Margaret MacKinnon

I remember rationing being dreadful because you could only get a little butter and sugar and sweets. We really missed our sweets. We had to get dried eggs that weren’t as good as real eggs. We couldn’t get oranges, bananas or tomatoes. Nowadays you can get all these exotic fruits but at that time it was dreadful. I really missed chocolate biscuits during the war. The only kind of biscuits we could get was wee square cream ones. I don’t like them to this day because that is all I could get. I had a blue ration book and the under 5s had a green ration book. When you became 18 you got a white one, like all the other adults.

We had coupons for milk and potatoes were scarce too. You were lucky if you had relatives who lived on farms, as they would sometimes give you extra milk and eggs. I had one old aunt who gave us eggs but we didn’t get any chickens or nice steak pies. Some people grew their own vegetables in the garden and this helped bulk out the rations a bit. Sometimes, if you were lucky, you’d know someone who worked in a shop and they would put something under the counter for you but we didn’t really have anyone.

I think people had healthier diets during the war because we didn’t get much butter or sugar. People’s teeth were better because we didn’t have all the sweets and we drank more milk. You have all lots of lovely things that we didn’t have during the war but then again it makes me appreciate them more now. If you don’t get a thing right away and you have to wait for it sometimes it is more important to you.

The blackout was dreadful and people were often afraid to go out at night. In Greenock there was a gang called the Cheeky 40 and they were quite dangerous so nobody wanted to meet them on a dark night. The only other people who would be out at night would be air raid wardens.

I was evacuated to Skye during the war with my twin sister and my two older sisters. Although we stayed with a relative we didn’t really like it there. We went to school there and all the children spoke Gaelic so we couldn’t understand what they were saying. We didn’t find them very friendly and we were just known as the evacuees. On the positive side, we stayed in a farmhouse where there were chickens and calves, so that was quite nice and we learned a bit about farming. We were on Skye for about 6 months before coming back to Greenock.

I really didn’t like the gas masks. I was frightened of them as I’m a bit claustrophobic. I think I got a fright as a little girl putting the gas mask on. I used to feel like I was never going to get this off my face, it was horrible. I think when you are a wee girl or a wee boy you are frightened of these things.