When the Lights Come on Again (57 page)

‘For both of us,’ he agreed. He held out his hand. ‘Come on, Liz. Let’s go home.’

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Author’s Note
The characters in this story spring from the imagination of the author. Their activities during the Clydebank Blitz are also fictional, but they were inspired by the real-life gallantry of a nurse and a group of medical students who risked their own lives to go to the aid of the injured. Their true story is recounted in I M M McPhail’s definitive
The Clydebank Blitz.

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank Grace Howie, Joen McFarlane and Jean Morrison for telling me of their experiences as wartime nurses. Among many other things, they spoke of being on duty at Rottenrow Maternity Hospital in Glasgow during the Clydebank Blitz, training and working as VADs and living and working in the Western Infirmary as student nurses. Thanks for the yellow liver, Jean!

Andrew Hamilton told me what it was like to be walking up Kilbowie Road as the bombs were dropping. Maisie Nicoll, née Swan, was also in the thick of things.  She gave me many lovely anecdotes, several of which have found their way into this book. All gave me a great deal of information and not a little inspiration.

I should also like to express my thanks to all my writing friends for much help, support and encouragement, particularly my adverbial, medical and spiritual advisers. They know who they are.

When the Lights Come On Again by Maggie Craig

Copyright (c) Maggie Craig 2012

This book was first published in print form

by Headline Publishing.

Original version and this new revised digital edition

(c) 1999 & 2012 by Maggie Craig.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.
This book is a work of fiction. All characters and events within it,

 other than those clearly in the public domain,

 are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons,

 living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The cover of this eBook is from a contemporary photo of the Clydebank Blitz,

‘Leaving Radnor Street’, and is used courtesy of Clydebank Library.

Lyrics from ‘Joe Hill’ written by Earl Robinson and Alfred Hayes (c) 1938

are used by kind permission of MCA Music Limited.

Lyrics from ‘My Wee Gas Mask’ are reprinted by kind permission

of copyright holder James S. Kerr.

Books by Maggie Craig

Fiction

The River Flows On

When the Lights Come on Again

The Stationmaster’s Daughter

The Bird Flies High

A Star to Steer By

The Dancing Days

One Sweet Moment

Non-fiction

Damn’ Rebel Bitches: The Women of the ‘45

Bare-Arsed Banditti: The Men of the ‘45

When the Clyde Ran Red

Footsteps on the Stairs: Tales from Duff House

Contributor to:

Twisted Sisters: Women, Crime and Deviance in Scotland Since 1400

&

The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women

Maggie Craig is the bestselling Scottish author of the ground-breaking and acclaimed
Damn’ Rebel Bitches: The Women of the 45
and several page-turning romantic and historical novels set in Glasgow and Edinburgh.  She comes from a family where writing is considered an entirely normal thing to do and numbers among her forbears Robert Tannahill, the weaver-poet of Paisley.

Visit her website at www.maggiecraig.co.uk

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