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The Second World War, 1939-45Our Former Pupils have lived through some significant changes, and recall them in letters and e-mails. During the Second World War, everyone expected to be bombed. "The school... had brick bomb blast doors built opposite the entrances at each end of the main corridor and all the windows had sticky tape criss-crossed over them to minimise the effects of flying glass." (Norman Johnston, 1941)
"The Head took personal command of the school for 'air raid' exercises, forming the pupils and the teachers into the main corridor. Everyone sat on the stone floors (including the teachers) with the exception of the 'elite' squad with the coveted stirrup pumps and buckets of sand. Many were the fights between pupils when they thought that they had been done out of their 'turn'. The Head and the Janny were also envied for their steel helmets." "Gas masks - I remember the day the local Air Raid Wardens visited the school to fit everybody with a gas mask. We were all given a cardboard box to fit them in, but that wasn't good enough for the mothers. Before long all the boxes were covered in wierd and wonderful covers from bits of carpets, to curtains or waterproof material. Most were ghastly. After the Clydebank Blitz, we heard incendiary bombs had fallen on Holmston Farm, and after school my pals and myself went to hunt for bits and pieces, and see the couple of cows that had been killed." (Jim Fairlie, 1935-41).
Some pupils, and at least one teacher, came to the school to escape bombing elsewhere. "(My family) were evacuated from Glasgow to the relative safety of Ayr because of the bombing... Memories of the time are of air-raid drill where we had to go to a cellar and sit in long rows with our gas masks on. (Everybody carried a gas mask in a cardboard box.)... Hilary Crescent backed on to the main Ayr Stranraer railway line and we'd often see troop trains moving. The Ayrshire Yeomanry Barracks were down that way too with many interesting wartime activities to be seen." (David McRobbie, 1941)
Anna Monro (1933-39) remembers that a young lady teacher was evacuated from Glasgow, to teach some of the evacuee children. She later married Mr Ian Fraser, one of the teachers at Holmston.
"I well remember my mother going to the door one night to be told, you have 'X' accomodation so here is a mother with two little girls, and no 'Ifs nor Buts'. They were with us for the better part of two years, and by the time they left the girls were just like sisters to my brother and myself." (Jimmy Fairlie, 1935-41).
Apart from the threat of bombing (though fortunately, in the end, nothing much happened in Ayr) there were the soldiers, sailors and airmen everywhere. See these notes, again from Jim Fairlie.
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