There was some ship detained at the mouth of the River Forth and they said it was German, and contained German spies. Everybody was always seeing German spies.. It was just people panicking. Mr Schiffler, the pork butcher, he was taken away and his shop was all boarded up too. I think he was interned. I was vexed about them because I liked Mrs Schiffler, she was a nice old lady but typically German, she’d lived there for years but she couldn’t speak very good English. Mr Schiffler had the German band, they played oompah music — on a Saturday night outside the railway station — and they used to sit with Mr Schiffler with his Tyrolean hat on and play It was such a happy town at the time, before the war started. Then it all changed and there was a very great anti-German feeling, the Germans were the bogeymen and anybody the least bit different was a spy. << less