I can remember soon after the outbreak of war we were all issued with gas masks and had to carry them to school every day. Every now and then we would have a gas Mask drill so we could learn to put them on quickly should the need arise, though of course it never did.

Every week fro part of our homework we had to choose a paragraph from a war report and memorise it, and then in school we wrote it as a transcription.

I can remember very clearly the day the Foyers Aluminium Plant was bombed. We were out in the playground and heard the sound of a plane overhead which we thought nothing of, but then heard the loud ‘thud’ as the bomb landed. We all sensed something serious had happened.

The teachers were inside boiling a pan of water on the coal fire for their tea for elevenses and came running out into the playground wondering what on earth we were up to, having heard the thud too.

The Plant was a target as aluminium was needed to make Spitfires

I have since learned that similar several attempts were made to bomb the British Aluminium factory in Fort William. One bomb hit the factory but failed to explode and the empty bomb now stands beside the factory.

In Fort William anti –aircraft batteries were set up to protect the factories and ‘Dummy’factories were marked out on the ground well away from the real ones. The British hoped that the Germans would bomb the decoys by mistake.

Some of the boys collected cards with outlines of aeroplanes, so they could recognise whether a plane was British or Foreign.

I can still remember hearing of men being killed in action, although at my young age I didn’t really understand the full enormity of this.

I don’t remember being affected by rationing, although I do remember my mother baking with dried eggs. We always grew our own vegetables and dad used to shoot rabbits so food wise we were probably very lucky.

I can remember some evacuees staying in the area though I think they were all actually relatives of people here.

I also remember the excitement of VE day because we all got the day off school to celebrate!