Mrs E J Newell of Cromarty speaks of driving conditions during the war

And of course, in those days, we hadn't cars; there were very few cars in Cromarty. I had a car because I had to go to Fortrose but, oh I'm sure all your mothers have, your mothers will have perhaps have a car and your fathers have a car, but not in those days. In the street that I live in, I had a car - nobody else. In the school, the headmaster perhaps had a car and there was one teacher who had a car, only. Now, of course, everybody's got a car. But, you couldn't go where you wanted in a car because petrol was rationed, so you couldn't go off to Inverness or Beauly or Dingwall. You had to go, I had just to go to Fortrose and back again. And going by car wasn't very nice in the winter because in the winter comes the snow, and when the snow comes, we don't like to go out in our cars. And in those days there were no snow-ploughs - not in the war - no gritting to be found. So going along to Fortrose, it was really very, very difficult and at night-time, worse still, because at night-time, when your dad or mum goes into their car, what's one of the first things they do?

Turn on the heating.

They turn on the engine and then they switch on the headlights. But, during the war, the headlights were covered with a black covering and there was a little slit down the middle, so you drove very, very carefully, very carefully. It wasn't fun driving in the winter. Of course, fine, fine in the summer time, but not in the winter. That was during the war.