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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Janet Clasper of Renfrewshire Libraries on behalf of Miss Margaret Macintyre and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was born and lived in Central Brazil till I was 7 years old when I was sent to boarding school in Wales, then when I was 11 years old in 1938 I came to Scotland to be with my parents who had come here from Brazil. I attended three schools that year, one of them was Willowbank. During this time we were issued with gas masks and instructed on how to use them in the case of an emergency. In 1939 I returned to Brazil, taking my gas mask with me. I attended boarding school in San Paulo. That year war broke out. At this time two boy cousins of mine joined the forces and volunteered to go to Britain and help with the war effort. One was a rear gunner with the Air Force, stationed in Egypt; his plane was shot down over the ocean while out on a mission. My other cousin joined the army and he was stationed in Africa. His truck was caught in bombings as it passed a bomb disposal dump and he died three days later form his injuries. My parents were both missionaries and it was very expensive for them to send me to school, so while my two cousins were off fighting in the war I went to stay with my auntie and uncle. I stayed with them till I finished school. During this time Brazil joined Britain at war — this lead to some ships being bombed along the Brazilian coast and because of this a curfew was set up at night. We weren’t allowed to have our house lights on but strangely the streetlamps were still lit. My uncle’s bungalow was situated quite high up from the street and the streetlamps lit up the inside of the house. We ate dinner in the dining room and my aunt, who was a music teacher and my cousin, who was a concert pianist practised their music all by the light of the streetlamps. At school we had a shelter to go to in case we were bombed and we took tins of food in to school to stock up. We were a long way from the coast but it was an industrial town and there was always the threat of an attack so we had to be prepared. My brother had been at school in Scotland and planning to go to university when war broke out. He joined up and sailed to India from Greenock. There were three boys from Brazil fighting for Britain — my brother and my two cousins, also a cousin from Shawlands who was in the RAF, his plane was shot down over Britain. Sadly three of the four cousins were killed, only my brother survived. They were all in their early twenties. These boys were much loved by their families.
(Thomas George Mathison MacIntyre is remembered at Glasgow University Chapel)

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