大象传媒

This story was submitted to the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by ^{About links} on behalf of Joyce Calder and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was 13 years old in 1939 when war started and I lived in Helensburgh, 15 miles from Clydebank, which was the main shipbuilding site near Glasgow. I lived in a 3 storey house with my mother and sister; my father was away for most of the time in the Merchant Navy.

The safest place to hide during an air raid was in the cubby hole under the stairs and this is where we went when we heard the sirens. We used to squeeze into this small space, but I used to sneak outside, where I saw shrapnel landing on the roofs, sounding like stones dropping onto the tin. The ground shook and then I saw the bombs dropping before hearing the loud splashes as they hit the river. The explosion of the bombs caused a huge fountain of water. Although experiencing these sights and sounds was very exciting, it was also scary and I used to then run back into the safety of the cubby hole with my family.

The famous Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth ships were built at Clydebank, but at this time they were being used as troop carriers.

Clydebank was also a submarine base, which meant it was a huge target for the German bombers, but the Germans knew they were up against a lot of anti aircraft fire, so they would fly in as fast as they could, drop their bombs and leave quickly too. A lot of bombs hit the river and sometimes animals in the fields nearby, as they weren鈥檛 always too good at hitting their target!

The air raids seemed to last forever, night after night, but we learnt to recognise which planes were overhead by their sounds. If we heard the German bombers, as opposed to the British Spitfires, then we ran for the cubby hole.

Daily life seemed quite normal, but there were a lot of evacuees brought to Helensburgh from Clydebank. The evacuees seemed to settle into their new lives quite well and were attending school along with the rest of us.

We heard news of greater devestation in Clydebank, as that was the German鈥檚 target, though due to their haste, Helensburgh was also hit by their bombs.

In spite of the war, there was a good atmosphere in our neighbourhood. Our mother joined the WRVS and worked in the service鈥檚 canteen (which would now be known as the NAAFI). She worked there on several days a week, but was always at home when we got back from school.

As the war came to an end, our father returned home. When our mother went to meet him in Glasgow, he arrived with a monkey, which had been the ship鈥檚 pet. Our mother didn鈥檛 like animals very much and told father that he wasn鈥檛 bringing the monkey home, if he did, then she would leave! However, a policeman on patrol overheard their discussion and asked what the problem was. When father explained, the policeman said he would take care of the monkey and popped him into his jacket. My sister and I were upset when we heard what had happened to the monkey, as we would have liked him as our pet.

It was strange to have our father at home, as he鈥檇 been away for so long. My sister and I quite resented that fact that he took some of our mother鈥檚 attention from us, but we did enjoy listening to his many stories of his time away.

One of our uncles had left the area and was now living in Newfoundland. He had 3 sons who were in the Navy, RAF and Army. They used to send us food parcels to help us through our time of rations.

The son in the Army, Bob, came back to Helensburgh and we courted for a while as he used to stay with us during his leave, but our mother didn鈥檛 think it would be a good idea for cousins to get married. Bob came back after he was de-mobbed and eventually married a local girl and stayed, rather than returning to Newfoundland.

During 1939, a boy named Gilbert joined our school. His mother was ill and so his father was allowed to work at the Clydebank shipyard, rather than having to join up to the services. I didn鈥檛 really know Gilbert at this time, but we met properly in 1943, towards the end of the war. I was at Teacher Training College and Gilbert was at university, studying Civil Engineering. My sister鈥檚 boyfriend introduced us on the train and we started courting. Gilbert was allowed to finish his studies before he joined the Army in 1944, first based in Ripon, North Yorkshire for about 2 years, before going to North Africa.

We were married in 1949, in peace time.

Gilbert died a few years ago and I moved to live in Wymondham, next door to my son. As there are no relatives left in Scotland, I doubt I would ever go back there, but I still have the memories, particularly of our cubby hole under the stairs

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