 |  | | | Blitz memories | There are 3 messages in this section. |
George Paterson from Old Kilpatrick. Posted 4 May 2005.
I remember starting school at Easter time 1943. I was told not to worry as my big cousin would protect me from bullies. He did but, he left the primary school that summer and I learned to look after myself. He lived in Fallside Road. His father, my uncle George taught me not to box. My auntie Cathy was nice as were my cousins Elizabeth and Helen.
We used to use the Fish & Chip toilet with my Grandma and when I was 3 years old they held me up to witness the Clydebank blitz. 18 miles away. My father was fire watching on the roof of the Yoker mill power station on both nights of that blitz and didn't get home for a week. Officially there were nearly 600 dead but that figure was well below the actual count. We didn't see my father for a week.
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|  | Bob Garven from Perth. Posted 6 Mar 2006.
We lived at 976 Govan Road at the time, on the top flat, and for the 2 nights of the Clydebank blitz all the neighbours decided by common consent to congregate in the lobby of Mr & Mrs Jeffreys who lived in the middle house on the first floor. This was reckoned to be the safest place despite the fact the authorities had provided a purpose built air raid shelter in the back court and a single brick blast wall on the pavement at the entrance to the close, which everyone had decided would be useless as it was reckoned it could be pushed over by one hand.
I have clear memories of that crowded lobby and the noise, mainly of the guns firing from ships berthed on the Clyde, in their futile attempts to drive off the raiders. Our family of 4, my father worked night shift in Fairfield's engine shop was not there but my Grandmother was. She was elderly and quite deaf and I can see her sitting there with a serene but bemuse expression obviously blissfully unaware of why we were there.
Our near area escaped any major damage but a few days later Gran, on her own, took a tram trip to Clydebank. She came back aghast at the devastation horrified at the damage and wondering why on earth were people being encouraged to wear tin helmets. What use were they if bombs could do so much damage to buildings?
Later during the blitz on Greenock we shifted our place of refuge to the cellar below a Newsagents belonging to Helen MacPherson, the daughter of one of our neighbours, who had shared the lobby with us. Whether this was any safer or not I dont know but since through the cellar wall was the cellar of the public house above the risk of fire might have been higher or perhaps our period of entombment more pleasant. Who knows? I remember at one time poking my head out and seeing the tremendous blaze at the SCWS factory at Shieldhall which had been struck...
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| | George Paterson from Portland, Oregon. Posted 7 Mar 2006.
I think George Paterson in Old Kilpatrick is my cousin.
How can I contact him? From blitz memories
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