Hansard

I thank my friend and colleague Gil Paterson for securing the debate. I also pay tribute to him for his years of public service, and as a supporter of White Ribbon Scotland, I recognise his tireless campaigning to end male violence against women. On a personal level, I thank him for his friendship, advice and counsel over our many phone call conversations over the past year. I wish him the very best for his retirement.

Gil Paterson spoke of how the attacks on Clydebank turned night into day. I was reflecting on that, because Johnstone, in the western part of my constituency, is about 6 miles south-west of Clydebank. The approach via Gleniffer Braes is an elevated part of Renfrewshire. I can only reflect that, 80 years ago this weekend past, it would have been possible for the residents in Johnstone—who were not sheltering as the air raids were taking place—to have seen the glow from Clydebank.

I will focus my remarks on another part of my constituency—Barrhead. As Jackie Baillie illustrated in her speech, although other areas suffered nowhere near the level of devastation that Clydebank suffered, other areas faced attack by the Luftwaffe that night. A parachute mine and incendiary bombs fell in Barrhead. I will recount some of the experiences of people in Barrhead that have been shared with me indirectly by children and grandchildren of those who remember that night. In particular, I thank my constituent Matt Drennan for sharing with me some extracts from his book with Keith Fergus, “Barrhead and Neilston: Then & Now”. There is some conflict about whether the attack in Barrhead occurred on 13 or 14 March, but there is consensus that it took place at the bottom of Adelphi Brae, otherwise known as Springhill Road, in Barrhead. A pub there was destroyed and the publican, a 56-year-old gentleman named Gavin McKinlay, was killed. From speaking to people who were there that night, I know that shops further along were severely damaged as well, with the glass plating of the co-operative, now Barrhead Housing Association, at the top of Cochrane Street being blown out.

I will share some of the reminiscences of constituents, who are sons, daughters and grandchildren of those who remember that night. Jim Mcgauley notes that

“My mum’s hairdresser shop was blown up by the bomb, and the publican of the Arthurlie Inns was killed by it.”

Mari Kuhn notes the account of her late father, William Edgar, who stated:

“I lived in Barrhead in a complex. I was about 14 or 15 years old and enemy planes were going overhead. I remember the noise they made ‘chug, chug, chug’. They were going to Clydebank and Yoker to blitz both towns. A bomb dropped in Barrhead on the way back to Germany. They dropped it to lighten the load; they dropped the remainder of their bombs to get home quicker. Two or three of the air raid shelters in Barrhead got bombed and the stair collapsed in a local pub and killed the landlord.”

Joan Carlile notes:

“My late father, William Ferguson, was a paper boy for Shepherds newsagents ... at this time, he would have been 13yrs old. The morning after the bomb he arrived at the shop to collect his papers and found all the shop windows broken and ‘sweeties’ strewn everywhere. My late mother, Joan McIlreavy, spent that night sleeping with her grandma Isabella Reid, in Cross Arthurlie Street, she was 8yrs old. They were wakened by the explosion and my mum said there was broken glass all over the bed, very frightening for them.”

Those testimonies are powerful. I would like to share one final account from a constituent, Janet Walton:

“my grandparents lived in Levern Crescent. No 44, a 4 in a block. They had an Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden backing onto Kelburn St. They brought my Grans, Aunt Jessie over to Barrhead from Clydebank thinking she would be safer there. On the night of the Barrhead bombing my Grandfather and upstairs neighbour, John Ross were out the back door when they saw something coming toward from above. They thought it was a German on a parachute. They shouted to those indoors to get under the dining table and he and Mr Ross would deal with this paratrooper. They grabbed garden forks and got ready for action. However the German quickly turned out to be a landmine that blew my Grandfather back into his hall. Blew the windows out and brought the ceiling down. Apart from superficial cuts and bruises the men were fine, and all of those under the table were fine, just badly shaken. My grandparents were rehoused temporarily in Carnock Cresc., and the Ross family in high Levern until the block was made habitable again. I think it was a few months. Aunt Jessie’s town of Clydebank was devastated that night. Gavin McKinley was killed that night when his public house was bombed at the corner of Spring Hill Rd. and Main St. My Grandparents were Janet and James Coleman.”

Many of those voices are now receding into the distant past, but it is important that we remember them. When we commemorate, it is not just an act of remembrance and honouring the dead; it is learning the lessons of what humanity is capable of doing. Within living memory, our fellow Europeans took off from one part of the continent and came here in aircraft laden with explosives, with the intent of dropping them and killing other human beings. It is important that we have debates such as this to commemorate and remember and, most important, to learn those lessons. Peace, security and stability, our first duties as politicians, are so precious.