Authors: Murdo Morrison
The light on Elspeth’s face woke her up. She looked startled until she saw her mother’s face. “Everything’s all right, Elspeth,” Mary said gently, bending over to adjust the blanket. She kissed her daughter on the cheek fighting back a tear. Everything that meant anything to her was right here in this house. And some folk, maybe some she knew, had just lost that.
She closed the curtains and turned to find that Betty and Ellen had come through from the other room. Betty looked shaken but Ellen was annoyed at having been wakened.
“Whit was that, Ma?” Betty asked. Her face was pale.
“We don’t know pet, Mary told her. “Come over by the fire and ah’ll get ye both a cup o’ tea.”
They sat around the fire, nursing their anxiety in silence. Mary looked at the clock. Twenty minutes had passed. She felt her heart race again when the sound of an explosion reached her. It was not as close as the first, but loud enough to move one ornament perilously close to the edge of the mantel. She moved it to safety. There came the tremor of another explosion.
“Ah wonder whit poor sods are getting it the night?” Hughie asked. Seeing Mary’s censoring look he said nothing more. The answer to Hughie’s question was being developed in the messages passing through the hands of the telephonists at the Maryhill Report Centre.
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Annie McLeod looked at the message on her pad and shivered with anxiety.
Date: 15.3.41
Time: 11:53pm
From: Maryhill Report Centre
To: Police
Message: 2 HE bombs Duncruin Street. Send police party. Let us have full report as soon as possible.
Action: Sergt Officer and 5 constables sent 11:58pm
Duncruin Street? Her Auntie Jean’s house was near there, up on Kilmun Street. More messages were coming through and the information came to her in the fragments she wrote on her pad and passed on.
Date: 15.3.41
Time: 12:09am
From: Maryhill Report Centre
To: Divisional Police
Message: About 100 casualties have been taken into Maryhill Tramway Depot. You may require to send police assistance.
Action:
3 special constables sent.
A hundred casualties!
Annie thought. But the need to pay attention to her task forced her to push her worries about her aunt into the background. At 12:30am a request came for a mobile post at Kilmun Street at Maryhill Road to deal with large numbers of casualties. She looked around her, wanting for a moment to get up and rush away, but turned back to her work.
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In the silence that followed, those assembled in Mary’s kitchen succumbed to their exhaustion. Ida was finally persuaded to go off to her own house. But the traffic of ambulances and other vehicles that went up and down Maryhill Road through the night contributed to a fitful sleep for Mary. She rose early. Ida knocked quietly on the door a little after six. She was apologetic when Mary came and let her in. Mary shook her head and brought her into the kitchen.
“Ah’m awfy sorry tae be bothering ye, Mary. Ah wisnae sure ye wid be up. Ah havnae slept a wink aw night.” She hesitated. “Ah jist needed tae talk tae ye.”
Mary nodded. “Ah’m glad ye felt ye could talk tae me.” She put the kettle on the fire. “Ah wis jist about tae make a cup o’ tea.”
Ida sat quietly and watched while her friend prepared the tea. Mary poured a cup for herself and one for Ida. She looked at Ida, waiting for her to start.
“Ye know, when Nessie’s son was killed, ah thought ah could understand how she felt. Robbie was her only son, and after whit happened tae her man an’ aw. But ah couldnae understand why she…why she took her ain life like that. But ah do now.”
Mary looked shocked. “Ye’re no' thinking o’ that are ye?”
“Naw…naw, ah didnae mean that,” Ida said. She looked at Mary. “Surely ye don’t think that I wid...?” Mary’s expression signaled doubt and Ida saw it. “Well ah widnae, so pit that right oot o’ yer heid. Naw, whit ah meant was, now ah can see whit it was really like for her.”
Mary could see her point. Until tragedy makes a personal visit you really don’t know what it feels like. She had lain awake most of the night thinking of the randomness of the killing. Death might find you anywhere and so quickly as to catch you unawares. There really was no safe place. That was the real horror of it. There was nothing you could count on. Your man might go off to work and not come home again. And she was worried sick about her children.
Maybe she should send them up to Fraserburgh. But being separated from them would be a deeper wound, she thought.
The days were filled with ordinary events that lulled you into thinking it was like the old times before the war. You wanted to believe in that normality and you held on to it like a survivor clutching a life belt. Then death might strike from a clear sky, and the world you had put so much work into building be crushed in an instant.
Mary nodded her head in agreement. “Ye’re right. Ye really don’t know whit it is until ye meet it yersel’. Ah couldnae sleep aw night
masel’ wondering whit poor souls died last night.”
Ida sighed. “Aye, it’s no’ jist us, is it?” She rose from her chair. “Ah’m gaun doon tae the street tae see if ah can get any word o’ whit happened.”
As the night waned into morning, the full extent of the disaster that had devastated the neighborhood around Kilmun Street became painfully apparent. Not one but two aerial mines had descended on the sleeping tenements. The first had detonated near Duncruin Street, causing severe damage. But the second, exploding near the corner of Kilmun and Shiskine Streets, had been even more destructive. It had not taken long for the news to spread through Maryhill.
When Mary and Ida came out the close mouth they found people out and about despite the early hour. Several of their neighbors were standing around talking. Betty McCallum spotted them and drew them into the conversation. She spoke in the hushed tones used by people to discuss issues of mortality or scandalous activities.
“Have ye heard the news? Kilmun Street got it last night.”
Mary and Ida looked at each other.
Kilmun Street was quite a ways up Maryhill Road. That would explain the more distant explosions. “But we heard wan come doon closer than that,” Ida said.
“Aye,” Betty replied. “Wan o’ thae parachute mines came doon on Queen Margaret Drive.”
