大象传媒

On the 2nd September 1939 I was evacuated from Glasgow and placed in a farm on the Solway Firth. At the beginning of November 1939 I was moved to become a residential pupil in Cally House school. The school was orignally owned by a brewery family and was taken over jointly by the education authorities of Glasgow and Kircudbrightshire to house the evacuees from Glasgow. It was a mixed school of two hundred pupils, equal numbers of boys and girls, at the time I was 14 years old. The school was well equiped for all our needs, it had it's own Chapel, medical wing and kitchen facilities. In addition there were good sporting facililtes available at the local farm and over the next four years our teams competed with the local schools. Almost all the school teachers were residential and they provided us with an excellent education during difficult times.
At the age of seventeen whilst still in school I joined the local Home Guard, as did about fifteen others from the school. One of the maths teachers was the local Platoon Commander for the Home Guard, the Gym teacher was a Company Commander for the Home Guard. The Home Guard was often called out to fight the heath fires in the hills behind Gatehouse. On occasions we were called out to search for enemy aircraft that may have crashed in the area, often the aircraft would be burnt out and we never found any enemy survivors.
In April 1943 I left Cally House school to join the army.

[This story was submitted to the People's War site by Wolverhampton Libraries on behalf of Bill Murray and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions]

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.