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1939, a year I will never forget. It was a Sunday, I had been to Church with my mother and big sister - I remember it was a sunny day - and I thought that once we’d had our dinner we would all be going for our usual Sunday walk. I would get to push the ‘go-car’ with my four year old baby sister. Little did I know at the tender age of eleven years how my whole world would change forever that day. I remember being told that Mum and Dad were going visiting with my young sister and we had to stay at home. I was so angry as I washed up the dishes and my eldest sister dried them.

A rat-a-tat on the door and a telegram boy with an official yellow envelope for my father stood there. On a Sunday! He had orders to give this to my Dad right away - M.O.D. orders! The next two hours were a nightmare, my Dad was home, changed into his territorial army uniform and reported to the local drill hall.

WAR HAD BEEN DECLARED AGAINST GERMANY.

My Dad was forty five years old and had been in the ‘Terriers’ (The Territorial Army) since the end of the First World War. So orders were that all territorials had to report for duty. I can’t explain the numbness in all our hearts, our beloved Dad was ‘away to the war’ and our lives had to change.

I remember going to school on Monday and being issued with a gas-mask in a cardboard box with a string so that we could put it around our necks. Later on we got waterproof covers to cover them. Every person got issued with an identity card. To this day I remember my identity number - SWU178/2. At school we were taught gas-mask drill - where we had to put on our gas-masks and learn how to breathe out and in, all making funny noises.

We were allocated ‘safe-houses’ near the school, when the sirens went off in Aberdeen, we, eighteen miles west had an air-raid warning. Of course, schools were target buildings and so we had to leave school and go out to our allocated house where we got lemonade ad a biscuit! At eleven years old I was not aware of danger and thought leaving school when the siren went and walking to the trench ‘dug-outs’ nearby carrying our gas-masks once a week, was a game.

Oh yes! I remember 1940-41, when we had to put up ‘black-outs’ on our windows and doors and woe betide if a chink of light showed. The A.R.P. man would knock at the door and demand we covered the chink. All street lights were blacked out and I remember playing in the street by the light of the moon.

I was a sixer in the Brownies and attended every Friday night where we were given special duties such as gathering waste paper and used envelopes for the war effort. Every Saturday our ‘patrol’ would get this cairtie, with two long handles and go round all the village shops collecting paper. Then we tied newspapers in bundles, the envelopes we carefully cut 1/4 inch round the stamp and removed it. I never found out where they eventually landed up but it was called a ‘war effort’. Another job was collecting rose-hips off the bushes in the woods. I guess they were used to make rose-hip syrup. Sacks of sphagnum moss was gathered for medicinal purposes but I never found out what it was used for.

When I was twelve years old my sister at sixteen joined the Women’s Land Army and I lost my best friend. She wore corduroy breeches, green 3/4 socks, a green jumper and a hat like the Scouts and Guides wore. It was khaki though. She learned to plough with two Clydesdale horses, how to clean their bridles with dubbin’, milk the cows, feed the hens, muck out the pigs and sell milk round the nearest villages - on a two-wheeled cart with a pony.

How I envied her. I was still stuck at school and had to shoulder a lot of responsibility, looking after my young sister when she started school. I had to walk a mile and a quarter four times a day, as we went home for dinner, sometimes only spending ten minutes at home, gobbling our meal. Eventually we got school meals and had time to play in the playground afterwards, with balls or ropes. We also played ‘bools’, which was a game of skill. We all carried bags of glass bools (marbles) to school and made a ‘kipie’ with the heel of our shoe (that was a hole). We aimed our bool toward the kipie, the nearest directed his bool into the kipie then proceeded to knock the opposing bools out.

My Dad was Home Defence and had not to go overseas. He was Grade C as he had a duodenal ulcer. He was a Sergeant Major and was in the 5th/7th Gordon Highlanders. He got leave every three months and always brought us gifts. We used to polish his brass buttons and parade about with his ‘glengarry’ and his cane!

My mother was very conscientious and would ‘dig for victory’. This was an order that part of our gardens had to grow vegetables, so Mum dutifully pulled up her lovely flowers and planted tatties, cabbage, turnip, onions and kale. She grew rasps, gooseberries and blackcurrants and made jam when she had saved enough of the sugar ration. We rarely saw meat on the table as the rations were so meagre but we got mince for a treat and Mum always eked it out with the addition of macaroni, onions and carrots out of the garden. She made sheep’s head soup and a real oxtail. Sometimes she would make ham shank soup, it was delicious. So we never went hungry.

I got bored at school and wanted to leave, which I did at the age of fourteen years, much to my regret today as education is so important. Alas, schooldays were over and I was out in the world!

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