大象传媒

Jim鈥檚 War

The long stream of 鈥榬efugees鈥�, carrying all that they possessed in this world, wound down the hill and past our house. I was about 10 or 11 at the time, but I had sadness in my heart that cold bright morning as I watched these men, women and children, all with pale and weary faces, trudging by. No it was not Bosnia or Central Africa but the centre of Glasgow during World War II. This mass of people had just, the night before, been bombed out of their homes in Clydebank and they were now making their way to shelter in various schools around our district.

The 鈥榳ar鈥� had been a funny one for me. I had been evacuated to a place called Eaglesham where a family who owned a slaughterhouse and racehorses looked after me. I was absolutely terrified of the horses, as they all seemed to take a great dislike to me from day one. Since mine had been a 鈥榩rivate鈥� evacuation, my dear Mother had organised it all by herself, I was not allowed to attend the local school and remember spending the long sunny days sitting on the front step of the house waiting till my friends came home. Night time was the worst. I was always very homesick and generally cried myself to sleep. This part of my war did not seem to last very long, but I am proud to say that I was evacuated to the place where Rudolph Hess, Hitler鈥檚 right hand man, landed in a plane from Germany. He spent the rest of the war, indeed the rest of his life, in captivity.

From the safety of my front door step, I returned to the big city. For what seemed an eternity, every night before I went to bed I would carefully place my 鈥榓ir raid鈥� clothes on a chair by the side of my bed. At the first sound of the warning, which to this day still sends a shiver down my spine when I hear it, my Mother would hurry round getting the family together and we would make our way to the air raid shelter. The nearest one to us was in the basement of a local school, which was about five to six minute鈥檚 walk away. Often we spent the whole night there not getting any sleep and emerging in the early morning to the acrid smell of sulphur in the air, which had come from the bombs and shells exploding during the night.

On a number of occasions, Mum was not quick enough in getting us up to get to the shelter and all hell had broken loose by the time we were on our way. I remember hurrying to the shelter, keeping as close as we could to the walls, with large chunks of metal raining down on us, our ears splitting with the explosions and dreadful sound all around; the sky all lit up with search lights and the smell of fires as buildings burned and the drone-drone of German aircraft overhead. I had quite a collection of 鈥榮hrapnel鈥� at home as well as some very heavy steel rings that had come from shells fired at the enemy. An uncle of mine took some of the shrapnel and had a model of a Beaufort fighter made from it. That was one of my most treasured possessions during the war. One great bonus of the air raids was that, if there had been one the night before, you did not have to go to school till the afternoon. I missed quite a lot of school, but I was lucky to have a second chance when I went to boarding school in the autumn of 1944.

My schooling suffered during the war. Our teacher, in what would now be Year 6, was a little fat, balding man with a very red face. I did not know it at the time but I learned much later that he was an alcoholic, hence the very red face. He gave very little of his time to teaching us; he would either be reading his paper or chatting to the teacher next door. We had just to 鈥榞et on with it鈥�. He was also quite a brutal man. In those days, in Scotland, all teachers carried with them 鈥榯he belt鈥�. I think in England it was called the taws, but the one used in Scotland was longer and thinner, with one end cut into three narrow strips and it was known as a 鈥榣ochgelly鈥� because they were made in the town of Lochgelly, in Fife. 鈥楾he belt鈥� was used to great effect and you could expect to get a slap or two on the palms of your hands鈥ix of the best鈥t least once a day. You got thumped if you misbehaved, obviously, but you also got thumped if you got a sum wrong or a spelling or you 鈥榖lotted your copy book鈥�. It was very cruel, but it soon dawned on you that if you got your work right first time then you would not get 鈥榯he belt鈥�! It helped you to become a genius overnight!

