Mrs Murphy

Child 1 What age were you when the war started?

Mrs M 16

Child 1 What job did you do during the war?

Mrs M I was in ‘munitions. I made bombs.

Child 1 In what way was life different during the war.

Mrs M It was quite good fun. It was quite good where we were. We were lucky.

Child 1 When you look back what are your thoughts on war?

Mrs M Well I lost a lot of nice friends.

Child 1 What do you remember about the breakout of war?

Mrs M Well it just got mentioned on the wireless. There was nothing,later, 'til later on 'til eh..something happened. Until the soldiers there. Folk getting called up.

Child 1 How did your homelife change after the war started?

Mrs M Well we were all on rations and you had to queue up for things When you seen a queue you went. You didn’t know what it was but you went to the queue.

Child 1 Was there anything you liked about war time.

Mrs M No - it was sad. It was when the evacuees came.

Child 1 What upset/scared you about wartime?

Mrs M When the evacuees came there was a baby there and it hadn’t been changed for 7 days. It’s clothes. It couldn’t get out. Because we’d seen the bombing of Clydebank from where we stayed. It was all lit up - the sky.

Child 1 What do you remember about bombs being dropped?

Mrs M Well that was the only time when we seen Clydebank being bombed.

Child 1 When you look back on World War 2 what are your thoughts? You could give a good thought or a bad thought.

Mrs M Well some good times and bad times because the soldiers were here. I went to the dancin'’. And the Tank Corps came and wasted the roads on the Barony Road.

Child 1 Where did you live during the war?

Mrs M Dalsuluch. Where the new school is.

Looking at wartime objects

Child 2 Did you ever meet any evacuees?

Mrs M Yes we had evacuees staying. One wee girl a baby staying and her mother and father. They stayed about 6 months then the went back to Glasgow.

Child 3 Earlier on we heard you telling us about the Clydebank Blitz. Could you tell us more?

Mrs M Can’t tell you a lot about it. We were standing at our house and it was dark and it was at night and we could see the bombers going over. We didn’t see, hear the bombs dropping but the place all lit up and we stood for nearly all night watching this place getting bombed and everything lit up. It was terrible.

Child 3 Where did you work and how many hours did you work?

Mrs M I work at Bowhouse. That’s where the prison is now.

Child 4 What did you eat during rationing?

Mrs M We were very lucky here because my daddy had vegetables in the garden but you couldn’t get meat. It was rationed. And you couldn’t get sweeties. They were rationed. That hurt me more. But we were really quite lucky. If there was a queue you went to the queue and if it was something you liked well you got it.

Child 5 Did you ever see the German aeroplanes going past.

Mrs M Yes, we could hear them. But they were a way up. They weren’t coming here. They were going to Glasgow.

Child 6 What was your favourite time during the war.

Mrs M Going to the dancing because all the soldiers were there. And then we had the Prisoner of War Camp. Down in Pennylands Gap. German prisoners. We used to see them walking up the street from the station.

Child 7 Thank you Mrs Hollyoak and Mrs Murphy. Thank you for coming to Saint Patrick’s Primary School to share your thoughts and memories of World War 2.