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I started school at Dalarossie at the beginning of the second world war. There was a swing bridge across the river Findhorn below Clune, where we lived. We then crossed the fields to the glen road and walked the three miles to Dalarossie school where Mrs Macdonald was schoolmistress. I remember getting dragged along by my sister, Jean and Doreen Stuart, who lived at Auchintoul. I think my little legs were giving out!
There was a sudden influx of pupils at Dalarossie, evacuees from Edinburgh, who were staying at Glenmazeran but they soon went back, preferring the risk of bombs to the isolation of country life. There was a family called Kings, of whom I was in awe as I thought they were royalty. It must have been quite difficult for Mrs Macdonald but I remember a kind man who used to tie my laces so he must have been a relief teacher.
Being country children, we weren’t affected too greatly by rationing and our diet was pretty healthy, with home grown produce from the garden, eggs from the hens, and rabbits, hares and the odd salmon supplementing it, and the occasional boiling fowl and sheep’s head from the farm next door making nourishing broth . They also supplied us with milk from their cows. Our rations of sweets we got from the shop and Jean said she always ate hers before she got home. I remember getting her butter as she preferred marge. How lucky can you get! Uncle Jock was a butcher in Comrie and used to send us parcels of pork sausage meat in cans which was disgustingly fatty! I remember seeing biscuit tins with wonderful pictures of assorted biscuits and wondering what they tasted like. The first time I tasted a banana was after the war. John Macpherson took one to school. I didn’t think much of it but actually he ate the banana and gave me the skin!
As part of the war effort we brought fruit to school to make jam, but ate most of it on the way home till we felt sick and poured the rest down rabbit holes!
We were taught to knit and made socks and mitts for the soldiers. Another contribution was collecting books which were sent to the troops . There was an award system where you got badges of rank from private, corporal, sergeant, etc, which were eagerly sought after. John quickly reached the rank of colonel while the rest of us were still struggling up the ladder. Being in the farming community, he had a lot of willing subscribers but as a lot of the books were of a rather serious nature I think the troops would find them heavy going!
We were issued with gas masks in little cardboard boxes with a bit of string to go over our shoulders. We were thoroughly indoctrinated on careless talk, spies etc. Jean says she thought that walls really had ears! If we saw a plane, our strategy was to dive into the nearest ditch, regardless of mud. Fortunately we were never strafed. There was a large poster in the classroom displaying disguised explosive devices so when we found a strange object in the playground we immediately took action. It was about seven inches in diameter, a round, brightly patterned ball like object. On Tuesdays the bus went up the glen to Garbole, so Mrs Macdonald stopped it and got Bob the driver, an ex-policeman, to check it out. To our disappointment it turned out to be an ornamental china ball but where it came from we’ll never know.
My father was in the Home Guard and took his duties very seriously. Jean, Alex and I were occasionally lined up and put through army drill and taught to march round the kitchen table. I can slope arms with the best of them to this day! I remember a cavalry regiment camping in the woods and being fed hard tack and cheese by the soldiers.
Our school holidays were spent with our grandmother in Comrie, Perthshire.We used to watch the German soldiers being marched from the railway station to Cultybraggan POW camp, defiantly singing German marching songs as they went. Sometimes one would escape from the camp but were usually caught. I think most of them were happy to be out of the war. Radio was our main connection to the outside world and the news was listened to anxiously. I remember hearing ” Lord Haw-Haw” with his sardonic voice, “Gairmany calling” and Churchill’s encouraging broadcasts; “Workers’ Playtime” for the industrious munition workers and Tommy Handley with “Itma”.
Betty Watson
