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This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by Helen Churchill for Three Counties Action, on behalf of Pat Cole, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

My name is Pat Cole. I was a schoolgirl aged 15 in 1938, living in Sidcup and I went to school in Bexleyheath. The troops were stationed in the school. One day one of the girls was found chatting to one of the soldiers and she was sent home for a week as a punishment.

We had to take all the aluminium pots and pans from the kitchen to the school for collection so they could be melted down to help the war effort.

In September 1940 there was a big raid on the London Docks and I was at a whist drive with my parents. I remember coming home along Halfway Street in Sidcup, and seeing the sky burning like an inferno over London like a red haze. On another occasion I was walking along the street with my sister, Sybil and a friend and a German plane came over. It was so close and there was a very young man piloting this plane and he simply gave us a big smile and a wave!

On one Friday morning in October 1940 I was working in an engineering firm as an office junior. One of my jobs, with my colleague, Miss Dale, was to lock up. The thirty or forty other employees had already left to take refuge in the air raid shelter. Miss Dale and I stood at the door and heard the sound of what we thought was a bomb but was in fact only an incendiary bomb. Nevertheless without ado we dragged over a sandbag to put it out and along came the Fire Brigade who were very cross with us for doing it. I was evacuated soon after to Llandudno.

Day to day life

We used to buy oiled wool from Trefu (North Wales) in the War, and then we would soak it, wash it, dry it, put it in scanes and then knit socks.

Most of our food was rationed. We were allowed 1/8d. worth of meat. We were allowed certain number of points which could be spent on tinned fruit, biscuits, sugar, dried fruit, eggs. Soap and soap powder was rationed. Occasionally the chemist would ‘find’ a pot or two of face cream and when the news broke out, the queue was a mile long!

At night we had to draw our curtains and if any light filtered out the Warden would come out knocking at your door.

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