大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Allan Price on behalf of Charles Archibald and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was too young to know why my mum and I stood with the others on the rural Perthshire rail platform waiting to be selected by kindly local people who had volunteered to house us far, far away from the destruction shortly to be visited on us by the Nazi hordes of aircraft threatening us with annihilation on the Clyde side city of Glasgow.

My dad was working all the hours that God could give him in the Clyde shipyards keeping this island's vital supply of ships maintained and sea-worthy.

However, the family alarm bells started ringing when word reached him that his young and attractive blonde wife and son were seconded to a rich Perthshire farmer's keep, where his young son had already made alleged amorous advances to my mum.

A return to the blitz threatened Glasgow was instigated immediately, as there seemed to be more threat to my family life from Perthshire farmers than the German Luftwaffe.

The steel Anderson shelter half buried in the ground and surmounted by clots of soil and grass at the bottom of our garden served as our emergency home during the next period when the sirens sounded.

One night my dad woke me up from my candlelit slumber in the shelter to take me out to see a sight, which would remain with me from the rest of my life. We walked a short way to the local high point of vacant ground near Barlinnie prison where a panoramic view over Glasgow and its surrounds was abtained.

The sky was criss-crossed by ever-searching lights, which were trying to zero in on invading Nazi bombers. The constant throb of thier engines is still one aspect, which I have carried with me into the next century.

Now and again, the distinctive Rolls-Royce Merlin engine noise from our Spitfires could be heard as they homed in on our ruthless enemy. As the sky turned crimson in the west, my dad turned to me and said, "Clydebank is getting it".

There were to be many more nights like this - but even as a child I could feel that we were home, were engulfed by a resolve to support our forces wherever they were and repulse the Nazis and their axis friends from our shores.

The next day brought us kids out onto the streets to playing our games again, undetered. The resistance to our enemies was thus engrained into us. However, even now, I must admit to a habit of looking up into the sky where I hear aero engine noise, friend or foe!

In the 1950s, upon call-up for National Service when asked which branch of the services I whished to serve I had no hesitation in saying, "The Royal Air Force, sir" in which I duly served.

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