by Trevor Royle
There were other kinds of dislocation. People from the cities also wanted to escape the tedium of the countryside, children missed their families and loneliness made lives miserable. Religion too remained an issue. The Secretary of State for Scotland reported to the Cabinet in December 1939 that that the Archbishop of Edinburgh had issued an encyclical urging that evacuated Catholic children should be sent back home if no facilities for religious instruction existed in the reception areas.17 In other parts of the country some Catholic priests took the view that children from their churches should run the risk of being bombed rather than receive education at non-Catholic schools in the reception areas. The argument was given added weight by the fact that the threat of bombing seemed to be waning. During the first winter of the war, with the exception of isolated raids against naval and military targets on the east coast of Scotland, the expected mass air raids had failed to materialise, and many evacuees believed that the danger had passed.
When German aircraft did make their presence felt it was a newsworthy event, and no incident was more keenly discussed than the curious crash of a Messerschmitt 110 in a field near Eaglesham in Renfrewshire late at night on 10 May 1941. Following an erratic flight across southern central Scotland, the pilot of the aircraft baled out over Bonnyton Moor shortly after 11 p.m. and the twin-engine fighter-bomber fell to the ground and exploded. Shortly afterwards the pilot was taken into custody by a local farmer, David McLean, who then handed him over to the Home Guard. The pilot said that his name was Hauptmann (Captain) Alfred Horn and that he had ‘a secret and vital message for the Duke of Hamilton’, a remark that was met with some hilarity by his captors before they realised that he must be serious as he had a map showing the whereabouts of the duke’s residence at nearby Dungavel. Things then moved quickly. Hamilton was summoned from RAF Turnhouse where he was wing commander, while the prisoner was transported to Maryhill Barracks where one of his guards was Corporal William Ross, later to be a post-war Labour Secretary of State for Scotland.
Only later, when the prisoner was being interrogated the following day, did it become clear that his real identity was Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, who had flown to Scotland from Augsburg in the hope of meeting Hamilton; through him he hoped to ‘show his sincerity and Germany’s willingness for peace’, the inference being that he was on an official mission to make contact with influential British personalities to discuss possible peace terms. This was one of the strangest episodes of the war, and it has given rise to a huge number of conspiracy theories about Hess’s motives and the exact nature of his flight and subsequent crash. At different times it has been alleged that the pilot of the Messerschmitt was an impostor or that Hess was operating with the consent of British intelligence or that the RAF was under orders not to shoot down the aircraft when it reached British air space or, most recently (2010), that Hess came to Scotland as part of a plot hatched by MI6. All are incredible, but all gained credence at one time or another largely due to the withholding of most of the official papers concerning the incident.
When the records were released in 1992 a more banal account emerged – from a factual point of view – but none the less the story is still intriguing, not least because Hess was a high-ranking Nazi who enjoyed a close relationship with Hitler and clearly believed that he might be able to broker a peace deal between Churchill and Hitler. However, during the initial interrogation it became clear that Hess, an ideological Nazi, had little concept about how his mission could be achieved. It also became obvious that he did not know the Duke of Hamilton except by name and reputation, having believed that the two men had met during the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Equally it was made clear to Hess that Churchill’s government had no intention of having any dealings with him or the regime he represented. In Germany Hitler was furious about his deputy’s treachery but this was explained to the public as the onset of mental illness, as indeed it probably was. Hess was held in captivity for the rest of the war as a potential war criminal, and during that time he did develop amnesia, real or feigned, as well as other psychological disorders. As one of this interrogators, the diplomat Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, admitted, ‘the Hess episode was one of the oddest in history, and the oddest thing about it was that it was not in character.’ In that sense the real impulse behind his decision might never be known.18
In the wake of the bombing attacks of 1941 it took time for some of the harsher realities of life on the home front to sink in. Evacuation of children had proved a mixed blessing, the blackout was unpopular and was not always strictly observed, some of the innovations such as the National Identity Card scheme were thought to be restrictive, and there had been an outbreak of ‘panic buying’ when rationing was first introduced in January 1940 to restrict the sale of bacon, butter and sugar. This was followed by the rationing of meat in March and tea in July, and slowly but surely the sale of just about every item of consumer interest was restricted under the Limitation of Supplies Order of 1940.
As time went on there had to be adjustments to the scheme, mainly to ensure that workers had the correct calorific intake. Coalminers received extra cheese for mealtime sandwiches but there were also regional differences. In 1942, for example, the Ministry of Food discreetly altered rationing scales to allow Scots to have additional oatmeal because of the ‘difference between bread-eating England and scone-and cake-eating Scotland.’19 Also, in the interests of fairness and good sense, pregnant women and nursing mothers were given extra allowances for food and milk. It was only when merchant ship losses started mounting that people began to see the sense of taking precautions and making sacrifices for the greater good.
Inevitably the food shortages began to make an impact on people’s lives. While there is evidence to suggest that the restricted wartime diet was healthier and led to a fall in obesity, rationing was unpopular mainly because it led to monotony, and as a result attempts were made to alleviate the situation by finding other sources of food. In the country areas of Scotland there were rarely any shortages of milk or butter, and unofficial black markets flourished in which foodstuffs were bartered in return for clothes or fuel.
