PAT Chesson, of Galway Road, Sheerness, was a schoolgirl in 1953.

She attended grammar school at Sittingbourne, but was unable to make the journey because the Island was cut off. "I was quite pleased not having to go because it was exam time," she said, "But I wasn't so pleased that on my school report, where the exam results should have been, it was marked 'absent'."