This interview is being conducted for the Pennylands Camp 22 project.
My name is Kay McMeekin and the respondent is James Liddle.
This is the 31st of May 2017 and the interview is taking place at Auckland Lake in Ayrshire.
Thanks very much, Jim, for agreeing to be interviewed for this project.
For the tape, could you please confirm your name?
I'm Jim Liddle.
And what is your age and year of birth?
I'm 79, year of birth, 1937.
And just in a few words for the record, what's your connection to the camp?
Well, being born in 1937, I was aware of the camp getting built without seeing it.
But as a young boy, I was aware of it and watched it developing as a preparation place for the soldiers to prepare for the war in Europe.
So where was it that you lived during the wartime?
Well, I lived at the top of the Barony Road that is about half a mile from the camp.
Did your house have a name?
The house name was Hill Cottage.
Is it still there?
It's still there and looks very well.
Was it good to ask about your family's life at that time, your parents and brothers and sisters?
We were three family, three in the family, two boys and a girl.
I was the youngest and we were letting the house and my family were letting the house from the woman next door who was Mrs. Hall, a very capable old widow as she was.
But she had a small holding garden and the garden is still there yet, which was quite a large garden.
And to have plenty of fruit and veg and lovely flowers about it was a pleasure to stay at.
What did your father do for a living?
My father was a miner and he was a training officer in the mines after the Colborte Coba.
I think you said that you had a role with the Red Cross, what was that?
Yes, well during the war, father being a miner was not called up to go into the army.
But there were work groups within Aachenlecht to support the Aachenlecht soldiers who were in the army.
So they had a great war effort in that respect of trying to entertain the person that the personnel contained in the camp and the town of Aachenlecht to raise money.
And there is money holding dances and trips and that type of thing and allowing the army preparation groups to attend them all.
It was quite an active place.
He was actually involved in the bar in your hall which is now demolished.
But the bar in your hall was a church hall and they held dances there and they had regular dances there which he was emcee.
And at that time it was very controlled dancing in the form of a set program for each dance.
And of course my dad would call out the dance and the girls and the men attending the dance would go up and dance
or quick steps or country dancing and they really had a very enjoyable time.
The friendships at that time was pretty high because my dad would only be at that time his age would be maybe 40 I think.
And what he did was, obviously with the soldiers going back to the camp by passing my house or my father's house he would introduce them into the family
and we had a great friendship with the soldiers who were there at that time.
They were only there for a short time.
They were only there for about six months and then it changed to another group of soldiers.
Are we talking about British army here?
Well at that time it started off with British as the tank corps was the first group I can remember.
It was either that or the Canadians. I don't remember much about the Canadians but I do remember the tank corps because the tanks were very impressive
to see them assembling down the bar on the road.
Two of the boys that were involved in that preparation group was Len and Alec.
And the friendship was so much that they gave us their photograph and quite a large photograph of them was placed in the sideboard
and I can see that photograph, yep, of Len and Alec with their tank corps very on.
And it was quite a hero type of photograph to see but they were very friendly and had their comforts in the house of tea and biscuits that type of thing.
Did you ever visit Pennylands?
Well as I got older at that time of the tank corps being there I'd be about five I think.
I can remember at that time looking at the Clydebank blitz.
Clydebank is not visible from all on leg but we could see the skyline from Hill Cottage.
I can remember standing on the top of what was a coal bunker at that time at the back of the house
and my mother and father and the whole family standing watching the glare of the Clydebank blitz.
So I really had no understanding of it.
When you saw the soldiers and it was quite a busy road as there were no zebra crosses
to allow people to cross but it was a busy road for soldiers and that moving up and down from the camp.
But later on in my development my next door neighbour was the carrier for the district
as in he went to Glasgow and picked up parcels and that and brought them back into Auckland and delivered them.
And being a boy I was invited onto the back of the lorry to give them assistance.
And it would only be about at that time when the camp was later on in 45 I think
I would be in it as a delivery boy in the back of the lorry giving assistance to the lorry driver
to unpack whatever it was they were having.
And I would look at the camp at that time and I could visualise it now
although we're not taking too much detail of it at that time
but I can remember it thinking back how the missing huts and the soldiers marching about
and where all the military lorries were garaged
and looking at the soldiers standing and sitting by and watching them playing football.
There was actually a football game on at the time, one of my visits was.
And it certainly wasn't a hard visit, it was a very nice visit to have
and I'm only pleased I got the opportunity to do it.
Yes, tell me about John Johnson.
John Johnson was transferred from North Italy to Penlan's camp to be a sergeant in charge of the camp.
Now the sergeant, there must have been other sergeants as well as him
but he was a sergeant in charge of the camp
and he had the duties of controlling the sentry boxes
and keeping a check on the prisoners
as in taking them out to checking that they're all there
and taking them out on working duties.
So they were going to a lorry and he would take them away somewhere
to work groups and work in certain areas.
And we're talking about the time of the German prisoners of war?
German prisoners, definitely. That must have been.45, it would be.45.
