This interview is being conducted for the Penalans Camp 22 project.
My name is Roberta McGee and the respondent is David Gibson
and the interview is taking place at Penalans Camp Ohinleck
on the 17th of May 9 2017. Thank you very much for agreeing
to be interviewed for this project. Would you please confirm your name?
My name is David Gibson. And what is your age or date of birth?
11, 10, 34. And for the record what is your connection to Penalans Camp 22?
I was here at the beginning and I was here at the end more or less.
When the camp was being built it was built with labourers from
Glasgow who were too old to join the forces.
And we actually had two of these joiners as lodgers.
So they were at the very beginning building the camp which must have been about 1940.
I continued visiting the camp more or less until the prisoners came.
Then I demolished a couple of the huts which I bought from
Air County Council for £5 each to build a garage.
Of the asbestos it was on. Now the huts themselves
I believe they came from Canada. They were prefabricating
Canada and shipped across here. Just the same as what
Bulloch Mill Hospital was, the same construction. As I say it was at that
time most of the camp was empty. It was 1957 because
1957 was the Suez Crisis when you were allowed to drive
a lorry or a car with L-plates and nobody to beside you.
So I had borrowed the lorry. So I know definitely it was 1957.
I had borrowed the lorry to carry the slabs and asbestos over the weekend
that we demolished the two huts. The rest of the huts as far as I could
gather were actually nissen huts made of
corrugated iron. They just disappeared. I don't know whether local
scrapmen would get them or not but they just disappeared from site.
How long did it take you to demolish the huts? Oh just a weekend.
We saved asbestos off the roof and by that time there's very little
cladding left on the sides of the buildings because the buildings were
made out of, if I can remember correctly, about
five by two timbers covered with sarking boards and then covered
chicken wire and some plaster. A cheap way of building them.
And because everybody in the camp at the time,
people that had come to live in the camp, they were actually
burning the timber, any timber they could get, just to keep warm I suppose
because the only heating in the huts was a couple of potbelly stoves.
Did you ever find any objects belonging to the previous residents?
Possibly we did. We never, never registered really.
You know it's just, I think it was not really interesting and I was just
interested in getting asbestos and getting the lorry home.
Who authorised the demolition? Oh you could actually buy, as I say, you could
actually buy the huts from Air County Council. Air County Council had taken it
over, it seems, because they were actually charging rent
for some of the missing huts. I think it was about 50 pence a week at that time.
They're charging for the rent to the, there was no houses being built at the
time or getting built but any newly married
that was looking for, or staying in rooms I suppose, that they
just had moved into the camp and used it as, and it became quite popular because
there are people from all over Asia were actually staying here.
What can you tell me about the temple? The temple was, the temple was built as
gatehouses actually for the road which was supposed to come from the main
big house, Dumfries House, up and onto the Barney road.
But after they'd completed building the temple, the owner of the ground,
the Boswells, they wouldn't sell them a piece of ground
to make the road from the temple up to the Barney
up road. It was used just, they did actually make a
a road along the side of the wood which they used instead to connect
up to what was called the Avenue or the Moss Road
which is the main road into the camp at the moment.
So they used that instead but there wasn't quite a fallout because of the...
Was there any houses attached to the temple? There were two gatehouses.
And who lived there? There were people who stayed there. One of the
people that was in it was a Mr Hamilton. He was the,
he drove the horse and kert for the estate and a new son,
son Willie, he used to work at a high house bit and
his son Bert, I used to run a bit with Bert, that was the
one side, I don't know who's on the other side of the temple, but there was two
families actually. And when Penelon's camp was built,
what state was the temple in? Was it still liveable?
Oh I don't know, I've never paid much attention to that. I was young enough
then that just didn't entertain me. Maybe the Grey Lady could tell you.
Tell me the story. The Grey Lady, that was popular thing in 1950s.
It was actually in, what, the Daily Express and the Times?
The evening times that is, ah, the Grey Lady, a ghost,
supposed to be there. People had seen it and whatnot in the early 50s
and she was supposed to be a resident in the temple. So I'd expect
in the 50s it would be a ruin then. Is there anything else you'd like to
tell me about Penelon's camp? Where do you start?
Penelon's camp was a transit camp actually originally.
What they did, they actually brought the regiments in
and they gave them a bit of training. There was a shooting, a firing range
down at the bottom and they used to go take them up on to
Ayers Moss and in fact there were a couple of
boys following that were actually killed by a
by a hangar ned that had found up on Ayers Moss.
I can actually relate back to it. I was only about 200 yards off, I
wouldn't pull the pin and two of them get killed at that actually.
We used to come about Penelon's camp, it's
more or less children. My brother was 12 and I would be eight
at the time. We were coming about Penelon's camp
and nobody ever bothered him because really,
we used to go mainly while looking for bird's eggs
but on one occasion, coming up to the side of the river,
there was the Frenchman who was there at the time. They blew up a tree
while landing mine. They were demonstrating this
to the soldiers and we were there at the time when it happened
and on another occasion they actually threw a hangar ned in
to kill the fish. Actually saw what happened and they
didn't get many fish but they did try it anyway and as far as the firing range
goes, I believe that they're still there but they're covered over now
but the firing range is you could pick up the empty shell cases
when they were finished because it's out with the camp boundaries
but you could actually pick up the shell cases and exchange them at the school
for something or another sort of barter system.
Do you remember speaking to any of the soldiers when you were
there? Not really. You're just accepted in here really.
On one occasion, the builder, a type of what you'd say,
a breeches boy across the river and more like a
stretcher mounted on ropes and the pull across the river and
we took turns again across the river in this
stretcher and that's the kind of thing that happened
in this camp. Did you ever get chased by the GameCuper?
No, we stayed at his road. Mr Chris's was no man really.
He was the GameCuper. The other GameCuper, Mr Graham, he was different
to keep it his way but Mr Chris's was all right.
He stayed in GameCuper's cottage as you come into the camp from
the Barney Road. That's the wee cottage on the left hand side.
He stayed in there. As you went down through that road
on the left hand side failed the engineering thing that was new at the
moment. I believe it's engineering. There was a hospital
and there was a church there. Plus there was
numerous listenhots. On the other side of the road failed
agricultural places going to be. There was a parade ground.
The parade ground and the officer's accommodation up there
they were always near the better type huts. The ones that
I pulled down as a type they used. They'd be much warmer than what the
listenhots were. But at the very bottom, if you go to the very bottom of that road
just where the cattle pens are at the moment, that was where they repaired the
lorries and such like. And if you bare left and got the road
which went to the back of the church that was where the tanks were
kept. There were tanks up there so that's where they were repaired and such like.
But mainly it was workshops at the bottom of the road
where the cattle pens are at the moment. It was mainly workshops there.
Well thank you very much David for sharing your memories with me.
I don't think I've any more questions I can ask. Is there anything else that you
would like to talk about? After you go away I suppose so.
That's when I'll remember something. Thank you very much.
