Real
stories, from real people - Clydebank people
From Elizabeth Richardson Savage
I remember
being taken to the 'Kinama' I have not misspelt this,
that is the way they pronounced it . It was 'up the
hill' right side road. I suppose it was Kilbowie road .
They always said it was 'up the hill' I was just 4 at
the time and the movies were just becoming 'talkies'
although we often saw silent ones. I used to go with my
mother and her sister 'Aunty Maggie' Richford. My
mother and Aunty Maggie used to love that movie star
who was always a 'Sheik' ? Maybe I misspelt that
one.
I also remember the Soup Kitchens very well. I ember
standing in line with our the biggest jug my mother had
to get the soup..... No welfare in those
days!
They were always dragging the Canal for the men who had
jumped in because they who could not find work....
From
Dougie Campbell
I was five
at the time of the blitz and lived in Albert Road. I
vividly remember during a lull in the bombing of
looking out of the anderson shelter and seeing what
turned out to be a stick of incendary bombs coming down
on the house next door.
A bit later a land mine landed on the other side of
Albert Road and left a huge crater which was there for
years to come. We as kids used to use the gardens of
the large houses which had been destroyed, as play
areas.
My Uncle, Hugh Campbell was awarded an OBE for his work
with the Ambulance Service. He apparently had little or
no rest for 48 hours and helped save many people. We
were very proud of him.
My mother was pregnant at the time and in fact my
Sister was born 10 days later in Nerston, near East
Kilbride to where we had been
evacuated.
From Donna Smilie
Anyone else
remember the night of the big storm in the late
sixties? I was 10 or 11 at the time, and we were living
on the top floor in the tenement flats on Kirkoswald
Drive in Drumry.
I woke up around midnight to hear the wind getting
stronger and stronger. I couldn't get back to sleep,
and could see that the light was still on in the living
room, so got up and joined my mother, who couldn't
sleep either. As we sat there, we could hear the wind
getting even louder, and eventually my mother brought
my two sisters and my gran through to the living room,
as she was worried about the risk of chimney pots
flying off the houses behind us and coming through the
bedroom windows at the back of the house. She was also
worried about my father, a fireman, who was on duty
that night. Only 15 minutes later, we heard a huge,
tearing groaning noise, and the next second the living
room window smashed in! The sheet copper had ripped off
the roof, but had caught on the eaves and swung down
and smashed into the window. Lucky for us my mother had
pushed the settee against that wall to pin the curtains
closed, since they contained most of the glass and
stopped it spraying across the room. It gave us all a
hell of a fright though!
She phoned
the police to report the copper roofing as a hazard to
any traffic in the area, and they advised us to get
downstairs to the ground floor in the close, where they
said we would be safest. We ran round knocking on all
the doors in the close, telling all of our neighbours
what the police had advised. As we all trooped down to
the ground floor, the people in one of the ground floor
flats appeared, having been woken up by the sound of
glass breaking, and invited us all into their house. So
we ended up, about 20 of us in total, spending the rest
of the night huddled up in sleeping bags and blankets
in their living room, listening to the storm raging
outside and hoping nothing worse would
happen.
Early the next morning, as the wind began to subside,
one of the older lads ventured out to get some
newspapers and milk, and came back reporting extensive
damage everywhere, with huge jagged chunks of copper
roofing still being blown about the street. As the wind
died down further, we all moved back into our own
flats, and we cleared up the glass from the living
room. We later discovered that the roof of our block of
flats was entirely blown away, though we were the only
ones to suffer any direct
damage.
My father
eventually returned safe and sound, but he was very
late back that morning -- they had been at full stretch
all night, with the wind whipping every small fire to a
strong blaze, and spreading sparks around wildly. I've
felt twitchy ever since whenever the wind blows
strongly at night time!
From Frank McGonigal
I was only 8 years old at the time of the Clydebank
Blitz that happened on the 13 th and 14 th of
March,1941. Time has dimmed the memories,but there are
certain things that stick out in my mind. We were
sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of tea about
9.00 pm when the air raid sirens went off.There had
been so many false alarms that we tended to ignore
them,as usually it was only a reconnaissance plane
overhead taking photos.Then all of a sudden the bombs
started falling,and as we lived on the one of the upper
floors,everyone thought it better to go down to the
ground floor.There was an air raid shelter in the back
court,but I guess everyone figured it was too cold and
dirty to go there.
We all crowded into the lobby of the ground floor flat
of an old Irish woman,I was standing inside the coal
bunker in the hall,it was so crowded.We could here the
bombs and anti aircraft fire going on outside,then a
blast from a bomb blew the door open and from then on
two men leaned against the door to keep it closed,but
every time a bomb went off it blew them off their
feet,and the old Irish woman would say " Jesus Mary and
Joseph save us "
There was a lull in the bombing,and my mother took me
to the front of the close ( the opening to the street)
to see what was going on,there were shells bursting in
the sky,barrage balloons burning and falling,I was
fascinated by everything,not realizing the danger I
suppose.
Then the second wave of bombers came over,and we
scurried back into the lobby again.This went on for a
while,then some men came pounding on the door shouting
" GET OUT,THE ROOFS ARE ON FIRE". It was only then that
we sensibly went to the air raid shelter in the back
court.I don't remember much of that night,but the next
morning I remember walking down Granville St,or what
was left of it,and it sticks in my mind as a very
colourful dream like image.
There were still fires burning everywhere,the upper
stories had collapsed to the ground floor and there was
furniture,bikes and all sorts of stuff lying amongst
the ruins. The gas hadn't been shut off because
the broken pipes were spewing jets of flame everywhere.
Everyone was headed down the street because they had
heard that there was a mobile canteen that was
providing tea and rolls.I imagine it was 'Spam',we were
to see a lot of that for a while. Then we were told
that there would be buses to take us out of town to
somewhere that we could live until we could find
another place to stay.This turned out to be a school
gym hall in Jamestown,which was west of Clydebank.
When we arrived there,they handed us a large bag which
they told us to fill with straw which they provided,and
that was to be our bed for the time being on the Gym
floor. We had our meals in the school cafeteria,and you
could here the chorus " SPAM AGAIN" very often when we
discovered what the meal of the day was.
One day they came and told us we were being moved to
another school because there was another batch of
refugees coming in.They moved us to Alexandria,where
they issued us with blankets which were infested with
fleas and lice.
When I met my wife Frances in 1952, who by the way was
also bombed out in Clydebank,we started talking about
our experiences in the aftermath of the Blitz. I
remember playing with a little girl on the sandbags
outside of the school and she had a little dog,it
turned out it was her !!
From Mary Dudgeon
I
can remember the night they hit Clydebank because we
all run out to the close mouth to see the sky lit up
and someone said "They are bombing Clydebank, going for
the shipbuilding most
probably".
The memory always has stuck in my mind. We did not go
into the air raid shelter as Mother thought they were
too dirty and smelly, but we moved down to the ground
floor of our tenement and slept in the Love family's
house and Mother sat up all night drinking tea with
their Granny Allen. We certainly did not have much but
we know how to share with each other!