Comments

'And finally, not everyone’s being doing topical. In fact, here’s the rather lovely 6 Oxgangs Avenue devoted to the history of the development of the area, this week highlighting how the block of flats came into being. Could have been prompted by Who do you think you are? Or just a timely reminder that not everything worth blogging about is in the here and now.'

Kate Higgins, Scottish Roundup 26/08/2012



Thursday 31 October 2019

Halloween - it's Better to Light a Candle than to Curse the Darkness


Photograph William Warby

Back in the 1960s, moving toward Halloween, we used to take ‘neeps’ from the local farmers' fields at Dreghorn, Hunters Tryst and Swanston to be carved out as lanterns. Stealing from the farmer could be challenging - to escape from him might involve a long run along an open road such as from the former Polo Fields and if he was on his tractor, well the turnips would be too cumbersome and heavy to hold on to as they slowed you down, so we would hide them in a ditch to collect them later.
Making lanterns from these root vegetables was the main way that Halloween was marked at ‘The Stair’. I can recall Boo-Boo Hanlon (6/7 Oxgangs Avenue) and Iain Hoffmann sitting (6/2) atop the back shed roof toiling over their lanterns: making the lanterns was hard going because the neeps were often rock hard in the centre unlike the more fleshy pumpkins that have become so prominent in the shops over the past twenty years.
Another thing in favour of pumpkins is they don't give off the same pungent smell that emanates from neep lanterns and candles.
Guising became much more prominent in Oxgangs during the latter part of the 1960s and I can recall some of the kids from the Stair and their pals from numbers 2, 4 and 8 Oxgangs Avenue going door to door, where they picked up a few bob. However, their costumes were nothing compared to today; occasionally some of the kids were imaginatively dressed up, particularly with some make up, but I'm afraid the standard fare was a bed-sheet and a tea-towel on your head, to pass yourself off as an Egyptian!
But we had masks too which offered some creative potential to work with. In the very early days the masks were made of a paper come cardboard material akin to an egg box, but the drawback was that with wear and tear they swiftly became detached from the elastic band: but as the decade progressed, plastic masks became more popular, eventually replacing them.


Halloween has a long and fascinating tradition - a mix of All Hallows Eve; a celebration of the end of the harvest; the passing of summer into winter and so on. Lanterns were important - they were left on gate-posts, in windows or door-ways, to guide folk back home from the fairs and festivities; then there was Jack'O'Lantern in Somerset with allusions to the flickering lights in the marshes signifying the souls of unbaptised children.


I'm glad that at Oxgangs we followed in the long tradition of lanterns - there's something very special about providing a light in the darkness and I very much subscribe to the philosophy that it's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.


Monday 21 October 2019

Fallen But Not Forgotten - the Number 16 Bus '655' Accident


A small update on Robert Law's remembrance of the fallen Number 16 bus.


The 16 bus that toppled over on the 18th June 1975 was a Leyand PD3 with Alexander body and registered ASC 655B. Here’s a photo of the bus that came a cropper at Oxgangs on Wednesday 18th June 1975; it appeared on the front cover of Buses Magazine; the bus was subsequently scrapped.

The Edinburgh Evening News for the day said nine were hurt in the accident - a lorry hit the bus as it turned right from Oxgangs Road North and into Oxgangs Avenue. Interestingly it wasn't actually the accident which resulted in '655' being scrapped. The crane sent out to get the bus managed to distort its offside doing so and that was enough to put '655' off the road for good.


The inimitable Douglas Blades (6/6 Oxgangs Avenue) comments: 'Our father, Charles Blades, was shaving at the side window in the large bedroom and that window looked out towards the junction. I wasn't in at the time but the story was related later. He exclaimed to our mother, ‘Helen, that bus is toppling over – or words to that effect!'

The Boy With A Green Pistol and the Felled Number 16 Bus!

Hello Mr Hoffmann,

I hope this email finds you well. 

I saw your article a few years ago about an Oxgangs bus incident and was going to contact you, but just never got round to it. I hope I don't annoy you by going over this story. 

