大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jean McLean of Renfrewshire Libraries on behalf of Helen Brown and has been added to the site with her permission. Helen Brown fully understands the site's terms and conditions

I was born 8th November 1933, at 79 Elder Street in Govan, the third child in the family.This was a single end, near shipyard called Fairfields It is now known as Kvaerners

My grandparents lived in the same building and we heard war declared in their home. I remember sitting on my grandmother鈥檚 knee. I felt scared but didn鈥檛 know why.
My father went to the army as a soldier in the Royal Artillery. There was bombing raids, and we were warned not to pick up shrapnel
We were evacuated shortly after that with my mother to Johnstone, Renfrewshire. I went to the Thorn primary and can still remember the cinema and the Co-op store. We then were sent to Drumclog which is near Strathaven and lived in the railway cottages. This was the first time that I had a garden and saw carrots and other vegetables growing. We also used night lights and paraffin lamps, played in fields of corn and searched for peeweeps eggs. It was an idyllic time. We could smell the horses being shod at the smiddy and watched army convoys go past. We also had gas mask drill in the playground

We were then moved to another place in Lanarkshire called Wiston Lodge. Our mother didn鈥檛 come with us. This looked like a big castle with big rooms and a lot of children. The question was always asked 鈥� how long are you here for ?鈥� the answer being 鈥渢he duration鈥� (I didn鈥檛 understand what that meant). While we were there our grandmother visited with news of a new baby brother!

We moved on again to East Plean with our mother, my memories of this time are of hot sunny days playing on the railway lines and going to the Welfare office for national dried milk, cod liver oil and orange juice.

In 1943 we moved back to Glasgow and another new school where half the playground was taken up by fire engines.After having lived in the country it seemed very dull and drab in the city. It was also very scary with the air raids We could hear strange noises at night which was the Rolls Royce works at Hillington. We got new school uniforms from the school board and thought we were wonderful, little did we know that they were known as 鈥淧arish claes鈥�

1944 and another baby for our mother. We knew nothing despite the noises until we saw the baby in the morning and asked where that had come from?

In 1945 our father was demobbed, complete with cardboard box with a coat suit, pair of shoes and a hat. We used to watch fascinated as he trimmed his moustache in front of the mirror, a Cary Grant lookalike with that moustache and the demob suit.
Though the war was over life was still grim with food rationing, queuing for butcher meat, going to the coal yard with an old pram to buy coal
I look back at our evacuation experience and think that though we didn鈥檛 physically suffer extreme conditions as others did it was a very strange time. We moved about either with or without my mother, new babies were born and by the end of the war we were glad to be reunited with both our parents and get to know them again.

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