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Interviewee: Ronnie Waugh (RW) Interviewer: Margaret Smith (MS) Date of Interview: 7 April 2015 Ref: DG38-15-1-3-T MS: Ronnie, on this occasion is going to talk about his very early memories of growing up in the village of Dunscore. So, Ronnie can we maybe start with when and where you were born in Dunscore? RW: Well, as I said in my earlier interview, I was actually born south of the border, I was born in Kendal. No recollection of that, I was back when I was virtually a baby, my parents moved back up here and I spent virtually, my whole, well, all my boyhood, up until I was about sixteen, in Dunscore but when ah first moved back to Dunscore we lived in a little hamlet called Black Steps just on the outskirts o the village and that’s where ma earliest memories stem from and my first conscious memories, oddly enough, are at Black Steps, lying on ma bed one night, very, very peaceful little place, not a sound there, and all of a sudden ah could hear this strange humming and buzzing noise in the sky and it got louder and louder and I was terrified and ah can remember, although I was very, very young, I can remember jumping out of bed and running to my mother and grandmother and of course, at that time, I was much too young to understand. Eventually this noise faded away into the distance but what it had been was actually the German bombers, they came right over, they used to come right up over Dumfries and over where we lived there and that was them going to bomb Clydebank, which was about March/April ‘41, ‘42. But just a tiny wee boy, but I can remember that vividly as if it had happened yesterday but, as ah said, ah had never knew why. It was years later before ma folks would tell me what it had actually been. But that was…Black Steps was a lovely wee place, ah think there was only about five houses there. MS: Was there? RW: It was on the outskirts of the village and we used to just walk into the village, you know, for groceries and tae the butcher’s and suchlike but that’s ma earliest memories and ah had happy times there as a wee boy but it was wartime and ah can always remember, one morning ah got up and ma mother says to me ‘Come and look at this’ and she took me out and lifted me up onto the dyke and as far as ah could see, right down the sides o the roads, all through the fields, it was absolutely filled full o soldiers, there was tanks, jeeps and motorcycles, dozens and dozens o soldiers, they were sitting making brew-ups on the side o the road and it was a great adventure for a wee boy to see and ah don’t ever recall being frightened o aw this stuff and there was huge tanks going all over the place. And they never went through the gates, they jist went straight through the dykes into the fields and after that the farmers were compensated for all the damage that was done to their properties, you know. 3m 06s. And of course there was aircraft buzzing all over the place and I was seeing all these famous wartime aircraft coming over, Spitfires and things like that, flying around and it was a great adventure. And of course, to top it off for kids, we were getting all the chocolate and sweets off soldiers because we had very little, it was strict wartime rationing and we got oor weekly ration and back in these days we would get something like a big bar of Highland Toffee, something that would last. There were jube- jubes, as we used to call them, the big sort of parcels, but we got all this stuff and of course, ma Grandmum, ma mother had tae go and work in the Munitions Department in the old ICI… MS: Did she? RW: …and ah was pretty much brought up by my grandmother and they used to bake scones and things on the old range fires as we had back in these days and I used to run out with cloths wi these scones and stuff and they used to give me sweets, a bit o chocolate, but they also used to give me tins 1 of bully beef and of course the soldiers, and being a soldier later in life, ye were sick o the sight o bully beef, but ye couldnae get it the same back then. Soldiers gave it but they were big tins, no like the wee stuff that ye buy nowadays. And so these were my earliest memories but a lovely wee place, very quiet. MS: And can I ask you Ronnie, were these British soldiers? RW: Oh yes, they were British soldiers. MS: And why were they there? RW: Well, there was huge manoeuvres taking on…all over the country, you know, I mean there were soldiers everywhere, all over Britain on training things, and all different things. But, no, they were all British. There might, I mean at one time there might have been one or two Canadians or that, I think, but they were mainly British soldiers. But this wee place at Black Steps, down through the fields, there was a lovely cherry orchard and ma mum used to take me down there to pick cherries, I would eat more probably as I put in the basket, but one day we were walking through the field and I could see something lying in the grass and ah started tae run towards it and ma mother must have thought and she shouted me to ‘get back, get back’ and she went and looked and it turned out it was the tail fin off a German bomb. Now the bomb never landed, it was simply the tail fin, it must have been some sort of malfunction or something and they had just ejected it out but it was German because it was later identified as such but for a long time it used to sit outside the house at Black Steps. 5m 52s MS: Did it? RW: I’ve no idea what became of that, it probably be just sent away, but ah don’t know, I just don’t remember. But it was a German, off a German bomb and, as I say, we were deep in the countryside, and ma whole life was the countryside. And then about 1942, ah think, we moved from there to another wee hamlet which is just on this, the other side o the village, called Throughgate, and we lived in a house cal,led The Tower House and it’s still there, it’s called The Tower House because the roof’s just liked a peaked tower and it’s got a round front, you know, like a half circle and it was originally, there used to be a toll gate there and ah think that’s where the name Throughgate derived from and there was an old wall, which is still there to this day, unchanged and the old hinges are still in that wall where the original toll gate would hang and as far as ah know they’re still there. Externally the house has never changed but it’s a listed building and I don’t think they’re allowed, it’s all been changed inside because it was a holiday home for a time but it’s been sold ah think now. But we moved there to The Tower House and I’ll never forget there was me and ma mother and ma grandmother and we flitted in a cattle float which wasn’t uncommon back then. You were more likely to see somebody moving with a horse and cart with their stuff piled up on the back but we were grand, we went on a cattle float and ah’ve never forgot, we all crammed into the cab and ma grandmother fell sound asleep and it was a journey which would probably take about maybe three minutes, she was sound asleep. But anyway, we arrived at our new house at the Throughgate and the neighbours came around and helped wi stuff, to get in the house but ah can always remember in the living room there was an old- fashioned corner cupboard that had been left there by the previous occupants and ah was just wandering around an underneath this old cabinet ah saw this big tin toy car, it must have been well over a foot in length. Now it’s hard to understand maybe, with kids nowadays, but you’ve no idea the treasure that that thing was to me because I had virtually no toys and this huge car and it was one of these old tin toys where the, on the side, the side profile had a driver’s face, was painted and on the front the front of his face was painted, you know, and ah played wi that for years. I wish I had kept it and kept it in good condition because they’re worth a shilling nowadays. 8m 41s. 2 But that was a tremendous treasure, so we got settled in and ah started to build, well, being at Black Steps, that wee place, ah was the only child there and ah had been, ah don’t remember really being very lonely but ah was only child and of course when ah got to Throughgate ah think there was about another five or six kids there and of course I got out and I started to get to know them and they were kids that became ma life-long friends, I still see them, one or two of them fairly regularly and it was another nice place but there was more activity there.