Don`t tell me there is an air raid?.

Destroyer on convoy duty

1940`s fashion

German U Boat

Anderson Shelter

Spitfire

Ladies Wedge Soles

War time Tate and Lyle Products

War time Turban

Young Leithers Memories and Experiences of the War

and the Austere Period after it

Baby Gas Suit

Usual Queue.

Tattie Howking

Nae Bananies

Dig for Victory

Adult Gas Mask

Lancaster Bomber

Ration Book

Air Raid Warden

My own memories in brief are;

A month after enrolling at Dr Bells in August 1939, we were all

scattered to various halls in Leith while air raid shelters were being built in the playgrounds.

A long night in an air raid shelter below the tenement in Sheriff Brae during the Clydebanks bombing raid.

Another time watching an air fight overhead during the daylight raid on Forth Bridge and Rosyth dockyard.

Taking part as a volunteer gas victim in decontamination exercises in Leith Hospital every Thursday evening for a year.

Helping to collect scrap metal from households as a war effort.

Finally before the war ended with our bonfires, making friends with both British and Polish soldiers based in the Eldorado and the old Hawthorn yard. Then watching them gather in the surrounding streets before being marched off prior to D-Day.

John Stewart

My earliest recollection of the war was pedaling my tricycle somewhere around the Starbank Park area and watching a dogfight between the RAF and Luftwaffe. It was a beautiful sunny day with a brilliant blue sky.

Shortly thereafter I was evacuated to Tillicoultry in Clackmannan. I have no recollection of how long I was separated from my family, however I returned to Leith in time to enroll at Bonnington School in 1940.

For a perspective on how it was in Leith during World War 2 all Leithers should read " THIS PRESENT EMERGENCY- Edinburgh. the River Forth and South-East Scotland and the Second World War" by Andrew Jeffrey. Published 1992 by Mainstream Publishing Company, 7 Albany Street, Edinburgh EH1 3UG

Tom Wallace

Remember when we all had to have identity cards. I have 2 of them. Surprisingly one is stamped after the war was over.

When I came to Canada in 1958 my mother gave me mine as she thought I would need them coming to a strange country and well "you never know when you will be asked to produce it" I have held on to them all these years.

Maureen Logue

Name: Your experience: