I thought you may like to hear about one of the long standing characters of the Sussex Police, Charles White who served in Seaford as both constable and detective for 37 years. (and – after his retirement served a further eight years as a civilian.) Luckily he wrote a brief memoire of his service which is now held in the archives of Seaford Museum.

Charles was born in Hastings in 1901, the tenth child to a working class family. He left school at the age of 14 years and worked as a shop-assistant and an engine cleaner on the railway before joining the East Sussex Constabulary in 1923.  The East Sussex force in those days had just 200 constables.  Like most recruits he spent his first year training and living at the “Police Barracks” in Lewes.  He recalls his first arrest – which maybe was not as successful as he had wished. One cold winters night he arrested a man for sleeping rough in a shop doorway assuming him to be drunk. When the man got to the police station he immediately sat in front of the blazing fire and refused to move.  The station sergeant declared that the man wasn’t drunk and had only allowed himself to be arrested to get a warm room for the night – he ordered young PC White to remove him from the police station.  Unfortunately the man was having none of this and it took four officers to forcibly eject him.  Maybe unfairly, PC White was reprimanded by the Chief Constable. 

After a year of probation, Charles was transferred to Seaford and little did he know when he moved there he would be working at the police station for the next 45 years!  In 1924 the police complement at Seaford was one Sergeant (by the name of Benjamin Foord) and four constables.  

The police station was in Chichester Road and Sergeant Foord and his family lived on the upper floor.  The station was manned from 6am to 12 midnight  and had a telephone, which when the late turn officer went off duty at midnight was switched through to the Sergeants bedroom.  Should an incident occur during the night the Sergeant knew where to find his one night duty constable because he had to patrol the town by foot stopping at a number of pre-arranged “points”.  The sergeant would then have to dress, put on his duty arm-band and cycle around until he found his colleague.   The night duty shift was from 10pm to 6am and the Constable had to walk all around the town, come rain or snow, checking for unsecure premises and questioning any suspicious people out after dark. His only protection was a truncheon, a torch and a cape.  

Recognising people would have of course been much easier in 1924 when there were only about 4,000 people living in the town.  One person who the night duty constable often met was an old eccentric man who lived in Cradle Valley (towards Alfriston) He slept throughout the day in an old shack and wandered around Seaford by night. He had a long white beard and could often make the constable jump when he suddenly appeared on dark nights.  The Seaford night duty constables would often have long chats with this harmless old man who would not only keep them company but also teach them all about the stars. 

The night duty beat was extensive and all corners of the town had to be visited. For instance one of the fixed points was the Golf Club at the end of Firle Road, East Blatchington.  Apparently the Professionals Hut at the club had been broken into on a number of occasions and it had to be visited at some period every single night.

PC White said it was calculated that the Seaford night duty constable walked an average of 20 miles every night around the town and by 6am he was very tired and had aching feet.  On a set of eight night duties this means the officer walked a distance of 160 miles. This is the equivalent of walking from Seaford to Hay-on-Wye on the Welsh border!

But was duty at Seaford always a quiet affair?  Well no – as at one time PC White was shot at!.

Early one evening in the 1930s, Charles was on duty at the Police Station when a call was received from the Claremont Post Office (now Angies Newsagent)  The postmistress, Miss Turner, breathlessly reported that she had been subject to a robbery.  Charles alerted his Sergeant, who was off-duty but who lived in accommodation above the police station, and both men raced up to Claremont Road on their pedal cycles.  Miss Turner said that at 6.30pm a well-dressed man had entered the post office and had asked for a packet of cigarettes and a coffee (the post office was then also a small tea-room)  Miss Turner went to the rear of the shop to boil the kettle but when she returned caught the stranger behind the counter with his hands in the till.  Surprised at being discovered, the man had then produced a revolver and said “get out of my way or I will shoot you” he then ran out of the shop. 

A massive police search then followed – consisting of PC White and his Sergeant on bicycles and another constable on foot!  The description given by Miss Turner was that the man was about 25 years old, handsome, well dressed with a blue overcoat and no hat. (This was an unusual feature in the days when most men wore a hat)  At 11.30pm, the three officers returned to the police station but PC White wanted to continue the manhunt. He suggested to his sergeant that he rode his cycle over to Exceat to see if the man was heading towards Eastbourne. This was a clever move.  Charles had just cycled over Exceat Bridge when he saw a tall dark figure heading east.  He matched the description of the wanted man and Charles placed him under arrest.  They walked back up the hill and into Seaford but as they were passing the Downs School (now the Downs Leisure Centre) the man stopped and told Charles that he lived in Sutton Drove.

