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Q. Do you remember anything from home — I mean, stories about what was happening in Glasgow? Did you sense that there was danger or not?

A. Yes, well, the Clydebank Blitz, now that was dreadful. And we didn’t hear, well, we didn’t have a phone, and nobody heard from their parents and, you know, well, you didn’t know if they were alive or dead, it was a terrible week until we heard and, of course, we heard planes going over, well, I suppose either on their way there or their way back, I was in a wee, sort of not a bed closet but off the …. their good room was upstairs and the boys had a room and we had, well, Jan and I were in this wee, sort of box room place and you would lie and listen to these planes going over. But Jan, she went home and, you know, as I said, I was the last one there, until …. I suppose it was wise to start secondary school in the school I was going to be going to, you know.

Q. Did your family feel that it was safe for you to come home then?

A. Oh, yes. I think so. When was the Clydebank Blitz? That’s terrible, I can’t remember. Was it 1940 or 1941? It was the 13th and 14th of March, I can remember that — that sticks in my mind. And then later, when I went home for the weekend, my mother had to go and get lessons on how to put out an incenuary bomb. I remember I went with her and actually at her house there was an incenuary bomb landed and you had a bucket of sand and she had to do it. And there was a shelter we had to go to and mum was two up, and my grandmother didn’t keep well, and she had to get them down and across to this shelter in the school. One weekend I came home, would it be after the Clydebank Blitz? And all the windows were out. The front windows were all boarded up in Glasgow.

Q. With things like that, did your family feel glad that they had sent you away?

A. Oh yes. But my poor mother was never the same. In fact, she lost a stone in weight the first wee while, you know.

Q. So, where did your dad work?

A. He worked in Partick Railway Station. He was in the goods station.

Q. Did your mum work or did she look after you?

A. She was looking after my gran. It was lucky because I was only home a year when my father died and mum had to get work. So she got work with the labour exchange working 50 odd hours a week — in these days — she had to get the money — in these days you didn’t have a choice, she needed to work.

Q. What was she working at?

A. Finding jobs for people. You know, and at that time it was a busy place because there were women going into munitions factory at Bishopton and all sorts, you know.

Q. Can I ask how your father died? Was it natural?

A. He actually had epilepsy. He did, he had an injury, I mean he was a great sportsman — and, you know, he would be alright for a while, I mean he worked, but then I think it must have affected his heart eventually. I was broken hearted because he and I were close. I was so glad I was home before, because, you know, we had a year befpre he died. But then my poor mother was left with my grandmother who was one of these people who lived to be 85 but she was never well, you know. It was a good age — she had a bad back. Mum was working and from eleven I was having to do shopping, housework and cooking. We used to say that whenever mum wanted a few days away, grandma took to her bed. But then, when mum was working, she was very good at it when I went to work, grandma was there and had my lunch ready.

Q. So, you never had any brothers or sisters?

A. Unfortunately not.

Q. Did that happen to a lot of people because of the war?

A. Do you know, the older you get you wish and my husband died, now is it three years ago Jim died? Very suddenly, I got no warning, and that’s when I missed, you know, others go out on a Saturday with their sisters but I’ve got a family of my own, grandchildren as well.

Q. What do you remember about after you got back to Glasgow? What were the changes that you noticed from maybe before the war? Had anything changed?

A. Well, there had been a lot of bombs. Near where I lived there were tenements just flattened quite a lot, just, you know, that they’ve since rebuilt and of course the rationing was very strict where, you know, after being in Buchlyvie, you know, they were very strict.

Q. What do you remember about the differences in the food when you came back?

A. Well, you know, when bananas were first heard of you all had to run and queue up at Malcolm Campbell for them. And, I mean, sweets were gradually reintroduced, you still had your ration book, but it was a mad dash, oh, you know, McColls have got sweets in, let’s go! And the blackout of course, you know, and my mother went and collected a penny a week for the Red Cross can and I used to go with her because it was dark at night and we went collecting, you know, and my grandma went into Glasgow somewhere, as I say, making bandages, you know, for the Red Cross.

Q. And you said the blackout was so much different in the city?

A. Oh, it was. There must have been some local election, this was once I was working, to count votes and coming home in the dark I was scared.

Q. Had you been used to street lights before?

A. Oh yes. Before I went and of course your windows were all taped up eventually with sticky tape to save them blowing in and then black curtains because you mustn’t show a chink of light.