Rationing was not very pleasant. I dreaded the weekend. I would run home from school, have some bread, jam and milk, then clutching the ration books and the shopping bags, I would hurry over to our local Co-op to get in the queue. The queue! This seemed to start overnight when the war came. You had to queue for trams and buses; you had to queue in the shops; everywhere you had to queue. I feel as if I spent half my youth in the Co-op queue. I remember you had to put your ration books and a special card into a box on the counter and when your turn came you presented yourself and immediately felt like a criminal as the assistant huffed and puffed as your meagre rations were doled out鈥� a quarter of this, one and a half slices of that, three sausages and so on. My mother, when the war had started, had the foresight to buy in a store of essentials like sugar, tea, tinned food, so at the start we were not too badly off. However, as was the case in those days, rumours were rife and one of them was that inspectors were coming round to check your larders to discover all those who were hoarding food. Imagine, storing extra food seemed a very unpatriotic thing to do. So my poor Mum panicked and immediately gave away most of her 鈥榟oard鈥�. As a family we survived and I suppose, being the youngest, I got more than my share of the rations. Since there were six in our family we had the identity numbers: SEWS 35 1 (my Father) through to SEWS 35 6 (Me!). I still have this same number in my life, as it became my National Health Number when the NHS was set up.

The 鈥榖lackout鈥� was another wartime misery. Once it got dark the streets were pitch black. Cars and buses had special covers on their headlamps with a narrow slit in them, which allowed the minimum amount of light to shine onto the road. When you went anywhere at night you carried a torch. 鈥淧ut out that light鈥� was a common cry at night if someone by chance did not have their windows covered correctly. The police could visit you or the air raid wardens if even the tiniest chink of light came from your windows. Putting up the 鈥榖lackout鈥� became a ritual and once they were up it seemed that you were imprisoned for the rest of the night. People became great readers and radio listeners and just like TV now there were always your favourite programmes to look forward to. I knew all the popular songs of the day. Every time I hear Vera Lynn singing (We鈥檒l Meet Again), Marks and Spencers shop always springs to mind, that鈥檚 because you always heard her voice coming from the doorway of that shop every time you were in town shopping.

My Mother and Father were great 鈥榩icture鈥� goers and generally once or twice a week they would take me to see the recent releases. Of course they were all American films with all the great film stars in them. Most films were black and white and in those days you really got your money鈥檚 worth with two feature films, a newsreel and a cartoon, all for the grand sum of 1/6p (one shilling and sixpence; about 7 new pence). Sweets were always in short supply, so my Mother, who was never short of ideas, used to buy a packet of Rennies from the chemist and we would suck these while engrossed in the movies.

My great passion during the war was scouting. I don鈥檛 know exactly when I became a scout, but within quite a short time I had a lot of badges on my sleeves, indicating that I was proficient in many things: lighting a fire by rubbing two sticks together, tying every conceivable knot and doing a good deed every day! One badge I was particularly proud of was my 鈥榮ervice badge鈥�. This was a badge that was only offered during times of war to scouts who gave of their time to help in the British Legion clubs for service men and women. I would go to the Lyon鈥檚 Club in the centre of Glasgow and spend about three or four hours there welcoming soldiers, sailors and airmen who were either coming home on leave or heading back to their various units for duty. I would see that they got a bed for the night, take them to the canteen to get a meal and direct them to any entertainment that might be laid on for them in the concert hall. To earn my badge I had to do in excess of one hundred hours service. As far as I can remember I was the only one in the troop that received this badge. I was always very proud to wear it. It was a small red rectangle with a gold crown in the centre.

It was during this period that I had my only real frightening experience of the blackout. The summer evenings were all right, as I was usually back home by about 10 o鈥檆lock and it was still light. However, one winter鈥檚 evening, on my way home, I got the distinct feeling that I was being followed. In my panic I missed my stop where I should have got off the bus for home. When I finally did get off the bus, I ran as fast as I could in the pitch dark with someone running close behind me. I reached our front door in utter terror and hammered on it, shouting for my Dad to let me in. My dad had a look to see if there was anyone there, but in the dark it was impossible to tell. It took a while for me to get over this.

