BBC - Scotland on Film

Ian from Edinburgh. Posted 11 May 2004.
I would be five and a bit when my Dad left for the middle east.
I remember him teaching my brother and I how to remove mice from the mouse-traps [we had several]. My Mum was terrified of them. I remember, early in the war, going down to the anderson shelter we shared with one of our neighbours. My Mum kept forgetting how many steps there were down to each landing [it was a tenement] and we [my brother and I] always counted them out loud so she wouldn't make a mistake. I remember thinking how silly she was, not being able to remember the number of steps.
I was asked to write a short piece on what life was like during the second world war. Despite what seems today very odd times, the conclusion I came to was how normal it all seemed. To sit in a shelter and sing hymns while outside the drone-drone of gerry planes passed overhead and the bang of anti-aircraft guns really didn't seem anything out of the ordinary. It must have terrified my [then still quite young] Mum.

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