大象传媒

I was born in 1938 so my memories of the war are from an early age. I remember being fitted for my gas mask and the man putting a piece of paper over the bottom of the filter to make sure that it was sealed OK. I thought I was going to suffocate. I lived in Arthur Street in the Pleasance area in a tenement.

All the cellars had been strengthened to serve as air raid shelters and there were brick and concrete shelters in the back greens. These became our playgrounds after the war.

At school we were sometimes given an apple - these had been supplied by the Canadian government. Then there was the what seemed like the mile long queue at Rankins the fruiterer when the banana boat came into Leith. Any boy of my age from the area will remember the large water tank at the top of Arthur Street next to Youngs the Bakers. This tank provided us with many different diversions which usually ended with us getting very wet. Finding this site has brought so many memories flooding back I could probably write here all night.

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