Blitz Survivors Reunite For First Time In 70 Years

A pair of Blitz-surviving pals have reminisced on decades of missing memories after they reunited for the first time in 70 years.

Kit Sollitt, 97, managed to get back in touch with former neighbour Madeline Dye after she read a news article detailing her 105th birthday.

With more than 200 years of stories between them, the women swapped tales of wartime heroics and the time they sheltered from Nazi bombs in a cramped cellar.

Madeline lived her entire life in the Heeley part of Sheffield, and between the ages of 18 and 25, Kit lived in the same group of terraced houses.

They had not met since Kit was married and moved away around the end of the war, but they rolled back the years at Norton Lees Hall Care Home, where Madeline now resides.

Madeline's niece Diana Heaton, 80, said:

"When I first told my Aunt [Madeline] that an old friend wanted to meet her, she didn't understand who it was. It was quite funny.

"She remembered Kit's sister and eventually she figured out who Kit was and was delighted that she had a friend from all those years ago.

"But it was brilliant when Kit came to see her - the first thing Madeline said was 'you look even older than me'."

Diana said her relative had a great memory up until a fall at her home when she was aged 103 - which forced her into a care home.

Diana added:

"Her memory was really good, but when she fell and hit her head it really knocked her for six.

"She used to be always dominating conversations - but now Madeline is outspoken.

"Both Kit and Madeline spoke, but it was Kit who did most of the talking."

Madeline's memories of Kit are understandably hazy after all these years - but as the pair poured over old family photos some of the faces struck a chord.

In particular, it was Kit's late brother Tommy Batty who stood out in her memory, who, despite being blind in one eye and deaf in one ear, he was called up to the front on D-Day.

Kit joked:

"When they were going to invade they called up anybody with two legs and arms."

Tommy survived to tell the tale, returning to these shores to resume his career as a steelworker.

Madeline, who worked as a bookbinder during the war, was never called upon to join the production line because of her asthma.

She beat cervical cancer at 80 and still maintained her independence - despite being told by medics to not even lift a kettle.

Although only a handful of years separate the old neighbours, Madeline and Kit seem generations apart when it comes to some of their experiences.

Madeline, who never married, had children, a boyfriend, or stepped foot in a pub before celebrating her 90th birthday, while Kit told how she first ventured into a watering hole aged just 16.