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Alice and Edith are two friends who lived in the Seacroft area during the war. This account has been compiled with the help of Jean Baldwin at Seacroft Library.

At the start of the war Seacroft was a country area on the outskirts of Leeds. It had a village green where the cricket team played around which many of the houses were built. Edith remembers there was a communal air raid shelter on the site of Parklands school and her brother used to carry her there in the evenings. At school they were very strict about waste and weren't allowed to through any waste paper away. Every Wednesday the class had to go to Victoria school a walk of 4 miles for cookery and house keeping lessons. Alice remembers being sent back 9 times to re-iron hankies.
Edith's father didn't like bran in the flour so she had to sieve it in a chiffon scarf.
They left school at 14 and Edith worked at Wholesale Bespoke in York Street making uniforms and demob suits. Alice worked at Bryant and May on south Accommodation Rd. They both remember painting their legs with Camp coffee then getting someone to draw a pencil line down the back so that it looked like they were wearing nylons. Edith's father worked as an ARP warden every weekend and remembers Pilfield St in Hunslet being bombed.
Alice remembers all the bonfires on VJ day and having a riotous time outside the Town Hall singing and riding on the 'Lions'.

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