On a short break from Dumfries to the Jurys Inn in Edinburgh next to Waverley Station back in November 2014, my future wife and I had been doing a bit of sight seeing and had taken a few good photos up at Calton hill and the Folly. We had worked up a good appetite and were now getting ready for evening dinner. While Judith was having a shower I happened to look out the window onto an arch bridge on Waterloo Place; when you see it at night it's well lit underneath with colourful lights and you could see the vehicles on top travelling to and from Princes Street.

I recollected travelling up from Dumfries visiting my Nana Law at Oxgangs back in the 70s. (It would have been on the 18th June 1975 - Peter Hoffmann). I remembered clearly when I was about 4 years old walking with my dad down, I think I am right in saying 'Colly Mains Road' as they call it (Colinton Mains) and past R. Drummond the Chemist to a toy shop where my dad bought me a bright green water pistol. 

We walked back to my Nana's (Nana Law also known as Angie Law) the long way and instead of going in at the bottom of the hill at the chip shop and Scotmid end we walked further up where we saw a toppled double-decker bus that had taken down a fence at the side of a church. My dad and I went to my Nana's house and picked up his camera and went back round the corner where he took a photo that he would keep in his wallet for the rest of his life, a picture of me grinning, holding a bright green water pistol beside a bus on its side that had some recovery men at it.

'Honestly officer, I didn't shoot the number 16 bus down!'
Robert Law aged 4 in front of the toppled 16 bus

I had an early fascination with anything mechanical especially buses, I grew up to take an apprenticeship mechanic job with Western Scottish buses in Dumfries in 1987 and spent nearly 17 years there. It must have been in my blood. My papa from Edinburgh was a precision Engineer for the water board and one of his sons Alistair Law who had also stayed nearby my nana in Oxgangs in one of the flats worked as a lorry driver for Texaco. 

I decided to go onto the internet and see if there was any information on the toppled bus hoping that I might find something about it. I came across your blog "The Stair" that seemed interesting to me as it was about Oxgangs, a place that held a lot of memories from my childhood. 

I read on further and it mentioned someone looking out from across the road witnessing a bus starting to topple, I searched further and it took me to the picture of Ian Allan's "Buses Illustrated" magazine issue number 177 December 1964  2/6, and with a shiver down my spine read that this was the toppled bus. It was photographed brand new on its first day in service  sitting at the bus stop facing Princes Street, on the bridge on Waterloo Place, just as I was looking at the bridge. 

To make things more special for me and my memories about my dad twho came from Edinburgh and subsequently passed away in 2006 with a picture of a wee boy holding a bright green water pistol beside a double-decker bus on its side in his wallet,  

I went onto Amazon and found as advertised in excellent condition from a collector a single copy of Ian Allan's "Buses Illustrated" magazine, issue number 177 from December 1964 priced at 2/6 showing the bus on the bridge that I was looking at from my window of a hotel bedroom window, and proudly have it to this day along with my dad's old wallet.

Thanks for having the article on the internet for me to find. 

Robert Law.


Tuesday 3 September 2019

Follow That Dream - The Oxgangs Broadway Pioneers

'Mary (Ball) at the Broadway'

When you are young you accept the world as it is. And that it must always have been thus.

From a young age I used to go up the hill (Oxgangs Street) regularly to the (Oxgangs) BroadwayInitially, I would be sent for messages and when older it would also be of my own volition too. Probably this was from the age of only three or four.   

Britain was famously called a nation of shopkeepers and even today it remains a dream occupation for many people.

Growing up in the area I never really considered that the shops at Oxgangs Broadway had not always existed, whereas they would have been built around the mid 1950s.

And of course behind each and every business venture there was an individual and a human story - a tale of individuals seeking out an entrepreneurial opportunity and actively taking the risk of following your dream - a dream of making it economically - a dream of working for yourself and aiming to provide for your family to lead a good and satisfying life.

Ian Ewart

And whilst the motivation might be economic it may just as easily be because you didn't have a skill or a profession or that you simply just didn't like working for someone else.

