INT: Tell me if you look back on your time here in Scotland what would you say were the high points for you?
SH: Probably acceptance. Nobody ever asked me…….they thought I was just foreign, you know. But I could have been Italian or Spanish or…
INT: That makes sense.
SH: …or whatever. Is that right?
M: Well, what, when you’re being asked about high points, what significant events, anything…?
SH: I don’t know. You were born.
M: I mean you used to have good fun.
SH: Yes. And we knew a wide selection of intelligent people; you know sort of, that we dealt with. It’s difficult to…
M: Well we used to have things like a bonfire party every year.
SH: Yes, every year and every year the same people came.
M: But it was good fun, you know.
SH: Yes. And they were all sort of intellectually there.
INT: Well that’s….
INT: Well the West End of Glasgow is a good place…
SH: Oh absolutely, absolutely. That we never came across you was sort of…
INT: I was in the West End.
SH: You weren’t in the West End.
INT: I was, oh yes.
M: Well mum didn’t live in the West End; they lived in Gartocharn for a while.
SH: We lived in…
M: …And also in Helensburgh.
INT: Oh yes.
SH: And then we came back to Glasgow. It didn’t, it didn’t suit anymore when everybody left to go to university and so forth. It didn’t suit anymore to live in the sticks.
INT: When did you come to this house?
SH: Oh about fifty years ago.
INT: As long as that?
INT: And do you feel Scottish now? Or…?
SH: Am I Scottish now?
INT: Are you Scottish now?
SH: No.
INT: No. What are you would you say?
SH: No. I couldn’t tell you what I am, but I certainly am not Scottish and I’m not in favour of what they’re going to do in Scotland. But I am on my own in this opinion.
INT: Well I don’t think you’re on your own in this opinion but you’re probably on your own in your unique number of nationalities. So you must be partly…
INT: You’re a mixture.
INT: Partly Czech, partly German, partly Polish.
SH: Yes.
INT: It’s quite a big mixture.
SH: Yes. Are you in favour of Scotland becoming Scotland?
INT: Certainly not.
SH: Oh good.
INT: Certainly not.
SH: Thank you.
M: You can come back again.
INT: Certainly not. I think maybe I’ll ask you one more question if I may? Were there…? What would you say were the low points? I asked you about high points in your life, what would you say were low points? Or, fortunately, have you avoided them after 1939?
M: Bad things that happened or difficult times…
SH: No, no I really can’t think of any low points.
INT: Well that’s excellent.
INT: Being on that boat looking for the passport – that must have been a low point?
SH: But no I can’t think of any terribly high points or terribly low points. The high points are easier to find but the low points, I just can’t think of any. I mean you quarrel with your family but that’s…
INT: That’s normal.
SH: That’s normal. Let’s eat these.
INT: Thank you very much for speaking to us.
SH: Then we might be able to get a cup of tea.
INT: Yes I think we’re in time for a cup of tea. Thank you very much for speaking to us.
SH: It was a pleasure.
