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The event is the first huge blitz on Clyde side in Dunbartonshire. The target was our shipyards.

We were in an Anderson shelter at the end of the garden when a land mine demolished a house at the end of the road. This brought people out to see if help was needed and because the door of the shelter was then opened I had a panoramic view of the devastation and havoc being caused. I looked down on a sea of orange flame and silhouetted against the skyline was the foursquare pillar of the clock in the middle of Singer’s Sewing Machine factory. All around total devastation but this one building remained unscathed — at least to the best of my knowledge.

My other shameful memory is of all of us schoolchildren willing the “All Clear! Not to go off before 2 am. since we need not go to school until 10am instead of 9 am. What blessed innocence caused this callousness!

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