A collection of the individual stories of those early pioneers from over sixty years ago - the first shopkeepers at Oxgangs Broadway would make for interesting reading today - their hopes and their aspirations; their successes and their failures; the ups and the downs; the joys and the worries; and the colourful customers; colourful stories and the life lessons learnt.

Was it a success or was it a failure?

Did it provide a good income or was it always a struggle?

How did it affect their health? And what happened if they were ill?

Was the business seasonal?

How above board was it!

Were there unusual or unorthodox transactions and business arrangements!

Did the stock fall off the back of a lorry!

Did some customers get 'tick?'

Did the early aspiration meet the realisation?

Did it become a conveyor belt that you just couldn't get off?

And if they could go back in time would they have done it all again?

All those stories, now sadly gone and difficult to resurrect.

As a young customer I only saw the shops as being retail institutions - they were there for our convenience and being too young was too unperceptive to realise there was a human story behind each and every one.

I assume that when the public housing schemes were first muted, designed and developed after the war that Edinburgh Corporation must have taken cognisance of local needs and included these small retail shop units for rental. But did they deploy a prescriptive and restrictive policy whereby (forgive the pun!) they had a 'shopping list' of the range of businesses they wanted to include e.g. one post office; one chemist; a dry-salter and so on or was it just left to the market and a laissez-faire approach?

'Forgan the Chemist' Photograph Sandra Catterson

Probably for most of the individuals it would have been their first venture as self employed businessmen - it was mainly men that owned the business although I recall the shoe shop seemed to be owned by a lady.

I suspect that for some of those entrepreneurs they had perhaps worked in the particular trade but never before been the owner of the business. Now here was a once in a lifetime opportunity to go it alone - what excitement - what a worry! But how satisfying too.

Similar to tenants becoming home owners under Mrs Thatcher's government I wonder if in later years and decades they thereafter had the opportunity to purchase the shop units? I expect so. And that by then the shops that came and went in more recent decades were very much dictated by the market economy.

The shops at Oxgangs Crescent (sadly, now demolished) were similar to those at Oxgangs Broadway, except there were fewer of them whereas the shops at Oxgangs Broadway remain today, but are of course different; however there are still some similar types of shops to the past - e.g. a newsagent - but also there's a betting shop and three hairdressers; there is a convenience store - family owned and long established which has picked up some awards but is now up against the recent Aldi development on the former St John's Church site.


Photograph Mark Travis

The Oxgangs Broadway design is a rather dinky and clever lay out which when seen from above is shaped like a cockit hat - an interesting triangular shape with a road bordering the three sides - similar to the Cockit Hat at the Redford Road/Oxgangs Road North junction. 

On the north side there are some flats (recently refurbished) located above the shops which unusually take up two floors i.e. levels two and three. 


Photograph Scott Arthur

The flats are most handily located if you run out of bread, milk or sugar or want to nip out for an early morning roll or newspaper but perhaps with an adjacent chip shop or betting shop, too temptingly close too!

The shops are set below ground level in a small self-contained dip of ground and mostly evenly distributed and laid out opposite each other; in winter the snow perhaps lies longer there. But the area between the shops serves as an interesting social area where during the day local neighbours can catch up with one another’s news. 


Oxgangs Broadway In The Winter

Back in the 1960s the shops were fairly small. However, there was a general St Cuthbert's Store  - the Co-op - which was larger than the others and Ewart's took over the adjoining number 1 unit to create a double shop unit.


Behind the shops and up above were some further units including the well known Risi's Fish and Chip shop and Ben Mackenzie's Hairdresser's shop on on each opposite corner, but I seem to recall these units were mainly used by the shop-keepers down below for storage or back shop operations e.g. the butcher?


Photograph Mr Craigie

Today, these units are all in use including a large Corals bookies. It's unsurprising because these shop units are south facing and you can park directly outside; however they are set away from the 'main body of the kirk.'

In 1836 Charles Dickens lamented that newer, shinier establishments are replacing ‘quiet, dusty old shops’. Some of Joseph Mckenzie's recent memories of 'Jock the Butcher' who worked at St Cuthbert's Co-op at Oxgangs Road North makes me optimistic that with the fantastic resource of the 'Oxgangs - A Pastime From Time Past' Facebook group and 'online encyclopedia' that we may yet still rescue some of the tales and stories of the original shop-keepers at 'The Broadway' before it's too late in the day.

