Memories of the Clydebank Blitz

Andrew McIntyre shares his mother's memories of living through the Clydebank Blitz. 

On the night of the Blitz at Clydebank my mother who was a young girl who lived with her parents at Ardoch Street , Possilpark. She remembered the terror she felt as the German aircraft passed over on their way to Clydebank. Not all of their deadly cargo was destined for Clydebank. One of these bombs fell into the roof of Possilpark School, directly opposite of the flat where her parents lived. The bomb managed to get hung up in the rafters of the roof and, lucky for them, didn’t explode. My grandmother refused to leave her small room and kitchen to stand at the close mouth, it was too cold she reckoned. Others from the close gathered in her lobby as well. My grandfather was a policeman and had to go on duty at 6am leaving my mother and grandmother, although reluctantly. Soon after they were evacuated to relatives at Banton by Kilsyth, for about six weeks.

During the early days of the war, my mother-in-law, who is 89 this year, was workig at the aero-plastics factory at Hillington. This was quite a journey to work, as at that time she lived in Phoenix Park Terrace, Cowcaddens. She started on the production line producing thousands of seats for the gliders that dropped men into the war zone. It was while doing this arduous job that she noticed a design fault with the seats. She reported it to her immediate superiors, who dismissed the suggestion but fortunately, the big noises from down south came to the factory and agreed with my mother-in-law that there indeed was a problem. Red faces all round for the local management. How many lives were saved because of her keen eye and mind no one can tell. It demonstates to me that not all efforts of the war were fought on the battlefield. Young women at home kept the war machine operational.