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Rosabel McCrostie — Wartime Wanderings
Peoples War

I was born in Edinburgh on 6 June 1935. When the War was beginning, my father was anxious about our safety and wanted to evacuate us to Canada - my Mother, older brother and sister and myself. He was in the Pay Corps at the time and away most of the time. However, at the very last minute, they decided against it.

Instead, in conjunction with all the schools, they decided to send us and our Mother to a place in the Highlands called Nethie Bridge. It was one of the coldest winters imaginable and the snow was so deep, my wellies were always filling up with snow. We shared a wooden chalet with another lady who was a Guide Leader in our region and she was also a school teacher — she didn’t have a family with her. My mother tried to keep the chalet warm and had to cook on the fire, which I believe was a peat fire. She was a marvellous woman and could turn her hand to anything. No wonder that she lived to be over 100 and remained as competent as she was then.

Our occasional treats were to go the village hall and see some old films. I remember watching Old Mother Riley and laughed so much I didn’t know what to do.

At one point my father was posted to Leicester and mother decided to join him. We were given a lovely house to live in although part of it was locked. However, my brother, being a daring sort, was not to be stopped by a locked door, especially if it was to the larder. He liked to defeat the rules!

The trouble was that the house we were living in was right on the route the Germans took to bomb Coventry, so we spent a lot of time in the shelter and I became very nervous because of the constant alarms. I feel that an element of that nervousness stayed with me and it was because of that time in my life. My sister also became nervous which resulted in a slight stammer.

I went to school in Leicester and I believe we only went in the mornings. If there was an air raid, we went to the shelters and were given barley sugar sweets - sweets were a seldom heard of treat at that time.

We were at Leicester for about a year and I remember at that time, my Mother cut her finger and got a poisoned finger and had to go to hospital. I used to go with her. Many of my memories of Leicester were not very happy ones. After a year, my Mother decided it would be better to go home to Edinburgh. The house we lived in is still there; my brother lives there, so it is still in the family.

After all our wanderings, only one bomb dropped on Leith harbour, so for all the danger we expected, we could have stayed at home!

My tenth birthday was a very special day — VE Day in 1945. Strangely, I don’t remember it particularly well, although many other memories of the war are stronger.

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