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onyirtodd wrote:It wasn't just the Bevin Boys. My father, who worked in Barr & Stroud all through the war talked of the same thing. It was OK around where he lived and was known but, in the city centre, dirty looks were commonplace. He also said that, if you went to the dancing on a night off from work or firewatching (from the top of Trinity College tower) it was harder to get a dance if you weren't in a uniform and there was often animosity from those who were in uniform.
Dugald wrote:onyirtodd wrote:It wasn't just the Bevin Boys. My father, who worked in Barr & Stroud all through the war talked of the same thing. It was OK around where he lived and was known but, in the city centre, dirty looks were commonplace. He also said that, if you went to the dancing on a night off from work or firewatching (from the top of Trinity College tower) it was harder to get a dance if you weren't in a uniform and there was often animosity from those who were in uniform.
Onny, although I don't ever recall anything like this going on in general, I can understand the thoughts of your father, who was no doubt well aware, that building submarine periscopes for example, was every bit as important as being conscripted into the forces. Standing in a queue at the Co-op for the butter and eggs one might have occasionally heard things like: "It's all right for her, her man's no away in the army...", but who knows, maybe she was talking about her sister-in-law with whom she didn't get along. .
Dugald wrote:I don't know much about the dancing in Glasgow at this time, but i do know when the Canadians and the Yanks were around, British servicemen had a hard time keeping up with the competition... even the Polish soldiers had a longer wait for their dance! Well, this apparently was the way it was for the French soldiers in the Great War when the comparatively well-paid Britishers got first choice at the dances in France. Hey listen, I'll wager it's the same thing today in Largs when a RN ship calls in... the civvies will have to wait their turn to dance.
Roxburgh wrote:As a science student in 1939, my father was also exempted from conscription. However, like many students in his situation he had a second "job" which was teaching bomber navigators mathematics. Women were also conscripted into industry. My grandmother had to go an work for the GPO while my mother worked as a secretary at the Ministry of Fuel & Power. My mother actually wanted to join the forces but the ministry refused to let her go. The only way she could get out of the ministry was by training to be a nurse ... which she did.
Josef wrote:That is, to say the least, a bit unkind of you, Dugald.
My own opinions on this matter are slightly coloured; my grandmother lived next door to one of the 'aliens' interned. His wife and children were left to fend for themselves; scandalised, my grandmother went out of her way to help them out - over sixty years later, the first thing said when I went into their family cafe was always 'How's your grandmother?'
Many of these 'enemies' had sons serving in the British armed services, and had lived here for decades. Violence on board - if you were being torn from your home of decades, your job and your family, and being put on an overcrowded boat to God knows where, would you shrug your shoulders and whistle a merry tune?
It wouldn't, in my opinion, be more appropriate to have the memorial in Italy. This was a British tragedy. We should be proud to host the memorial.
Dugald wrote:I don't think building a memorial in Rome would be out of context because the ship was sunk in a war in which Italy was involved, and because some of the victims in the disaster were Italian, and because the intent to build a memorial stems from Italian people. Now could you go a wee bit beyond the Mearnskirk Hospital bit, as to why it should be built in Glasgow?
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