“Dae ye know if many people were killed?” Ida asked.
“Ah don’t know,” Betty replied, “but they say it’s bad up on Kilmun Street. There’s been ambulances and fire engines up an’ doon the road aw morning.”
Back in Mary’s kitchen they found her family sitting around the table.
“Did ye find oot whit those big bangs were last night?” Betty asked.
“According tae Betty McCallum it wis Queen Margaret Drive and Kilmun Street,” Mary replied. “Whit’s the matter wi’ you?” Mary asked seeing the look on Betty’s face.
“Ma pal Peggy lives on Kilmun Street.”
“Aye so she does,” Mary said. “Ah forgot aboot that. Ah hope she’s all right.”
Betty got up. “Ah’m going up there right now tae see what happened.”
Mary placed her hand on Betty’s arm. “Ah don’t think that’s a very good idea,” she said. “They’ll no’ be wantin’ folks gaun up there an’ getting in the way. Ah’m sure they have their hands full as it is.”
But Betty would have none of that. “Ah well,” Mary sighed, “if ye’ll no’ listen ah better go wi’ ye.”
Mary accompanied Betty to Kilmun Street reluctantly and with great misgivings. She was unable and unwilling to imagine the unknown horrors of war in her mind and did not wish to have that experience to draw upon. However, she understood Betty’s anxiety about her friend and her desire to know what had happened. Mary was surprised by the fire she had seen in Betty’s eyes. She was more used to seeing that determination in Ellen. Mary was torn between wanting to protect Betty from emotional harm and to support her in her search. Beyond that, she was aware of the guilty pleasure of curiosity that draws even the most stolid to scenes of disaster. The women were unprepared for the reality of what had happened in Kilmun Street.
They made their way slowly through a throng of people who, like them, had come in search of friends or relatives, others out of curiosity. They pressed on, stepping carefully through the debris that littered the street, awed into silence by the extent of the damage. In some places rescue crews were digging frantically in the rubble, in others people appeared to be standing around, as if waiting for instructions. They passed a small group of people talking to a policeman. Behind them they heard a woman begin to wail. Mary looked at Betty and saw fear displayed on her face.
“Where does yer friend live?” Mary asked.
“Down there, Ma,” Betty said, pointing at the corner of Kilmun and Shiskine Streets.
Mary looked in that direction and gasped. Several tenements were completely demolished. The few that were standing were heavily damaged. Betty started to walk towards the piles of rubble. Mary ran after her, and grabbed her arm. Betty resisted for a few moments before falling into her mother’s arms sobbing. Mary held her daughter, trying to comfort her.
“Betty, Betty, come on now.”
Betty pulled back and rubbed her face. “Let’s see if we can get any word o’ yer friend,” Mary said gently.
They turned back to find the policeman. He was talking with a man and woman. When he was done, he wiped his face with a handkerchief before turning to them. The grime and dust on his face made him look ghastly in the morning light. They saw eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion set in a face taut with the strain of a long and trying night. His expression softened when he saw Mary and Betty.
“Are ye looking fer someone?” he asked.
“It’s mah friend Peggy Martin and her family.” She told him the address and turned pale when she saw the look on his face. He was silent for a moment. “Ah’m awfy sorry ladies but that tenement fell doon tae the ground. Thae folks in it never had a chance. Ah’m awfy sorry,” he said again.
He hesitated, feeling the inadequacy of his words, but his attention was quickly taken up by a man who was looking for his mother.
Betty and Mary stood for a moment, immobilized. Grieving and bereft, Betty started to walk again towards the rubble of the tenement. Mary caught the sleeve of her coat and drew her back. Betty stopped and turned to face her mother.
“Come on hame, Betty,” Mary said gently. “There’s nothing more we can dae here.” She put her arm around her daughter and led her away.
For Mary that week of the blitz marked the transition between the old world and the new. It was not just that the danger was brought to their very doorstep. The bombs had blown away any sense that life could be ordinary or taken for granted. Death had not been a stranger to her. It was a frequent visitor in the tenements. Her own brother had died of diphtheria as an infant and many others had similar stories to tell. But that manifestation of mortality, unpalatable as it was, was at least understandable, part of the path you walked through life. In Mary’s mind the bombing was a quite different matter. It damaged any sense of security she might struggle to preserve.
No one was left untouched. The signs were everywhere for anyone to see. It was in the uneaten lunches on canteen tables, ordered the day before by workers now dead. It was in the empty school desks and in the gaps in the tenement blocks where a friend’s house had disappeared. And beyond these graphic, inescapable reminders, was the deprivation that came with the shortages and rationing. Just trying to manage the details of everyday life had become hard. The days were filled with exhaustion, hunger and the deep unsettling anxiety of living with uncertainty.
Many survived, as they had through hard times before, by turning to friends and family. It was a time of drawing together. People were nicer to each other despite the pain and hardship. And providing the leavening for the hard years was the dark wit and humor born in the poverty of the Glasgow streets.
For those seeking escape there were the usual Glasgow recreations. While the smoke still rose over Clydebank, Rangers played Third Lanark at Ibrox. If you cared to go, there was the variety show at the Pavilion or Jack Radcliffe at the Metropole. Greyhounds raced at White City and the municipal golf courses were open on the Sunday. The city endured, its life went on.
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For Pearl life was anything but normal. Swept up in the initial excitement of her romance with Jimmie, it had not taken long for her to realize the problems this would cause between her and her family. Jimmie being a Protestant would not suit them. It was her father’s reaction she feared the most. At first, she had managed to push the subject far back into the recesses of her mind, enjoying the euphoria of being in love. Jimmie, far from being offended by her not bringing him up to her house, had realized her dilemma and been silent for a time.