大象传媒

My War - 1939-1940

I was 14 when the war started. My greatest misery was that my father as a Royal Navy Reservist was immediately called back into active service. I was heartbroken as though I was the second youngest of five children, my father and I were very close. I was the youngest girl and had one brother four years younger. Before very long my older brother volunteered for the RAF, then my two older sisters volunteered to join the WRNS (the women Navy) and my mother and I and younger brother were left at home to deal with rations, queues. blackouts and air raids.

By good luck my father had had the foresight to install a telephone in our house in 1937 so that by the time the war started we were most certainly the only family in our street who had a phone! We then became the call centre for friends and neighbours who had family away in the war.

In Glasgow in 1940 the ships and docks in Clydebank were one of the targets of the Germans and I remember going to school the morning after a particularly noisy night and the girl who sat next to me in class was not there. They lived in Clydebank and her whole family had been wiped out! My mother decided to evacuate my brother and I to the village in the West Highlands where we spent our family holidays. The novelty of this quickly wore off my brother and the chance to milk the cows was not compensation enough; after two weeks my mother brought us home!

When the sirens went my mother would round us up complete with suitcases and shepherd us into the back yard where we spent a cold, uncomfortable night in the washhouse until the All Clear sounded. This did not last very long as we soon got tired of getting up in the night and opted to stay in bed and take our chances while my mother was on her knees in the hall with her rosary beads!!! My cat had the misfortune to produce six kittens at this time so part of my luggage was an old hatbox in which I transported mother and kittens to the shelter!

The highlights of my life then became my father's leaves. Because of his age he was not sent to sea but posted to a Wireless Station in Mumbles in South Wales and during the summer of 1940 we visited him there. I remember going for a swim at a beach near his station while waiting for him to come off duty every day. I revisited that beach last year; the wireless station was gone but the Coast Guard hut which stood next to it at the top of a steep hill was still there. On the rare occasions I was allowed into the Wireless Station my abiding memory is of a handgun in its holster hanging on the wall! The newspapers were full of the Battle of Britain and talk of immiment invasion and I read them avidly. The Bristol Channel was a possible way in! I put a large spade behind the back door as my weapon; in case a German soldier came knocking! I watched the local men too old for active service marching up and down the street wearing their everyday clothes with an armband marked LDV. Local Defence Volunteers. The forerunner of the Home Guard and Dad's Army!!!! Trucks came around collecting any aluminium pans we had to make Spitfires! I got my first bike!

Swansea, which is just around the Bay from Mumbles, soon became the Germans's target. We spent several nights in the cupboard under the stairs; under the stairs being judged one of the safest places in a house! This was too much for my mother and we were soon hustled back to Glasgow; the raids there having stopped. I insisted on staying on longer to keep my father company but the day came when I could not prolong my holiday and had to go home to school.

My journey from South Wales to Glasgow overnight in war-time accompanied by my cat in a basket is memorable. My father put me in the charge of the Guard as he saw me off at Swansea, as well as a young man in my compartment (innocent days!!!) but I had to change trains at Crewe and the young man had promised my father he would see me off the train and on at Crewe. He did his best! Crewe Station in the middle of the night in war-time was in chaos. Because of the blackout there was very little light and the place was seething with troops of all ranks and nationalities. Not too many fifteen year olds with a cat! The young man consulted what looked like a porter in the dark to be told brusquely "I'm in the bloody Navy, mate!!!! He eventually found a porter who told us that the Glasgow train was running four hours late and the porter led me to the Ladies Waiting Room with strict instructions to stay there until he came back for me! The young man must have heaved a huge sigh of relief. I think I thanked him but in case I didn't I do so now!!!

I grew tired of waiting and could hear the sounds of trains arriving and leaving and decided the porter could have forgotten about me. I gathered my luggage together (complete with gas mask in a case) and ventured outside. I did not get very far when a porter stopped me. Where are you going he asked. I told him I wanted the train for Glasgow. Come with me, he said and took me back into the Ladies Waiting Room. When we got into the light of the room he looked at me and said, Didn't I bring you in here before? I confessed. He said sternly, Stay here and don't move until I come back for you. He was as good as his word and eventually got me on the Glasgow train where my memory fades a bit as I probably slept through the next eight or so hours before arriving in Glasgow where my brother in his RAF uniform was waiting to meet me.

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