大象传媒

REMINISCENCES BY FRANCES TEMPLETON GIVEN ON 14 SEPTEMBER 2005 AT SWAIL HOUSE

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The first thing I remember is for volunteers who were asked to take evacuee children off the trains at Dumfries Station and look after them from my school. These were lovely children, never a wrong word from any one of them, but loads and loads of lovely smiles. I was the only one doing this and my father was taking the children a longer distance from town in his car. I kept them going on biscuits and drinks. This took two whole days to get the children organised from the school into new homes.

Dumfries was a very quiet area; there was no activity with regard to bombing. In no time at all the place was full of Norwegians and it became the home of Norwegians during the war. Many Norwegians escaped in little boats and made it to the north of Scotland. Everyone who came over travelled down to Dumfries and when they appeared in the dance hall, they were dressed in traditional dress. We always sang God Save the King and also the Norwegian national anthem at the end of each performance, which I thought was lovely. There were the British troops and troops from all over stationed in Dumfries. I worked in the railway office and soon learned where troops were stationed all over Britain. We were never allowed to write down telephone numbers, but kept them in our head. Mum was the word. It was all very confidential; hush, hush.

Dumfries was the Norwegians headquarters; there were German prisoners of war, Polish airmen, in particular. An aerodrome was built and we had troops coming in from everywhere for training. There were Lancaster and Wellington bombers.

One evening when I was returning home from a Guide Meeting (I was about 17 years of age at the time). The road was deserted and we knew that something was wrong. Looking over the bridge, everything was bright red, this was the result of the bombing on Clydeside, a distance of 80 miles. It was so brilliant it could have been 8 miles only. When the Germans were finished bombing, only six houses remained intact, such was the extent of the damage. My sister was in hospital at the time and she said it was terrible hearing the planes going over for an hour going and an hour coming back. This was because they were following the contour of the river for their directions.

My father was working at the aerodrome during all of the war. He warned us that he might disappear for a few nights, but not to worry. This happened a few times, but not too often. He never, ever told us the reason for his absence, but took the secret to the grave with him.

I lived with my parents and two sisters in Dumfries. I had an older sister and a younger one. My elder sister worked at the aerodrome, as a typist and the young one was a short hand typist. The elder one joined the WRENS. As I was working at the Railway office I was not able to leave, I tried to join the forces, but was not able to.

It was nice to see the end of the war; the only thing was that I lost my job because all of the men came back from the war

My son was married in 1971; I went up to visit my son and daughter in law, and the house was full of cracks, also the garden outside. It still had not been repaired after all this time. The damage was not considered to be serious enough to be repaired, although now it would have been.

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