Demolition begins on Patricia Tilke's house after the devastating fire

by Andy Gray

A woman in her 80s has been forced to live in a mobile home, overlooking the charred ruins of her house.

Almost a year after Patricia Tilke’s house was destroyed in a horrific blaze, she is pleading for someone to help rebuild it and restore her shattered life.

The pensioner (pictured left) remains mentally scarred after seeing her Frittenden home collapse in front of her in an "inferno", and says her life is now "miserable".

As well as surviving the winter months, she is forced to endure looking over the pile of rubble that once was her timber-framed four-bedroom pride and joy.

Miss Tilke said: "The impact of the fire never leaves me and I still grieve for my home.

"Everything I ever owned was in that house and I lost it all.

"I’ve found nothing to replace it and the life I’m living now is just miserable.

"I want somebody to help me out, but I don’t know who to turn to."

Tragedy struck early in May last year when a cushion was set alight by a table lamp in the living room where Miss Tilke, who lived alone, was sleeping.

She added: "I wriggled up the hall on my behind to get out and then I was faced with this terrible configuration as my house collapsed in front of me."

Thirty firefighters spent three hours tackling the blaze.

To her horror Miss Tilke, a trained piano teacher, discovered the house, in Sand Lane, was uninsured.

Among the precious items the animal lover lost to the flames was a valuable piano and a pet rabbit.

"I couldn’t save him, I had to get out and I still deeply regret it."

Miss Tilke, who has no immediate family living nearby spent three months in council accommodation. But she yearned for independence, so accepted the offer of a mobile home from a kind-hearted villager.

"I’m grateful of course, but I just want a proper home," she said.

"I want to be able to do all the things you do when you have a proper home, like mowing the lawn.

"I don’t want to be here living like this, it’s not my way of life at all."