It was about this time also, while I was at the Lyon鈥檚 club, that I got a pen pal. He was a soldier in the Canadian forces and a motorcycle dispatch rider. I had several letters from him, some from North Africa and then from Italy. I can only recall one incident he wrote about and that is when he had to remove his trousers in a great hurry as they had caught fire from his overheated motorbike. I lost touch with him as the war progressed. I often wonder what happened to him. I hope he survived the war.

My uncle Joe and his son, also called Joe, had visited us from America in the summer of 1938 or 1939. My cousin Joe who was just a few years older than me told me of the wonderful things that went on in the USA, like the serialisation of the LONE RANGER on radio. Wow! I was envious. All we had was comics. I have never seen my cousin since then, but I believe he married a Japanese geisha some time after the war. I did, however, see my uncle Joe again. One day at the end of 1942, beginning of 1943, I was at home with my mother when there was a loud knocking at the front door. I opened the door and there was this heavily bearded man in a roll-neck sweater, baggy trousers, gumboots and carrying a large sailor鈥檚 kit bag standing there. 鈥淚s yer Ma in?鈥�, he drawled in a phoney American accent. By this time my Mother had appeared behind me at the door. 鈥淛oe!鈥�, she exclaimed and welcomed him in. It transpired that my uncle Joe had been a seaman on one of these famous or infamous American welded ships, in an Atlantic convoy and had been torpedoed, rescued and brought to Scotland. My memory is vague as to what happened after that but he obviously returned to the States and I was told by my Father that when his first wife died he had remarried and this time to a Cherokee Indian woman. Whether or not I have Red Indian cousins or indeed Japanese second cousins still in America, I haven鈥檛 a clue! I saw my uncle Joe once more in the late 50鈥檚. This time he was wearing a ten-gallon hat, but there was no sign of his squaw!

Glasgow seemed to teem with American troops. Their headquarters was in a very swanky hotel, which had been built just before the war. What I remember most about them was their beautiful uniforms made of the finest material and the lovely dark green and brown colours. Their stripes and flashes seemed to be bigger and brighter than those of our own soldiers with their thick heavy khaki tunics and trousers. In an old barracks close to where I lived, some French soldiers had been billeted. I think they had been sent there after Dunkirk. We used to try to have conversations with them and they would offer us chocolate and cigarettes. They always gave the impression that they were very bored with their existence, but I am sure they were soon back in the thick of the fighting. They said that they were 鈥楢lpine Chausseures鈥�. We just called them 鈥楥hossers鈥�.

I read a letter recently in the newspaper and the writer was saying that she didn鈥檛 see what all the fuss was about, at the recent 50 year鈥檚 celebrations for the end of the Second World War, when today鈥檚 youngsters didn鈥檛 know anything about the war. She said that she did not know anything about the First World War. That did surprise me. My parents told me lots about the First World War. My Mother had lost three brothers killed in the trenches in France and my Father had lost two brothers. All of these were young men, still in their teens. I can only imagine that the family of the writer, I referred to, had no heartache and misery during the 1914-1918 war.

In 1944 I had left home and gone to boarding school in Dumfries. By that time the Allies had the upper hand in Europe and the war was almost forgotten by me in the lovely countryside overlooking the Solway Firth. When the end of the war came in May 1945 we had celebrations in the college and were given a couple of days off lessons. About the middle of May, I was summoned to the headmaster鈥檚 study. There I was given the bad news that my brother-in-law, Eddie, had been killed in Austria in a shooting accident while rounding up German prisoners on the 12th May, four days after the armistice was signed. So my family was again not spared the misery that war can bring.

That summer, while on holiday, I had not long gone to bed when there was a commotion in the street outside our house. People were shouting and singing and cheering. The streets were all lit up and neon signs were flashing once again after five years. The war with Japan had finished and with it Jim鈥檚 war had also come to an end.

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