To record the ‘Home Front’ memories of local men and women from WW2
Mackay Country
Home Front Oral History Project
Clothes
Make Do and Mend
Blankets and Knitting
“We got our own wool from the mill in Brora. We had to send the sheep’s wool – the fleeces as they came off the sheep. They were sent to Brora to the mill, and you could get it spun into blankets – it was all mill blankets we had then – or wool, for knitting. And then the women were knitting during the war. And sending socks to the Army and the Navy and the Air Force and all that. If you hadn’t wool of your own, you could get wool, but that had to be knitted and sent away to the Army and it was khaki wool.”
Old fank, Badcall, Scourie. Madge MacLeod, Ruby Mackay and Katie MacLeod folding sheep fleeces after the clipping. ED12C
Bill, Mary, Helen, Annie and Sandy
ED33A78
Dances and Dresses
“I’m sure we had the same dress for every dance, ‘cause you didn’t have two dresses. And I’ve seen us swapping dresses, wi’ somebody else. I would put on somebody else’s dress if it fitted, and they would put on mine. Just to be different.
Minnie McLeod and Margaret Morrison circa 1950. ED33A93
Very seldom we had a band, because the men were all scattered. But, you know, a few years after the war, bands got together again. That’s what we called ‘trampies’ dances’ – we called them ‘tramp’ – in wartime Dr Hunter had a dance every second Friday. We had a wee hop up there in the hall. Just to the piano; that was the only music. And they was fun, and then we would all be singing wartime songs, for the waltzes and that.”
Late 1940s – Strathy School. TF7N
Made to Last
“The clothes you used to get then, would last, not like the sort of rubbish you get today. We used to wear that Burberry coats to school. Burberry coat, and my bag on my back and wellies on, going to school. Well, it was passed down, in our family, and then somebody else maybe had something that they grew out of and it was passed to somebody else, and that kind of thing.
It was all skirts – trousers were yet to come. When you were in the hotel it was the black-and-white … the black dresses with the white collar, the long sleeves and then you had this white cuffs coming up on your sleeves. And they were hard! And that’s what we wore. And I suppose that saved our clothes in the summertime, our own clothes.”
Loch Inchard - Ina Morrison and Derek Morrison in the pram. C. 1950. ED35A95
Trying on Shoes
“We used to wear tackety boots or wellie boots. It’s not shoes that you see today that we wore. Sensible shoes that we wore in them days. When we were in Altnaharra, we used to send to Ross’s, in Lairg, and they would send out, on the bus, whatever we asked for. then what wasn’t needed went back on the bus in the morning. They would send us a few things, you know, just to try them on, and what fitted us we paid for and the rest was sent back.
It was black shoes and laces on them. It was very seldom you got one with a strap on it, unless it was a posh thing, for if you were going dancing or something like that. You’d get a posh one then. But, more or less, it was just ordinary – you don’t see them now. You don’t see them now.”
