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This story is taken from an interview with Mary Devlin, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interview was by Deirdre Donnelly, and transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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Mary was 15yrs when war started. She lived at 8 Quarry St in Brandywell area with her Mother, father, 5 bros, 1 sister.

Mary’s father drove a lorry for Lee’s grocers in Sackle St. he drove home for dinner. When the Siren went, they knew there was going to be planes over. They put all the women and kids into back of lorry, no men — they all stayed in house. The lorry went over the border to a hut at Killay. When they heard the “all clear” they came home, all singing.

Mary remembers counting ration book tokens - tea, sugar, butter. The customers left books in shop. They counted tokens into heaps, tied with thread.

There were AA guns on top of “Katy’s in the Bray”. It looked very scary. There were lots of Sailors and soldiers. Derry Quay was opened.

There was no chocolate. Mary loved butter, but her Mother kept it for father. They had to use Echo [margarine]. It was a Greeny colour.

Mary smoked then, though her ma didn’t know. It was very hard to get fags.

There was a Bomb down in Messines park. Mary though the German thought he was over the sea to get rid of them. “It must have been a mistake, because Ireland was a Neutral country”

Mary worked in “Lloyd, Atree and Smiths”. She went in when she was 14. It was “good craic”. The other girls used to get chocolate and nylons and chewing gum off the Yanks.
There’s a saying - “WW2 was won with yankee dollars”

There was a petrol shortage, and once the siren went in the gas yard.
They had the feeling they would get hit. Mary’s mother kept them under the Kitchen table. There was a coal-hole under stairs, but there were Clocks [beetles] under there.
It was a scary time. Her mother lit a wee red candle that burned in the sacred heart picture.

They would walk from Austins to the Bottom of Carlisle St, then back up again. Dozens of people did that. If you saw someone you fancied, you’d stop and get talking. You couldn’t stop in a door, or the police would move you on.
Strand road = looking for sailors. Mary was not allowed, so she walked the Carlisle Rd. Her Father would have killed her if she was with a sailor— he was a Nationalist, believed in keeping to your own kind.

Her Aunt, mother’s sister MaryAnne Campbell, went with sailors. As did Maggy Callaghan. Not ordinary sailors but Petty Officers. For tea, the pictures and that.

Liverpool and Heysham ships would come in. Mary’s Father’s family were dockers. She married a docker.

No smuggling — people weren’t rich, they lived on basics.

[Republicanism under the surface?]
At the City picture house in Wm Street. There were queues. If a girl was walking down on the other side, the Derry men were standing in the queues, calling over “soldier doll”, “sailor doll” — and the women boo’d them. And they cat-called after you.

Air—raid shelters were used by Courting couples.
“Get away to hell, kids!”
There was one at the top of Brandywell Ave where the Gradda is now. They were knocked down after the war. There were Spiders the size of your fist.

“The part of Ireland that wasn’t at war with Germany or Japan. We were the neutral people”

Father’s idea: On top of the hill were guns. What if the Germans missed? At the bottom were the quays with the boats.
A lot of people moved out of the City.

Springtown was a base for US soldiers. Some of the huts were done up.
It’s a terrible slight on the Govt that they couldn’t house all the people. People should never have had to go into places like that.
They were lovely, well-kept, clean.
Derry had the Corporation then. Maybe it’s the Housing Exec now.

If they were playing on the street, they saw a boy playing with a ball. If he didn’t let them play, they’d say “you’re not getting on out lorry tonight.”

Evacuees were sent to Waterside station, labelled and taken to Strabane or wherever. Mary’s husband said his brother Gerry was labelled, and sent to Gate Lodge in Strabane. He didn’t like it, so he walked all the way home.

Creggan. There’s a big high road. The Coach Road. In the war they got a wee plot of land, and had to dig it. Mary’s father dug, and grew spuds and cabbage and lettuce. The neighbour only grew flowers. Father swopped cabbages for flowers.
The spuds were like “balls of flour”

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