Listed below are each of 'the originals.'

1. Macnab A & J Ltd.
2. Ewart, Mrs E.
3. McNish, R.F.
5. Holmes
6. McKenzie
7. Forgan D.R.
8. Smith, C.
11-14 Smith, W.
9&18 Sandison & Douglas
St Cuthbert's Co-operative
12. Allan G.
Risi
Ben Mackenzie

Sunday 28 July 2019

Happy Birthday and the Positive Power of Facebook


Exactly one year ago today (27 July 2019) the Facebook page, Oxgangs – A Pastime From Timepast was formed and today’s group page photograph for the day features two local lads, Gordon Boyd and Olivier Macpherson out cycling in a race in the lea of the Pentland Hills (East of Scotland Junior Championships with the club winning the Junior Cup); the picture is from around half a century ago.


Apart from the fact that it’s a great photograph it coincides with effectively the last race day of Le Tour – the Tour de France. But more than that the story of these boyhood pals perhaps sums up the raison d’etre for the Facebook group.

When Olivier first posted the photograph he hadn’t been in touch with his old pal Gordon for decades. But once the picture was launched onto the page, as usual a range of supportive voices chipped in – our page is analogous to an online encyclopaedia or resource of knowledge on the Oxgangs, Firrhill and surrounding area.

Graeme Robb commenting on the photograph said ‘I remember my racer never had spandex!’ Olivier retorted ‘It was wool shorts back then and when it was raining, they ended up down past your knees!’

Janice Lambert said ‘As a teenager in the 1960’s there was a Gordon Boyd in the big crowd of us. He was a lovely guy.’

Jill Robertson enquired ‘Was that Gordon Boyd the car mechanic, as many years ago my sister worked beside him at Alexander's Garage in Dundas Street?’

Olivier Macpherson responded that yes, they had been friends in their teenage years and how they both took similar paths in work (car mechanics) and how Gordon’s elder brother worked there before emigrating to Canada.

Photograph Gordon Boyd

Andrew Inglis mentioned that Gordon took over Waddell’s Garage in Colinton way back in the late 1980s and retired last year and that he now lives in West Linton. Oliver said to Andrew how nice it would be to catch up with him when he was next back in Edinburgh

Andrew suggested popping into Waddell’s as ‘Gordon’s his son in law and now runs the garage and could tell him how to get in touch with Gordon which Olivier managed to do.

When I said what a fantastic photograph it was of the lads out cycling Olivier told me a little of his back story.

‘Peter, my Dad influenced me and I joined a club when I was 11 years old. My first race was in Ormiston at a schoolboys championships. During the early days when I didn’t have a car we would cycle to the youth hostel and do the race the next day before cycling back home afterwards. I went youth hosteling to Cornwall and the Lake District.

I met Gordon when I was around 14 years old and he was keen to race too so he joined The White Heather Cycling Club. I have fond memories of youth hosteling to Dublin with Gordon where we met up with the lads from Kilmarnock; we had some great laughs.

I can honestly say that cycling gave me a good perspective on life. I remember one day with no lights I decided to cycle to Haddington at 9.00pm and didn't get back to Firrhill until about 1.00am; my Dad wasn’t pleased.

I still race today but down south and never thought when I first started at 11 years old I would still be doing it at 69. I have to thank my dad for that, as when my mum left us when I was eight years old he never abandoned us.’

Gordon Boyd and Olivier Macpherson, Mallorca, April 2019


Postscript: Olivier let the page’s followers know that he was ‘…meeting up with Gordon after 50 years in Mallorca in April as we are both on the island at the same time. I’m over to do the Mallorca 312 - it will be great to see him after so long and it's thanks to the Facebook page.'



Tuesday 11 June 2019

Hunters Tryst School Sports Day


Hunters Tryst did School Sports Day proud.

It was always superbly organised, very well attended and presented with a sense of theatre.

It was serious and yet it was fun. 