However these were only palliatives. By far the most successful scheme introduced by the government was the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign which was the brainchild of Professor John Raeburn, who had been born in Kirkcaldy in 1912 (but brought up in Aberdeen), and had worked as a nutritionist in China and at Oxford before the war. Employed by the Ministry of Food in the agricultural planning branch in north Wales, he and his team of statisticians came up with the campaign which was led by Lord Woolton, the wartime Minister for Food. Its premise was startlingly simple, and that may explain why it was one of the most successful government initiatives on the home front. Before the war the UK imported 55 million tons of foodstuffs each year, a huge amount which meant that the country was not self-sufficient and could never be in time of war. The situation was made worse after August 1940 when the German Navy pursued a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare and British merchant ship losses began to escalate. By the following spring imports had shrunk to 28.5 million tons, less than the figure for 1917, the last time when the country had almost been brought to its knees by submarine blockade.
As the fear grew that the Germans could destroy the UK war effort by starving the country into submission, alternative methods of food production had to be found; hence the importance of Raeburn’s Dig for Victory campaign. In essence it was simplicity itself. All potential cultivated land would be turned over to agricultural usage, and as a result parks, sports fields, public and private gardens were dug up and transformed into places of cultivation for all manner of crops. Even people living in tenements were encouraged to do their bit by turning over flower boxes to growing vegetables, the aim being to show that everyone was involved in the enterprise. In addition families were given permission to keep their own chickens, rabbits and goats, and at the same time 900 ‘pig clubs’ were set up in Scotland with an estimated 6,000 pigs being rai
sed and nurtured in private gardens and eating up scrap food.
Above all, it was a truly inspirational campaign which was backed by some of the most memorable advertising posters of the Second World War, some of them featuring cartoon characters such as Dr Carrot and Potato Pete. The aim was to encourage people to cultivate and then eat their own produce – one of the best-remembered (if not always fondly) dishes was Woolton Pie, a vegetarian concoction – but behind the propaganda pictures and the light-hearted ditties lay a serious message:
Because of the pail, the scraps were saved,
Because of the scraps, the pigs were saved,
Because of the pigs, the rations were saved,
Because of the rations, the ships were saved,
Because of the ships, the island was saved,
Because of the island, the Empire was saved,
And all because of the housewife’s pail.20
Another successful campaign was ‘Make Do and Mend’ featuring ‘Mrs Sew-and-Sew’ which encouraged people to recycle old clothes and household goods, all of which were rationed and were in short supply throughout the war. Knitting ‘comforts’ for service personnel was another well-supported activity, with clubs being set up in most civic centres throughout the country; one of the first to be established was the Camerons’ Comfort Fund in Inverness which provided the local TA battalion – 4th Cameron Highlanders – with 950 knitted articles, together with 2,000 cigarettes and 150 packets of sweets and chocolates.21
Boosting morale was another important factor, and several schemes existed to help convince the population that the war was being won and that everyone had a part to play by making sure that they were involved in the process. Some schemes performed only that role and fulfilled little other useful purpose, notably the collections of scrap metal initiated by Lord Beaverbrook, Minister of Aircraft Production. At his prompting the public was asked to participate in scrap-metal drives by handing over old pots, pans and kettles, and even allowing iron railings to be cut down from outside their houses. Newspapers ran advertisements asking that people hand in anything made of metal so that the recycled scrap could be used ‘to build the planes that will fly against Hitler’. Again, the scheme received massive public support and gave the impression that everyone was ‘doing their bit’ for their country even though, in reality, very little of the metal was ever used in aircraft construction. However, not everyone agreed with Beaver-brook’s proposals, and in Blairgowrie in Perthshire the provost stubbornly refused to allow the removal of the town’s elegant Victorian iron boundary railings, with the result that many original examples remained in place and did so for many years after the war, to the advantage of the local townscape.22
Other morale-boosting initiatives were ‘Salute the Soldier’ and ‘Wings for Victory’ weeks which took place in major towns and cities in order to boost national savings and to recognise the roles played by the armed forces. In one such event in April 1943 a damaged Messerschmitt 109 fighter aircraft was put on display in Dundee’s Caird Square as part of a drive to raise funds for aircraft production. It was a great success, with the people of Dundee contributing just over £3 million. This proved to be a British record, although the result was later marred by an undignified incident in which Aberdeen council accused Dundee of gaining the record by adding in sums raised in other Angus towns.
Perhaps the greatest change that affected the entire population was the conscription of women. On 18 December 1941 the UK became the only combatant country to harness the female workforce when a National Service Act made it compulsory for unmarried women in the twenty-to-thirty age group to undertake some form of war work. In fact there already existed a possibility for women to serve in the armed forces by joining the reformed Women’s Royal Naval Service (universally known as Wrens), the Auxiliary Territorial Service (the women’s branch of the Territorial Army, formed in 1938) or the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (formed in June 1939), all of which allowed men to be released for frontline duties. The passing of the National Service Acts turned these voluntary services into an obligation, although conscripted women also had the opportunity of joining the Women’s Transport Service, the Women’s Volunteer Service, the Women’s Land Army (Land Girls), the Women’s Timber Corps (Lumber Jills), the Local Defence Volunteers (Home Guard), or of working in munitions factories. The legislation was later extended to married women, although pregnant women and mothers with young children were granted exemption.
