On This Oxgangs Day

The blog for today, (16th April), is taken from the Facebook group 'In The Season of the Year - An Oxgangs Diary' published each day. Two books capture these extracts are displayed in the photo attachments, one covering Spring (February - May) 'On This Oxgangs Day 1971-2021 Spring' with multiple entries for each day from across half a century. The other book 'In the Season of the Year An Oxgangs Diary 1971-2021' covers a single Oxgangs related post for each day of the year. Both books are available through Amazon.

16th April 1983 (Age 26) We took a 42 bus up to Causewayside where I picked up a delightful wee book on the Pentlands – Pentland Days and Country Ways by Will Grant, for only £2. It’s a while since I’ve been up there. It’s also good that we’ve a couple of local second-hand bookshops close-by the flat at Canonmills. In the evening I completed Magnus Merriman – at last. I guess overall it’s been okay but if it hadn’t been set in Edinburgh I would have thought ill of it. I feel it’s over-rated, definitely a one–off read. Later on I laughed and laughed at Clive James’ Late Late Show. 😂 Earlier around 9 o’clock I poked my head out the back door at the drizzle coming down. To my surprise I noticed the pear blossom seems to be out.

1984 (Age 27) After such a long day, I ought to have dark rings under my eyes. It was the Edinburgh Spring Holiday and a sunny one too, but with a cold wind. Martha was working. I was off. After a gentle early morning jog and a light breakfast I drove across a quiet capital picking up a Scotsman newspaper at Lennox Newsagent’s, Comiston Road, en-route to Swanston Village. From there I walked up Allermuir, stopping every now and then to look back toward the north and across the city taking in the views. A tractor-man was already out, the life on a spring morning. There were also two shepherds out, checking on lambs. I was quite amazed at the speed with which they walked, one of whom looked about 60 years old. Such an outdoor life obviously keeps you fit. Similarly when I drove past Swanston Farm, I’d noticed a very fit looking older farm-worker. As I gradually walked up toward the summit I was surprised at just how hard I was breathing and also how wobbly my legs were.

On the summit itself, in the shady parts, there was still a heavy frost. There was a snell wind a-blowing. However, I managed to find a sunny sheltered spot, stopped off for black coffee and some bran biscuits. In between looking through my small binoculars taking in the panoramic views across Edinburgh, to Fife beyond, I read some extracts from Stevenson’s Letters (Vol 1). Mid-morning I headed down to Oxgangs to pick up Mum. We drove down to Porty to pick up Grandma Joan and Aunt Dottle before setting off for Peebles via the bonny Meldons. We enjoyed a filling lunch at Innerleithen and of course a Caldwell’s ice cream. The shops at Peebles were busy. On an Edinburgh Holiday it’s clearly a popular haunt. We took an alternative route home, via Stobo, Broughton, before stopping at an antiques shop in West Linton. Joan very much enjoyed herself, but I was less sure about Dottle and Mum. After dropping them off I did a wee track session on the Edinburgh University track out at Peffermill. And then home, appropriately enough to watch the first part of Stevenson’s The Master of Balantrae. I found it poor, unrealistic, with stilted dialogue. I was reflecting upon how very unfortunate that RLS died so young, as the unfinished Weir of Hermiston hinted at some very special work ahead. A great pity. Anyway I was glad to have taken Grandma Joan out today. She may not see many more Spring Holidays (famous last words!) Today, her eye was giving her problems, with a thread running through her vision. I hope it’s nothing serious.

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.

The Sunday Post #5 One Mid-Summer Morning

Pentland Hills and T Plantation circa 1914 (Photographer Unknown

Edinburgh Libraries, Museums and Galleries Collection)

This wonderful old photograph from a century ago shows three schoolgirls walking down Swanston Road through the farmland and fields. 

Swanston Farm, Robert Hope

There is no sign of Swanston Farm or Swanston Golf Club. 

The Old Schoolhouse in Swanston Village was in existence, so perhaps the girls are heading off to school in the morning. 

The Pentland Hills and the T Woods can be seen clearly in the distance. 

The scree slopes of the hills were no different fifty years later come the 1960s when the Blades; the Hoggs; and the Hoffmanns stood at their living room windows looking out for the number 16 bus coming down Oxgangs Road North.

There are hay stacks in one of the distant fields and one of the girls is only wearing a blouse, so we might surmise it is late summer. 

They are all dressed smartly in their straw hats; skirts; and dresses and each of them is carrying a metal case perhaps containing their school-books and lunches. 

On a fine summer morn or in early autumn the walk would be refreshing and enjoyable. However, on a bitter winter's morning, in the semi-darkness or in the cold of a March morning with a biting wind it would have been a very different story. But, at least they walked together which would have eased their passage and no doubt they will have enjoyed each other's company. Still, it's a long exposed country lane and one which we at The Stair often travelled along on our adventures to the Pentland Hills half a century later and half a century ago.

I wonder where the girls are coming from as back then, there wouldn't have been many houses in Fairmilehead. 

Perhaps they were sisters and lived at the old Hunters Tryst Farm. 

It's certainly a very lovely photograph capturing a moment in time. 

