An exert from a series of stories published on my website at http://www.yourstruly-mp3.comStories follow the life and times of a young girl growing up in Glasgow, Scotland duringthe post-war period.Into the LightGood evening and welcome listeners. Thank you so much for dropping by to listen to myvery first attempt at pod casting. I am sure I have still a lot to learn about the process butthat is half the fun, isn’t it? At my age, which places me amongst the dinosaurs, time isrunning out so I think I best learn quickly.I hope that I can find some amusing and maybe not so amusing antidotes to entertain you.My pod casts will be recalling events in my life, which span over half a century, and whichI think you may like to hear about. I won’t be telling you about how I climbed MountEverest or survived the swamplands in South America, not that I ever did mind you, butnonetheless, in mediocre fashion, I shall do my best to make my talks interesting.I was born and raised in Glasgow which is situated on the west coast of Scotland. A cityrenowned for its ship building yards on the River Clyde and of course, everyone who livedin that area knew exactly where the Singer Sewing Machine factory was. It was a large,red brick building which seemed so out of place towering over the grey stoned tenement blocks. If you stuck an Indian tepee in the middle of Trafalgar Square, that is how out of place it looked. On the whole, most men folk worked in the shipyards and their womenfolk found employment within Singers.My memories of Glasgow are of grey clouds hanging over grey, dirty tenement buildingswith scruffy children, including myself, playing in scruffy streets. Ofcourse that was post-war Glasgow which still bore the scars of Luftwaffe bombings from World War 2. It was bad enough that people were living in sub-standard accommodation but now they weresurrounded by bombed out sites, literally on their own doorstep. I re-visited Glasgow

several years ago and was pleasantly surprised, if not astonished, to find it a rejuvenatedand vibrant city filled with happy faces, not the down trodden ones, trapped in near poverty conditions, that I remember as a child.Glasgow’s young men who enlisted or were called up into the Armed Services during the1950’s usually ended up in the Army or the Navy. I can never remember seeing an airmandressed in RAF uniform myself, so it was quite a surprise to me when my best friend toldme that she was writing to a penpal, a chap in the RAF who was serving overseas. I can’tremember exactly how she came to find this penpal. It must have been out of one of thosegirlie magazines she was always buying. You know the sort of thing - love stories whichalways had a happy ending, how to walk like a model, how to style your hair so youlooked like Rita Hayworth, how in invisibly darn your denier stockings etc etc.Well, it eventually came about that my friend’s penpal was coming home to the UK onleave and wanted to meet up with her. He was bringing back with him his RAF buddywho just so happened to lived in Clydebank. Luckily for him, his mate’s parents would put him up for a few days so he would have ample opportunity to get to know my friend.I was pleased for her because she had had a run of bad luck with boyfriends up until then.The last boyfriend had taken off like a jack rabbit - either through embarrassment or scared out of his wits. Jiving for all her worth down at the local Locarno Ballroom oneSaturday night, her pumped up bra deflated on one breast whilst the other remainedsomething similar to that I have seen worn by Madonna - you know, that infamouscostume she wore with pointed breasts. Anyway, you must remember those bras…….there was a little tube you pulled out and blew up to make any cup size you desired. Oh!She was into all sorts of things like that my friend - I put it down to reading too many of those girlie books myself.When arrangements had been made to meet up with her penpal come boyfriend, he askedif he could bring his friend along and could she fix him up with a date. That blind dateturned out to be me. I had a steady boyfriend at the time but thought going out on one blind date, just to help a friend out, was not a problem. No hanky panky or anything likethat you understand - just a trip to the cinema as a foursome, fish and chips later and thenhome………no problem.How wrong I was………little did I know at the time but I was on the point of meeting myfuture husband.Mum was so impressed when I told her I had been out with an Aircraftsman from theRoyal Air Force. “He’s not only an Aircraftsman, Mum, but he’s a Senior one too. In myown naïve way, I had visions of him running a Squadron of aircraft or maybe on first nameterms with his Station Commander. It was a bit of a come down to learn that a Senior Aircraftsman was the 3

lowest rank in the RAF but that didn’t change my feelings for him………I was in love, truly, madly in love: definitely .