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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Catherine Garvie, Learning Project Manager at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland on behalf of the Greenock War Detectives project and has been added with their permission. The authors fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

I was 17 when the war started. My family had a fruit and veg business in the town — mostly in the East End. There were four brothers and 3 sisters (2 were married). All of us brothers were the age to go into the forces. My older brother who was 20 got called up with the 6 month conscription. That meant we had to shut a shop in Cathcart St. After a while another brother got called up. He ran the shop in Lynedoch Street so my oldest brothers wife came into that shop to run things whilst he was away. I was next to go. I was in the Cartsburn shop and the girl I worked with (who I eventually married) took over the shop when I went. My oldest brother didn’t have to go away. The MP Hector McNeil got him off. That was what saved the business and meant we had jobs to go to when we came back from the war.

It wasn’t a shock for my family when they heard we were going to war. Folk seemed to realise that the time was coming when there would be another war; it was more or less a foregone conclusion.

I got registered in 1941 but didn’t actually go away to war till September 1942, so I had a year longer at home than was normally expected. What happened, well this is what I think happened, was because we lived in the East End and that area was badly blitzed we had to go to Kilcreggan to live for a while. While I was there, the paper for my medical came and I had to go to Dumbarton for that. Normally if you lived in Greenock you would go to Paisley for your medical. So when we moved back to Greenock I heard nothing for a whole year. It was a whole year before I was told to report. I think it was the mix up with the medical papers that delayed things.

I went into the Airforce and was moved down south. I then got posted overseas and was there for about 3 years although I served 41/2 years in total. I was in the ground crew — I had bad eyes (I found out later). The whole time I was overseas I didn’t have any leave other than sick leave.

The conditions weren’t great overseas. It was very hot and humid. The bugs and flies were terrible. You could stop in the desert and not see a thing but as soon as you opened a tin of food there would be flies everywhere. We slept in hammocks on board the boats but once the hammocks had been used for a couple of years, all the strings broke so you just had to leave them on the floor. It got very crowded. Sometimes it was so hot in the troops areas we were allowed to sleep on the decks at night but in West Africa they wouldn’t allow that. They wouldn’t allow anybody to sleep outside at night in case you got bitten by mosquitoes. One of my pals did get bitten and contracted malaria. He was shivering and shaking for a whole day. I saw him after the war and he was still suffering the effects.

As I said, I had another two brothers at war. One brother was in the Commandos. He started off in the Argyles and then volunteered for the Commandos. He went into the number 6 Commandos and was mentioned in dispatches in North Africa for bravery. The other brother went up to Iceland and was there for about six months.

Neither my brothers nor myself were injured during the war. We were very lucky and all came through, a lucky family. Some of my friends weren’t so lucky. Three of my pals were killed. One, who was training in Canada was killed in a crash and the other two were killed while serving in the army. One just disappeared; he must have got blown away somewhere.

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