What sort of games did the children play?
Amy: We did all kinds of games; skipping, beddies… used to play tennis, run about on the street.
Ina: To me the children of today are missing out an awful lot because they have grown up far too quickly – you don’t know the joys of the fun being outside with the kids that you like and your brother watching you and making sure you don’t do anything wrong. There was always a parent around.

How did you pass your time in the shelter?
Amy: Well we didn’t have any television of course. We maybe had a radio; wind-up gramophone and records. That’s about all that you did have; or play cards – we used to play cards. What other games did we used to play? We didn’t have bingo then.

Who was sent to get rations for the family?
Amy:Usually the mother would have been the one who would have gone but if you wanted sweets, a child could go on their own and they just take the coupons and what they wanted out of their ration book. No you couldn’t get anything without your ration book; mark off what you had got and that was it: 4oz of meat, 8oz of sugar.

Was tea rationed?
Amy: I don’t remember.
Ina: When I served any customer if they didn’t take sugar, they would say to me, “D’you take sugar?” I’d say, “Yes!” So they would take out, I used to get sugar off the table! You couldn’t get sugar.
Amy: Many people stopped taking sugar; you’ll find they don’t take sugar in their tea coz we didn’t get enough during the war.

Did you have a radio in your house or if not how did you get news of the war?
Amy: Had a radio but as I said it was mostly propaganda… Lord HaHa, what was his first name?
Ina: Something… Joyce.
Amy: It was all lies they were telling, trying to make us believe. They maybe said: ‘Aberdeen fell last night and a 1000 people killed’ or something – wasn’t true!

D’you think a 1000 people could have been killed by a bomb in 1939?
Amy: No, not that many. But in Aberdeen the population is 200000.

Were you part of a large family?
Amy: With mother and father there was 7, I was the oldest of 5; 2 boys, 3 girls… you were the same.
Ina: 2 boys, 3 girls.
Amy: You see there were big families in these days; they went to bed to save the electricity! Didn’t they?!

Did you see any WWII boats later on, parked in?
Amy: I don’t think so. You mean battleships and that sort of thing? I don’t think Aberdeen harbour was big enough to bring them in.

Did any of the German spies attack old people in Aberdeen?
Amy: Not that I’ve heard of. It might have happened in the likes of Jersey; it was being ruled by the Germans.

Was any of the Anderson shelters blown up with people inside of it?
Amy: If it was a direct hit, there would have been whole families wiped out. Some areas had it worse than others. The harbour had it very bad. I remember going down to the bottom of Market Street once and there was a big crater maybe about 50 yards across. It really took up the whole street – it just missed the boats. Many tenements were blown down in Aberdeen – quite often.
Ina: I was up in Inverness, so I don’t know really what happened in Aberdeen but I was up there for 25 years.
Amy: I went to Sunnybank, Kittybrewster and back to Sunnybank.
Ina: Uniforms were stopped because of lack of money because of poor people.

Were any of your family evacuated?
Amy: I evacuated myself, just before the war started!

How did you feel at the end of the war?
Amy: Very good; best thing could have happened. It was 6 years you know till May 1945 – end of European war and then VJ day; that was in Japan August 1945. Good to know it was ended!

Who told you Hitler died?
Amy: Radio, paper. He was bad you know!
Ina: Terrible. He was an Austrian. He killed the Jews… millions of them.