There was drama, disappointment, glory and joy.

Hunters Tryst School Sports Day on the former School Sports-Field Photograph courtesy Stevie Berry

With the smell of newly cut grass and the marking out of the white running lanes for the 100 yards sprint and an oval track laid out on the grass field the sense of anticipation that we'd come to that part of the Oxgangs season was palpable.

Several rows of school benches lined the whole of one side of the 100 yards straight facilitating the sense of occasion, anticipation and theatre.

If parents didn't arrive early with their little ones and little picnics they were condemned to stand at the back and spill out behind on to the grass slope.

Hunters Tryst School Sports Day was a rather glorious and fun Friday morning followed by a half day which for some years coincided with the last day of the summer term.

Rather classy pencils were handed out to the winners of the races. 

The pencils were purple in colour with the name Hunters Tryst Primary School emblazoned in yellow along the side. 

Back in the 1960s these were prized items. Out with Crackerjack I’d never come across such a thing so they were rare and valued. Were they perhaps introduced in 1963? I think at the end of my first year (Primary 1) in 1962 the prizes were perhaps a blue badge for second and another colour for first place?

I'm unsure how well the children from The Stair (Oxgangs Avenue) got on, on Sports Day? 

The only slight unhappiness for me was that my brother Iain wasn't the most athletic of children. Although he struggled at Sports Day he had the right attitude really enjoying the occasion and took it in the right spirit competing with a smile on his face. 




On one occasion he won either or indeed both the sack race and/or the obstacle race and I was overjoyed for him. Having tried to will him to victory for many years I got more pleasure from that win than any of my victories. My sister Anne came to school when I was in P5; she performed quite well usually winning a race.
  
Ann Breslin; Terry Workman; David Lines and Stephen Drysdale amongst a clutch of fine athletes

There were some excellent athletes at Hunters Tryst – in my class, David Lines and Stephen Drysdale were scarily good and very fast athletes. I also recall Ann Breslin was a nice wee runner who went on to run for Edinburgh Southern Harriers. When I first began to go down to Meadowbank Sports Centre at the end of the summer of 1971 her dad sometimes gave me a lift back to the far end of Oxgangs Avenue where they stayed.

Depending on the year the relay varied between being run back and forward along the 100 yards straight or around the oval track. 

For many years our relay team of David Lines, Geoff Hunter, Graham McKiernan and I dominated however for some long forgotten reason – a dispute over running order perhaps? - but on one occasion I had a fall out and instead recruited a team of my own from the year below who were around six months younger than our class including Terry Workman, Kenny Ruickbie and another lad and took some satisfaction from overtaking my usual team on the last leg.


Sunday 19 May 2019

In The (Oxgangs) Season of the Year - Victoria Day


Victoria Day is a public holiday in some parts of east Scotland, chiefly the cities of Edinburgh and Dundee although it was formerly more widespread. It is celebrated on the last Monday before or on the 24th May and commemorates Queen Victoria’s birthday (24 May 1819).
During the 1960s traditionally the local schools and some offices and shops were closed on Victoria Day. It wasn’t a bank holiday so if you worked in government offices there was no holiday for you.
As with many public holidays very few shops in Scotland now observe it but during the era we used to celebrate the occasion in the Oxgangs area without really knowing anything about it; back in the day knowledge came slowly.
The way that it was celebrated locally was with a bonfire meaning we had two in the year almost perfectly separated by 6 months apart from Guy Fawkes night come November. Looking back there was a distinct difference between the two but also a similarity between the occasions.
Unlike the 5th of November the Victoria Day bonfire was held when it was completely light – we were on the cusp of summer - and it was only after ten o’clock in the evening that we could enjoy the glowing orange and yellow embers of the slowly dying fire which usually burnt on through to the early hours of the morning.

A second difference, at least I assume so, was there were no fireworks to light up the May sky – it may have been difficult for the likes of Astra or Standard to justify selling them to such a limited area within the United Kingdom although I wonder whether some enterprising shopkeepers in Dundee and Edinburgh were proactive and managed to stock them for sale locally.
I only visited the dry-salters’ shops occasionally. There was one such shop, Sandison & Douglas, at the south-east corner of Oxgangs Broadway (number 9) and another one at the north-east corner at the Oxgangs Crescent shops (number 29) which was owned and run by Mr T. K. Francis.

