��ѿ��ý

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Sarah Housden of Norfolk Adult Education’s reminiscence team on behalf of Rita James and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was a young girl, living in Glasgow, during the war. My Grandmother was an ARP Warden and as soon as the sirens went she would get her helmet on and go to the ARP post. One night she was hit in her helmet by a piece of shrapnel, which was kept in her button box for years afterwards.

One night a bomb fell on the stables near us in Parliamentary Road where several horses were kept which were used to deliver coal and barrels of beer. The horses were burning and the vet had to be called to stop them suffering. Every now and then we heard a loud bang as another horse was shot.

Another night a bomb fell on our school playground (St David’s School), but it didn’t go off. It burrowed into the concrete at an angle and they had to dig round it to defuse it and get it out. We got a day off school as a result. When they filled the hole in they did so with a different colour concrete, and from then on we devised a game where we would jump onto the concrete and shout “The bomb’s going off”.

During air raids, my mother sometimes took me down into the underground tunnels of Queen Street Station. I didn’t like this at all. I was scared, and found it cold, damp and smelly. Mother used to put this rubber thing in my mouth to stop my teeth from chattering.

My Aunt lived in Yoker (Near Clydebank) along the River Clyde, and the Germans bombed all along there aiming for the petrol tanks. One night, she was visiting my Grandmother, and it got late so she said for her to stay the night — which was an unusual thing for her to do. That night the tenement building in which my Aunt lived was bombed and the roof above her bed collapsed. If she hadn’t stayed at my Grandmother’s she would have been killed.

I had a blue gas mask which I could make a noise by blowing through. My little brother had one which he lay in which we called a ‘space ship’. I would pump it for him so that he got enough air in there. I also remember the blackout and the dark blinds up the window. Sometimes you would hear a whistle blow because a light could be seen, and everyone would look up to see if it was them.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.