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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Catherine Garvie, Learning Project Manager at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland on behalf of the Greenock War Detectives project and has been added with their permission. The authors fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

During the blackout you were allowed to carry a torch but couldn’t use it very much other than when you were in the close. We had baffle walls at the entrance to the close to prevent back blasts going up into the building. People often walked into them in the dark — lots of banged heads!

I heard a lot about Hitler from the Pathe news as we went to the cinema a lot. That was a favourite type of entertainment and you’d always have a news item at the end of the feature. I was at the cinema when the war ended and saw the pictures of the concentration camps and all those prisoners of war.

My father loved butter but this was rationed during the war. I had five brothers and sisters so my father would laboriously divide our family butter ration into seven equal parts. We all had our own little bit on a saucer and depending on how greedy you were you would eat it all in the one go or make it last all week. Sometimes we’d get food parcels sent from relatives living in America. I had an uncle who was on one of the convoys from Scotland to America and when he came back he’d bring us big boxes of chocolates and other delicious things you couldn’t get here.

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