VE Day 8th May 2025 Special Edition

In our last magazine, we asked if anyone would like to share some wartime memories for this special edition.

Here, some of our remarkable residents of Viewlands House share some of their stories and memories from one of the most challenging times in history.

Duncan’s Story, written by his daughter Wendy

Dad joined the RAF when he was 21. He will be 103 in Sept. This is his story of DDay.

June the 6th, 1944 Operation Overlord.

Just after midnight, he and his crew were given a shot of brandy and boarded their Halifax Bomber and were one of the first to leave the base in Tarrant Rushton, Dorset. Their mission was to tow Horsa gliders carrying parachutists across The Channel, with the aim of securing Pegasus Bridge in Normandy.

Having completed the drop, his aircraft turned for home but was hit by anti-aircraft flak. The damage was so extensive that there was no choice but to bail out.

With the crew having left, the pilot asked Dad to get him his ‘jumping bag’, which he did. Dad then got his own parachute, ready to jump from the rear of the ‘plane, having checked that the rear gunner had escaped.

However, as Dad opened the rear door, the pilot jumped at the same time from the front, which caused a shift in the ‘plane, throwing Dad to the floor.

With the aircraft now in a tailspin and corkscrewing towards the ground, escape was impossible but, miraculously and inexplicably, it suddenly righted itself, briefly flying straight and level, before bellyflopping in a field.

With the wreckage alight and ammunition going off, Dad managed to crawl from the wreckage. His pelvis was broken and, unable to walk, he lay in the field for several hours before a French farmer came and carried him to his farmhouse. Luckily, the farmer was a member of The Macquis, the French Resistance.

Meantime, Dad’s family in Paisley received a telegram saying that that their son and brother was missing in action, followed by a letter from his CO a few days later. 

A young woman was staying at the farmhouse and walked in the dead of night to contact French Canadian soldiers who were working with the Macquis and asked them for help.

2 days later, they arrived in a very battered jeep and a stretcher made of an old parachute. Shot at by a German sniper, they made it back to a massive casualty area on the beach where the injured were loaded into small landing craft, to be taken out to the hospital ship.

A single German aircraft strafed the beach, firing on the injured and killing one of the men in the bunk above Dad.

Eventually he arrived back in the UK and was taken by train to hospital. The ward sister ‘phoned home and told his father, ‘We have your son, and he’s going to be fine’.

After the war, Dad returned to the farmhouse in Ouistreham, to thank the young woman and the farmer but sadly the farmer had been killed. The Germans had discovered that he was in the Macquis, searched the house, interrogated him and then shot him for helping the Allies.

On VE Day itself, Dad was at his base in Dorset still recuperating, whilst his colleagues were marching through the local villages, where the residents lined the street, waving and cheering and joyfully celebrating.

Mum served in the Wrens in Staines. On VE Day, she was in Trafalgar Square with thousands of other civilians and service personnel. Not forgetting the devastation and sadness the war had brought to so many, Mum said it was ‘a party to top all parties!’ and enjoyed every minute of the celebrations. 

As for the crew who had parachuted to safety on DDay, they all survived but the pilot, Canadian pilot officer Carpenter, was killed on his very next sortie.

 From Jenny – room 17

Our wartime experience

From 1939 to early 1941 we were safe and happy at home. The war was very far away, however, in early March 1941 we moved for family reasons. En route to our new home we were (mother, sister and self) caught up in the Clydebank bombings. On one occasion trapped in a basement shelter, we were forced to be dug out as the door was blocked with debris. Not a pleasant experience.

The authorities then took us to a B&B down the Clyde estuary. Unfortunately, the owner disliked children, we had to spend all day in the garden rain or shine, so mother took

action. She had heard of naval families residing in a mansion house named Shuma. The owner opened the door to her and upon the request for residence for three she said "I must ask my god" fortunately her god said yes.

We had such a happy life there playing in the beautiful grounds and on the beach. When fathers returning from duty waived from the decks, we all knew chocolate was in the offing. Mother played the piano resulting in very jolly sing songs.

Thank you for reading this. I shan't go into all details, there were happy, sad and dangerous times but everyone helped each other, and we all stuck together.

From Ann – room 21

My father was a regular soldier in The Black Watch. He was stationed in Palestine when war broke out and mother and I had been living there too. All the army wives and children were put on a ship and sailed to Durban in South Africa, where we lived for the next 5 years. The wives and children were placed in a hotel in Durban, and I attended school there.

