大象传媒

This story is submitted to the People's War site by Aileem May, volunteer of Kirriemuir Library, on behalf of Mrs Sheena Henderson,and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and condition.
About me: I am Sheena Henderson, a retired school teacher. My proper name was Jean, but I was always known as Sheena, which is Gaelic for Jean. My family name was MacRae. I was born at Hillside, by Montrose. My family moved to Kirriemuir Junction (the former railway junction between Forfar and Glamis) in 1935. My father was the railway signalman at Kirriemuir Junction from 1935 to 1961.

I was 12 years old when the war began and attended school at Websters Seminary, Kirriemuir.

My story: one of my earliest memories of the war was being made aware of the undulating warning sound of a siren denoting an air-raid and the continuious high-pitched sound of the "all clear". These we were to hear many times during the war years.

I have an early memory of all my family (including my grandparents, who were staying with us on holiday) going to the local school, Padanarum, for registration. We were issued with identity cards and gas masks. Our registration number was SRQC/38/ followed by an additional number for each member of the family e.g. my father's number was SRQC/38/1, my mother's SRQC/38/2 and so on. The headmaster had special authority to deal with the distribution of gas masks, etc.

We had to carry our gas masks with us at all times and in all weathers, and my father made waterproof covers to protect the cardboard boxes they were in. We had to practise putting on our gas masks at school, and also safety precautions put in place in the event of an air raid happening when we were at school. Windows were cevered with a film to mininise the risk of injury from glass shattering.

At home our shelter from danger during an air-raid was my parent's bed recess in the centre of the house. In Kirriemuir a community air-raid shelter was built in the centre of the town, but I was never in it.

Also in the town most of the railings were cut down for use in the war effort. Paper and books were collected and I remember, as a child, being upset at having to part with one of my favourite books for such a collection.

At school our class numbers were increased by an influx of children evacuated from Dundee, with a few of their teachers. They were integrated into the school and stayed for varying lengths of time. Some of them had never lived in the country before and found it very different from town life,and a few of them were understandably homesick and returned home before the end of the war.

The "blackout" was very important. My father made frames covered with closely-woven black cloth, which fitted the windows snugly, making sure no chink of light escaped at night. There were Air Raid Wardens whose job it was to make sure that blackout and other instructions were observed. Even the light of a torch or bicycle lamp had to be much reduced, and people had to shine their torches downwards.

Where we lived in the country there was never any outside lighting. Our toilet was outside, some way from the house, and we also had to go outside to a pump for water. On dark evenings we could often see searchlights playing across the night sky, to the south.

As a teenager I had some involvement in the "war effort". As a family, my mother and sisters and I helped with the potato-gathering in the "potato holidays" in October, and my mother and I also helped at the potato planting in springtime. This was done by hand, walking in short paces up and down the drills, dropping in a seed potato at each step.

At home my father grew vegetables and fruit and we were fairly self-sufficient at a time when many food items were in short supply. We kept poultry, and several hives of bees for honey. I enjoyed helping my mother with cooking and baking on the old black "range", doing the best we could with the ingredients we had available. We used dried egg powder in baking to save fresh eggs for meal times, and when dried fruit was scarce, grated carrots and apples made a substitute. Nothing was wasted.

I remember being asked, along with some of my school friends, to take part in a concert to raise funds for "Salute the Soldier". My role was to accompany the singers and dancers on piano. We did several concerts, and I enjoyed these very much.

Once, when I was on holiday with my grandparents at Hillside, I helped at the canteen run in the village hall there. Tea was served to airmen based at Montrose aerodrome, not very far from Hillside.

I recall a teacher of mine, from primary school, being called up to serve in the airforce.

When I left school in 1944 I began studying for an Arts Degree at University in Dundee, then part of St Andrew's University. In 1943 I met George Gibb, who was a soldier in the Black Watch (who later became my husband). He had been in the Territorial Army and was among the first to be called up when war was declared. He served in France, and at the time of Dunkirk was cut off behind enemy lines. Later he escaped from Le Harve and got back to Britain safely. Not long afterwards, he was posted to Gibralter where he worked mainly on tunnelling in the rock. He was hurt in a work accident there and invalided out of the army in 1943. He rarely spoke of the war years, except to recount the funny side of things.

His youngest brother, Stewart Gibb, who had joined the airforce, was shot down over Germany and spent the remainder of the war years in a German prisoner-of-war camp. When he was reported "missing" it was very hard for the rest of his family, particularily his mother, who for a long time did not know whether he was alive or dead.

Our families were fortunate not to lose a loved one in the conflict.

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