My visits were mainly seasonal.
Out-with helping Mrs Helen Blades (6/6) Oxgangs Avenue with her Saturday morning messages and getting some paraffin and briquettes from the shop I only visited the dry-salters shop at the Broadway around fireworks time tying in with Victoria Day.
The shop sold an unusual safety match which if we were up to some misadventures we'd look in and buy a box and of course they were handy for such an evening in the year.
The matches came in a fascinating little fancy box; they were of a much higher quality than Bluebell or Swan Vestas - coincidentally they were named after the queen but the design on the box is more reminiscent of  Queen Boudicea, Queen of the British Celtic Iceni tribe. They came in a small orange and red box with fewer matches but the coating of the match was thicker as indeed was the match-stick - higher quality - it's funny how things like that come to mind - I haven’t thought of this product for around forty years.

Where Victoria Day was similar to Guy Fawkes Night was that when Edinburgh Corporation deemed our bonfire to be too large they sent round council lorries to take away some of the old furniture or sofas from the bonfire from around the back of 6 Oxgangs Avenue; however the kids were so well organised that we’d remove the items back again from their lorries whilst they were away for their next batch and instead hid the combustibles in local sheds and back alleys until the fire was close to being lit or when it needed a top-up.
From around 1966 onward the annual bonfires that used to be held in the wee field directly out the back of The Stair were deemed by the Fire Brigade and Edinburgh Corporation as being far too close to us all as indeed they were; certainly such was the heat that emanated toward The Stair that the Blades, the Hoggs and the Hoffmanns didn't need a fire on either of the two bonfire nights. At least the Swansons, the Stewarts and the Smiths were on the wrong or should that be the right side of the bonfire; whereas the Duffys and the Hanlons were a bit safer on the top landing.

Although I left Oxgangs on St Andrew’s Night 1972 I think even by then celebrating the old queen had become but a recent memory. 

Certainly there’s no reference to the occasion in either my 1971 or 1972 Letts Schoolboys Diaries although in the former I record that Hunters Tryst Primary School had a half day so this perhaps confirms it was already starting to go out of fashion with the new decade of the 1970s.


However, the following year I probably appreciated it much more as I enjoyed a holiday from working at Thomas Graham & Son Ltd. 51 Balcarres Street Morningside -  'Monday, 21st May, 1973 Great! no work today as it was the Edinburgh Victoria Holiday.'




Looking back it’s interesting the way we celebrated Victoria Day in this way and how it had become such an integral part of the Oxgangs culture so very quickly within the new community – part of the ‘Oxgangs Season of the Year’ without most of the active participants really knowing why we were doing so and then how such a tradition could just as suddenly be snuffed out and melt away into the night ether without more recent generations knowing anything about the day.

Wednesday 8 May 2019

Tall Tales Number 2


On Tuesday, 8th May, 1971, at Boroughmuir School a class mate called Andy Downie walked past me and said 'Peter, I see you've a letter published in The Hornet this week.' Coincidentally, Ken Buchanan, the Edinburgh born and based world lightweight champion was on the front cover.



I could hardly contain my excitement - I got home to read the story in the letters page, The Hornet's Nest, and yes there it was - my name in print although spelt wrongly.  I received a ten shilling postal order for the story - excellent in its way but ultimately I was disappointed because I wanted to win the top prize, a Raleigh bicycle. In retrospect justice was done, because the story was a porky - although my father had at least forty jobs in his working life, he'd never been employed as an electrician!

Monday 4 March 2019

TO THE PENTLAND HILLS from Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson




The country people call it General Kay's monument. 
According to them, an officer of that name had perished there in battle at some indistinct period before the beginning of history. The date is reassuring; for I think cautious writers are silent on the General's exploits. But the stone is connected with one of those remarkable tenures of land which linger on into the modern world from Feudalism.Whenever the reigning sovereign passes by, a certain landed proprietor is held bound to climb on to the top, trumpet in hand, and sound a flourish according to the measure of his knowledge in that art. Happily for a respectable family, crowned heads have no great business in the Pentland Hills. But the story lends a character of comicality to the stone; and the passer-by will sometimes chuckle to himself.
The district is dear to the superstitious. 


