Rutherglen woman's VE Day tribute as Glasgow marks 80th anniversary

Glasgow Times

06-05-2025

This week marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
Eileen's family was 'one of the lucky ones', says her daughter, Dorothy, because they emerged from the Second World War unscathed.
'They lived on Victoria Street, which was a very dangerous position, opposite the railway and near to the River Clyde and Dalmarnock Power Station, all prime bombing targets for the German air force,' explains Dorothy.
There had been near misses, though, she adds.
'On March 13, 1941, my mum had just arrived home from firewatching in Woolworth's on Rutherglen Main Street, when the sirens went off,' says Dorothy.
'As she heard the whistle of bombs being dropped, she threw herself on top of her mother, who was sitting under the archway of the kitchen door, and her sister Bessie dived under the kitchen table.'
Jack and Eileen Connor on their wedding day (Image: Courtesy of Dorothy Connor)
She adds: 'There was an official air raid shelter opposite the house, but it was considered more dangerous as it was nearer the railway.
'Folk in the upstairs tenements came down and stood in the closes. The men usually went outside to see what they could but on this night, they threw themselves to the ground as another bomb whistled and thudded down.
'My mum saw the German plane in the searchlights. He dropped the rest of his bombs and got away.'
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That night – which became known as the Clydebank Blitz though it also affected many areas of Glasgow – there was considerable loss of life in the city, says Dorothy.
'Kent Street, near to the Barras, Allan Street, near the Power Station and in Dryburgh Avenue, Rutherglen…' she adds. 'Rutherglen Academy was also hit.
'It wasn't just the nighttime raids people feared. My mum remembered seeing two planes involved in a dog fight near the railway when she was going home in her lunch hour.'
Rutherglen Town Hall became an emergency centre in the aftermath of the Clydebank Blitz giving temporary shelter and food to those who had lost everything.
'My mum, who was a supervisor in Woolworth's, remembered one woman wandering round the store in a daze, her clothes in tatters,' she says. 'All her family had been killed.
'Shop staff made tea and gave what comfort they could.'
Jack Connor (Image: Courtesy of Dorothy Connor)
A world away in Burma, Jack Connor - a royal artillery gunner, deep in the thick of the fighting in the jungle against the Japanese, wrote a letter home.
'Is the Town Hall still so ancient and rugged, is the Odeon still so clean and majestic?' he wrote. 'I imagine that if one were away for a decade things would still remain the same. I hope that Ru'glen's wee roon red lums reek briskly as always.'
It was August 15, 1945 before Victory in Japan Day (VJ Day) was declared, and the war in the Far East was over. Jack returned to Rutherglen, and to his job as a hospital engineer at the Southern General (now the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital) in Govan, in April 1946.
A clippie celebrates on VE Day in 1945 (Image: Newsquest)
Jack Connor and Eileen Kelly met on Hogmanay 1947, and they were married exactly a year later. Sadly Jack died in 1990 and Eileen in 2010.
On VE Day in 1945, there was dancing in the streets everywhere (Image: Newsquest)
On VE Day, 80 years ago, people danced in huge ring-o'-roses circles stretching the entire length of Rutherglen Main Street, around George Square, and all over the city, as the lights came on again.
Dorothy adds: 'In 2015 I was privileged to speak and sing at a VE Day event in Rutherglen Library where once again the townspeople joined hands and remembered those we lost.
'Those of us who have lived our whole lives in peace can perhaps pause for a moment and remember that in cities, towns and villages all over the country, we are all walking in the footsteps of the bravest of the brave.'
Dorothy's book Home Town Tales is on sale at Rutherglen Town Hall and Rutherglen Library and will be reprinted next year in time for the Royal Burgh's 900th anniversary, along with her new book, Time Travellers Tales.