Charles was just about to ask him where, when the man reached inside his coat, withdrew a long metal torch and hit Charles across the face with it.  Although Charles realised the man could still be armed he gave chase across the playing field despite being half blinded by the wound.  As he approached the flint wall alongside Sutton Drove the suspect removed his revolver and shot at Charles. Luckily as it was dark the bullets missed and the plucky policeman caught him as he was trying to climb the wall punching the suspect as hard as he could around the head until the man collapsed. 

Charles does not tell us how he raised the alarm or how he managed to get the man to the police station. He believed he also lost consciousness as the next thing he remembers was waking up at home having had several stitches put into the gash over his eye.  It took him 10 weeks before he was fit enough to return to duty. 

The robber came from a wealthy family but he was something of a problem child. His parents had even bought him a farm in Western Australia to occupy him (and presumably to get him as far away as possible)  But the business failed and he had returned to England looking for something to amuse him.  The criminal had plenty of time to decide on his future as he was sentenced to three years imprisonment at Lewes Assizes. 

A few months after PC White had returned to duty, he arrested a man dressed as a Naval Officer, who had been responsible for stealing cars and had been housebreaking in the Portsmouth Area. For his smart work he received a commendation by the judge in Portsmouth and in 1938 he was appointed detective.    Unlike today, when promotion usually means a move, Charles remained in Seaford and was proud that he was the first detective to be based in the town.  

Now a Detective Constable, Charles White dealt with many crimes, some routine and some interesting, but the outbreak of war caused particular problems as the town began to fill with troops, not only English but Canadian and Americans too. Unlike the Great war when two huge military camps were built, these men were billeted in the many private schools and large houses around Seaford. (The children having been evacuated to safer locations inland)  

DC White recalled that the Canadians were a particular problem as “they liked their intoxicating liquor”  In 1942 there were a number of overnight break-ins at licensed premises in Seaford and DC White suspected the Canadians, particularly those based at a local school. A Canadian Military Police Sergeant called Leo, suspected a particular soldier as he had caught him with a half consumed bottle of whisky.  The soldier had said he had bought it at a local pub but refused to answer any further questions. 

Leo invited DC White in to search the school and on climbing a ladder up into the loft area he had discovered a stash of many bottles of spirits and thousands of packs of cigarettes.  The cigarettes were identified as being those stolen during a burglary at one of the town’s NAAFI canteens.  The officer carefully dusted some of the bottles for fingerprints. He then arranged with the military to take the fingerprints of every single solder based at the school – over 300 of them. He started in the early morning and he continued the process until late at night.  The prints were then taken to the Brighton Police HQ where a match was discovered. 

Back at Seaford the soldier was arrested and on being questioned also gave the names of his accomplices.  The men were committed to a military prison. 

After the war, in June 1953, DC White attended the scene of an unusual and rather poorly planned crime. St Andrew’s Church in Bishopstone had been broken into overnight and the large and heavy parish safe had been stolen. The churchwarden, Mr George Laughlin reported that there was no cash and little of any value in the safe. (these days most church silver is held in a bank vault) 

The safe had been removed by a two wheeled trolley and was easily traced to a nearby field.  Futile attempts had been made to open the safe by means of a hammer and a chisel, which were found nearby.   Today the scene would be preserved for a Crime Scene expert to attend, but in those days every detective was trained and DC White used his own fingerprint set to remove some useful ‘dabs’ from the safe.  

He questioned local people and found that a local couple (who had previously come to his notice) had been seen hiding in a barn at Manor Farm earlier in the day.  A telephone call was made to Police HQ in Lewes and extra officers and tracker dogs were called in. A search was made and after a while the woman was discovered in a field half way towards Alfriston. She admitted the crime and the search continued.  The search continued throughout the open down-land and after in the fields around Alfriston.  After hours of searching, the man was found in a wood near Berwick.  He had an injured leg having fallen out of a tree, into which he had climbed to avoid the police dogs. The two were charged and both imprisoned for their crime. 

Charlie White retired as a detective on 30^th October 1960 but remained at Seaford Police station where he served another six years as a member of civilian staff. He had policed Seaford for over 45 years – surely a record that will never been beaten.  When he started at working at Seaford in 1923 there were just 5 police officers but when he retired in 1960 the police station had a staff of over 30.