大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Nadine from the People's War team on behalf of Jenny Cameron and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

September 3rd 1939. A sunny autumn day when war was declared. We were evacuated to Stranraer.

Mamie, the eldest, at thirteen, was in charge of us - Joanne, Willie, Amy and Jenny(me). Such excitement. Dad carrying a large suitcase, he was seeing us off before he went off to the forces. Others carrying brown paper parcels tied with string. Everyone marching along to the station. Happy, then sad, as they said their farewells.

We shared the compartment with our cousins. The journey was chaotic as cousin Jimmy kept jumping about coshing us on the head, shouting beastie, beastie, cosh cosh. He had rolled up a small leather which he enjoyed using on us, by the time we arrived at Stranraer, Amy and I had splitting headaches.

We queued up in local cinema and were given rations. Corned beef, sugar, chocolate etc., in a large brown paper bag. We were taken by car to a villa, but the couple didn鈥檛 want a mixed family, same with the second couple. At the third house we were accepted.

Mr and Mrs Ovens had no family. Mrs Ovens lived up to her name. She was never out of the oven, much to our delight! We had fruit cakes, fairy cakes, angel cakes, spotted dick and apple dumplings. At Halloween we had a party with a massive clootie dumpling with all the trinkets in it. The family of evacuee鈥檚 two doors down were invited, so we all enjoyed that night. We were in Stranraer 18 months. Most evacuees had returned home long before us.

We went home in time for the Blitz. Air raids, the 鈥淎ll Clear鈥�, Baffle walls, Barrage balloons, search lights, sirens, shelters, and shrapnel. An exciting time for children, but a worrying time for parents. We lived in the ground flat in a three storey tenement. When the raids were on, most of the neighbours came down to our house, maybe they thought it was safer. We kept cheerful throughout. Clydebank was badly hit on the 13th and 14th of March 1941. Poor old Bankies, their loss of lives was heavy. After the raids, even though shop windows were shattered and contents scattered on the streets, it was BUSINESS AS USUAL everywhere.

Stranraer to us was a magical place. Seashore, countryside, the Garden of Friendship, terraced houses, sunshine on Sun Street, where we lived. To this day I have fond memories of the people and the town.

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