Description
Mr. MacKay describes the segregation camp in which he was quarantined before being sent to Bramshott.
Donald Finlay MacKay
Donald MacKay was born in Indian Head, Saskatchewan, on April 2, 1897. His father was a pre-Riel homesteader, but Mr. MacKay chose to teach, at age 17, in a one room school. In March 1917, he enlisted in the 249th Battalion at Regina, Saskatchewan. He was sent to Valcartier, Quebec, where he qualified for air force service, but opted to stay in the army. Mr. MacKay was ready to ship out to England, but an epidemic on board saw him quarantined at Camp Aldershot, Nova Scotia. There he took officer training, qualifying as Sergeant. Once assigned to the 46th Battalion, Mr. MacKay served as a Signaller, primarily at Valenciennes. There is no record of his post-service experience. At the time of his interview, Mr. MacKay lived in Wolsely, Saskatchewan.
Transcript
There was a high barbed wire fence around it, or cage wire rather, with barbed wire around the top. It was pretty hard to get out. Pretty hard to get over. They had inside, long buildings. Oh, I suppose it’d be about 20 feet wide and maybe 100 feet long. This is where we slept. And long rows of cots on each side. In our house, I suppose, I don’t know how many there would be . . . 50-60 guys anyhow in one of these buildings. And you had your own little cot which was boards. I remember you couldn’t complain about them, sleeping on these hard boards, or the officer would say, “They weren’t hard boards, they’re softwood!” So, that’s what I had. A cross piece here and a cross piece at the foot and about four boards length ways and that was your bed. And you had your own blankets and you had to make your own bed and tidy it all up in the morning. Then go out and prance around drill in the daytime. You went into a large mess room to eat, and there would be table after table. There would be a . . . at each table there would be room for ten fellas at each side of the table. You’d crowd in there when the bugle went and somebody would dish out the food. Fellas come along with the great big colander of food, meat or stew or something, and slap it on your plate and pass it along down. But, the colander of food, all that I can remember about it was there was a heck of a lot of rabbits. Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit! Well, I never eat rabbits. I remember that, so I passed it up and scrounged around and got some food otherwise. I don’t really remember very much about the food other than that.