大象传媒

This contribution is taken from the collections of the McLean Museum and Art Gallery, Greenock. Inverclyde Council.

Mrs McLean b1895

Voluntary work during World War II

When the Second World War came of course everybody was.. it was the same again. Women went in to munitions and all the different things and everybody was shouting out for help. And in case of an air raid - I was married then of course and had a family - and in case of an air raid they were appealing to people to help if an air raid did come. The Wellpark West Church had a whole lot of things stored and that was to be for mothers and children if their houses were bombed. But we thought, "ach, that'll never happen".

I volunteered for the.. to go up to the Wellpark West Church to look after children and mothers. There was more than me, a whole lot did that. And when the war came there were raids, hit and run raids.

Oh and I knitted socks for the front. There was a friend of mine came down with the wool and I said, "I don't knit much and I said. well I would knit. And she was standing at my kitchen door and she said, "You know. Marion, this is serious". When the war started at first things were kind of quiet and we thought it would never come to ..

It was serious for her because she lived in Thom Street and her husband worked in the Torpedo Factory. she had two girls and two boys. And she said, "You know if Hitler wants me he'll get me in bed, I'm not going in to one of these shelters. "They looked frail but they weren't because they were all steel inside. And they were small, but it didnae matter where you were. If the bomb hit it smashed it to bits. So she always said she wouldn't go in to the shelter outside. And when the big air raid came, the Blitz as they called it she had her wee girl and herself but the other three went out to the shelter and when it was all over they discovered them.. all the people who volunteered. The wee girl was living but she died in the ambulance going to the hospital.

After. I evacuated my wee boy, he was sent away and he loved it. It was outside Blairgowrie, a wee tiny, tiny place. And I've got his first letter telling me how good it was.

On the night of the Blitz I went down to the Wellpark West and it was chaos. It was terrible. I worked there for a while and the women were crying and the kids were crying, it was really terrible. Everybody was trying to get food. Then I was asked to come to the townhall. They had big boilers - they were all ready you see, just in case big boilers were going and some of the people were quite hysterical. They'd lost their house, they'd lost everything. And there was one man - it was excitement - I don't know who told him Churchill was coming the next day because he wasn't. He says, "wait till Churchill comes tomorrow. I'll tell him" He thought they weren't ready, they couldn't have been more ready. But there were so many got damage to their houses. My brother, he lived in the East End and they had to leave their house for about a week, it was damaged. And all this went on. And when we got up the morning after the Blitz there were no lights or anything. And my husband was a painter but he joined the voluntary ..to help the police, and he had a police uniform. He was out all night. So I tried to get the time to run along to see if Andrew was OK and I ran away along pass Rue End Street. Here I saw him standing on a board across a burst pipe in his uniform. He was out all night and he'd to go to work at eight o'clock. It was chaos. you know. Its hard to believe that we came back to normal. And I hope it is never forgotten.

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