Powerful memory

“I have been enjoying listening to the news and watching on television the recollections of the celebrations at the end of the Second World War,” emails Ruth Walker.

“I was born in March 1942, and I still have a powerful memory of being in my pram in our front garden in Brechin, and being absolutely terrified at the noise of aeroplanes overhead, and of my father, rushing out of our house – the manse of the then Maison Dieu Church – to comfort me. I believe the aircraft were housed at nearby Edzell Aerodrome.

“A much happier memory was of later on, sitting upright in a different pram, more like a push chair, and waving my flag amongst a terrific crowd of people celebrating the end of hostilities. During the war years, there were certain perks – I remember food parcels sent from my mother’s relations in Canada.

“I also remember one of my parents telling me that there was a knock on the door on the night of my birth – in all the excitement my parents had forgotten to put the black out boards at the windows. I gather that there were no street lights then, and my mother had been quite scared walking home from a church meeting and hearing the sirens wailing!”

“When I was about 15 years old and a scout patrol leader, we were walking down Blairgowrie High Street with the patrol to attend a camp on the far side of Rattray when a funeral procession came towards us.

“Being unsure what was the right thing to do I asked the patrol to stop, face the street and salute as the procession went passed.”

This canine line-up was at a coffee morning in aid of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association in South Church Hall, Monifieth. Can anyone help with the year?

“This squirrel seems to be waiting patiently for lockdown to end,” says the Forfar reader who sent in the photograph.