As mother had no chores or cooking to do, she spent most of her time dressmaking, making me beautiful dresses. She was a brilliant dressmaker.

I remember my mother being in hospital, and I couldn’t go into the hospital to visit, but I would walk to the hospital where my mother would wave to me from the windows.

My father then also served in Germany and Korea, as well as a few other places and I remember mother always paying great attention to the news.

When the war was over, mother and I returned to the UK and lived in Kendal, my mother’s hometown.

 From Diana – room 10 

My wartime experiences

I was 10 when the war started and as I lived in London, was evacuated to Shropshire to stay with my mother’s great Aunt. To put it mildly, she was nuts!! For example, she kept all the food in mothballs and naturally my brother aged 6 and I hated the taste. My poor mother had to eat our leftovers to be polite!

It was a very cold winter and if we wanted to keep warm, my mother and I had to go out and saw frozen logs especially as my brother got pneumonia. In the end it got too much for my mother and she got up in the middle of the night and we escaped in our car! Luck was not with us as we broke down in the drive and my mother had to walk to a garage and hope someone would be around. She was lucky, and when he had mended the car, we set off to another old aunt, this time in Sussex.

Unbeknown to me, it was where I was going to meet my husband, then aged 14, and evacuated from his Westminster school to live next door. He taught me to ride a bike and we had a lot of fun together – we even went to D H Evans with our mothers to buy our school uniforms and have lunch! When he fell off his bike and broke his arm he was put in the school sanitorium where his headmaster visited him. While there, a photo of me fell from under Robert’s pillow and the Master asked “who’s that little girl?” and Robert replied “that’s the girl I’m going to marry and she’s called Diana”. What was so nice was when we got engaged he wrote to Robert and said is that the Diana?!  Well of course it was and we had a very happy life together for 65 years and had three lovely children.

We had to leave the Sussex aunt as it was too near the beach where Hitler was likely to invade and went to a distant cousin in Devon. It was a lovely place and we were able to feed the chickens and collect their eggs, something if we had still been living in London, we would never have done.

I and my brother were sent to boarding schools as my mother had to join up. She chose to be a matron in a school so that she could have holidays with us. These were spent in guest houses where on the whole, the food was good.

When the war ended, we went back to London and I went as an au pair to France where I spent 18 months.

A very nice family who invited Robert to come for a holiday, so between us we looked after the three little ones and had a great time.

When I went home, Robert and I got engaged and we married in 1949 and had a really happy life.

 From Cathie – room 25

I remember VE day well. It was a beautiful day and I was almost 15. My friend and I were in Glasgow and we trailed the city to all the places where people were congregating and celebrating, such as at George Square. We walked until our feet were blistered and went back to my friend’s house where we steeped our feet in the bath!

I remember seeing the street lights on for the first time too. During the war nobody went out after dark unless they had to, for example for work, definitely not for visiting friends but perhaps to go to the cinema. Unless of course, there was a full moon as then you could see without trying to use a torch, but having to hold it so that the beam couldn’t be seen from above.  The first night the street lights were on, the streets were full of people delighted to be outside after dark in bright lighting. 

My family lived close to Kelvingrove Park where landmines fell in the bowling green. When a landmine went off, it could blow out the windows in the nearby tenement flats, but they weren’t powerful enough to damage the buildings. However they did damage the bridge over the River Kelvin and also statues that were on the bridge ended up on the banks of the Kelvin. Fortunately, the statues were able to be recovered and restored in place after the war.

Clydebank was the area which suffered most damage. In March 1941, the Great Western Road which ran down from Glasgow all the way to Dumbarton was mistaken by the Germans as being the river Clyde due to the fact that their lights shining down on the long stretch of tarmac made it look like the river Clyde where the shipyards were situated. The full moon was called “a bomber’s moon” as you always knew when it was likely that the planes would be flying over. I remember being able to tell the difference between the sound of a Nazi plane and one of our own. The German plane had a “chug, chug” sound. They were mostly aiming for the shipyards as at that time, there were many shipyards of the Clyde.

