Norwegians in Neilston

When a Norwegian tourist appeared in Neilston two years ago looking for information about a camp in which a relative had lived after surviving a dramatic wartime sea rescue, it was the talk of the East Renfrewshire village.

Word of the Scandinavian’s brief, and sadly fruitless, visit to the village reached Joyce Wallace who works in Neilston Community Library.

“Unfortunately the Norwegian was unable to find out anything about the camp’s location, as no one asked seemed to know about its existence,” said Joyce.

This intrigued the library assistant and led Joyce on a year long mission to research on the internet, the mysterious camp and to find out more about the story behind it.

On April 29th, Joyce gave an excellent talk in Neilston Library about this research and some of the amazing things she discovered. Joyce learned that on Friday 21 February 1945, a convoy of 38 merchant ships accompanied by Liberty ship SS Henry Bacon, transporting Norwegian over 500 civilians to Scotland from Russia was attacked by 23 German bombers.

The SS Henry Bacon sank and many of the crew sacrificed their lives to save the civilians, all of whom were rescued.

The Norwegians were then brought to Scotland and nearly all were housed at Kingston Hostel in Neilston. They stayed in the village for about six months before being returning home when the war ended.

It is not known if any of the Norwegians stayed on in Scotland and married local people. The camp stood in the area around the village’s Harelaw Avenue, Kingston Avenue and Double Hedges Road and all that remains of the camp’s 50 buildings is an old hut in Kingston playing fields which for years was used as a changing facility.

Joyce added: “It really is a fascinating story and amazingly very few of the younger generation in the village know about the camp although when the Norwegian tourist came searching for information and the word got out it jogged the memories of some of our older residents and they came forward with their reminiscences.”

Joyce can be contacted on 0141 577 4981 or by email on Neilston.Library@eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk

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Podcast of the talk

Listen to the podcast of the Library talk.