Hard by, at the back-gate of Comiston, a belated carter beheld a lady in white, 'with the most beautiful, clear shoes upon her feet,' who looked upon him in a very ghastly manner and then vanished; and just in front is the Hunters' Tryst, once a roadside inn, and not so long ago haunted by the devil in person. 


Satan led the inhabitants a pitiful existence. He shook the four corners of the building with lamentable outcries, beat at the doors and windows, overthrew crockery in the dead hours of the morning, and danced unholy dances on the roof. Every kind of spiritual disinfectant was put in requisition; chosen ministers were summoned out of Edinburgh and prayed by the hour; pious neighbours sat up all night making a noise of psalmody; but Satan minded them no more than the wind about the hill-tops; and it was only after years of persecution, that he left the Hunters' Tryst in peace to occupy himself with the remainder of mankind. 

What with General Kay, and the white lady, and this singular visitation, the neighbourhood offers great facilities to the makers of sun-myths; and without exactly casting in one's lot with that disenchanting school of writers, one cannot help hearing a good deal of the winter wind in the last story. 

'That nicht,' says Burns in one of his happiest moments,-

'THAT NICHT A CHILD MIGHT UNDERSTAND
THE DEIL HAD BUSINESS ON HIS HAND.'

And if people sit up all night in lone places on the hills, with Bibles and tremulous psalms, they will be apt to hear some of the most fiendish noises in the world; the wind will beat on doors and dance upon roofs for them, and make the hills howl around their cottage with a clamour like the judgment-day.

The road goes down through another valley, and then finally begins to scale the main slope of the Pentlands. A bouquet of old trees stands round a white farmhouse; and from a neighbouring dell, you can see smoke rising and leaves ruffling in the breeze. 

Straight above, the hills climb a thousand feet into the air. The neighbourhood, about the time of lambs, is clamorous with the bleating of flocks; and you will be awakened, in the grey of early summer mornings, by the barking of a dog or the voice of a shepherd shouting to the echoes. This, with the hamlet lying behind unseen, is Swanston.

The place in the dell is immediately connected with the city. Long ago, this sheltered field was purchased by the Edinburgh magistrates for the sake of the springs that rise or gather there. After they had built their water-house and laid their pipes, it occurred to them that the place was suitable for junketing. Once entertained, with jovial magistrates and public funds, the idea led speedily to accomplishment; and Edinburgh could soon boast of a municipal Pleasure House. The dell was turned into a garden; and on the knoll that shelters it from the plain and the sea winds, they built a cottage looking to the hills. 


They brought crockets and gargoyles from old St Giles which they were then restoring, and disposed them on the gables and over the door and about the garden; and the quarry which had supplied them with building material, they draped with clematis and carpeted with beds of roses. So much for the pleasure of the eye; for creature comfort, they made a capacious cellar in the hillside and fitted it with bins of the hewn stone. In process of time, the trees grew higher and gave shade to the cottage, and the evergreens sprang up and turned the dell into a thicket. There, purple magistrates relaxed themselves from the pursuit of municipal ambition; cocked hats paraded soberly about the garden and in and out among the hollies; authoritative canes drew ciphering upon the path; and at night, from high upon the hills, a shepherd saw lighted windows through the foliage and heard the voice of city dignitaries raised in song.


The farm is older. It was first a grange of Whitekirk Abbey, tilled and inhabited by rosy friars. Thence, after the Reformation it passed into the hands of a true-blue Protestant family. During the covenanting troubles, when a night conventicle was held upon the Pentlands, the farm doors stood hospitably open till the morning; the dresser was laden with cheese and bannocks, milk and brandy; and the worshippers kept slipping down from the hill between two exercises, as couples visit the supper-room between two dances of a modern ball. 

