My gran during the war

When world war 2 was declared by Britain and France in 1939 ,my gran who was called Eleanor Mckenna was only a 13 year old pupil at St Joseph’s primary school (as it was called then) and within a few months after war had been declared my gran’s older brothers John and James had volunteered for the R.A.F (Royal Air Force).Life was very quiet and unchanged for everyone. There was also the “black out”. Gran described it as dark quiet street because no street lights were to be seen switched on and all windows had to be covered and all car and bus headlights had to be “masked” over with special covers until morning came. During the black out people were allowed to carry a torch but to carry the torch you must have the responsibility to understand that you have to always point the torch to the pavement or the ground.

There were many soldiers that were stangers in Kilmarnock that used the Grand Hall, the Henderson Church Hall and the Loanhead Primary School as a gathering point as these premises had already been requisitioned by the army.

At the end of 1940 and at the beginning of 1941 the air raid sirens began. The German air force targets were Greenock, Clydebank, ship buildings, factories, sugar refineries and of course the River Clyde.One German bomber plane flew over Kilmarnock. Some think that perhaps he strayed from his position in flying formation or something… but we will never know why. However , he dropped 3 bombs: the 1st bomb dropped in the cemetery in Grassyards Road ,the 2nd bomb dropped in Culzean Crescent and the 3rd bomb hit Riccarton Moss in Shortlees. The people who lived in the bombed house in Culzean Crescent had been standing outside talking and watching the search lights.

They decided to all go inside , what ever reason they had to go inside was a lucky reason because within a few minutes of them going inside came a big thud and one set of neighbours said to their family, “That was a close one “ - but little did they know that their small semi-detached house had been sliced in to two halves and that their neighbours were dead. Two or three lives were lost that night. My gran told me she remembered that night because her mother told her to go downstairs and sleep underneath the kitchen table. When the second bomb dropped in Culzean Crescent, gran told me that her sister said that the bomb had landed in their garden and that her sister’s brother replied, “Rubbish”, then she corrected, “Well, in Peirsland Park, then”. She was very close by saying Peirsland Park because the bomb had only landed half a mile away. Nothing like that happened in Kilmarnock again.

When gran turned fourteen years of age she started working in the departmental shop which is now called Mason Murphy. When she turned seventeen years old she was expected to do work of “ national importance”. Some of gran’s friends around the same age as gran worked in the A.T.S and others worked in factories but gran could not go as she had lost her brother John who worked as an air crew member. Her mother’s heart was broken and her mother had enough things to worry about without gran adding to it, so she decided she would join the Land Army. Many of her friends thought it was funny but not one of her friends had a clue about the hard work nor the bad SMELL but remember they were only “shop girls” so they weren’t used to the hard work and the bad smell. My gran explained to me that it was like going into a strange world and that in a way was true.

Shortly afterwards she received a letter explaining that she had to report to a farm up towards Mauchline. The farmer’s name was Mr Strawhorn. Gran soon discovered that she had much to learn about country life .When she arived at the farm she walked over to the front door and knocked even though servants and workers are supposed to use the back door.

The farmer, his sister and his niece all lived in the house. John the byre man lived in the “bothy”(the bothy is a room in the house that has a bed, a fireplace and a window).Sam the ploughman lived in a cottage. Betty was a friend of gran who was there to be a Land Army girl as well. However, both of them lived in the main house.

It was a very well run farm and every one had to work hard and work well. The farmer had a bad heart condition ,but he and his grandfathers had kept good records i.e milk yields ,crop rotation and weather etc. Some of these records were about 100 years old. My gran told me that one day when Betty and herself were on the farm, Mr Strawhorn wanted to see the “lassies”(Betty and gran) so they went in to his room and he looked at them from head to toe and then for some reason he spoke to gran he said, “Your hair is nice”. It was shoulder length pageboy (pageboy is a hair style that goes straight down and then turns in towards the face). “Tie it up he”, demanded. “Your hands are too soft -toughen them up. You’re too thin ,but don’t worry, my sister will soon fatten you up with her homemade good food”. Then Betty and gran were to go to their rooms and check their uniforms and working clothes to make sure all of their clothes were the proper size. They decided to try on their breeches. They put the breeches on and fastened their waists to discover that they were unable to bend down to put on their socks and shoes. They thought for a while and then realised that the socks and shoes should go on before they fasten the waist -another lesson learnt!

