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It was May 1940. Eighteen year old Joyce Kent (now Watson) announced to her parents at home in Worthing, West Sussex, that she was leaving and going to London.
'I asked, no told, mum and dad I was going to Brondesbury, London, with a lovely Jewish family, whom I'd started going to work for on the Sabbath.
The family, who had left London when war broke out and moved to Worthing, then discovered that bombs were being dropped on the south coast and, feeling that Hitler was deliberately targeting them, they moved back to London along with many other Jewish families.
My work for them on the Sabbath, which started at sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday, included making the beds and turning on the gas cooker for dinner. For they were authodox Jews and their religion prohibited them not only from working themselves, but from even turning an oven on because people had to work to produce the gas. The food itself they would prepare before the Shobus (Jewish for Sabbath) started.
I fed like a turkey cock: toast and Swiss Knight cheese breakfast, chickens, fish etc., there always seemed plenty available. I had a super room and a lovely lady came daily. We were friendly, though I never knew about her life. She was called up, as women were of a certain age.
They lived in a large, beautiful house at Brondesbury, NW6, and while I was there the docks in the East End were blitzed.
I was in the north west for the dock blaze, East London. I saw this terrible red glow in the sky, it was a shattering night.
Molatov Baskets were used, the name given to a mass of firebombs. The ack acks were very active. I got used to it and began, slowly, to feel safer.
The family I was staying with, the Gaventas, owned a costume jewellery and fancy watch company. Their eldest son served in the army and was eventually posted abroad.
Of course, we had total blackout of houses and dimmed light with no rays for bikes etc. To this day I still stand for a few minutes before cavorting round my bedroom to adjust my eyes to the dark. Carrots contain carotene, essential for healthy eyes, so we all used them cooked or raw in place of a crisp apple. Air Raid Wardens would parade round the houses to search out curtain chinks.'
Joyce volunteered for Civil Nursing Reserve Work at an Ambulance Depot in London.
Stubborn Joyce heroically leads children to safety one night.
'I'd been evacuated at night on a Friday, as there was an unexploded bomb. I left with the two children; their parents had refused to come out of the house. The Sabbath meal had been abandoned. Things were becoming too active with Ack Ack guns etc., so I put my foot down and said I'm going with the children. An ARP Warden took us to a Church Hall where I got busy making tea. One lady looked shocking, so pale and frightened. I asked the Clergyman, had he got a drop of spirit to go in her tea?
To this day, I still think it's a miracle we had water. It must have been from the tank, because ordinary mains water was obtained at allocated hours, from a stand pipe. Water was rationed, as so much was needed for fire fighting. We had to take a bucket to the standpipe - I remember doing that so well.
I decided it was time to go back to Worthing.
We had to wait for the all clear on the morning I left London, which eventually sounded after 10 a.m.'
Her stay in London finished in November 1940, and Joyce now felt that her chance to train as a nurse could be grasped if she played her cards right. Her mother, however, was dead against the idea.
'Apparently, mum's sister died of Galloping Consumption (TB), and she was now using that as an excuse. Dad was all for me doing it, but he was away with theTerritorial Army in the Home Counties.'
Joyce did go on to train as a nurse, eventually becoming a SRN
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