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| Adolf Hitler's Arrival at Balmoral Oil on canvas 107cms x 137cms 2024 |
My mother and father were married in September 1939, the day before Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. This was not an auspicious moment.
Men were being draughted into the armed forces but my father was twenty five years old and as the youngest were being conscripted first he would have to wait until his turn came.
At first, nothing much happened and he kept working on his poultry farm at Whinnynow, About a month later, on the 16th October, he noticed a few aircraft buzzing about. This was nothing unusual, but looking up the Firth of Forth to the Queensferry Narrows he saw the black specs of enemy aircraft diving on the warships moored on the Forth. This was the first enemy air raid of World War II on the British mainland. To the many civilian onlookers this seemed a confused, straggling sort of affair and nobody seemed to know when it began or ended. It went down in popular mythology as an attack on the Forth Bridge and to the passengers of the train who passed over it they must have seemed to be the prime target. However, Hitler's deep, secret desire was to invade Russia and he was keen on doing a deal with Britain to prevent a war on two fronts. The German airmen were instructed to avoid civilian targets and sink the warships in the Firth of Forth. They failed in this but near misses killed sixteen sailors and forty four were wounded. Two of the raiders were shot down by the Spitfires of the auxiliary airmen based at Turnhouse and Drem with some of the German aircrew being rescued by local fishing boats at the mouth of the Forth.
For ordinary civilians life settled into what was called the Phoney War. This changed in May 1940 when Germany invaded Holland and Belgium and to the shocked surprise of the Allies, launched their main attack of armoured divisions through the Ardennes. Events unfolded with increasing rapidity. The Royal Navy managed to evacuate the bulk of the British Army from Dunkirk by 4th June with France surrendering on the 22nd. This was an astounding and terrifying turn of events with the Nazis now controlling the coastline from northern Norway to the south of France. An attempt to invade Britain now seemed possible.
This is an old story that has been told many times but it's often forgotten the sheer frustration and incandescent anger felt by most of the British people. Some of this was directed at their own government and the appeasers who had left Britain weak and allowed this to happen. The vast majority of peace loving people now wanted to grab a gun and do something about it.
As these dramatic events were unfolding, on the 14th of May, my father was on the chicken farm listening to an important announcement on the radio. Antony Eden, the Secretary of State for War, asked men who were not already in the police or armed services to join a new organisation called the Local Defense Volunteers, (later to become the Home Guard). My father immediately jumped on his bike and sped down the hill and reported to Burntisland police station.
"I'd like to join this new unit that's being formed, the Local Defense Volunteers."
"Never heard o' it son. Whit's that?"
"It's just been announced on the radio. They're looking for men."
"Och well then, I'd better tak yer name and address."
The Government recond they needed half a million men to fulfill the tasks they'd be allotted. In a week they had half that number and by July one and a half million had signed up. Unfortunately there were few guns or uniforms so it took some time before they were equipped and trained.
Everyone knew that Adolf Hitler was a bogey man but in 1940 there were others. In the public imagination and popular press there was fear of the fifth columnist, the paratrooper who fell from the sky or the spy who came ashore from submarine or sea plane. With the threat of invasion everyone was jumpy and on edge, especially at night in the intense darkness of the blackout.
One dark night my father was patrolling the beach promenade at Burntisland. His companion was, to use my fathers term, a bit 'windy', that is, liable to easily take fright. They were probably armed with their L.D.V. armbands and my fathers air rifle which he kept on the chicken farm to shoot vermin. There was no wind and the sea was calm, the only noise came was the gentle hissing of the stationary docks shunting locomotive which stood on the siding behind them. Suddenly they heard the splashing of water, as if someone was wading ashore. They strained their eyes in the darkness and a horrible, glistening, naked white shape began to appear. His pall grabbed my father by the arm.
"What is it? What is it? What'll we do? What'll we do?"
My father raised the rifle to his shoulder and shouted.
"HALT! WHO GOES THERE?"
"Dinnae shoot! Dinnae shoot! I'm the engine driver. I've just been in for a dook."
When my fathers call up papers arrived he sold the chicken farm and went off to be a soldier. By this time he was a parent as my sister Ann was born in 1940. He was posted to an English infantry regiment, but eventually selected out to join the Royal Corps of Signals. This was a bit of luck for he found that everywhere he was sent the shooting war had moved on. One of the few possessions I have of his is a slim volume he carried in his kit bag called BRITHERS A', a minute a day with Burns by Peter Esslemont. Inside he had written,
Sign. J.W. Gray
480 9535 1942
Then when he was back home in 1946 wrote,
This owner and book have travelled through the following countries.
Gibraltar
Oran
N. Africa
Italy
France
Egypt
Palestine
Syria
Lebanon
Transjordan
In later life he had no desire to travel abroad and we didn't go much further than Pitlochry or visit his brother in Manchester.
I was born in 1947 and by the time I was a teenager read many books about the war and began to think that I too would need to fight. After all, my grandfather was regular army and fought in world war I and my father in the second world war. It seemed to be a generational thing although the advent of nuclear weapons appeared to make the survival of humanity unlikely. I was fortunate that National Service ended in 1960 as I saw this type of military duty as lost years of harassment and humiliation which I was getting enough of at school.
World War 2 cast a long shadow over my generation and much of the popular movies, books and comics dealt with experience of the recent war. It was impossible to escape this. In many ways it was a great source of pride, but also a huge puzzle. I often wondered what would have happened if the Battle Of Britain had gone badly and Britain had been invaded. As far as I know the plan was for the Royal Family and Government to sail for Canada with most of the Royal Navy and set up a Government in exile there. It is highly probable that Hitler would re-install the abdicated Edward VIII as puppet monarch as he was a known Nazi sympathizer.
In this painting Adolf Hitler and Herman Goering have been invited to Balmoral. Hitler is about to inspect an honour guard of newly recruited Scottish Nazis. Unaccustomed to the skirl of the bagpipes, Goering stuffs his fingers in his ears. However, there is hope. The Braemar and Ballater Community Resistance Group has arranged a welcome of their own.