The first day, it was raining .Believe it or not, it was too wet for the horses, so Betty and gran had to do a “wet day job” cutting thistles - ouch!!!

They had on their boots, leggings, raincoats and sou-westers .They both hobbled into the stable and Sam asked them if their boots were too small for their feet. They replied “No” and then he asked to see how they had tied their laces… ahh that was the problem; they had tied their laces up to the to top when they should have left the three eyelets undone - another lesson learnt!

Gran and Betty collected their scythes and were ready for work - or so they thought. The rain was heavy and they had only gone a short distance when gran said to Sam,”The rain is running down the back of my neck”. Sam looked at her and shook his head and then explained, “Turn up your collar, girl and pull down your hat and then the rain will run down the back of your coat ,YOU’LL LIVE!” Another lesson learnt !

As you know Mr Srawhorn kept very good records, so it was time to prepare the young beasts to go out in to the field to pasture, as they had been wintered in a big barn that had to be cleaned as it was to become a hay barn. What gran suffered that morning .Every time she put the graipe into the manure, her stomach turned and she felt as if she was going to be sick. Sam was a strict but kind man doing his job well. He told gran not to think about it and that she’d get used to it, so gran thought, “My hair is tied up with my scarf, so I can’t use that as a mask what can I use?” Then she suddenly had a brainwave. She thought again, “I have a handkerchief in my pocket”. She took it out of her pocket and folded it over into a triangle and tied it over her mouth and nose (she must have looked like a bank robber, but it worked). By dinner time, she was unaware of the smell and she said she was starving. Another lesson learnt!

They were working hard using muscles that they had never used before and they were “suffering” so much so they were unable to bend over to tie their boot laces and Sam was just watching and waiting for them! He said, “Eleanor if you raise your leg, Betty can tie your boot lace, then you can do the same for her” Another lesson learnt!

Planting potatoes was all done by hand, and thinning turnips was all done on their knees (back-breaking). Gran enjoyed hay making.
They became very proficient with the hay fork and gradually had good muscle tone. They had no pain, no smell and lots of sunshine. My gran told me once that she remembered the time she was cutting the hay with a horse pulling the reaper and Sam (the good man that he was ) encouraged them to try everything , so he allowed them to cut some hay. Gran thought that Betty and herself were quite good at cutting swathes but one day as gran turned a corner to cut another swathe, she misjudged the blades and missed a narrow strip about a metre in length and, at the end of the day, when they looked back, there it was sticking up like a “sore thumb”. When they got back into the house, the farmer said to gran, “Eleanor go and get a scythe and go and cut the swathe”.

Gran replied, “I’ll get it done in the morning” and Mr Srawhorn (the farmer) replied, “If other folk see it, it’s a sign of bad horsemanship, so get it done NOW!” So gran did it. Another lesson learnt!

It was then gran discovered that all the farmers spied on each other using their own binoculars. They spied on each other because in the olden days during World War Two, farmers were in competition and there always had to be a best crop keeper so every farmer had to keep a watchful eye on other workers.

Gran and Betty had to look after the horses, too. From the first day gran was on the farm ,Sam introduced her to gran’s very own horse. He said to gran, “Now Eleanor, you must talk to the horse. So the horse knows your voice”. Gran’s horse was a dark brown gelding called “Chance”. Betty’s horse was a nice chestnut brown and her name was “Polly”, but gran told me that Chance was better looking than Polly. My gran also told me that Chance knew fine well that gran didn’t know much about horses or horses’ harness so whenever she was struggling to get on his heavy working collar, all she had to say was, “Chance, lower your neck” and he would always do it and once gran slipped the working collar over his head he would shake his head and the collar would fall into position.

When gran was trying to slide Chance’s bit into his mouth all she had to say was, “ Chance open your mouth” and he would. He always helped gran and one day he kind of helped her in another way, because he suddenly stood on top of her foot and she yelled, “Chance, get off of my foot !” Instead of taking his foot off, he just slowly turned his head round and stared at her and then finally lifted his foot and guess what - her boot had a big, big dent right in the middle of her boot!

The Strawhorn family always knew when gran was coming along the road because whenever Chance was in a nearby field and he saw gran, he would come galloping over to her and walk on the opposite side of the fence. Gran remained friends with Mr Srawhorn and his family and then later on in life, they told her children stories about her and what she was like as their Land Army girl and her children then told their children and that is how the story came to me.