大象传媒

MY WAR MEMORIES

The war stared when I was six. It didn鈥檛 mean much to me and my friends until my two uncles were called up. Everyone was crying at the station when we went to see them off on the train. When they came home on leave after about six weeks training, we were so proud of them in their uniforms. After the first leave was over they were posted overseas and we didn鈥檛 get any news for a long time. One uncle was in France and we didn鈥檛 know where the other one was for quite some time. We then received news that our other uncle was in Egypt, a prisoner of war for four years!

My grannie started doing work for the Red Cross and she got all the family rolled into making scarves, socks and blankets. They then started making things to sell. The children would all go down to the beach and gather shells. My grannie bought special cord and my Uncle John would decorate the shells and fix them onto the cord to make bracelets, necklaces and brooches.

Just after the war started the boys in our street were all called up to go into the Services. We lived in a circle of houses which had a big, round grassed area in the middle where we all played. One by one they were all called away, some to the Army, others to the Navy or Airforce. Five in our circle never came home.

Everyone started doing things to help the war effort, so our circle decided to have a concert. Our mothers gave us old curtains, hats and shoes to dress up and everyone came along and paid their penny and a penny for the raffle. We danced, sang and recited poetry and then raffled the things our mothers had given us. The concert was enjoyed by all and the Red Cross got 13s 6d! There was no holding us back after that! The circle kids had a concert every other week from then on.

When food got scarce, we were issued with ration books. Babies got green, schoolchildren got blue and adults got beige coloured books. If you had green books you could get bananas, oranges and orange juice. The books had coupons in them and these showed what you were entitled to. When you went to the Co-op Grocery and handed over the books, they would cut out the coupons and give you your rations. You could then go to the butchers and wait in the queue for meat. We often got fed up waiting and go and play hide & seek and lose our place in the queue! Then when we got served there would be no steak or links left and we got a row when we got home!!

We were luckier than some families. I had an Aunt in Canada and my mother鈥檚 friend lived in America. They would send parcels, great big boxes of tins, sweets, sugar, jam, nylons and clothes. My mother used to share them out with the neighbours. The sweets came in long strips and I used to take them out and break them off for my pals. I remember the first time we got cranberry sauce. My mother thought it was a new kind of jam or jelly, so we all had a 鈥減eece & jeely鈥� that night!

We had our own Homeguard in the village. My brother was in it as he had T.B. and couldn鈥檛 go into service. We also had wardens who would go round the village at night to check that all the windows were blacked out. This meant that all houses had to have black blinds or very thick curtains so that no light would shine through.

All downstairs houses had to have a shelter, ours was under the stairs and my mother had blankets and seats in it. When the sirens went to tell us there was a raid, the people upstairs would come down and go into the shelter with us. Our upstairs neighbours were deaf and dumb and when the sirens went, the wee man, Sammy, was first down the stairs. My father always had the door open for him and he wouldn鈥檛 come out for hours.

When there was no sugar left we had to use saccharins, which were also scarce. There was one family however, who could get them on the black market (whatever that was!), so everybody went to their door and got a packet for 1/-.

One day the head teacher came into our class and told us that because there had been a lot of bombing in Glasgow, children from there were being brought to our school. They were hoping that our parents would take in some of these children to live in our homes. I was first to put my hand up and said 鈥淚鈥檒l take two鈥�! When I got home and told my mother she nearly took a fit!! However, she came along the next week and took two boys home. They stayed for two years and were just part of the family.

Martha Law

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