Clydesiders at War by Margaret Thomson Davis is the last book in her Clydeside/Gourlay trilogy. The book begins in 1939 and the Gourlay family has just discovered that Wincey’s parents are still alive, it’s all a bit of a shock to them, but worse than that, the international news is not looking good. Surely there can’t be another war with Germany, after all it’s just over 20 years since the end of the ‘war to end all wars’.

Wincey ends up splitting her time between the Gourlays and her own parents, but everyone is busy anyway as Wincey is running the factory which has contracts to make shirts for the army, and everyone else is ‘doing their bit’ nursing, fire watching and such.

I enjoyed this series which is set in the industrial west of Scotland – Glasgow and Clydebank – which were targetted by the Luftwaffe because of the shipyards on the River Clyde. It all feels authentic as the civilians staying at home end up having a worse time of it than their menfolk who are in the armed forces do. Many servicemen survived the war, but their families didn’t.