大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Mairi Campbell of the 大象传媒 on behalf of Mr Stuart Pert and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

My earliest recollections of World War 2 1939-1945 started on Sunday 3rd September 1939. I had just had my 14th birthday on the 30th August and within 3 days I was evacuated from my Primary School in Govanhill Glasgow at 10.30 am to an unknown destination in Scotland.

We, a party of approximately 40 school children were heading out of Glasgow city, on a school trip as we thought. By approximately 11am we heard a siren on the bus whilst travelling and one of our lady teachers announced that our country was now at war. We were so innocent of what was about to happen, but we all were looking forward to a holiday! After about 2 hours we found ourselves in the Highlands, which turned out to be Glencoe! The place we arrived at was originally a Hostel of the Scottish Youth Hostel Association (S.Y.H.A.) although we all missed being away from home we soon got used to our surroundings and certainly forgot 鈥淎 War had been declared鈥�. I was the youngest of my parent鈥檚 family; I had at that time 4 sisters and 4 brothers. The brother next to me was aged 18 and had decided to join the Territorial Army (prior to the 3rd September). My eldest brother was called up for service in the Royal Air Force in 1941 and my two other brothers never served the Services, as did none of my sisters. By November 1939 it was decided that that it was safe for school children to be returned home or to a countryside establishment near our home town. I was then evacuated again, with some others to a seaside town in Ayrshire called Ardrossan. I was near home here, about 25 miles from Glasgow and resident in a large villa. I did not like it at all staying here, nor did the other school children, deposited in a strange environment! Nothing like our previous 鈥榟oliday鈥� home in the hostel at Glencoe.

I made up my mind to try and get home to our family and devised a scheme for my mother to come and take me home.

Not long after my homecoming, I was busy helping my parents to get used to rationing foodstuffs, clothing coupons and confectionary coupons all having to be handed over to the supplier. Coal heating was at a premium, I remember, and of course the 鈥渂lackouts鈥� no lights hardly at night, and going out with hand torches to guide you along the road.

Then the real bombing of cities started in 1941-42. We lived in tenement houses, 4 storeys high as we called them, and we lived on the top floor with a winding stairway down the close. The opening from the street into the close mouth was first of all surmounted by brick wall , used as a blast wall for protection of exploding bombs, also within the confines of the close mouth were the large beams of timber to try and prevent collapse of the building and to help people escape from damage. At times when the Air raid siren sounded and there was the prospect of a very heavy bombing raid on Glasgow, taking on the shipyards of the River Clyde and the city suburbs as a whole, many households would evacuate their tenement blocks and move quickly to the local parks or spare ground to avoid building collapse. Even in the parks there were brick built air raid shelters that could hold 30-50 people to try and protect one from the bombers.

WE had to hold our ears at times to try and block out the sound of anti aircraft guns shooting incessantly at the sky, in conjunction with the white beam searchlights trying to pinpoint the Aircrafts for the Gunners. Incendiary bombs were especially frightening as they came down onto buildings and setting them alight. My early memories of the War gradually made me a little more hardened to the approaching time when I was called up at the age of 18 in 1943.

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