大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War site by Simon Harris and has been added to the website on behalf of Elsie Spratt with her permission and they fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

I was 13 when war broke out and stayed at home in Ashford for the whole of the conflict. I can remember being terrified when I first heard the siren and thought that would be it! But like everyone I soon adapted to this new fact of life.

For one year of the war I was a pupil of Ashford鈥檚 North School for Girls. When I turned 14 however I went straight from being a pupil to being the secretary. This meant that I was actively involved in ensuring the safety of the school girls during air raids. It was my responsibility to ring the bell that served as the air raid alarm. Each form had its own area in the shelters with benches allocated. Before I could take shelter I had to rush around the school building to check that all the rooms were empty. The school was close to the railway lines which were a frequent target so we could easily have been hit.

Despite this great responsibility I was of course still a teenager at heart. When there were raids during the night my mother used to have to shake me out of bed to shelter under the stairs. Like all teenagers I liked my bed!

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