War Memories

Linsey Irvine shares her mother’s memories of her Italian neighbours during the War.  

My Mum lived in Wilkies Lane, Dundee during World War II.   She was a child at this time – age 4-10 years old.  She often spoke to me of her memories of this time.  One particular memory was that when there was an air raid she and her family (her Mum, Grandpa, big brother and baby brother) would go downstairs to the Italian ice cream shop and shelter in their basement.  My Mum remembered the big “buckets” of “ice cream” in the area where they sheltered from the bombs along with Caesar and Mary, the Italian shopkeepers (would have been Cesare and Maria).  She recalls her baby brother being carried downstairs wrapped in a blanket.  Being a child at the time myself when she told me about this, I thought it sounded great to be sheltering beside buckets of ice cream.    

I also recall that my Mum told me that Caesar and Mary’s sons had been sent to the Isle of Man.   

Another memory my Mum told me was that she would go to the shop to buy her sweeties during the war (using ration coupons).  She said she’d spend ages looking at all the different jars of sweeties and Mary would say “hurry up and choose June”.   She always chose the same thing, butternuts, as they lasted the longest.  She never chose chocolate as it didn’t last very long (i.e. when you put it in your mouth it melted quickly, unlike the butternuts or toffee).  I remember eating those butternut sweets myself when I was wee. They were orange.   

My Mum recalls Caesar and Mary’s surname as Zerrecchia or Serrechia.   

I emailed my Uncle (the baby) to ask him if the ice cream shop was maybe in a different street, although underneath their tenement house.  They lived in a flat with an upstairs, including a bathroom (although the bath had been taken out), there was an old range in their main living space which each of the children seemed to have graduated into as one of their cleaning chores as they grew up; had to black lead it, Zeebo the grate.   

My Uncle advises: 

 “It was situated in the Hawkhill right under  our third-floor  rooms,  although our entrance was round the corner in Wilkies Lane.   In case it matters,  the building was right opposite the Princess Cinema.  Further details – round the back of the building,  on way to the back green/wash-house/  air-raid shelter, etc,   I remember that the ice-cream shop had a set of steps going down to a basement below the ground and I well remember seeing a bucket of hot custard cooling on the bottom step,  ready for making the day’s ice-cream.    This was a regular  daily thing.” 

When my Mum spoke of these memories she always spoke with fondness.