I was terrified!
Recorded 3 years ago
About this recording
Sheila Moir was born in 1933 and lived for the first eleven years of her life in the Shore House in Scarfskerry. At the age of three her father taught her to read and write.
When the approaching war was being talked about, Sheila knew little of what might happen during wartime. She remembers the German planes flying over the house while she lay terrified, although her parents went out to watch the planes.
This childhood fear continued when there was thunder and lightning and Sheila would chase the dog out from under the table so she could hide there.
On another occasion Sheila's mother spotted a mine in the Pentland Firth and hoped that if it
passed Scarfskerry Head they would all be okay. Luckily it came ashore on a small stretch of sand. When the men came to make it safe, Sheila was to be sent to her Granny in Barrock, but refused so she could see what was happening. Only later did she realise that this precaution was for her safety.
A 'tied' house was quite common and Sheila recalled that her granny and grandad lived in a 'tied' house in Dunnet, which had to be given up when her grandad died. Granny then went to live with her son George, and Sheila at the age of three would go on Willie Allan's bus from Scarfskerry to Dunnet. She would get off at the shop where she was met by her granny.
In later life Sheila became a bus conductress and she says that this Willie Allan was still driving buses.
Sheila's other granny lived in Barrock and that was where Sheila would go at weekends. Here her aunt Minnie would tell her stories which would turn into nightmares of Sheila being captured by the Germans, or by wolves, or falling over the rocks.
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