大象传媒

We returned to Dundee at the beginning of 1941. My father and mother were delighted to be back, but I missed my school and friends. When I started my new school, we were asked at the sewing period to bring something to knit, as we could no longer have materials to sew. I took along a skating skirt to add an inch or two to the length. The sewing teacher was not amused: "What are you doing, girl?" she asked, "Get wool and knit for the Forces". My mother produced some airforce blue wool for a pair of gloves for her brother-in-law. I thought I was out of trouble but no - I did not hold the wool the right way, so the teacher made me come each playtime until she was satisfied. I often wonder if that uncle appreciated the labour of love this was.

We had been issued with clothing coupons and, if you needed a coat or a suit, this made a considerable hole in your coupon allocation for a year. I came into a situation where growing teenagers of a certain height would receive extra coupons. When I was measured, I made it by half an inch. When we went to the place where the coupons were issued, my hair was patted down, as I wore it in a middle parting with a roll of hair at each side, a fashionable hairdo at the time. I think he thought this had been a deliberate ploy, but we made it.

During the war, factories gradually went over to producing goods for the war. Things like furniture and clothing had a utility mark on them and linen and china on the whole were basic white. People were asked to donate railings from round their houses for the war effort. Someone must have replaced ours but I can still see the previous stumps. The park beside us must have lost all its railings and gates. Once again I can see the stumps where railings had been 鈥� sadly, they were never replaced. Pots and pans were also donated but I think they were very little used.

Food rationing was in force and the allocation of butter, sugar, etc. was very little. We had dried egg, which was egg in powder form, a substitute for the real thing. Often my mother would receive a tin of corned beef in our meat ration. I hate corned beef to this day. When the Americans came into the war, 鈥淪pam鈥� tasted great, and how we cherished the nylons they brought over here, after silk or lisle stockings and painted legs with a line down the back as pretend stockings!

One famous saying was "Dig for victory" and people were asked to put their gardens into vegetables or get an allotment. My father had an allotment and a favourite supper was garden peas and chips.

My father was a Commercial Traveller (now called a Sales Rep) and his firm sold all kinds of soap. When we came to Dundee, he had to call on every shop that sold soap, as well as public baths and washhouses. Very many people lived in houses without bathrooms and had to share toilets among several families. If they wanted a bath, they had to go to the public baths, and the washhouses were for the housewives to wash their clothes. There were no launderettes or washing machines 鈥� just hard work with scrubbing boards and mangles
(machines with two or more cylinders usually turned by a handle, between which wet clothes etc. were squeezed and pressed).

My father's customers were allocated a soap quota on a percentage basis. No two were the same. There were no calculators and my father was worried sick how to do this, but I helped him. It took him a six-week journey to cover Dundee. There were no supermarkets in those days and even every small corner shop sold soap.

As the war progressed, I left school and earned a glorious 12/6d a week to start off. I never reached the age when girls were called up, but in the last year or so before the war finished, a friend and I thought we would like to do something. We volunteered to help in the Y.M.C.A. canteen, which provided meals for the forces on a Saturday night. We went every second Saturday : one time we were allowed to serve, but the other time we had to peel potatoes for the canteen to supply chips with the meals. This was some task, as it went on for about 3 hours.

The older ladies did the cooking - we were not allowed to do that. They said if we got some of the forces to help, they would get a free supper. This went well, until one night when four rookies in the Army from Perth came to help. I think they thought this was a great lark and they tipped a sack of potatoes into the sink and there was dirty water everywhere. They were also no good at peeling potatoes 鈥� there were no special gadgets for doing that. I could hardly use my fingers for the blisters! However, some of the R.A.F. boys from the big aerodrome at Errol did well. They were waiting to go to Canada for air training and had white flashes in their caps, so you knew who they were. But the war finished and we had a glorious party in the canteen.

(Mrs) Irene N. Dowie. via Dundee Central Library

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