The Go-Between

Saturday, 20^th November, 1971 

Today was probably the best day of the year. 

Being a Saturday alone is cause to celebrate, but that was only for starters! 

I collected my pay from Pamela Baird - always a good moment. I just kind of glided through the paper round - the reason being that I was already looking forward and planning for my first 'official' date with Shona (Smith). 

We were going out to the cinema to see 'The Go-Between'. 

Being out early made for quite a long day, but it gave me plenty of time to plan ahead and get myself organised. I wanted to look my very best subject of course to the limitations of my haircut, which is the only cloud on the horizon. I wore my new pair of Levi's, my Ben Sherman shirt and my parka. 

I collected Shona from 26/5 Firhill Crescent and then we took a number 16 bus in to town. 

It was a really successful evening - better than I could have hoped for. 

Derek Cameron (Yerbury)

The film was really good, but I perhaps enjoyed it more than Shona. 

When I'd been planning out the evening you're never quite sure how it might pan out, but everything went brilliantly. Afterwards we got a bus home from Morningside no problem. 

I felt like I was in a dream walking Shona home along the burn and back to Firhill Crescent. She invited me in and we sat in watching the telly and talking with her mum 'n dad. I managed to converse okay with them, trying not to commit any faux-pas’ - I think I managed! 

They're dead nice and even thoughtfully went off to bed shortly before I left. I didn’t get home until 12.30 a.m. I got a row for being out late but I wasn't bothered! 

I'm off to bed now to dream about Shona. 

Comiston Walled Market Garden

I've attached some great photographs from a Ray Nimmo with the added bonus of a mystery/puzzle - trust it will generate much heat and even some light!

The photographs are from circa 1955/1956 and features Sandy, Amy Louisa and Carol Gay Nimmo harvesting their market garden. Ray is not quite sure if it was in Oxgangs, Comiston, etc. - my initial thought is either Comiston or Dreghorn? 

Here's some extracts from Ray's e mail: '...help me to locate the site of the walled garden that I spent the first five years of my living beside in a small bungalow.  It was owned by my parents at the time who tried unsuccessfully to run it as a 'market garden' and was sold on for development about 1959 (but did not make my parents wealthy!).  

Try as I might, I cannot pin its exact location down. 

My wife and I have recently come full circle back to Edinburgh after a life of moving all over the UK and now live in retirement in Greenbank.

I am trying to get a better grip on my family history and locating this old garden is part of that search. 

I attach the only photos that I have of the garden and as you can see it was quite substantial so it must have been associated with a large house back in the day (which may be the one at the back of the photo but I cannot recall it from my childhood).  

It was near Oxgangs Farm (I recall helping the farmer sow crops sitting on the back of his tractor's seed drill (strictly verboten now!) and watching the cows being milked). 

Also the Oxgangs shopping precinct was relatively nearby and in the process of being built. Any information or help that you might have would be much appreciated.'

  

My good friend, the inimitable Douglas Blades, may well have solved the mystery of the site of the old walled garden which was posted last week. If anyone wishes a high quality attachment of the two poor quality map images which I've posted below, please let me know and I'll e mail them to you.

Douglas Blades: 'I'm sure this was just along from the (Oxgangs) Broadway on land which I always thought belonged to Harwell’s (of Colinton Dairy etc. fame) and I also think it was abandoned before 1965.

I remember the bungalow lying abandoned and derelict after the folk moved away and exploring it.

Yes, there was a walled garden and small blocks of flats were built on it but I think the wall remains. 

Mr McCall, a Boroughmuir English teacher lived in one of the flats either just before or after he retired.

I also remember that potatoes still came up here and there is a field beside it.

We passed near it on our way to play at The Gully which was nearer Buckstone than Oxgangs and quite near to what used to be the Pentland Hills Hotel (I think!)

I'll have a look at old maps next week plus Google earth and see what I can find to jog my memory.'

Later

Douglas Blades: 'Look at the old map (1932) first. Top right, Comiston. Below that, walled garden with a well marked towards bottom left hand corner.

Bottom left hand corner, larger square marked just out with the walled garden is the cottage. Over to the left, Oxgangs, what is now the (Oxgangs) Avenue - looks like it is just a path. 

Now over to Google earth satellite picture. From the old map, the only thing still with us today is the house below the word Comiston and its boundaries. You can see the two blocks of flats which were built within the walled garden and you can sort of follow the old road between it and the newer Pentand Primary School. The older house in its own grounds on what is now Camus Avenue also appears to still exist. The tree lines don’t seem to have changed much and Pentland Drive seems to follow the old field boundary. As we passed over it from the Oxgangs side the first field had been a potato field in its final days as cultivated land but the second field was fallow and just grass as far as I can remember.