Q. Could you still see where you were going by the moonlight or whatever?

A. Yes, but it was difficult. My father used to take me out that last year, as I say we were together a lot, looking at the stars and he was telling me what all the stars were.

Q. I bet there’s not a lot of kids who live in Glasgow now who could say that their dad took them outside on the street to look at the stars?

A. I know — gosh, I know. I don’t know what else had changed. Oh yes, the first year at school I didn’t know anybody but I gradually made friends and joined the choir. That’s been the story of my life — always in choirs.

Q. What did you notice about the changes before the war and when you came back but what was the difference between the country and the town? Do you know what I mean? You were saying about school, was school different?

A. Well, you know, I took German and French and a German lady, she must have been a refugee, you know, and she came and whenever our male German teacher had, now he had been a major in the army but he was invalided out, and there was a lot of German boys in my class, and you know, they were clever. They were wizards at maths, you know. But obviously they were there to get away from the Nazi’s or whatever, I don’t know what happened to them after the war and across from my school there was garages and there was American soldiers stationed there and there was this one girl in my class, Helen, oh, you know the glamour, the lipstick, the long, peek a boo hair and, you know, she was getting off with all these American soldiers. But I made friends with a girl who’s father was the firemaster in Partick and her big sister went about with a Canadian soldier and they used to take us to the pictures and they sat behind us. And, being a Canadian, he had nylons and sweeties — so it was a whole, new world. And of course I was still at the school on VE Day.

Q. What do you remember about VE Day? Do you remember the declaration of the end of the war?

A. I do. And I was still at the school — that must have been about my last year at the school. And, strangely enough, when I married my husband he was in a reserved occupation and he was in the home guard. I have pictures of me at George Square on VJ Day not VE Day. He was stationed in a gunnery place and he always says he shot down one German aeroplane but his grandchildren tease him about Dad’s Army.

Q. So, do you remember celebrating on VE Day? Or was it a bit more subdued?

A. Well, I suppose the age I was — I mean — we didn’t really celebrate. And of course it was listen to the radio. Because I suppose I was too young then to be allowed gallivanting in the streets.

Q. Did you go to George Square to celebrate VE Day?

A. Oh no, I wouldn’t have been. You see, I was an only girl with my grandmother living with us, I wasn’t allowed to go. I think my girlfriend from Knightswood got to go and there used to be like watchnight services that were on — they were on New Year’s not Christmas but I wasn’t allowed to go to them.

Q. What do you remember about the after effects of the war. In particular, rationing?

A. I was married young and I still had a ration book. Everything wasn’t rationed, you know, but certain things were and I remember going to the butcher and getting your ration book. I don’t think I still have that. I was married at twenty.

Q. Have you kept anything from the war?

A. I still have my identity card. Of course it had to be changed when I got married but I can still remember the number — SL LB 99 2 — because you still kept the same card.

Q. Did you have the same card all through the war or did you get new ones?

A. Well, when I got married I had to get a new one but funnily my husband, he came down in the war to work as an apprentice in an engineering factory, but he was born as they say up north and he had a restricted card, he couldn’t get beyond Inverness, what did they call it? So, when my grandson, he did a project at school, I think they all do that now in their classes, he got a picture of his dad and his grandpa in the home guard and this restricted entry. He took all this into school.

Q. Did you keep in touch with the families you stayed with in Buchlyvie? Or any of the friends you made there?

A. Oh well, one of the girls went home but eventually she married and went down to the Borders and after that we didn’t keep in touch. Yes, occasionally mum and I went out to Buchlyvie at the bramble picking leaving grandma you know and we visited Aunt Joan and Angie but they weren’t young you know. Eventually we didn’t keep in touch with them. But we did go back once in a while to see them. They had a lovely, long garden, Hillview, you know, the villages look straight onto the street, but they had a long garden at the back and I remember trying to build an igloo in the snow there!

Q. Did you have a garden in Glasgow or were you in a flat?

A. No, I was in a flat. I love the garden and I think that’s what started me off — they gave me a wee corner of my own and I planted seeds. And the first house I stayed in, she had a great bit of ground at the side and she had a sort of summer house thing, I was always a reader, and I used to go out and sit there and read.

Q. So, you think that gave you the passion for having a garden?

A. Yes, I think so. And my love of animals and things.

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