大象传媒

2nd world war 1939- 1945

I, Elizabeth Jane Skelton, was 12 years old when war was declared. Our home town was 鈥淕reenock鈥� on the west coast of Scotland and of course the older people like Granny鈥檚 and Granddad鈥檚 were the only ones with any experience of the 1st world war, so we didn鈥檛 know much about war at all. My Granny鈥檚 brother, Uncle Robert, was killed in the 1st war serving in the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders.
The blackout was the first that happened, no street lights, no window lights, so we had to make blackout blinds for all windows with thick black paper. The Warden of the area would walk round each night to check the windows and if your light was showing even just a little bit he鈥檇 knock on the door and tell you to repair it and if you ignored the warning you would receive a fine.
Next was the ration books, 2ozs of this, 1/4 lb of that, 1 egg and so on, but we managed, the old powdered egg was ok once you mastered it, and you got an extra green book if you were pregnant and that got you oranges and the precious bananas.
The young men and women were disappearing fast, to the forces or ammunition factories and Bevin Boys were sent down the coal mines. The young ones like myself decided to do our wee bit so we organised concerts in the back yards and gave the money to the Red Cross to help buy wool so people could knit socks and gloves for the forces. It was quite exciting, you got your name in the Greenock Telegraph if you collected money for the Red Cross and the amount you had collected.
The sirens went off quite a lot during the nights and as we lived in a Tenement that was 14 families in each Tenement. Our basement was all scaffolded and that was our air raid shelter so we were down there quite a lot in our pyjamas. We had bits of carpet and benches in the basement so we made it comfortable.
On the 7th May 1941 we had 2 nights of blitz that was really naughty, 300 people were killed, many injured and loads of buildings bombed to the ground. Everything we could see out our broken windows, the church, the distillery, the electricity dept, the railway, all bombed to the ground and the street behind us was land mined, some people were gassed with the gas pipes getting burst with the bombing and land mines. We were lucky we had doors and windows all burst and broken but the building I was brought up in still stands today and nicely renovated.
We never saw my Dad for three days after the blitz, he was a fireman and they had a lot of clearing up to do. My mum made candy apples, honeycomb candy and tablet to sell for the boys and girls who came home on leave from the forces, each one got 拢5 to enjoy their time at home. A lot of neighbours had 4 to 6 children and could spare 1lb of sugar to help make the sweets by my mother and we the family had to help as well, I had an older sister Christina and 2 younger ones Patricia and Georgina 8 and 1 years old at the Blitz.
Greenock today is quite a lovely place; the shipyards have all been renovated all down the River Clyde. As we鈥檝e lived in Derby the last 54 years we go back to Greenock to see our few relatives left there. We are lucky we鈥檙e here to tell the tale.

Added to the website by Bernadette Jane Mooney on behalf of her Granny Elizabeth Jane Murray.

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