Government Work

My father spent the war years at Glasgow University studying medicine. The rule was that if they passed the yearly summer examinations they could go onto the next year. However, during the Summer recess the students would have to take part in what was known as Government work. This involved almost any useful work, from building airfields, farming or forestry and working on the River and Firth of Clyde.

My father spent these periods either building airfields (on the islands of Islay and Tiree) or farming near Perth. My father went back to Islay about 6 years ago to look at the airfield he helped built. He was stunned as he thought it was alot bigger. He remembers spending days on a nearby beach shoveling sand into lorries which would take it to the airfield to be mixed with concrete. He would spend about half an hour in between each lorry sunning himself. The permanent workforce also allowed him to use what my father described as a brick machine. This made concrete slabs. The operator had to wait a while until the brick had sufficiently hardened. However my father was useless at this job, so it was back to shoveling sand on the beach. The workforce used to live in huts situated on the edge of the airfield.

He also went back to Tiree but for a very different reason. After the war my father, graduated, did National Service in the Army in Hong Kong and came back. He began looking for a permanent position as a GP. Before he achieved this he carried out locum GP positions around the West coast of Scotland. One of these locums took him back to Tiree as the doctor for the island.

While there he had to attend to a lady who was seriously ill. He decided that she needed to be flown to the mainland as soon as possible. The RAF were still stationed at the airfield. My father contacted the commander who agreed to his request for an areoplane and hastily made the necessary arrangements. He made arrangements for the lady to be transfered to airfield. As the areoplane was taking off with the patient aboard my father started stamping the ground. The commanding officer, who was standing beside him asked what he was doing. My father told him 'It's a good job I helped build this airfield'. My father said you should have seen the commanding officer's face.

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