大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War site by Catherine Garvie 大象传媒 LPM, on behalf of Kathryn McKerrall from Kilbowie Primary School with the permission of Mrs Maureen McKerrall. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Mrs Maureen McKerral (26/12/1919), interviewed by Kathryn McKerrall (18/7/1994)

War is declared, so Air Raid Shelters were built round the back lanes between the tenement houses. When the German planes were flying towards Clydebank, the Home Guard would set off the sirens to warn us to go into the shelters with our gas masks. We had to stay there until the Home Guard sounded the "All Clear".

As the planes flew in with their heavy loads of bombs, we all prayed that they would go away. The pilots would fly over their targets and drop bombs - the noise was dreadful, it did not seem real that this was happening.

Life changed for us all - we learned to live with this terrible war. Street lights were dimmed and windows had to be covered so that no light shone out. Blinds were used and we called this the 'Blackout'. We lived our lives the best we could. Food was rationed and we were all given Ration Books and stamps for clothing and furniture. We managed to get our fair share.

We went to picture houses and the dancing and tried to live as normal a life as possible. Like teenagers today, we chatted to the boys and hoped that the boy we liked also liked us!

Girls joined the Army, Navy and Air Force. You would be called up if needed. If you worked with items needed for the war, you would not be called up. Being called up was called 'National Service'.

I worked in the Singer factory and at lunchtime we would have a concert. People would sing, dance, say poems and tell funny stories, which kept the moral of the people up. Lots of people were very talented and played the violin and sang some beautiful songs. Young girls and boys would dress up in their nicest outfits on Sundays and walk from Dalmuir West to Old Kilpatrick. We called this the 'Monkey Parade'. Boys would chat us up and we did what teenagers do now - we would like someone in particular and hope that he would speak to us - or 'chat us up'. We would be well chuffed until the next weekend.

People were kind to each other and we wept with our friends when they had bad news from the Front. Life went on and we did have some fun. People married and would have a party.

The day came when the news came over the wireless (radio) - War had ended. We wept tears of joy and danced for joy in the streets.

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