Did any of your family go to war?
Kathy: Yes my Dad. Just my dad in my family and my brother went in …but that was just at the end of the war. Just my dad in the actual army, he was in the Gordon Highlanders. He was in France.
Elma: I had uncles in the war. That was the nearest family I had in the war. One was a prisoner of war and the other one… well he got killed. He wasn’t away at war, he was in training and somebody ran into him. I just had one uncle and he was a prisoner of war in Italy for practically all the war.

Do you think Winston Churchill’s policies were good?
I would say so. We were too young to think of these things… we were still at school, nothing to do with politics really.

Did you listen to the King’s radio speech?
Oh yes. We were all gathered around the radio.

Did you hear the broadcast of the war of the worlds?
We just had battery radios. You took your battery to a shop to get charged. It wasn’t electricity one – always run out at the wrong time! You took them to a shop to get charged – put back in – you always had to have a spare battery to get recharged.

Were you in the war?
Yes we were.

Rationing?
Kathy: 8oz sugar per week /person, 2oz bacon, 2oz butter, 1oz cheese…
Elma: We weren’t really interested.

In the middle of school did the air raid sirens go off?
Kathy: Oh yes a lot of times and you would to carry your gas mask - all day. You took them to school with you and you used them all the time. If you forgot one you would go home for it and you got air raid drill. You know at any old time the bell would ring that was the air raid drill and you’d all to just have everything, you picked up nothing, you just picked up your gas mask and off you went to the shelters.
…Did you have to use the gas mask? What was it like?
Kathy: I never had to use it as real- we were fortunate. You had to check them. I’ve heard you are not allowed to use them anymore?
Elma: They were tied around your face, under your chin straps over the back.

Did you have a boyfriend?
No, weren’t allowed boyfriends!

Were you happy during the war?
Kathy: Yes, you knew nothing else. I enjoyed life. The weekly treat was to go to the Tivoli, live entertainment. Every Wednesday night we went there with my mum. My dad was in the army so my mum took the family.. my brothers. So that was our treat.
Elma: Our treat was when we went to the Mickey Mouse club, which is the Odeon (Odeon’s gone now hasn’t it). On a Saturday morning we went there a crowd of us. When it was your birthday you got a birthday card and you got to take a friend in free! Free that day.
Kathy: You got an orange.
Elma:You’d to go up on the stage for it!

Was family life happy before and after the war?
Kathy: Yes, well on a Sunday the whole family, mum and aunts, went to my gran’s. She put up the best spread she could manage. She had a piano and my uncle used to play the piano and we had a sing song around the piano. That was our Sunday night sing song and that was happy days y’ know.
And we used to go to a lot of picnics on Sundays. All the mums went; Gran, neighbours all joined in, all carried the food. The men who were there would take the pram with all the food and the woman had to go on the bus with the little wee ones you went to some of the parks and had your picnic and that was your Sunday – after Sunday school.

Was a bomb explosion loud?
Kathy: Oh yes- we had that. Over my mum’s backyard was the railway line up Kittybrewster – you know we lived in Bedford Avenue. We had only a fence between the railway and our green, so many a time we had raids. We were fortunate not to have a fatal one.

Did you get injured?
Kathy:We were safe.
Elma: We had a bomb fall at the top of Ashvale Place… it was in a laundry… and then at the Fonthill Barracks, the army place. But I don’t think I can remember being any casualties there. Certainly a bomb fell there.
Kathy:Nearest big Reid was the ice rink on Anderson Drive. I remember that one – same night.

Cinema?
Kathy: Yes I did. It was the Asteria. You know were the Northern Hotel is? Well there used to be one just directly across, where there is a car park and retail place. We used to go there… a treat.
Favourite?
Kathy:I used to like the cowboy ones or Shirley Temple or ‘Good ones – bad ones’.
Elma: Charlie Chaplin, Snow White (1938, 1939?)
Kathy: Didn’t mind that
Elma: All old films

What sports did you play at school?
Kathy:Well we used to play hockey at school and used to get racing for your class teams…used to go to roller skating.
Elma: Usually teams against twice a year doing different things - sports but you never got far away because you would to stay within shelter distance.

Were gas masks there?
Everywhere! Even babies you know they carry cats but with a canopy. Small children had Mickey Mouse faces on them but the older ones were just plain.