I also wonder who the photographer was. Was it set up or just serendipity? Perhaps their mum and dad wanted to capture that special moment in time to treasure and hold dear in their hearts, before the girls grew up, left home and moved on to follow life's journey. 

They are all smartly dressed and don't look poor. Their outfits - straw hats, skirts and dresses remind me very much of the two girls in The Railway Children. They all look quite lady-like - composed and serene, but not prim. If there had been a companion photograph taken at the end of the school day, it might have been quite different. We would of course see their faces and perhaps being the end of the school day and free from their lessons, we might have seen them un-lady-like taking to their heels, racing downhill from Swanston Village to head homewards for their tea and back to the welcome bosom of the family home.

Because we can't see the girls’ faces it adds to the elusiveness of the subject material. It forces the viewer to use their imagination.

You can't but help wonder what happened to each girl. The First World War was a matter of months away. Did they go on to become wives and mothers or follow a career in nursing or teaching? Did they remain in Edinburgh or move on to other towns or even make a life for themselves abroad?

In a way, the photograph reminds me of the cover of the novel Three German Farmers On The Way To A Dance by Richard Powers which was based on an old photograph. 

It seems to me that in the hands of a fine novelist such as Joan Lingard a rather good story might be weaved.

Postscript: In late 2017 I came across an update that revealed the premise on which I based the vignette was false - if you look closely the girls are actually carrying milk carriers!  Still, much of my musings on what happened to the girls remains true so I thought I would leave the vignette as it stands!

The Sunday Post #5 One Mid-Summer Morn

Pentland Hills and T Plantation circa 1914 (Photographer Unknown

Edinburgh Libraries, Museums and Galleries Collection)

This wonderful old photograph from a century ago shows three schoolgirls walking down Swanston Road through the farmland and fields. 

There is no sign of Swanston Farm or Swanston Golf Club. 

The Old Schoolhouse in Swanston Village was in existence, so perhaps the girls are heading off to school in the morning. 

The Pentland Hills and the T Woods can be seen clearly in the distance. 

The scree slopes of the hills were no different fifty years later come the 1960s when the Blades; the Hoggs; and the Hoffmanns stood at their living room windows looking out for the number 16 bus coming down Oxgangs Road North.

There are hay stacks in one of the distant fields and one of the girls is only wearing a blouse, so we might surmise it is late summer. 

They are all dressed smartly in their straw hats; skirts; and dresses and each of them is carrying a metal case perhaps containing their school-books and lunches. 

On a fine summer morn or in early autumn the walk would be refreshing and enjoyable. However, on a bitter winter's morning, in the semi-darkness or in the cold of a March morning with a biting wind it would have been a very different story. But, at least they walked together which would have eased their passage and no doubt they will have enjoyed each other's company. Still, it's a long exposed country lane and one which we at The Stair often travelled along on our adventures to the Pentland Hills half a century later and half a century ago.

I wonder where the girls are coming from as back then, there wouldn't have been many houses in Fairmilehead. 

Perhaps they were sisters and lived at the old Hunters Tryst Farm. 

It's certainly a very lovely photograph capturing a moment in time. 

I also wonder who the photographer was. Was it set up or just serendipity? Perhaps their mum and dad wanted to capture that special moment in time to treasure and hold dear in their hearts, before the girls grew up, left home and moved on to follow life's journey. 

They are all smartly dressed and don't look poor. Their outfits - straw hats, skirts and dresses remind me very much of the two girls in The Railway Children. They all look quite lady-like - composed and serene, but not prim. If there had been a companion photograph taken at the end of the school day, it might have been quite different. We would of course see their faces and perhaps being the end of the school day and free from their lessons, we might have seen them un-lady-like taking to their heels, racing downhill from Swanston Village to head homewards for their tea and back to the welcome bosom of the family home.

Because we can't see the girls’ faces it adds to the elusiveness of the subject material. It forces the viewer to use their imagination.

You can't but help wonder what happened to each girl. The First World War was a matter of months away. Did they go on to become wives and mothers or follow a career in nursing or teaching? Did they remain in Edinburgh or move on to other towns or even make a life for themselves abroad?

In a way, the photograph reminds me of the cover of the novel Three German Farmers On The Way To A Dance by Richard Powers which was based on an old photograph. 

It seems to me that in the hands of a fine novelist such as Joan Lingard a rather good story might be weaved.

Postscript: In late 2017 I came across an update that revealed the premise on which I based the vignette was false - if you look closely the girls are actually carrying milk carriers!  Still, much of my musings on what happened to the girls remains true so I thought I would leave the vignette as it stands!

Halloween - Providing a Light in the Darkness

In the general cycle of the Oxgangs year, whilst New Year; Burns Day; Easter; Church Fêtes  the School Summer Holidays; Elections; the Harvest Festival; Victoria Day and Guy Fawkes bonfires; and of course Christmas were all marked and celebrated significantly in their own way, Halloween was perhaps slightly lower key at The Stair during the decade of the 1960s.

Halloween masks were quite common, but they were the old fashioned cardboard types - plastic masks grew in popularity in later years - possibly this was because the band which you pulled around your head eventually tore the cardboard type apart making the mask redundant.