From the outset women were not allowed to undertake frontline service or carry weapons, although fifteen female pilots of the women’s section of the Air Transport Auxiliary lost their lives while ferrying warplanes on active service. Instead the point about female conscription was to allow women to take the place of men in administrative jobs who might otherwise have been unable to undertake operational duties in the armed forces. This policy was made explicit in all recruiting literature, with the Women’s Land Army (WLA) encouraging potential recruits with the exhortation that ‘every women who joins the regular force in the Women’s Land Army will take a soldier’s place in wartime.’23
Conscription for women was a national UK undertaking, but in Scotland one of its most familiar expressions was found in the estimated 8,500 female conscripts who served as Land Girls in the Scottish Women’s Land Army (SWLA). Originally created in 1917, at another time of national need, the Women’s Land Army and the associated Women’s Timber Corps had been reformed in the summer of 1939 and were quickly expanded to include 80,000 recruits. Although it had a military-sounding title and the Land Girls wore civilianised uniforms (corduroy breeches, shirt and tie, green pullover, hat and felt armband), the SWLA was not part of the armed forces and its members were non-combatants.
Potential recruits made application to the Department of Agriculture in Edinburgh where they were eventually interviewed and their suitability was assessed. Physical fitness for the work was considered to be most important, as was the ability to drive a motor vehicle, but all successful applicants were given full training either on a farm or at an agricultural college such as the West of Scotland Agricultural College at Auchencruive in Ayrshire (later part of the Scottish Agricultural College). Girls from rural backgrounds were almost always selected, but as with all forms of National Service throughout the war, there was a hit-or-miss element to the process, and some candidates at Auchencruive found that their fellow recruits ‘hadn’t a clue’ when they were thrown into the training course which lasted four weeks and embraced general agricultural work, market gardening, dairy work and poultry husbandry.24
Following basic training – unless it had been done on a farm – recruits were sent to their first posting, and it was usually a matter of luck if the accommodation was on the farm itself or in a communal hostel. It worked both ways. Although some farm accommodation could be basic, the land girl was at least involved in the life of the farm and its rhythms of work – a few went on to marry farmers’ sons or fellow employees – while hostels offered companionship and the opportunity to experience a wider variety of farm work. The SWLA hostel at Roswell in East Lothian housed eighty girls and provided labour for different farms in the surrounding area where in the main the land girls got a warm welcome.25
Even allowing for the passing of the years to put a gloss on what happened in the past, the experience of most Scottish land girls seems to have been positive.26 While there were farmers who displayed initial scepticism and claimed that they preferred using German or Italian prisoners of war, they were soon turned round by the general enthusiasm and willingness to work hard which were the hallmarks of the land girls. Pay was another matter. Land girls were paid twenty-eight shillings a week, which was ten shillings less than a male farm worker, and well below the amount paid to an unskilled labourer in other occupations. While there was scope for overtime, especially during harvest, and some farmers paid an additional premium if the land girl had a driving licence, it was still a hard grind. Against that, the accommodation was subsidised, rat
ions were generally good, and while the uniform was not really suited to agricultural work, it was smart and purposeful, and land girls made a brave show when they paraded in nearby towns. The companionship was also important, but more than anything else it was the life on the land that appealed and gave the SWLA land girls an experience which none ever forgot, especially those who came from non-farming backgrounds.
Allied to the SWLA were the 4,900 ‘Lumber Jills’ who worked for the Women’s Timber Corps which had been inaugurated in April 1942 under the auspices of the Ministry of Supply, and which grew out of the Women’s Timber Service of the First World War. Scotland formed its own corps a month later as part of SWLA but with a separate identity and uniform which included smart riding breeches. As with the Land Girls, the recruits came from varied backgrounds, and all were given four weeks of basic training at centres such as Shandford Lodge near Brechin in Angus and Park House near Banchory where they received instruction in felling, cross-cutting, loading wagons and, in some cases, working with horses. Once they were sent to work on the forests, most Lumber Jills found the living accommodation fairly primitive, although some centres such as Inverchoalin Lodge, a remote shooting lodge by Loch Striven in Argyllshire, were fairly luxurious, with hot running water and comfortable rooms. Pay was modest – forty-eight shillings for those over nineteen – but against that there were deductions for food and accommodation and National Health contributions – with the result that most Lumber Jills were only left with a little pocket money. As with the Land Girls the privations were balanced by the camaraderie and the belief that the corps was making a beneficial contribution to the war effort by producing timber and freeing men for active service in the armed forces. In 2007 the Forestry Commission Scotland erected a memorial to the work of the Lumber Jills at the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park near Aberfoyle.
