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This story was submitted to the People's Warsite by Mairi Campbell of the ��ѿ��ý on behalf of Grace of Port Glasgow and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully undertands the site's terms and conditions.

I was four when the war started. I lived in Port Glasgow and I wasn’t really aware of what was going on at the time. One day my dad took us to a farm to stay out of the way of the bombings. We stayed in a barn and I was terrified of the cows. We had to make sure the blackouts were in place before we put any lights on. Sometimes you forgot about the baffle walls around the tenement and walked into them which was a bit sore. It was fun going out playing in the blackout or going to shelters with your wee torch so that you could see where you were going.

I remember the night of the Clydebank Blitz. My dad took us to the park and we could see the planes and the bombs falling. As a child I was used to my dad referring to the floor as the “flaer” and it confused me no end that night when my dad said “look, they’re dropping like flares”. I couldn’t understand how they got floors that high up to drop them, and besides why would they want to!

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