However, there was a definite move from the beginning of the 1960s toward something which was much more significant and by the latter part of the decade it was an integral part of the Oxgangs seasonal calendar.

In America, Trick or Treat, has been a significant tradition in the year from the 1930s; the UK has probably followed suit, like in many other areas of life, although, a bit like Bob Dylan and traditional folk songs, it all becomes inter-woven over the generations, with cross fertilisation.

In an earlier blog, Neep, Neeps and Apples I made mention of stealing turnips or suedes from the local farmers' fields at Hunters Tryst; Dreghorn and Swanston.

The neeps were stolen toward the end of October and Halloween 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 toward the 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 BooBoo Hanlon and Iain Hoffmann sitting atop the shed roof toiling over their lanterns - making the lanterns was hard going because the neeps were particularly tough - rock hard in the centre, unlike the more fleshy pumpkins that have become so prominent in the shops over the past twenty years - again something which we've taken from America; although they got the idea for lanterns from Scots and Irish immigrants.

Another thing in favour of pumpkins is they don't give off the same pungent smell that emanates from neep lanterns and candles!

d'Artagnan assisting his Mum!

Living in a quiet small hamlet in the Highlands, but where there are over twenty children, has meant that it has always been a major event here; indeed d'Artagnan is a dab hand at assisting his mum to make the lanterns which stand menacingly outside our kitchen door to welcome and scare the 'guisers' in equal measure.

Guising became much more prominent in the latter part of the 1960s - it was never something that I indulged in, but certainly I can recall some of the kids from The Stair and also 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 the head, to pass themselves off as an Egyptian!

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 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

Looking back, if you'll excuse the pun, I clearly missed a trick - indeed this blog could just as easily have featured under the series (Not) Being Entrepreneurial!

But looking back, though for much of the decade it was slightly lower key, I'm glad that 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.

NEEEEP!, Neeps and Apples

Today's the start of autumn'...season of mist and mellow fruitfulness'-and I'm in Edinburgh-hurrah!

As August turned to September and then drifted in to October the daylight available to play started to diminish, but there were still enough hours for adventure immediately after school finished. Some of the fun to be had revolved around neeps and apples. Fun for Douglas Blades, as he whisked downstairs, was bellowing out a long drawn out NEEEEP!-he did this for years-it was his trademark soundtrack and was actually quite original, I liked it, although it was less popular with the adults, especially very early in the morning!

Not many of these fruit and vegetables were grown in Oxgangs, so half the fun was that a group of us would have to venture out of the area-for apples it was mainly to Greenbank or occasionally Colinton; for turnips or neeps we would venture to the farmers’ fields up at Swanston and Dreghorn. 

These trips always gave us a buzz because strictly speaking we were stealing; there was a high degree of risk- possibly even getting caught. Because of the nature of the theft-somehow it didn’t feel like theft in the normal sense of the word-I suspect this was because of tradition and partly because of the nature of the items involved (So much for tradition-I've just discovered that in Victorian times the sentence was a month of hard labour for stealing turnips!). 

Painting by Karl Witkowski

We weren't after these items because we were starving or desperate to have a piece of fruit. We often didn't eat the apples and sometimes they were sour. The fun was in the act. The fun was in going out in a group, searching out particular gardens where trees were heaving with apples-usually located in people’s back gardens-and then there was the daring involved in clambering into these gardens usually over fences or through gates and then stealing the apples. On many occasions we would be spotted by the owners and it gave us an enormous buzz when we would all have to take to our heels and run like the wind. After we had reached safety we breathlessly exclaimed our relief and laughter at our narrow escape as we headed for home, although there was always still a small risk that the police might yet appear.

The neeps were stolen toward the end of October and Halloween-they were to be carved out as lanterns. Stealing from the farmer was more challenging-to escape from him might involve a long run along an open road and he might have access to a tractor-the turnips would be too heavy to hold on to as they slowed one down-if we had the time we would hide them in a ditch to be collected later.

The Landscape; the Farms and RLS

The flats built at Oxgangs on the south side of Edinburgh were on farm land, presumably on the former Oxgangs Farm, situated in the lea of the Pentland Hills. Looking back the air must have been fresh and clear as there were no local industries there. There was however still some local working farms on the go including Hunters Tryst Farm which was a dairy farm. Further up toward the Pentlands was Swanston Farm which grew potatoes and turnips and was also a pig farm and always noticeably smelly whenever we ventured past it-but more of that later.

RLS from a photograph by Lloyd Osbourne

Eighty years or so before, Robert Louis Stevenson walked along the same dirt road going to and from Swanston Village where the family had a holiday house, Swanston House. Perhaps it is a trick of memory, but I seem to remember seeing his initials carved on a door of the old Oxgangs Farm-house on Oxgangs Road North which then became a police station. Comiston Farm also grew potatoes and turnips; a beautiful house was an integral part. At one time there were wild rumours circulating of a ghost haunting the farm, known as the White Lady-this caused great consternation amongst the pupils at Hunters Tryst which was adjacent to the farm.