Life During Wartime: Nissen huts, Humbers and a very fast Packard

The one thing which probably became most obvious to this pupil was the creation of a “Home Guard Hut”. It stood out because it was immediately beside the bus stop where one caught the bus for the first stage of the journey home. A house now occupies that position, but whether that incorporates the old building or not I do not know. The home guard had been formed with the collecting together of farmers, shepherds and most other able-bodied men in the area. Small boys didn’t really know what they did, but it was known that hilltop positions existed where watch was kept at night for any sign of enemy plane activity.

At ground level, a slow but steady growth in the amount of road traffic became evident. Khaki camouflaged trucks with strange registration numbers started to appear and the occasional tank would be seen rumbling along. The railway level crossing close by the school gave us a chance to have a better look when the gates were closed for the passage of a train.

A little later, stranger things started to appear. One day a large Humber Army staff car passed through – this one had a white oval on it bearing the letters PL. This was exotic for a small boy as it turned out that the letters stood for Poland, and was part of the gathering together in central Scotland of the members of the Polish army who had escaped, via various routes, to Scotland when their country was over-run.

PART ONE: How WW2 in Scotland compares to this lockdown

PART TWO: Our wartime government was better prepared than today’s

An interesting and amusing happening around this time was recounted to me some 30 years later by two delightful women from Stirling. When the influx of Polish army personnel happened, places had to be found for them to stay. High-ranking officers were billeted on householders who had spare rooms and two such arrived at a house in Stirling district. With nothing to occupy their time, because the Polish army units had still to be reformed, these two Polish officers would, each day, don their full uniforms and go out to walk around the town. Now, it just so happened that the lady of the house had a budgerigar which lived in its cage in the front room. Its name was Churchill! Sadly, while the officers were out the woman discovered that the unfortunate bird had, literally, fallen off its perch, and was lying quite deceased on the floor of its cage. Returning later, the officers enquired as to how the woman’s day had gone. Oh, she said: “Churchill’s dead” – whereupon the very correct officers stood smartly to attention, clicked their heels and saluted. The woman telling the story would go on to be my mother-in-law. The other one, owner of the dead budgie, would later hold a similar position in the family of Sir George Reid, later Presiding Officer in the Scottish Parliament

The next most noticeable thing to change the landscape was the arrival of ammunition dumps. I don’t suppose that the bulk of the population, living as they did in towns, ever really knew that these existed.

They took the form of Nissen huts. These were plain with no window fittings, and in addition did not have bricked-up ends. These were situated in farmer’s fields on side roads, two or three at a time, and possibly 20 yards apart. They were placed end-on to the road and were filled up from army lorries. Each location was surrounded by strands of barbed wire fed through the twisted verticle supports so beloved of wartime army installations. Another similar installation would be situated a couple of hundred yards further on, and so forth. I presume they were kept that far apart in case of an explosion.

Each of these huts was crammed full of ammunition of all sorts, anything from large pointy shells to boxes of 303 bullets. Small boy did on one occasion manage to open one of the wooden boxes to find these! No harm was done, however.

The traffic was fairly unending. I seem to remember my father talking about the fact that he got something like 7/6d (37.5p) per installation per year from the government for their presence. Later on, one night a very high gale got up, uprooted one of the huts from its fixings and rolled it nearly half a mile down to a quieter area where, a couple of years ago, its rusting remains could still be seen more than 75 years later.

On the night of the second bombing raid on Clydebank, although at that time we did not know it, my parents and I set off to visit the neighbouring shepherds, the McKechnie family, at West Biggs and, because of fuel rationing, decided to walk. At a point just beside where the cattle grid is to this day, we stopped and stood watching the sky as many searchlights criss-crossed the heavens searching out the enemy planes, whose engines could be clearly heard. As a follow-up to this, Hugh Cullens, the farmer at Harperstone Farm a couple of miles further west, had gone out later with a storm lantern to check on a cow which was calving in the fields and had a bomb chucked at him from a returning German plane.

THINGS were now hotting up a bit and gradually the amount of army traffic increased considerably. These units would be out and about all over the area on training exercises. I recall one night when we were awakened by the noise of traffic at our isolated farmhouse, to find that an entire unit of the, by this time reformed, Polish army was filling the field behind our house. From there it would continue on its way, fording the river and on up to the regular training areas further west – all under the cover of darkness.

Scars on the landscape which can still be seen above Blackford are some tank tracks high up on Whyack hill. On a winter’s day, when the angle of sunlight, hill frost or snow all are all just right, they can still be seen.

Mention of Whyack Farm brings back to mind one of the characters of the early war years. This farm was occupied by one Melville Jamieson. He was a member of an old legal family from Perth, and had apparently returned from being a tea planter in India some time during the 1930s, when he acquired the tenancy of the farm. From the viewpoint of a small boy, he was exceedingly tall, and one’s eye level was just about equal to where his nicky tams were below his knees. His other fascinating point was that he was one of the farmer car owners; this was however no ordinary car. It was an American Packard – large and very fast.

Jamieson had a certain liking for alcoholic beverages and regularly took himself of an evening to one of the hostelries at either Greenloaning or Braco. It apparently became something of an obsession with the upholders of the law that they felt that they should really catch him in a state of “unfit to drive”. In those days a police car had to bring a driver they suspected of drink driving to a halt and then carry out the “touch the point of your nose with your finger” routine to make a case. Attempts were made, but the speed of the Packard was such that MJ could be at home in bed before they could get anywhere near.

It all allegedly came to head one night when a trap was laid. The police car parked up a side street in Braco and, having a couple of hours to wait, the officers repaired to the house of the local bobby to pass the time. Come the hour they were sitting in their car waiting for Mr Jamieson to exit the pub. He did, but their car wouldn’t start. Their rotor arm was safely in Melville Jamieson’s pocket!

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