IN THE BEGINNING

On the 13 June 1942 I was born at 18 Byres Road, Glasgow.During labour my mother[Agnes Hyslop Thompson nee Love]claimed she heard sirens and thought it was another German bomber attack. It turned out to be a Pipe Band in the distance.

The worst of the bombing was over before I was born.It was on the nights of 13/14 Mar 1941 that the Clydebank area of Glasgow was flattend by the Luftwaffe.Some 440 German bombers took off from Norway and dropped 440 x 1000lb bombs.

Of the 12,000 houses  only 7 remained undamaged  and 35,000 were made homeless: 528 died in these attacks.

One of their primary targets was John Browns Shipyard where my Grandfather on my mothers side worked .He carved wood panels on the big liners. The family also had a florist/fruit shop on Byres Rd.Grandfather survived this blitz but did not last long enough to see me.

Dorothy, my sister, had been born two years earlier on 14 May 40 at the time British and French troops were being evacuated from Dunkirk'

Byres Road was a pretty
grim place in the 1940s. The tenement blocks were a dark grey colour coated with the grime of the Industrial Revolution; not the vibrant sand stone you see today. Chimneys belched smoke from coal fires rather like Lowry's painting Satanic Mills.The streets were lit by gas lamps and coal ,barrels of beer and ice were delivered by horse and cart.

In the centre of the road and all the side streets were flat roofed concrete bomb shelters One early memory was the noise of pneumatic drills as these structures were demolished circa 1946/47.

Tram cars were the main means of public transport. Glasgow also had an underground system.

Having just returned frm New Jersy one is reminded that the  great boom for Glasgow was the Act of Union in 1707 . It was only then that the Scots were allowed to trade with the thirteen American Colonies.A welcome relief after the diasterous Darien Scheme whereby the Scots had tried to establish a colony in Panama but were defeated by the mosquito.

After 1707 trade flourished with cotton and tobacco imports, inducing an acceleration in shipbuilding for which Glasgow has been famous.

It is this Union that is being currently challenged by the Scottish Nationalist Party.

I don't know if Dorothy and I were evacuated out of Glasgow during the War.I think we spent some time in Crosshill in Ayrshire where my mother and father met and where their ashes are scattered.

My father was not called up as working for the British Electric Authority he was in a reserved occupation.He avoided the Home Guard as his boss at work would have been his Platoon Commander.He opted to do Fire Watch instead and had a white helmet with a big W just as in the series Dad's Army.We of course all had our own respirators.