大象传媒

My mother, Irene Barry and my father, William Kidd were both born in Aberdeen in 1932 and 1928 respectively and were therefore old enough to remember a couple of notable events very clearly.

I have no dates for these stories although I鈥檓 sure they could be pinpointed by someone with local knowledge of the war in Aberdeen.

My mother鈥檚 story was often told to me up to her death in 1999. It must have lasted for only a split second, and although she was only around 9 or 10 years old it was ingrained into her mind until she died.
She lived with my grandparents, her brother and sister in a tenement style flat 3 or 4 stories up at 285 Hardgate, Aberdeen just off the town centre. As a small child I also remember my grandfather, Alexander Maurice Barry showing me a lump of German shrapnel he had kept from his days as an ARP warden in the town.
Her story concerns an air raid which must have been in daylight 鈥� she heard engine noise, looked out of the window to see a German bomber go past close enough for her to clearly see the markings and expression on the pilots face. The aircraft had been hit by anti-aircraft fire and the pilot was fighting a losing battle to control it.
The plane then came down and crashed into the nearby ice-rink.

My father has three wartime stories to relate:
First story is of an uncle (his mother鈥檚 brother) who had emigrated to Canada and was in the Canadian Army. He remembers great excitement when this uncle (Jimmy Milne) who they hadn鈥檛 seen for years appeared from Canada in his army uniform to visit my grandmother.
Shortly after this he was killed in the ill-fated raid on Dieppe whilst trying to evacuate the beach at the end of the action. My father鈥檚 recollection is that he could have been a Commando and a sergeant of some sort, he thinks he may have been a CSM or RSM.
His second story also involves an air raid (I鈥檝e often wondered if this was the same one my mother witnessed).
He was cycling home one evening in the Bridge of Don area when he was aware of planes in the sky behind him, when he looked he realised they were German and too close for comfort , so he jumped off his bike into the nearest ditch and looked up to actually see the bombs being dropped from the aircraft.
These bombs he thinks were aimed at the bridge but hit a transport depot or bus station. There were also bombs dropped on a nearby army barracks where several soldiers were killed.
His third story tells the hazards of blackouts. He was a 鈥渞unner鈥� for the ARP wardens in the town and carried messages from one post to another on his bike, as you can imagine it was pitch black at night, however this was compensated for by knowing the streets well. The thing that he hadn鈥檛 allowed for was that trams would stop in strange places when the power was cut, so one evening on an errand he raced round a corner straight into a stationary tram resulting in a broken arm and several other bruises!

These stories are not monumental compared to some of the other epics which have appeared in WW2 peoples war, but I thought they were worth preserving.

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