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I was seven years old when the war began. I was living with my family (Father, Mother, elder brother) in Edinburgh. My father had served in the first world war and had seen some terrible things in the trenches; so much so that he very rarely spoke about any of it. But I remember, early in the war, he was asked to be an air raid warden and at first he was unwilling because he had a poor opinion of all those who had directed things in the first war. But eventually he was persuaded. Fairly early on in the war, I, along with my brother, was evacuated to St Andrews. I really had no idea of what was going on or why, but it was not an easy thing for me. We arrived in St Andrews as part of a large party and had to hang around until we were allocated to a family. We were sent to the family of a worker (the grieve) on a farm some way out of St Andrews. I was not popular with the family. You see, when we left Edinburgh, we had been given a gas mask and a bag with some rations in it. I managed to lose my rations, so the family had to feed me out of what they had access to. The grieve and his wife had one child - a girl of about 2 - 3 years old. I remember that she used to chase me round the main room of the cottage with a poker she had heated in the fire. The farm people thought that was a great laugh, but I did not enjoy it.

Shortly after we arrived there, we were allocated to a school. My elder brother went to the main school in St Andrews (Madras College), but I was separated from him and sent to a primary school closer to the farm on the outskirts of St Andrews. On the first day there, we were put into classes according to our age, but somehow my name was never called out and I was left without a class to go to. There was another lad, somewhat older and a bit of a scallywag, who persuaded me to sit with him in an empty room there. There was nothing to do and I felt quite bewildered and unhappy. In the end, and I do not remember how long this lasted for, (it may have been days), a teacher discovered what had happened and that I was miserable being separated from my brother and with nothing to do. So eventually I was transferred to the primary section of Madras College and I went in each day with my brother.

For a long time, I was very unhappy at the farm. So much so, that I tried to run away from it. Goodness knows what I thought I was going to do or where I thought I would go. But I set off up the farm road to the main road carrying my clothes as best I could. I was seen immediately and my brother sent after me to bring me back . I think this had an effect on those looking after me, for things got better thereafter. I do not think that they were intentionally cruel to me, it was just that they could not grasp just how confused and unhappy I was. You should remember that though the war was going on we saw no signs of it, no air raids, no damaged property. So why was I taken from my mother & father? It made no sense to me.

We spent about a year at St Andrews. There were some good things in that time. Hunting rats in the barn with dogs. Driving a tractor in the field at seven years old and all the animals on the farm. The cottage had very few facilities. Once a week, my brother and I were dispatched on a Friday evening to the "Big House" so that we could have a bath. The farm was owned by the Symington family of the Soups business. I remember trudging in the dark over a field to reach the house, with our torch restricted to only showing a glimmer of light. All torches were like that then in case it gave indications to enemy aircraft.

When we returned home, I was back at my old school and found that my classmates had not all been evacuated. I suppose it was up to the parents to decide if they wanted their children sent to "safety". My father and the next door neighbour had dug out a great hole in our garden and erected an air raid shelter for the two families. It was an Anderson shelter, just curved sheets of corrugated iron which bolted together to make a half cylinder space into which we could descend. The shelter was covered with earth and turf on top and our parents had constructed wooden bunks for us. Every night, my mother made up a bag with a vacuum flask of cocoa and other bits and pieces in case the siren went and we had to get out of our beds and go to the shelter. My father and the man next door were air raid wardens and were outside during air raids, so it was only the two mothers and the 4 children who were in the shelter.

The mothers and the eldest girl from next door tried very hard to make the shelter an exiting and safe place for us. Stories were told , games were played, the hot cocoa was shared out. So I was not frightened by it. In fact, of course, I did not realise what might happen if we had been bombed and I am sure that our mothers worried deeply, but they did not let me see that. The majority of air raid warnings were caused by enemy planes passing overhead on the way to bomb Glasgow, which took much more damage than our area. While it was exciting in the shelter, it could also be really tiring. I remember one night when the siren went and my mother came to waken me, telling me to get up, get dressed and ready for the shelter. Off she went to gather her bag and things, only to come back to find me back in bed and protesting that I was too tired to get up and I did not care if the bombers came. I was not given that option.

Food was scarce and rationed. One of the things that children could do was to go round the neighbouring houses on a regular basis with a little wheelbarrow collecting food scraps which were collected to feed "the pigs". We had no pigs ourselves of course, so I never know where the swill went but we felt we were contributing to the war effort. The local grassed spaces were allocated to families as allotments to grow vegetables for themselves and my father spent much time digging and tending to our patch. Eggs were rationed at, I think, one egg per person per week. You could choose to give up your ration and get a portion of chicken meal to feed hens. We did this and had six hens in a makeshift house made out of our garden shed. I was sent on a regular schedule with my little wheelbarrow to a local shop to get our bag of "balancer meal" which helped to feed the chickens.

We did much better out of this than sticking to the egg ration. When a hen's egg laying days had passed, they were killed for the pot. In fact, I do not remember actually eating any of our hens. They were almost pets, each with their own name. But there was a local association of those who kept hens, holding competitions for the best egg production and all sorts. I remember vividly someone who was killing one of their hens for the pot, but they could not work out how to "wring its neck" as the phrase was. This unfortunate hen was taken into the local post office cum general shop, passed over the counter to the shop owner who was instructed to "wring its neck for me will you, John". He had no more idea of how to kill the hen than had its owner and he tried to twist its neck round and round in a literal interpretation of the instruction, with the hen screetching and fighting mightily. In the end, the hen was brought to us, waiting for my father to come home and do the deed. He actually knew what to do.

Older boys tried mightily to support the war effort. My most traumatic memory was coming home from school one afternoon and on the way finding the mother of my elder brother's best friend running out of her house onto the pavement weeping hysterically. One of her son's had lied about his age, got onto a merchant ship at about age 16. The merchant ships were a lifeline bringing in food and essential supplies. His ship had been sunk and her son lost and she had just received the news. I had never seen an adult cry before and the picture of that bereft woman has stayed with me ever since. From that time on, I was aware of the cost of the food I was eating.

Looking back, I can now appreciate how much the mothers sacrificed to provide for their children. Birthday parties were always celebrated. They must have put supplies aside from rations for weeks beforehand to allow something special for the children. I still remember the spread that somehow they produced, cakes & jellies, sandwiches and other treats. By today's standards it was very ordinary, but we, the children thought it was magic. We occasionally got food parcels from relatives in Canada. Tins of meat, of fruit and all sorts. These were stored away for special occasions and the arrival of such parcels was a real red letter day.

There was a lot of war propaganda in one sense. Our children's comics were full of stories which painted the enemy, germans, italians and japanese as unutterably evil depraved and cowardly beings, with our soldiers as brave, honourable and above all winners of battles. We took that as gospel truth, never wondering how we were portrayed
by the other side. When the war in Europe was won, I remember seeing on a newsreel in the cinema pictures of what was found in the concentration camps -- Dachau sticks in my mind. The sight was to me one of unbelievable horror and only re-inforced what we though of the enemy. There wasc a sizeable Italian community in Edinburgh at the time. Many of these were rounded up as enemy aliens and sent to camps, even though they had lived in the town for years and no more supported Mussolini than any of us.

Looking back I understand just how lucky I and my friends were. We were not subjected to the terrible bombing of many other cities. It was, for all of the horrors of war, it was also a time when we were a united society, where the enemy was external. We were able to play out safely, we were not at risk from predatory adults. That feeling of unity and safety shaped my childhood in a way that benefitted me. My wife lost her father in a Japanese prisoner of war camp and paid a greater price than I was aware of as a child. I recognise just how much is owed to the adults of my time.

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