Did More Work Than Any Three of Us says Warden " The providence of God was certainly with our people, for the damage caused was infinitesimal to what might have been caused," said the chaplain of a South-West Scottish town when he discussed with me an air-raid on his parish in which a working-class tenement dwelling was hit by a heavy calibre bomb dropped by a lone raider.
This priest has become a local hero. Those who saw in a priest only someone who would wait in the background until those desiring his ministrations were brought to him, received something of a shock when Fr. X, one of the first to arrive on the scene, ran to the top of the pile of debris and began to work.
A NATURAL LEADER
Father X, who is over six feet in height, worked like a Trojan with the A.R.P. men. Sweat poured off his face, his clothing was caked with dirt, while he pulled aside loads of debris in his search for the injured,
" We at once recognized him as a natural leader." a warden told me. " He did more work than any three of us. And we put all the valuables we found in his custody. Your priests do not waste much lime. Within ten minutes there were four here," The priest told me of one of his parishioners, living across the street from the tenement, who had had what seemed a miraculous escape. This lady had a great devotion for the Sacred Heart and St. Teresa and had dedicated her home to them, She was working at a window when it was blasted in on top of her. Yet she did not receive even a tiny cut,
In another home a heavy door was blasted
through the house. With almost uncanny accuracy it missed everyone. The bomb actually fell on a part of the building which was practically empty at the time of the raid THE FUNNY SIDE And there was humour, too. A henhouse was blasted over by the detonation of a bomb, Minutes afterwards a majestic old hen strutted out and began a tour of inspection. She probably knew nothing of Nazism, but her cluckings ran the whole gamut of outraged feeling.
Then there was the policeman who, inspecting where his neatly laid-out kitchen garden had been said angrily, " the hest patch of rhubarb in the county blasted by these bluepencil Nazis."
Three Catholics were among the injured. Latest reports state that they are progressing well towards a complete recovery.