STUDENT MEMORIES of 1939 - from PEACE to WAR
DRAFT 24.12.02
Several medical students in the 3rd year of the “Science-Medical” course at Glasgow University
intended next year to complete the BSc Hons. with three more years for medical qualification. I
lived at home, travelling from Shawlands daily to the university by train & tram. Other active
interests included the piano (both classical & jazz), also tennis and University Union dances that
provided fun encounters with the opposite sex. Golf was only an occasional interest, practised
mainly with school-friends Sandy & Archie. I also explored the Scottish countryside and hills on
foot and by bicycle, whenever possible using Youth Hostels, & introduced to the Cairngorm
country by Sandy.
World politics concerned us students as we discussed problems & prospects, idealistically setting
the world to rights in lunch-time summer sun on the grassy bank in front of the university - while
biplanes from Renfrew Flying Club and the University Air Corps droned overhead. Emotions
were mixed & sceptical on the closing night in 1938 of the Empire Exhibition in Bellahouston
Park, where with friends I had danced the Eightsome Reel in pouring rain after the Munich
agreement was announced.
Three of us students planned a tour into Europe to see things for ourselves in summer ’39. As
tourists, members of the Scottish Youth Hostels Association & International Confederation of
Students, we enjoyed various discounts.My total expenses for 5 weeks abroad were only £20 - not
counting passport - for the rare experience of Europe in the final moments before war changed
everything. Our party numbered four: Gordon & Maurice with Tommy, his cousin, & myself..
Our inexpensive start was overnight to London in the back of a furniture van for 5 shillings. After
a night at my aunt’s flat (she was away), we booked round tickets by SNCF, crossed from Dover
& reached Paris on ‘Le quatrieme Juillet’. We installed ourselves in the Collège Franco
Britannique of the Cité Universitaire and went out to see the celebrations. The Place de la
Concorde wes crowded but less exciting than we expected. For days we wandered the boulevards,
lingered in cafes & visited the Pasteur Institute & other well-known sights. Sadly we did not see
the glorious windows of Ste.Chapelle which were already removed for safe storage against bomb
damage. Contact with fellow-students from many nations plus the atmosphere & glories of Paris
made a lasting impression. We failed to get into the Folies Bergére but experienced the
flamboyantries of the Casino de Paris, escaped Montmartre without entanglements & looked
forward to our return visit.
Next morning we took a rattly Renault taxi to the Gâre de Lyon. Being late, we asked to go fast the driver more than complied, screeching round corners on cobbles & rewarded with our
remaining coinage! We got our breath back in the train to Dijon which we explored, had a jolly
evening with medicals at the local hospital, relished the mustard, & heard the town band next
morning on our way to the station. We continued past the Juras by train & enjoyed a picnic lunch
of French bread, butter, cheese, fruit and beer which became a regular feature of our rail travels.
At Geneva we stayed at the Hôtel Internationale des Étudiants, where we again found many
congenial young folk from many countries. Maurice & Gordon spoke good French, Maurice (the
eldest) also knew Italian. I had a smattering of French, Gordon & I had a very little German, &
Tommy, the youngest, had none of these. Next day provided my first sight of the wonderful El
Greco paintings evacuated to Geneva from the Madrid Prado Museum for protection during the
Spanish Civil War. A night out with a jolly group of 2 Germans, an American girl, a Turk and a
Romanian provided fun: we were arrested on the technicality of driving noisily along the water
front in/on an open DKW car licensed for only four persons. At the Police station suddenly none
of us could speak or understand French (the only language of our captors). We signed in and were
let out with the option of a 5 shilling fine each or a court appearance. Within 2 days we were
approached by two British international lawyers who heard some lads from Scotland were in
trouble & offered to defend us free of charge as relaxation from their dull high-level affairs! We
declined with thanks & paid up so as not to be delayed. Being warm but critical admirers of the
League of Nations, we visited the Palais des Nations. We toured the sights of Geneva, enjoyed
the plage and the company of the American , some Dutch and Swiss girls. We continued our
travels by train to Lausanne to lunch at the university; then on to Montreaux on the 20th where
two Danish girl students joined us for dancing and the walk to Vevey, by boat to Evian and on
foot to Thonon. At the hostel there for the first time I took the 3-course meal entirely served &
consumed from a single bowl and set of implements (one certainly cleaned one’s platter!).
