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During the First World War young Brian Minchin was removed from home at Balham, London at the age of 5 and taken further north to safer Scotland away from the threat of German bombs. (His earlier memories can be found under Balham in the London section of this site)
'In 1917 my mother and I were generally evacuated, as we should nowadays call it, to Glasgow which, at that time, was well beyond the range of the Zeppelins. We had some digs there and I used to go out into the street and watch the Punch and Judy show which was a regular caller.
Later we were invited to stay with some friends and I, in a lordly manner, asked the entertainer if he could perform outside our friends' house. He duly did this much to my delight, but of course, he demanded an extra fee for doing so and my mother had to pay.
I actually went to school in Glasgow for a time where I got on fairly well, in fact better than I had been at the Kindergarten at Streatham Hill. (I was five). I suppose I must have started at about four. At the age of five I was really beginning to learn something.
I have a slight recollection of a park in Glasgow. We used to go over a high bridge with a stream way down below. It looked a long way down because I was only five and one day there must have been some heavy rain, for the water seemed to come up quite near the top of the b-ridge.
I also remember the Glasgow trams. There was a blue one which we took on a certain route and the green tram which we didn't take or visa versa. I remember ferries across the Clyde and one particular ferry, just as it was departing, a man jumped on just as it was going. We were afraid he was going to fall in but he didn't, he made it quite successfully. It was said at that time you that you had to avoid deep water because you might drown in it, but it didn't matter because once you were out of your depth it made no difference, l0,000 feet or 3 feet.
At that time, the main North Western which went from Euston to Glasgow was completely commandeered by the military, and civilians had to travel by the Midland Railway which then had a completely independent route.
Well, later we went back to London.'
Brian Minchin's next set of memories can be read under Woking in the Surrey section of this website.
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