Res.1.14 Male resident, age unknown, married, private tenant, male interviewer, 13 February 1961

INTVEE lives in one of the Salvesen houses, of which there are eighty, built for disabled servicemen. Each house has a plaque recording which institution or firm donated the construction money. The organisation which built his house brings him flowers in the summer and a christmas dinner. The houses are now run by the Scottish Veterans Garden City Association and tenants pay the association their rent. His house is four apartment and he pays 15/- a month. He goes to Darnaway Street to pay the rent. He is angry that Salvesen turned the scheme into a limited company and the residents all got rate demands just before christmas. He is satisfied with the house and thinks it is better than most council houses. Residents must be more than fifty percent disabled. His wife has security of tenure if he dies unless she remarries which he thinks is unfair. He thinks there is a spirit of hopelessness about the area, owing to do with the residents all being disabled. He thinks most people want out. There used to be an association which fought for a community hall but was unsuccessful and he feels that a hall would have made a difference, most residents can't go far but could have managed to get to a hall, instead they are just sitting at home. There is some vandalism which he puts down to high spirits and gangs going about because there isn't anywhere for them to go. He was a Japanese prisoner of war and INTVER notes he retains a lot of bitterness and hostility. He says that during his time as a POW they had very little to do except take the bible and politics apart and he realised that most of what he'd been taught or been brought up to believe was not true. He has great faith in education and bought his children two sets of encyclopaedias. He votes Tory. He thinks Labour has it all wrong with fair shares and rationing. He doesn't think there shouldn't be millionaires, just that he wants to be a millionaire too. He doesn't think MPs should be paid. Conservative MPs have the money and connections to be MPs, he doesn't think ordinary people should run the country. Thinks Attlee is a traitor to the working class now he is in the House of Lords. INTVER quotes him as saying "Every man's a Tory really" and when asked about the POW camp he is quoted as saying "One little bowl of rice a day and we had to fight for that unless we knew the guards, but it was the same there, if you knew the guards or the cook you were all right."