My mum was from Islay and I remember a friend of her family coming to Glasgow for the “Call-up examination” and after his exam we went to the taxi office to order a taxi to take him back to the station. When we came out of the taxi office, we heard the “chug chug” sound of an enemy plane and so hurried to get home. We lived in a tenement flat and the tenements had scaffolding in the closes in the hope that it would be a safe place to shelter as only the houses with gardens had their own shelters. However not everyone could shelter there so the tenants in the houses in the close invited the neighbours into their hallway and provided chairs for them. We children actually quite enjoyed the excitement of a raid as it meant we were able to meet up with our pals during the night!!  Although we had some happy times, we always paid attention to the news bulletins about what was happening in the war zones.   

From Ron and Marian

Ron and Marian were just young children living in Dalkeith when the war ended so don’t particularly remember VE Day. However Ron remembers that POWs were held in Dalkeith House, on the Duke of Buccleuch’s estate. The POWs would be marched up through the town to the chapel, but come rain or shine, they sang all the way there and back, in their own language.

Just before VE Day, Ron lived at the foot of Dalkeith and heard of a bomb being dropped about 3 miles south of the town which destroyed part of the wall around the Duke of Buccleuch’s grounds. The Duke had the wall rebuilt very quickly to keep lads like Ron from being able to get into the estate to steal the apples etc.!!

It was said that this bomb was one of the last to be dropped by the enemy as the airmen would have been getting rid of their weapons before heading back.

The war ended the next day.

Eating in the UK after the War

Pasta had not been invented.

Bananas and oranges only appeared at Christmas time.

The only vegetables known to us were spuds, peas, carrots and cabbage, anything else was regarded as being a bit suspicious.

All crisps were plain; the only choice we had was whether to put the salt on or not.

A Chinese chippy was a foreign carpenter.

Curry was a surname.   A take-away was a mathematical problem.   A pizza was something to do with a leaning tower.  

Rice was a milk pudding, and never, ever part of our dinner.

A microwave was something out of a science fiction movie.

Brown bread was something only poor people ate.

Oil was for lubricating your bike not for cooking, fat was for cooking

Tea was made in a teapot using tea leaves, not bags.

The tea cosy was the forerunner of all the energy saving devices that we hear so much about today.

Calamari was called squid and we used it as fish bait.

Fish didn't have fingers in those days. 

Bread and jam was a treat.

Coffee was only drunk when we had no tea….. and then it was Camp, ... and came in a bottle.

Cubed sugar was regarded as posh.

Salad cream was a dressing for salads, mayonnaise did not exist

The menu consisted of what we were given, and was set in stone.

Only Heinz made beans,

there were no others.

Sauce was either brown or red.

Fish and chips was always wrapped in old newspapers, and definitely tasted better that way.

Frozen food was called ice cream.

Ice cream only came in one flavour, vanilla.

None of us had ever heard of yoghurt.

Healthy food had to have the ability to stick to your ribs.

Cheese only came in a hard lump.

Eating out was called a picnic.

Eggs only came fried or boiled.

Hot cross buns were only eaten at Easter time.

Pancakes were only eaten on Shrove Tuesday – and on that day it was compulsory.

Cornflakes had just arrived from America but it was obvious that they would never catch on.

We bought milk and cream at the same time in the same bottle.

 Sugar enjoyed a good press in those days, and was regarded as being white gold.

Prunes were purely medicinal.

Pineapples came in chunks in a tin; we had only ever seen a picture of a real one.

Garlic was used to ward off vampires, but never used to flavour bread. Surprisingly, muesli was readily available, it was called cattle feed.

Water came out of the tap, if someone had suggested bottling it and charging triple for it they would have become a laughing stock.

However, the one thing that we never ever had on our table those days were….ELBOWS!

WE WAS BRUNG UP PROPER! 

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL MY FRIENDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE1920’s 1930's 1940's, 50's, and early 60's !

First, we survived being born to mothers who drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes....Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle....Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on theweekends, somehow we didn't starve to death!We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONEactually died from this.We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner shop and buy Toffees, Gobstoppers, Bubble Gum and some bangers to blow up frogs with.We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks withsugar in it, but we weren't overweight because.......WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them! We did not have Playstations, X-boxes, Tik Tok, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY, no video/dvd films, no Netflix, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet...........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! Only girls had pierced ears! You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time...Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! Our parents didn't invent names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade' and 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla' We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL ! And YOU are one of them!

CONGRATULATIONS!