“FROM the point of view of the civilian this war has hardly begun in earnest, and only the black-out at night, and the barrage balloons by day, remind one that Europe has finally toppled over the brink of the precipice upon which it has been dangling precariously for the last twelve months. Doubtless there is much in store for us that will dispel our cherished illusions of peace; but for the moment the war seems very unreal”.

Those words were written on September 10, 1939, by John Colville, a young diplomat who would shortly be appointed as an Assistant Private Secretary to Churchill (his diaries were published in 1985 as The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1939-1955).

The fear of aerial bombardment meant that considerable efforts went into camouflaging factories, power stations and military installations, including the G.&J.Weir buildings in Cathcart. A.R.P. exercises such as the one pictured here ensured that personnel would know what to do when the worst happened; this particular simulation involves Rescue and Demolition Service wardens helping ‘victims’ from a tenement demolished by a high explosive bomb.

In May 1980 Bob Crampsey, the historian, author and broadcaster, recalled some of his memories of a young boy experiencing the ‘Phoney War’ period of 1939-40, and how, in time, it ended.

In May 1940, aged 10, he got a job as a newspaper-delivery boy. “I did not believe in delivering the newspapers until I had thoroughly digested the contents”, he wrote, “and I followed the actions in France with great interest and mounting fear. One of the perks in delivering newspapers was the award of a free pass to the local cinemas. I was coming out of the Mayfair in Battlefield on a lovely June evening when I heard a cry of ‘War Special’ and there, in a late edition, was the news that Paris had been abandoned.

“It was the only time in the war that I saw my mother despair. We would have gone under in 1918 if France had fallen, now we were sure to do so: such was the immediate thinking. The phoney war was over. Now, perhaps, we would get that decoration for bravery as boy despatch riders. We didn’t, but some of our elder brothers did.

“Now we entered the world of the Fifth Columnist, of the ‘Nasty’spy. A little later, when my young brother’s class misbehaved badly in his Pollokshaws school, his teacher, the redoubtable ‘Wiggy’ Campbell, proclaimed that God would send the Germans to show His displeasure. The Deity was prompt, the Germans arrived that night and bombed the hell out of Shawlands. My brother’s class took this as proof that ‘Wiggy’ was a German agent, and for the next three months or so the wretched woman was shadowed all over the South Side by an industrious pack of small boys.

“The adults were grave. It would be a real war, after all.”

Read more: Herald Diary