Monday 24th brought us to St.Gervais les Bains where we left our bulkier baggage ( flannels etc.)
to walk next day up the Col de Bonhomme, across the summit (2900m = 9518ft) through mist
and snow for a night at Les Mottets chalet. There & along the way we appreciated the rough,
refreshing vin ordinaire, & café au lait quaffed from generous bowls (where are they now?). Our
simple hill-walking equipment was heavy shoes & stockings, shirt & jersey, blazer, cape, & sun
glasses! Next day we strolled to the nearby glacier, and after overnight rest crossed the Col de la
Seigne. At the frontier we chatted to the friendly French “Diables bleu”( Chasseurs Alpines) &
were held up by the Italian frontier guards (Alpini) to stamp our passports & seal our cameras
before we passed the military camp of soldiers. (From here some months Mussolini later inflicted
the “stab in the back” on embattled France). But all then was friendly, and we enjoyed a relaxed
evening at the busy little village (then!) of Courmayeur, with a simple good dinner, a crowded
night (4 of us in 2 cots), and on to Aosta next day to rejoin Maurice & Tommy who had moved
independently. Gordon & I still remembered enough school Latin to try this with an assumed
accent from France - and it worked! Also here I first tasted real Neapolitan ice cream - much
superior to that so-named sold in Glasgow. Maurice, the fussy one, eventually decided our
lodging for the night, and after dinner and a cinema we slept well. Next day we strolled around
historic Aosta & took a bus to picturesque old St Remy, a sleepy country village on our northbound route. Next morning a bus crowded with locals, baskets & poultry carried us up the
mountain valley across the St.Bernard pass back to Switzerland. We walked to Vallorcines for
meal & bed whence “travellers’ diarrhoea” afflicted us next day. So we strolled gently into
Chamonix, where welcome though watery tea in a hotel restored us (the only tea taken during our
trip). We returned next day to St. Gervais, rejoined our baggage, and rested for two days, visiting
the casino twice (no wins, insignificant losses). We continued by train to picturesque old Annecy
where I photographed washerwomen pummelling laundry on a platform in the running river; then
on by train to Aix les Bains (lunch), Chambery (coffee) & spacious Grenoble where we emjoyed
the luxury of a hotel, dinner, and a confusing stroll - the square blocks of the city appeared to
have 5 sides, not 4 (was dinner too much?). At a cinema we enjoyed a film & ice cream, &
improved our tourist knowledge of the attractive city next day by teleferique and a good lunch
before re-embarking to Lyon for more sight-seeing , another fine meal, cinema & ice creams.
This busy city had an impressive character, with noble buildings and cathedral, but we left for
industrial Nevers for dinner & a game of chess before bed. August 4th brought us back to Paris,
lunching on the train. We revisited Montmartre, Sacré Coeur & found modest lodgings where the
rickety w.c. collapsed & lacerated Tommy who required & got a local doctor’s attention. We
explored the Bois de Boulogne next morning, the Zoo (unimpressive) and that evening the Opera
- a dull, static “Valkyries”, in French translation. Next day we continued sight-seeing rambles,
café visits in Montmartre, and enjoyed a siesta in the Luxembourg gardens after lunch on Friday.
At dinner in Montparnasse we failed to get frogs’legs but celebrated this last night in France with
champagne.
On August 12th Maurice had left to visit friends near Bordeaux (almost caught by the outbreak of
war, he escaped in a small boat across the Channel). Tommy, Gordon & I took the train to
Dieppe & Newhaven (later my port of departure to France for the “D-Day” Normandy landings).
