On the roof of the lamp factory, 16-year-old Anne Smith trembled as she took her turn as look-out, watching for fires breaking out on the streets below.

“It was frightening, and I was so young,” she recalls, with a quiet laugh. “The war had come to Cardonald and we all had to play our parts.”

Cardonald-born Anne, now in her 90s, worked in the factory – the famous Luma building in Govan, part of the Shieldhall Manufacturing Complex – when she was a teenager during the Second World War.

“When you were 16 you were considered a senior, so you could work until 9pm and you had to do firewatching,” she says.

“I was scared, but you got extra money for doing it, so everyone wanted to take their turn.”

Anne joined dozens of other local residents at our recent Thanks for the Memories event in Cardonald Library, sharing stories and old photographs of the area in days gone by.

Through our regular library drop-in events, which have now taken place all over the city, and our letters page and email banks, we are compiling a fantastic archive of stories and pictures, all dedicated to the city we love.

The light bulb factory was the Glasgow headquarters of the British Luma Co-operative Electric Lamp Society Ltd and the distinctive building, with its testing tower, was intended as a symbol of the Empire Exhibition which took place in Bellahouston Park in 1938.

Anne recalls the Empire Exhibition in all its glory.

“It was fantastic,” she says.

“I remember the king and queen – George VI and Queen Mary, that would have been – passing the end of our street in the procession, and all the crowds that had come out to watch.

“It was quite a day.”

READ MORE: Times Past: Take a look at these old pictures of Glasgow

Anne’s parents – her dad, Bob, who was an engineer at Fairfield’s shipyard and her mum, Annie – tried to prepare the family for the air raids.

“My dad used to tell us if we heard the sirens just to lie flat on the floor” she says.

“It was terrifying! My mother had a bad chest, and my dad worried a lot about her, when she had to go to the Anderson shelter in the back garden.

Anne, who came along to the event with her grandson’s partner Anne Currie, recalls the way Cardonald changed after the war.

“There had been no shops up until then – they built all those houses, but didn’t give us any shops,” she smiles.

“I remember an old man used to come round the houses on a bicycle, selling toffee and macaroon.

“When the shops came, though, they were great – my favourites were the sweetie shop and Riddick’s the paper shop – in those days, you got sent for your dad’s cigarettes. This was a dry area, for many years – the men had to go to Govan for a drink.”

Anne Walker lived in Cardonald 53 years ago, with her husband Ian, who was a police officer in the local station.

“It was a lovely place to bring up a family,” she recalls.

“I remember coming to the library, and there were lovely shops. It was a place full of community spirit too.”

Gary McHugh lived in Cardonald in the 1970s, before spending three years working as a submarine weapons engineer in the Royal Navy.

“It was an amazing place to live – back then, everyone was very polite and well-mannered,” he explains. “I went to Cardonald Primary and it was the best – our head teacher, Mrs Riddell was a wonderful woman.”

Over the next few weeks, Thanks for the Memories will be bringing you more Cardonald stories. Did you live in the area? Do you have old photos and stories to share?

Share your memories by emailing ann.fotheringham@heraldandtimes.co.uk or write to Ann Fotheringham, Features Desk, 200 Renfield Street, Glasgow G2 3QB.