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Mrs Mary Moore (McLeod)
Lived at 47 Belville Street, Greenock at the time

I was 14 at the time. Our shelter was under the co-operative dairy and it was reinforced but looking back on it… coal cellars and the dunny. There were chairs brought in and the lady’s had tins with candles to try and cheer up the place. On the night of the blitz the bombs came down, it was really bad. Suddenly the wall started to come down between us (the building next door had been hit) and 2 ARP’s came running in and made us get out right away. They led us down Belville Street, where we could see the ships firing up, upto Garvald Street where there was a stone shelter — don’t think that would have been much use — but there was lots of people in it. Everytime you heard a whining noise the warden shouted get down, get down. I think about 28 people were killed in that building — number 45 — I remember every one of them.

I always remember Mr Kennedy and his family from number 45, the bottom flat. I think the daughter Betty hadn’t been very well so Mr Kennedy said he would stay in the flat with her. So the mother and the 2 girls and the boy went into the shelter and were killed. The father and Betty survived. It was terrible. I can still see all their faces.

The next day — the all clear went about 6 o’clock. I remember my mother and some others going to the church hall in ? and had tea or whatever. We were quite lucky as my oldest brother, who was on night shift on the railway, stayed in Port Glasgow so we walked up to Port Glasgow — some of them in their slippers. The second night we sheltered in the church hall in Princes Street which on reflection…was right by the railway.

I remember coming back from Port Glasgow and seeing all the empty spaces and wondering how they managed to miss the town buildings.

The shelter in the basement was fortified and we thought we would be safe if anything ever happened.

Everybody was so friendly then. There wasn’t so many cars on the road at the time so we could all play on the street — French ropes and peever.

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