One of our favourites. Such a good memory, such an eye for detail! With thanks to Stockland.
My father was a cinema fanatic. On a Saturday we’d go to one picture house, then to M&Ms to get my mum her favourite sweets, then we went to another picture house for a second picture. I was very close to my father. He was a gentle man. I loved him a lot and I miss him.
On the 13th and 14th of March 1941 the German blitz destroyed us. I was only 13 at the time but it shook me pretty hard. I knew people that got killed.
People used to say that Hitler was a Catholic because all the Protestant schools got burnt but the Catholic ones did not get touched.
Everyone was told to clear out of the town after the first day of the blitz. But we left it until the last minute and when we went to leave the sirens went off again so we had to stay. There were only a few liveable houses left in Clydebank by then. Almost everything had been destroyed.
Clydebank to Aberdeen is about 400 miles but they could see the fire from the blitz of Clydebank in Aberdeen.
My wife was the only girl in the street. She joined the gang when I was 14 and she was 11. That was the start of everything. We decided we were going to be married and what our two boys would be called very early on. We never considered girls names, it never crossed our minds. Everyone in the street knew that we’d be together. It was taken for granted. She was exceptionally bright and I couldn’t have done without her. She came all over the world with me, she was my back bone. She is my idol.