Listless Loafing

In 1912, the Church of Scotland complained about

"the listless loafing of men who spend the day reading Sunday newspapers, and discussing, not always quietly, the latest sporting events".

This complaint is not unique to 1912, I can assure you 😁

They're trying to droon me

From an interview with a former teacher who accompanied evacuees in Scotland:

"On the first night there, the town provost came to the place where I was billeted and asked me to see to the boy he was looking after.
He had climbed out a window and was up on the roof, refusing to come down. He was shouting, "Help, help. They're trying to droonme". He was in a terrible panic, close to tears.
It turned out the provost had run a bath for him and he'd never had a proper bath before. At home, they had a communal tin tub that they shared with all the other families in the close."

Aaw, poor kid!

(Taken from the Daily Record, 29/8/2009)

Cigs, anyone?

After two nights of German bombing raids (March 1941) on a town near Glasgow, in which nearly every house was damaged:

Along with food, "2 tons of candles and about 6,000 boxes of matches were sent to Clydebank… About 70,000 cigarettes and 15 lbs. of tobacco were also supplied"

Good to know the essentials are sorted...

Fair Dinkim

Today's diary entry, Jan 1944, by a Scottish solicitor:

"I am becoming more selfish, more bad-tempered, less public-spirited, with less belief in my fellow-man. A previously non-existent dislike of the English, and the Australians (whom I did not know before but find even more full than the English of what they call "bull-shit"...)

Ha ha!! Well they do say solicitors have good skills in reading people....

Invalid's Diet

How's this for wartime diet of someone who was off work, ill? 

Breakfast - bran and hot milk, steamed haddock, toast, marmalade, tea.Lunch - vegetable soup, mince, carrots, mashed potatoes, white sauce, stewed apples and custard, coffee.Tea - macaroni and cheese souffle, brown bread, pancakes and jam, tea.

Jan 1943, Scotland.

Hungry?

A Scottish journalist complains about censorship, 1/7/40:

 "A French journalist had to write columns of cheerful and boot-licking drivel [to get passed by the censor]... If he had given a gruesome account in four columns of how the starving Germans had started eating babies, the censorship would have passed it, though it would not have passed the slightest reference to the shortage of sugar in Paris..."

Get awa'!

From the diary of a medical student in Edinburgh:

"Held a conversation with Mrs J.G (no fixed abode, age “God, I’m far too old”), who greeted me with “Get awa’, ye cock-eyed bastard’…” (2/9/39)

(Note to self: new greeting for door-knockers??)