大象传媒

I was three years old when the war began, so I don鈥檛 remember much from the early years, but when I went to school, there were two boys in my class who were evacuees from London. Why they had come so far I never knew. One had the surname Button.

I was aware of the 鈥淏lackout 鈥�. Everyone had to have a system of preventing light from their windows being seen outside. Some used very heavy curtains but many had to have shutters made with wooden frames and thick black paper. ARP wardens checked the windows for the slightest chink of light. Cars had headlights masked to reveal only the minimum of light and personal torches had to be taped and carried pointing downwards. Mounds of sandbags were at street corners and many people apologised to them after bumping into them in the dark, much to their own embarrassment.

One strong memory I have was being sent to buy chips at the local chip shop. I must have been about seven years old. Leaving the shop, I heard an ARP warden calling out and shaking a crow-rattle to get attention. I had no idea what was wrong but felt my eyes stinging and, when I got home, my face was streaming with tears. My mother asked why I had not put on my gas mask, because, of course, we all carried one with us everywhere we went. I had not realised there had been a training exercise going on and tear gas had been used.

My grandfather was too old for military service but took his turn 鈥渇ire watching鈥� from a building in central Dundee.

I was told about, and later saw a newspaper cutting reporting that a German plane had crashed near Errol. Apparently it was targeting submarine pens in the River Tay. Two airmen were arrested by a major in the Black Watch who went to investigate the crash.

Towards the end of the war - probably about 1944 - we had two American soldiers billeted in our house. Merle came from Salt Lake City and Carlo from Chicago. I used to watch their regiment doing training in hand-to-hand fighting.

Carlo was an orphan and my mother grew quite fond of him. She even saved enough flour, butter and sugar and two precious eggs from the rations to bake a birthday cake for him when he was 21.

My brother, sisters and I enjoyed the occasional chocolate bar or chewing gum, which the Americans gave us.

The concrete shelters which had been built to protect us from air raids were not needed as much as had been feared, because Dundee had very few attacks, but they stood throughout the war and a few years afterwards before being demolished. They became a playground for us and, as many were quite close to each other, we often risked life and limb by jumping between them.

James Simpson via Dundee Central Library

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