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Julie Gilbert • Published 16 Jun 2010 12:00
THE story of a group of people who sheltered in the basement of the Clydebank Co-op building during the Blitz is to be the focus of a documentary.
On that fateful night in March 1941, 300 Bankies were at the Co-op's Hume Street office for a concert to raise funds for soldiers.
But at 9.12pm the air raid sirens sounded.
However, most people thought it was another false alarm - there had already been 40 false alarms in Clydebank in the previous few months - and the show went on.
It was only when glass came crashing into the building that people realised the threat was real and alarm set in.
Many of them decided to take shelter in the basement of the Co-op building and they stayed there all night until the all-clear sounded in the morning.
The story is to take feature centrally in the BBC documentary, which was filmed in Clydebank last week.
Betty Norwood was only 11 when the bombardment hit and she, along with her friend, her mum and her mum's friend were at the concert.
Featuring in the documentary, Betty became quite emotional when she revisited the place where she had sheltered in the Hume Street building - which is now the headquarters of the Co-op funeral department.
She told the Post: "I haven't been in here since I was eleven years of age.
"We were there all night and when we came out the next morning we couldn't believe what we saw."
Clydebank was devastated and Betty can remember making her way through the town with her mother - like thousands of other children - and seeing buildings destroyed and areas still on fire.
Joe Murren, who is the current manager of the funeral department, said the people who sheltered in the Co-op that night were lucky because the building was not badly damaged. He said: "This was the original head office of the Co-op at that time. And there would have been concerts and functions held here.
"The Blitz did have an effect on the Co-op because three of our employees were killed that night."
The BBC Scotland documentary will be airing in March 2011 to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the bombardment.
This article appeared in Clydebank Post 16 Jun 10
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