大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Tschick Black of CSV on behalf of Mina Black and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I worked in South Mills Flax factory in Dundee doing war work such as making ropes for the navy. I was also an ARP warden, looking after people in the shelters during an air raid. One moonlit night my partner and I were patrolling the dockland area when we heard the drone of airplane engines coming up the River Tay. We heard later that morning that Clydebank had been severely hit and this had been the raiding party.
The ARP post I was in was in Gellatly Street under the picture house. It was hit once, and a young man fire watching was killed. It was also flooded and three of us were assigned to clean it. I ended up in King Cross Hospital for three days due to working in the stagnant water.

One Saturday while in Dundee city centre a lone plane came over, the pilot dropped low and waved from the cockpit, then flew down past Burns and Harris stationers, spraying the wall with bullets.

We encountered many men of different nationalities passing through on the way to training in the hills. The Poles were stationed at Barry Buddon and on Sunday we would visit a nearby friend and would listen to them singing. I left the mill and went to do a mans job. We sometimes got trains to clean and the Poles troop trains were the dirtiest.

Our family had for ration books and we were lucky if we got a bar of chocolate a month, but I think we were a lot healthier for it.

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