大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Mairi Campbell of the 大象传媒 on behalf of Mrs M McColl and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

When I think back I have no stories to tell about WW2 but I do recall a few unconnected incidents.

I remember the tension after Mr Chamberlain gave Germany the ultimatum. I think everyone knew that this was the war. I was in church on the Sunday that Germany had not replied; so we were at war with Germany. I was almost 13 at the time and attended Rosemount Junior Secondary School. One of the Primary Schools was taken over by the army. Rosemount was used for the junior secondary pupils from 8.30 to 1 and the primary school occupied it in the afternoon.

When I went to school in the morning I passed a narrow street at the back of the Primary School. One morning a soldier standing at an open window whistled at me. I blushed and hung my head as I passed, after that if a soldier saw me coming he would shout on the others and heads appeared at all the 4 or 5 windows. At first they would whistle, then they had an idea and sang a popular song at the time 鈥渁n apple for the teacher鈥�, they were having fun at my expense and they got it because my face would become even redder and my head would hang further down. I did not know they were not meaning to be unkind and I should just have smiled and waved up to them but I was too shy.

Another incident involving two soldiers happened because we were knitting for the troops at first it was just scarves and we graduated to socks, balaclavas and gloves. We had to put our name on them

One Sunday our bell rang. My father went to the door, came back grinning and told me there were two soldiers there. One had received something I had knitted no doubt they were disappointed to see a gawky schoolgirl, but they enjoyed the tea my mother prepared.

When I left school I worked in a Boot and Shoe Shop, Ladies shoes were 5 coupons and men鈥檚 were 7. Then we started to sell clogs which were good quality uppers. They were 2 or 3 coupons some people got the wooden soles taken off and had them replaced with leathers. Another coupon saving idea was when Morrison鈥檚 (Ruggy Morrison) sold grey dusters which were fairly large, four dusters made a dress. My sister and I were proud of our shirt waisted dresses, she embroidered our initials on the pockets so that we knew which belonged to whom and the great thing was we used no coupons!

Now to the Air Raid Sirens. At first there were many false alarms and we were very blas茅. We just turned over and fell asleep again. After bombs were dropped we and our neighbours decided to come to our lobby which had no outside walls and the fanlight was taped over. It would be more comfortable than the air raid shelter. There was a few seats for the older people and the young ones sat on the floor. Space was limited. This procedure was followed many times. One night the bombs started to drop all around us. My mother used to go the front room to watch what was going on. She came back into the lobby and laughing, although clearly shocked said that she鈥檇 been trying to crawl under the sofa which was about 4 inches from the ground, later as we listened to the German aeroplanes (these had a different sound from ours more like a dull throbbing sound) we held our breath when we hear the bombs come whistling down and gave a sigh of relief when they exploded and we were all alright. One bomb was very near, the house trembled and there was the crash of broken glass. We knew our windows been all blown in and so apparently did a 4 year old boy. His little voice piped up 鈥渇it aboot oor jam ma?鈥�. His mother had indeed been making jam earlier that evening; the tension went as we all laughed when we thought about his priorities. The next morning the 22nd April 1943 we saw we had been in the centre of bombed buildings, Stafford Street, Powis, Berryden, the railway at the kitty Brewster Bradford Factory鈥�.we realised how lucky we had been.

The foundations of the block of flats had been shaken and were demolished in the 1970鈥檚 and after the bombing the rats in Bradford Factory had been disturbed and some of them had tunnelled their way through to the cellars in our basement. They never came into the house and the rat catcher managed to dispose of them after a few visits. After that night we always used the air raid shelter.

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