussex. Today, “…the north-east side of the Trundle is also popular as a good and relatively cheap vantage point for racegoers when there is horse racing at Goodwood. There are some excellent old photographs of the Trundle Enclosure being absolutely packed in the mid-20th century and there must have been a terrific atmosphere back then. Even today, it’s a pleasant, but slightly distant point from which to view the races. You can drive to the car park near the top of the Trundle, meaning that you can get right up to the very top of this part of the South Downs very easily. The Trundle is 206m high.” [2]

Birdless Grove also exists: “The 3rd Duke of Richmond inherited just 1,100 acres of land, including a park around the house of 200 acres. He carried out a huge planting programme, adding to the plantations his father had originated behind the house. Like his father, he used exotica such as tulip trees and magnolias, and he added more cork oaks. From 1761, he planted a thousand cedars of Lebanon. Some of the evergreen plantations over to the right of the racecourse had grown well by the 1830s, but the area at the top of the hill was later replanted with beech, becoming known as Birdless Grove.” [3]

Despite living on the other side of the world (in New Zealand), I have attempted to get to the bottom of this mystery using the Internet and email.

Rosemary A Gilmour (the Social History curator at the Chichester District Museum) confirmed that: “The places and descriptions are reasonably correct. The Trundle is a natural hill north of Chichester utilised by man in pre-Roman times; a Neolithic causewayed camp and Iron Age hillfort. It lies adjacent to the Goodwood Estate which was used for troop manœuvres. Birdless Grove is a small woodland plantation nearby (SE of Trundle) in Goodwood Park.”[4] She also suggested contacting the County Archives in Chichester for information on WWII troop movements.

Alan Readman (the Assistant County Archivist, West Sussex Record Office, County Hall, Chichester) replied in detail:

“It is an interesting account which I have not before heard. I can find no reference to it in printed or documentary sources here, I am afraid. The Trundle during the War was the site of a ground-to-air communications unit attached to RAF Tangmere. We have recollections of local people who remember the Americans – the 4th US Cavalry – who were based at Grove House and in Nissen huts in the woods at Charlton and Singleton. But all this was during the build-up to D-Day, so too late for any relevance to this incident. As to units which were based around Goodwood earlier in the War, we have no specific know­ledge, other than what might be derived from ancillary sources (e.g. where units are recorded for bridegrooms in parish registers). Official records of the location of units in WWII, including war diaries, are more the province of The National Archives at Kew. However, it is likely you may be best served by contacting Richard Pailthorpe, who in 2005 co-ordinated a Lottery-funded project to record and publish the wartime memories of people living in the Goodwood villages.” [5]

Unfortunately, despite attempts to contact him, I never received a reply from Mr Pailthorpe. As the author of several books about the history of Chichester and the surrounding area, he would be the most likely person to have heard the story if locals remembered the event. I also contacted the National Archives and was told that: “Second World War service records for all armed services are still with the Ministry of Defence.” [6] I tried the Veterans Advice Team, who pointed me towards the documents department of the Imperial War Museum in London, who in turn directed me back to the West Sussex County Council Record Office at Chichester. My investigation was going in circles.

Other avenues of research turned up nothing new. The Chichester Observer ran a small feature detailing the story and my investigation, but nobody came forward with further information.

I contacted Martin Barker, author of the book Action: The Story of a Violent Comic (1990, Titan Books), but his research did not extend past the initial run of the comic. I also contacted a couple of enthusiasts who had created web sites about Action, but they too were only interested in the original run of the weekly comic. Various writers and editors worked on Action: Pat Mills, John Sanders, Steve MacManus and others worked on the title, but it is unclear if they were involved with the later annuals or not. I have been unable to find contact details for any of them.

So there the matter lies. Perhaps FT readers can help discover if this intriguing story ever really happened or is simply total fiction.



Notes
1 Anon: “Tales Of Terror: The Mystery Of Trundle Hill”, Action Annual 1983, IPC Magazines Ltd, 1983, pp102–103.
2 WestSussex.info.
3 Goodwood.co.uk.
4 Personal email, 30 May 2007.
5 Personal email, 2 June 2007.
6 Personal email, 2 June 2007.