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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Vijiha Bashir, at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland on behalf of J. Semple from Johnstone and has been added to the site with the permission of Johnstone History Society. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I enrolled and attended evening classes before eventually leaving school, and although World War II commenced in September 1939, evening classes continued in spite of restrictions regarding class size, blackouts and a shortage of teaching staff as all the young men were called to National Service. However acting on the advice of my boss, I enrolled for commercial classes at my old school and found myself attending 4 nights a week Monday — Thursday.

On one particular evening I attended the bookkeeping class together with 5 or 6 others — this was not a particularly popular class but on that evening it was the only class. We hadn’t long started when the Air-raid sirens sounded and in accordance with safety instructions, we trooped out to our appointed Air-raid shelter which happened to be the Boiler House located in the basement of the school.

There we sat side by side, beside the school boiler for two hours or so, by which time we began to realise that this was a serious air-raid and which could possibly last for a considerable time, therefore we left the shelter and began to make our way home, in spite of the sounds of explosions and anti aircraft fire which we later learned was centred on Clydebank where there was a very large number of casualties and a huge amount of damage.

Next night the bomber returned, presumably to finish the job. On this night there was no class attendance so no one to take shelter in the basement boiler room, which was lucky because a 1000 bomb made a direct hit onto the school and although it failed to explode it pulverised the school building and lodged itself in the boiler room, just where we had been sitting the night before…….

On Sunday 3rd September 1939 at the time war was declared I together with three other friends were filling sandbags at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. The filled bags were carefully stacked against the Hospital Casualty Department windows; this was to prevent damage from any blast if bombs were dropped nearby.

The work was carried out by volunteers, like myself and the other three; we were only fourteen at the time but the others who were older appreciated all the help they could get and we were rewarded by giving refreshing cups of gruel (a mixture of cold water and porridge oats).

The previous day, (Saturday the 2nd of September). I stood with my father and mother together with many others on the platform of Springburn Railway Station and waved goodbye to my two younger brothers aged 10 years and 12 years of age who were travelling to unknown destinations as evacuees.

Part of the Nation-wide scheme was to move all school children from areas considered as potentially targets from enemy aircraft, to areas considered safer and in this case from the Glasgow area to North East Scotland — in fact to Cruden Bay on the Aberdeen Coast.

For the two boy’s evacuation turned out to be the adventure of a lifetime. After a false start with a well intentioned elderly couple who could not cope with them, they were billeted with the local Gamekeeper. Apart from school, they spent their time with the Gamekeeper and his family along with a large family from the local diary farm and so consequently over the next few years learned what nature and hard work were all about.

As it was too expensive for my parents to make frequent visits to the boy’s, it fell to me to do so. I found the visits enlightening and enjoyed being educated in the ways of Scottish Country life. It was a sad day when the boys were brought home through I’m sure that the experience both gained at the time has served them well and it will never be forgotten.

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