Mrs Flora Macdonald Garry (1900-2000) Poet and writer in the Buchan dialect

Excerpt from an interview recorded on 4th January 1986 by Elizabeth Olson. Here Flora Garry describes her reaction to hearing that WWI had ended and coming first in an English exam.

Listen to this extract

I - And was there public rejoicing at the armistice time. I mean, you remember your personal episode of the Professor telling you that the war had ended and your essay, but were there...?

FG - What I do remember is the class was dismissed and by myself I walked to the Bridge of Don and walked along the beach with nobody. I didn't want anybody there at all because I had to come to terms with a few things. One of them was the end of the war and the other was having done so well in this essay. And I just walked along the beach all by myself and thought now that's the war over, what's the world going to be like? Will there be big changes? How am I going to do in this University? Is it going to be better or what? And you'd a feeling of hopefulness and you were afraid, and you had no idea what the country would be like, whether it would be a land fit for heroes or not.

I - Or not, yes.

FG - So that was my personal … And then I went home to my digs and that was, I don't remember, there must have been rejoicings in Union Street, I've no doubt there were but I didn't go.

<Back