大象传媒

To tell the srory of how I lost my mother on the same day as my father ,I must lay down some background to set up the story.
As I said,we lived in a tenement in Glasgow, but it was a fairly big tenement . Two rooms and a kitchen. This was condidered quite luxurious and not at all overcrowded.
In the kitchen was a recess bed ,or as we called it 'the hole in the wall bed'.My Dad and my Uncle Tommy were brothers ,and my Mum and my Aunty Mary were sisters .The two brothers married the two sisters,so we were all like a complete family.I was the oldest, age 9 .The other Tommy(my cousin)was 8 ,my younger sister,Betty was 7 ,my other cousin Michael was 6, leaving my then youngest sister Mary age just 3 .So when my Dad was called up ,my Uncle Tommy ,being a Marine engineer was kept back as his was a deferred occupation. So! Upon evacuation my mother was put in charge of the 5 children .This was until we arrived at our destination ,Ballinluig .
From there we were marched to a nearby hall in the village of Logerate and the locals walked around and hand picked whatever evacuees they wanted .
At this point ,someone discovered that Tommy and Michael were brothers and therefore a seperate family fom ours .
So of course they were seperated from us .
But Michael began screaming and shouting ,'I want to stay with my Auntie Lizzie (my Mum).
He screamed so much that the authorities decided it was best to let him stay with my mother and, as I was the oldest(I was 9 ), then I should be evacuated along with my cousin Tommy.
Thus it was I was taken from my mother and placed in the home of a Mr and Mrs Campbell ,leaving her with two evacuees named Tommy Mc Sorley.
So What did they do ? They decided to call me 'Big Tommy' as I was the oldest and the other was of course 'Wee Tommy ' .
Now despite this being 64 years ago .To this day I am called 'Big Tommy. and the other is still 'Wee Tommy'.
To make things more confusing ,I am just 5'2''tall and 'Wee' Tommy is 5''8'' .
But that is how Mrs Campbell ended up with two evacuees named Tommy Mc Sorley and how I got seperated from my mother .
Tommy Mac

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.