In the Forty-Five, some foraging Highlanders from Prince Charlie's army fell upon Swanston in the dawn. The great-grandfather of the late farmer was then a little child; him they awakened by plucking the blankets from his bed, and he remembered, when he was an old man, their truculent looks and uncouth speech. The churn stood full of cream in the dairy, and with this they made their brose in high delight. 'It was braw brose,' said one of them. At last they made off, laden like camels with their booty; and Swanston Farm has lain out of the way of history from that time forward. I do not know what may be yet in store for it. On dark days, when the mist runs low upon the hill, the house has a gloomy air as if suitable for private tragedy. But in hot July, you can fancy nothing more perfect than the garden, laid out in alleys and arbours and bright, old-fashioned flower- plots, and ending in a miniature ravine, all trellis-work and moss and tinkling waterfall, and housed from the sun under fathoms of broad foliage.

The hamlet behind is one of the least considerable of hamlets, and consists of a few cottages on a green beside a burn. Some of them (a strange thing in Scotland) are models of internal neatness; the beds adorned with patchwork, the shelves arrayed with willow- pattern plates, the floors and tables bright with scrubbing or pipe-clay, and the very kettle polished like silver. It is the sign of a contented old age in country places, where there is little matter for gossip and no street sights. Housework becomes an art; and at evening, when the cottage interior shines and twinkles in the glow of the fire, the housewife folds her hands and contemplates her finished picture; the snow and the wind may do their worst, she has made herself a pleasant corner in the world. 

The city might be a thousand miles away, and yet it was from close by that Mr. Bough painted the distant view of Edinburgh which has been engraved for this collection; and you have only to look at the etching, to see how near it is at hand. But hills and hill people are not easily sophisticated; and if you walk out here on a summer Sunday, it is as like as not the shepherd may set his dogs upon you. But keep an unmoved countenance; they look formidable at the charge, but their hearts are in the right place, and they will only bark and sprawl about you on the grass, unmindful of their master's excitations.


Wednesday 27 February 2019

A Capital Tale



A Capital Story - The Family Story is the story of an ordinary Edinburgh family as it is played out over a quarter of a century between the years 1971 and 1996. 

It is based on extracts from the author’s diaries and journals and paints a picture of an earlier Edinburgh and the social and cultural life of one local family. 

The posts take the form of a Dali folded clock so that although the diary extracts correlate with the day of the year they include entries from amongst 25 years so the author may appear as a boy, a youth or a man - as a schoolboy or at work - single or married - as a son, an uncle and eventually as a father too. 

As the various stories and threads appear it’s rather like a TV soap but spread across several decades. 

And from this a tapestry begins to be weaved and distinct characters begin to emerge - of a family, encompassing great-grandparents; sets of grandparents; aunt; Mother and Father, brother and sister and many others too who flit in and out of our family story. 

The journals begin in 1971 when the author is a 14 year old Oxgangs and Boroughmuir schoolboy and goes all the way through to him approaching middle age when he celebrates his 40th birthday in 1996 and leaves the capital. 

Whilst much of the story is about the author and how he sees the world through his eyes perhaps that is just the nature of the diarist, but a flavour of that time, that place and that era and of course that family is beautifully captured - of A Capital Story and times-past of past times residing in Oxgangs; Portobello; Powderhall; Morningside and Colinton which may be of interest to readers and to those still yet to come - of living in Edinburgh during that period of time and of her surroundings – her schools and her workplaces - of births, weddings and deaths - of life’s ups and life’s downs - of hopes, aspirations and dreams and of course regrets and disappointments too - all of Edinburgh life is here - a local story but a universal one too. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Capital-Tale-Family-Story-JANUARY/dp/1797535692/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1551262305&sr=1-1&fbclid=IwAR2hKzQS8JY8P18pQ7eTu6axCbpl_pYWVmQpn4K8UtLVKIUIr-ms16vviIs

The author intends to publish twelve volumes – one for each month of the calendar year which will also appear in a four seasons of the year format too - Winter; Spring; Summer and finally Autumn.

A daily blog goes out on a sister site: the link appears below and to the right hand side of the page.

https://acapitaltale.blogspot.com/