大象传媒

It was mid 1939 when my two sisters and I were suddenly taken to a tailoress in Dock Street in Dundee. We were fitted for warm winter coats and hats in a beautiful aqua coloured fine Harris Tweed. I was only eight years old at the time but I realised this was very smart, costly apparel. Things were tight and I wondered how this extravagance could be afforded. However I was so thrilled and only 8 so I didn't ask any questions.

Later I found out our parents had intended to send all three of us to Canada to stay with relatives there. But then an evacuee ship was torpedoed in the North Atlantic and they decided to keep us in Dundee.

Subsequently we were all evacuated with our Mother to Carnoustie on the east coast 15 miles north of Dundee. It was like another world. We lived in a tiny, unused gardener's house to the rear of a house called Erddig (or similar) on Links Parade. The three nearby beaches; the dunes, the rocky beach and sandy beach with swings became our playground. In the winter of 1939 the rocky beach was littered with blobs of sandy butter and crates of broken eggs marked "Estonia". We collected the sandy butter and took it home to Mum who made her wonderful shortbread that we feasted upon at Christmas time.

I didn't know much about Estonia but later found out that although it was an independent state in 1939, in 1940 the USSR put in their troops and later annexed the Country. In 1991 it regained it's independence. I hear it's historic port city of Tallinn is a delightful place to visit. Perhaps one day I will enjoy their butter there....without Carnoustie sand in it.
Mary Hunter Gray, College Park, Maryland USA.

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