Michael S: Did you have to do any work while evacuated?

Mrs Cruden: No. I don't think anybody did. Maybe my Mother or my aunties, maybe they had to help, but we didn't.

Charlotte: Do you have any special memories of your time as an evacuee?

Mrs Cruden: Special memories? Just a thought - it was just like a summer holiday to me because that's actually what it was supposed to be at the time - it was just like a summer holiday.

Michael S: How did you feel when you got home?

Mrs Cruden: I suppose my holiday was finished. I preferred living in the country. We were at the Bridge of Don. It's not like it is now. Just now, if you go out to the Bridge of Don, there's a lot of buildings and a lot of houses, quite far out. But when I lived there, there was just our street and then it was the countryside after that, so it was just right on the edge of the town. So I was just with my family. I didn't really feel any different. You just accept things when you're little.

Charlotte: Did you keep in touch with anyone that you were evacuated to?

Mrs Cruden: I think maybe my Mum wrote letters to the people for a wee while, I presume.

Michael S: Do you have any other wartime memories that you would like to share with us?

Mrs Cruden: Well there was just the farmer and his wife, and I think, as far as I remember, there was two children but I think they were actually teenagers, I think they were quite big. You got milk straight from the cow, it wasn't pasteurised or anything. It was just straight out of the cow in a big jug with a hanky-like thing with beads on it, to keep it. It just went through a sieve first to get rid of all the dirty muck but that was it - lovely milk. You don't get milk like that now - beautiful milk, full of cream, really good milk. You didn't get sweets. You had the ration books and you could either get sweets or sugar - you couldn't get both. You could get sugar in your tea but you couldn't get a sweetie after. One egg, I think it was. It was mostly powdered egg, powdered milk and powdered potatoes and you had to mix it up with water or milk to make mashed tatties (potatoes). It was just dried tatties, dried milk. It wasn't very good. You couldn't get no bananas. You know the song - "Yes, we have no bananas"? There was no bananas. We got apples. They had to get everything from Canada. It's not my memory. My husband told me about being down town and having to run because the planes were firing onto the roads and having to run from tracer bullets. Do you know what tracer bullets are? So that's it.

Michael S: Thank you again for coming here for us to interview you.

Mrs Cruden: Thank you very much. Thank you very much.