Glasgow man's remarkable photos capture wartime exploits

The quirky shot of a Daschund on a Messerschmidt will make you smile, and all the glorious chaos of a family camping holiday is captured in the picture of kids, pets and a very soggy tent…

These are David McMenemy’s wonderful photos from his days serving as RAF ground crew in the Second World War, and his family life at home in Glasgow.

His daughter Davida McEwan got in touch to share them with Times Past.

“It would be lovely to donate them somewhere, so they can be properly looked after,” she says.

“I have all of my dad’s old photos, he loved to take pictures.

“During the war, he’d barter for film from the reconnaissance guys, and develop them all himself.”

David was a painter and decorator when he left school, before he was called up to do his National Service.

“He and my mum, Nan, were together before he had to go off to war, and by the time he came back, he discovered she had had a baby with another man, who had left her,” explains Davida.

“It’s a romantic story – my dad still loved her, and did not want to abandon her and this little boy, so he asked her to marry him.

“They rushed up to see the minister at Jordanvale Church, who wasn’t allowed to open the church because of the war, so he married them on the steps.”

Davida smiles: “You can see it on the marriage certificate, that they needed ‘special exemption’ to do it. There were no photos of the day, it was all done so quickly, on December 27, 1944.”

Davida was born 10 months later, and it was not until many years had passed that she and her brother Billy, and their other brother Alex and sister Morag, discovered David was not Billy’s biological father.

Over the years, David would tell stories of his time in North Africa during the war.

“He had lunch with the King and Churchill in the desert,” smiles Davida, who lives in Bishopbriggs. “They served corned beef.

“He used to tell us too, about having to get washed with one cup of water, because water was so scarce. We would laugh and tell him he was talking rubbish because as children, we could not imagine for a second having to do that.”

After the war, David worked as a signwriter, and for BBC Scotland both at its HQ on Queen Margaret Drive in the west end and in London.

“He was a scenic designer and produced some beautiful sets for the BBC – I remember a Roman villa, for one, with fantastic columns and fancy doors he would create with special paint effects,” says Davida.

“He used to take us in to the building and my daughter got to appear on Top of the Pops in the days when Pan’s People danced on the show.

“She was wearing a red polka dot dress and had a red ribbon in her hair and when she looks at it now, she just groans.”

David died 16 years ago, just a few years after his wife.

“They had a colourful life together and loved each other very much,” says Davida.

“It is lovely to look back at all the photos.

“I think my favourite is this priceless photo from a camping trip, back in 1945, when we lived in Carntyne. Dad had bought a big ex-army tent from the surplus store, and most of our holidays were camping in Oban.

“One year we were completely flooded out of the site - it took everyone to get the sodden tent on to the top of our old banger to get it home, it was so heavy with the water.”

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She adds: “I have a fantastic photo, of Billy in ‘hairy trousers’ with a bare chest and braces, the ropes of the tent covered in washing, the big pram, which had many uses, not just carting children around or washing to the steamie…

“It absolutely captures what that whole era was like.

“So many happy memories, and they all come back looking at my dad’s photos.”

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