大象传媒

Patricia Marriott was 14 when she was evacuated with other class members from Buckingham Gate Central School, Westminster, to Handcross, Sussex on 1st September 1939. Her foster parents were George and Mary Luke, who lived and worked at Handcross Nurseries. She attended the village school until Easter 1940 when she returned to London. She found an office job in London despite losing a year's schooling and not gaining her School Certificate. Pat stayed in London with her family until, one night while in the Anderson shelter during the blitz, a bomb fell in Vauxhall Bridge Road behind their house blowing in the back of their house. Her mother sent Pat back to Handcross by Southdown coach. Arriving at her foster parents' home unannounced she found the house empty and had to wait on the doorstep until the family returned. The family gladly accepted her back and luckily Pat found a job in the village draper's shop as a cashier/bookkeeper. In March 1942 she returned to London for her sister's wedding, to a Canadian soldier, and found another bookkeeping job in Westminster. In 1943 she was 'called up' and then worked at the Admiralty, Westminster, until the end of the war, enduring the 'doodle bugs' which had just made their appearance. Her shift work hours were 14 hour watches 8am to 6pm and 6pm to 8am. Her foster family had a son, George, who was in Bomber command. Pat and George met when she was 14 and he 17. In late August 1941 George, a wireless operator/air gunner, was shot down in the North Sea. He and his crew were picked up after 4 days by Dutch fishermen but they had been sighted by the enemy so he became a prisoner of war for nearly 4 years. When George was demobbed he returned to Handcross and Pat and George married in February 1946. Pat, has spent nearly all her life in Sussex due to the war and now lives in Littlehampton.

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