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15 October 1999

Mr David McRobbie of Queensland, Australia...

He wrote us a long and entertaining letter telling us about his time here during the War and what he's been doing since leaving school. This week, some extracts on his time at Holmston...

"My brief appearance on the Holmston roll-book dates back to the early war years, say about 1941, when the seven member McRobbie family were evacuated from Glasgow to the relative safety of Ayr because of the bombing... We were billeted at 48 Hilary Crescent. The two older people living there didn't have any choice about it, they had spare room and we were sent there by the Government."

"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.) As we sat in our rows, I recall discovering that if you breathed out too forcefully, the expelled breath escaped through the sides of the mask, making a rude noise. The teacher wasn't having any of this but as she too wore a mask, her orders could not be heard clearly and she became so excited that she too added to the sounds we all made."

"I remember walking home along Castlehill Road which ran alongside the Cattle Market which had a high brick wall. My constant fear was to meet a mob of Ayrshire cattle being walked to market. In those days farmers moved their herds on the roads. Sheep were all right but cattle with their big horns and unfriendly looks were particularly fearsome, especially to a small boy. On one occasion, a kindly woman in a house across the road allowed me to wait in her front garden until the cows went past."

"I must say I didn't like being at school and there was a time when my brothers and I visited the clinic down in King Street, I think, to be told that we had German Measles and had to stay off school. It was wonderful and we ran along Hilary Crescent then saw our mother in the front of the property. We called to her with the good news of our affliction only to receive a scolding, my mother declaring that she was 'black affronted', which many mothers were in those days.

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.

I gather that our accommodation arrangements were not amicable and so my mother, who had relatives in Ayr, arranged that we'd move in with a bachelor uncle who lived in solitary isolation. So we all moved to 55 Green Street, which meant that my brothers and I enrolled at Newton-on-Ayr Academy from where I finished my primary and secondary education.

I regret that I'm not able to throw any light on Captain Smith but I've enjoyed recalling some of these almost forgotten memories of my childhood. To be honest, I've half blotted out the Holmston experience as for me it was generally an unhappy one. Of course, to be fair it probably had a lot to do with being uprooted from my home (a Glasgow tenement) and then placed in an alien environment with different rules and expectations. (Not to mention the cows on the way home!)

In retrospect of course, I'm glad that we made the move from Glasgow and I should also add that these days I have a weekly look at the Ayrshire Post via the Internet."

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