After another night in my aunt’s flat we lunched in Soho & visited the British Museum. Tommy
caught a hitch-hike in luxury in a Rolls Royce back to Glasgow. Gordon & I continued our
tourist visit to the London area and returned to Glasgow by overnight bus arriving at 4.30 pm on
Tuesday 15th - and so home by tramcar, thrilled by our international experience, warmed &
comforted by the friendliness of our encounters - Germans included. Surely there would be no
war?.
Next day Gordon & I met at the university, paid examinationfees & picked up our social, private
& student lives again. Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st. Next morning I reported to nearby
Pollokshaws Baths as a medical student volunteer to the newly forming First Aid Post in its
basement. In sunshine outside the Baths I listened to a portable radio as Chamberlain spoke and
declared war. From then on I did my best to help in 12 hour night shifts (later 8 hours), taking
part and somtimes providing (more often receiving) training lectures and demonstrations on first
aid and related topics - feeling a bit out of touch without as yet significant clinical experience. On
the radio while on duty I heard that the Athenia had been torpedoed - the first & only liner on
which I had stepped aboard while docked for a few days at the Broomielaw, Glasgow. In the
event, for months of this locally quiet “phoney war” we had no bombing or other casualties (we
rehearsed with a mock air raid on Sept.17th). Nevertheless I stopped my piano lessons as perhaps
frivolous in war (wrong!) & studied for BSc final examinations on night shifts : I duly passed.
We Science-Medicals sought advice from the Dean on what best to do - volunteer for armed
service or what? We were advised to forget our intended 4th Honours year and continue straight
into 3rd year medical studies to qualify as useful as soon as possible - this we did. Mainly
undisturbed nights at the Baths allowed sleep, & I walked home at 6am in fresh morning air for
breakfast and then by local train into town and on to the university by tram or on foot, struggling
to stay awake before lunch break. Simple fair (pie & chips, at the Union, or “Scotch egg”, plus
Swiss Tart or “Scotch Trifle” as occasional luxuries at Hubbard’s or other cafes) saw us on our
way to afternoon classes. Often Gordon & I walked across town to the Royal Infirmary, admiring
Glasgow’s Victorian buildings and such novelties as the window display of the Anarchists’
Association below the City Chambers. Our shoes were filthied by the grime of industrial Glasgow
- a black soup in the usual wet west coast weather. Yet in those days a mild breeze from the west
would bring the scent of bog myrtle into the city, and wild meadows in nearby countryside were a
riot of meadow-sweet and other flowers in season.
My mother buckled down to make the best of rationed foodstuffs & kept my father & me well
nourished with the help of potatoes, lettuces etc. from the garden. I was disappointed to find that
young garden peas were not the same as the delicious petits pois of France! By November I was
back into the routine of studies, clinics, society meetings, occasional dances. I graduated Bsc &
attended the First Aid Post as required (many fellow students did fire-watch duties at the
university or hospitals). My father, like many others, became a part-time air raid warden at his
office. Our air-raid “shelter” at home was “under the stairs” of our solid, stone-built house, but
not yet used as such. Radio (“Wireless”) was a valued source of entertainment, news &
comment. In addition to the trusty BBC, I had long been accustomed to foreign stations, and
found the Swedish news bulletins an interesting extra source of information. Photography was an
active interest as I exploited the capabilities of my SLR Robot camera. Being German, its special
film cassettes were no longer available, but I practiced cutting & loading scrap lengths of 36 mm
cine film in darkness successfully.. My diary records little of note as the year ended. Christmas
day at home would be traditional, and parties at the First Aid Post for Christmas & Hogmanay
ended the prelude to next year’s serious war & studies.
Footnote
Tommy sadly died a few years later.
The others qualified and served in the Navy, or, for myself the R.A.M.C..
In subsequent careers two of us became professors at Glasgow University & Fellows of
this College: Gordon T. Stewart (Public Health) and myself (Infectious Diseases).
Wartime experiences influenced later research activities of Gordon (bacteriology,
penicillin) and Maurice Thomson (heat stress, dyshydrosis & UV exposure: Reader in
Applied Physiology, Univ Unversity of London; & Assistant Professor of Preventive
Medicine, University of Cincinnati) who died in 1981 aged 73