A MOTHER who has lived in the same house for 81 years has shared her memories of the wartime years.

Eileen Sutton’s parents bought the house in Culver Grove, Stanmore, in 1935 for just £625 when she was six-years-old.

The mortgage was 18 shillings a week and her family had to take on a lodger to make ends meet.

Eight decades later, the same house is valued at £500,000.

The 87-year-old described the experience of moving from Clapham Common as “wonderful” because it was the first home she had lived in with electricity.

“It was like we had moved to the countryside”, she said.

Mrs Sutton, who is widowed, has memories of the wartime years where four houses on her street were bombed. Four people were killed, including a mother and her two children.

Now a mother-of-two, she said: “It was quite sad. A lady, a newborn baby and a child were killed and their father was an air raid warden. He wasn’t there.

“It was incredibly distressing. It was all rubble, but then they built new houses.”

During raids, she and her family would take cover in an air raid shelter next to Centenary Park, in Culver Grove.

Life changed during the war: shortages of food and clothing were prevalent.

“We were short of things and that’s what we noticed. We didn’t have any outings. When you were ten, you went to Hemel Hempstead on a camping trip for a week. I was looking forward to this, but the war came and they stopped it.

“At home, you had boring food and clothes – you got given things someone had given your mum. It wasn’t that nice.”

There were happy memories during the war, too. A biplane once landed in Centenary Park because it had run out of fuel – something she remembers fondly.

“I was on my way home from somewhere with my mother and father. There was a large group of people standing in the field surrounding an airplane which had to land as it ran out of petrol.

“Once the plane had refuelled, we were told to take cover because the pilot wound up the plane and took off.

“It was the talk of the town.”

After the war ended, her mother set up a collection fund to take everyone to Chessington Zoo.

She said: “We had a street party in Hillbury Avenue to celebrate the end of the war, with a street filled with jelly and music, it was wonderful. Everything seemed like an adventure when you’re younger.”

She was a pupil at Priestmead School where she received a King Jubilee Medal, a box of toffees and a trip to the now demolished Kenton Odeon and the Balham Park Leisure Centre. Today, she enjoys staying active, is a keen church member and enjoys going to weekly Tai-Chi sessions.

She says she feels honoured to be part of such a friendly, loving community.

She added: “This is my home, and I hope to contribute to it for many years to come.”

Do you have memories to share? E-mail aslater@london.newsquest.co.uk or call 07795 223 610.