大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jean McLean of Renfrewshire Libraries on behalf of Campbell McIntosh and has been added to the site with his permission. Campbell McIntosh fully understands the site's terms and conditions

I was 8 when the war started and stayed in Glasgow, near Yorkhill Quay in Kelvinhaugh Street In a room and kitchen with my mother father and three brothers.
My father was very sociable and brought home lonely soldiers, so the house was always full of visitors
I found it a very exciting time to be growing up.
On 21 st September 1940 there was an air raid about two in morning. We went downstairs to shelter in the close with all the neighbours. All clear sounded and we returned to bed.Later that night while we were sleeping and didn't hear any warning. We were woken up by a noise outside of sailors shouting and screaming and then the police and told to "get out,get out there's a boat on fire and it's full of ammunition."
We realised that a boat was on fire and likely to explode.
We didn't know where to go and went to Partick to an aunts house
Churches and halls and schools were opened up for people who had to get out of their houses
The boat was flooded and sank to bottom where it lay about 45 degree angle.
We heard that it was HMS Sussex a light cruiser
We were allowed back into own house next day

Because of news blackout during the war we didn't know full story. I read it in a book years later and recognised it. What had happened was that a lone plane came over the Clyde and dropped his bombs along the Clyde line One of the bombs hit a boat through an open hatch and landed among oil tanks and set it on fire.
This changed the course of my life.
We then moved to stay with relatives in Knightswood. I still had to go back to
my primary school.Overnewton primary about six miles I eventually got fed up and spent the day at my own house in Kelvinhaugh until my father discovered me!! My second youngest brother had been evacuated to Tarbert Loch Fyne. I had told someone from school that I had been evacuated so no one was looking for me!When my father found me he made sure that I was evacuated and sent me to join my brother in Tarbert

Less than a year later he came to see us and was horrified at the primitive conditions we
were living in and brought us back to Glasgow in time for the next round of air raids.

I went to the pictures with my mother one night The great dictator with Charlie Chaplin
the lights came on and manager said that we had to stay there as an air raid was in progress.The film kept running. That was the night of the Clydebank blitz. We eventually got out but the raids were still going on. We had to walk all the way back to Knightswood going in and out of shelters. We came across a abandoned tram with an unexploded bomb in front of it. The wardens made sure that we got round it safely. We eventually arrived back safely.

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