Was John E. Johnston a local man originally?
John E. Johnston was a cartoon man, very local.
I think that's why he was posted to Penlan's.
After his duties in the camp were finished
he would walk from Penlan's camp to Carton for his overnight stay
and then come back to the camp in the morning.
I did ask him why he didn't take any transport
but being an infantryman who did all the walking in Italy
he said that was just a short trip for me going from Penlan's to Carton.
It was just a short walk across the road.
I was going to ask you a bit about what life was like in Auckland like at the time
but you talked to me a bit about the dances and I think there was a cinema as well.
Well just a crush on the Bar and Hall was the Auckland Lakes Cinema
which was the entertainment centre of Auckland like I would say.
There was no community centres or internet at that time
so all the entertainment was cinema.
The cinema and Bar and Hall was working at the same time.
That was the dancing and the cinema on the go
which was a focus of entertainment, a focal point of entertainment there.
Not the town hall, the town hall didn't have the same pool as the Bar and Hall I've got to say.
The town hall was at the bottom of the town next to Aladises.
But the Bar and Hall having all the dances and the cinema having two houses every day
one house was started half past five, six o'clock I think it was
and the second house started about half past seven, eight o'clock.
Going with the wind seems to ring a bell where they use the queue up
to get access to it for both houses.
And the pubs were quite busy at that time
because all the miners were just next door to the halls and next door to the cinemas.
There were three pubs just surrounding that area.
So that particular point of the town was a very, very exciting part.
It was never quiet.
Was there any friction do you think, I mean you were probably too young
to appreciate with the local men and then these handsome soldiers at the dances?
Being only about five to nine at that time
the only information you got was stories what happened the night before on the playground.
The British troops didn't cause much stir in the town
but the ones that caused the biggest stir was the Free French.
And the Free French were renowned for having fights in the middle of the street
during the later parts of the evening.
There was a big fight in the main street last night
and Big Joke Concher knocked one of the boys out through the McDougall's Bakery window.
Well, that's true, I don't know.
Tell me about the drumhead service.
The drumhead service was something that I was...
No, we had off what drumhead was
but was involved in it because at that time life boys, boys brigade, scouts
and part of the army was still in Auckland Lake, I think, in the home garden.
And to commemorate a ceremony of remembrance
they chose to select a field in front of the manse
and the manse is down on the east side of the Perlin's camp
just about a quarter of a mile out of the camp.
And there was a parade from the middle of Auckland Lake
with all the soldiers and the young brigade.
The life boys weren't allowed in for some reason.
I don't think I got into the parade but I was there.
And we paraded as a full attachment going down the main street
all the way down behind our military band.
I don't think the pipe band was in go at that time.
But I can remember walking all the way down and assembling in that field
and there were so many military notaries there
not high level like church or anything like that
but there was some military commanders there
to take control of the ceremony
and there was a particularly impressive drumhead structure
of drums and flags in front of the ceremony
and it was a church ceremony actually.
It just stuck out in my memory as being a very important part of the Perlin's camp.
And you reckon this was post-war?
This was post-war.
There were still troops at Perlin's then?
I don't know whether there were troops or whether there was a residue of the Polish army.
So I would only be 10 at that time and I would have been the life boys.
It didn't get too much.
Were you ever friends with any of the people that lived in the camp?
My heroes lived in the camp.
I'm saying how they go into the camp is very hard to say
but this was the young married couples moving down there.
And living next door to High House Rose
there was a very good group of men there that was involved in football
so much so that they played for the Scottish Got a Family with Oglid Talbot in 1949
and won the cup.
When these young men were practising their football skills
not in Beechwood Park but in this park here where this bar in the universal is
that was the play park.
The young boys used to stand back and watch them
you know how they enjoyed themselves running about playing
and it was unbelievable for me to realise that these boys were playing
three of them anyway were playing for the Scottish Cup Final in 1949.
The names were Len Lanniske, Wally McFadgen, Hughie Goldie, Jimmy Galloway was a Catherine man
Paddy Burns was very much a High House man.
He was a goalkeeper 10 years older than me, I would say maybe 15 years older than me.
And you reckon they lived in Penelope's camp at that time?
Well what happened, because of that age they were just moving to a marriage
and there were no accommodation it was pre-fab time
there were no schemes they stayed with their parents.
So after 1947 Penelope's camp seemed to become available to these men
or women at that time and an awful lot of the local people that you knew
instead of moving in with their parents just moved into the camp.
I think that's actually all my questions and would you like to add anything?
While the Germans were there the prisoners were very skillful at doing hobbies
they weren't hard to control they were very easy going people
but anyway they started to do some hand crafting work as in making toys for the boys and the girls
and lovely things to look at but I never did get any of the artefacts that they made
but Johnny Johnson raves about the walking stick
but the walking stick was made by one of the German prisoners
this was carved out of a pen knife
and a lot of the children's toys were made by the Germans
because you couldn't get toys that had it there.
That's been excellent Jim thanks very much for sharing your memories with me today.