Looking at Google street view it appears the old boundary wall has now gone. When the two blocks of flats were built it was still there but breached in places.

I reckon the cottage would have been at the end of what is now Pentland School Lane or at the end of the block of garages beside the lane.'

Douglas Blades

When Ray first got in touch with me I suggested kicking off with an old Edinburgh & Leith Post Office Directory, but he didn't think his dad had a phone. Well, he did - thanks to David Shannon for tracking this down, which corroborates Douglas Blades' excellent detective work - 'Sandy Nimmo - Market Gardener!'

ps As Douglas says: 'It's quite remarkable what can be found out! All good fun!'

Isn't it great what can be done when people work together and share information!

I received this e mail this morning.

Hi Peter,

I stumbled onto your blog and saw a post about a disappeared walled garden at Comiston. I wondered if you've seen this Edinburgh Council website?

http://edinburghcouncilmaps.info/atlas/cecatlas.html

It shows maps and aerial photos from the last 160 years of any part of the city. I find the 1940s RAF shots very useful for research.

Comiston Walled Garden, 1946

I was able to find the missing bungalow and walled garden with this. Perhaps Raymond Nimmo, who asked where it was would like to see it? (Duly done - thanks Ken - may make for a good framed photograph!) The site of the walled garden is now Pentland Drive.

Kind regards.

Ken Watt

In Remembrance

With Remembrance Sunday fast approaching and in its centenary year (1918-2018) I thought I might post this article by David McLean from earlier in the year.

 Family pays respects to German pilot killed in historic Pentlands plane crash Klaus Forster, 80 (third from the right) and four generations of his family from Germany attended the memorial site at Hare Hill, Pentlands where his father, a Luftwaffe bomber pilot, died when his aircraft crashed in August 1943.

The family of a Luftwaffe pilot killed when his plane crashed in Scotland 75 years ago have visited Scotland to pay their respects to him.

Klaus Förster, 80, the late airman’s son, along with four generations of the family, travelled from Germany to the crash site memorial at Hare Hill in the Pentlands near Edinburgh.

Photograph, Gary Nelson

On the evening of 24 March 1943, a four-man crew including Oberstleutnant Fritz Förster embarked on a mission to bomb Leith Docks aimed at disrupting wartime naval traffic in and out of the busy port.

Their Junker JU 88 left an airstrip near Paris and travelled up the Dutch North Sea coast before turning north-west towards the Firth of Forth. On their approach, however, the crew failed to locate their target and decided to jettison their incendiary payload across farmland outside Edinburgh.

But as they made their way south across the Pentlands, their plane struggled to clear the summit of Hare Hill and crashed into the hillside.

Mr Förster and the other three crew were killed and the wreckage was scattered over a half-mile radius.

Photograph, Neil Daniel

After the airmen were laid to rest in 1964, the location of the crash site faded from public knowledge. But in the late 1990s aircraft enthusiast Kenny Walker became fascinated by the story and set about trying to find the crash site.

Mr Walker said: “I’d read about the crash and knew a small fragment had been found on the hill. I’d searched one side of the hill, but grew fed up of not finding anything. “I noticed that the whole hill was covered in heather except for one area of grass. I went back with the metal detector and ‘bingo’.”

Having discovered the crash site, Mr Walker felt the crew deserved to be suitably remembered and worked towards funding a memorial. “The memorial was erected in the latter half of 1999,” he said. “It’s just a wooden post with a small plaque, so it was very easy to erect.”

He said people questioned whether there should be a memorial to Nazi airmen. However, he said: “I felt they should be remembered as human beings.”

Photograph, Neil Daniel

News of the memorial made its way to the Försters in Germany and the airman’s granddaughter Birgit announced that members of the family would like to attend the memorial’s unveiling. Mr Walker said: “Ten of them made it, including Fritz’s son Klaus with his wife and their two daughters.”

A Christmas card last year from Klaus Förster’s grandson Max Quass informed Kenny that the family were returning to Scotland on holiday and wanted to re-visit the memorial. He added: “There was a real feeling of reflection and remembrance. Klaus genuinely appreciates what has been done, not just for his father but for the other three men too. “If you strip away the horror and nastiness of the war, you realise that four men died at this spot. That’s the important thing we need to remember.”

Postscript

There are various photographs on the link below;

http://www.aircrashsites-scotland.co.uk/junkers-ju88_hare-hill.htm

David McLean's article and with over 40 comments may be found at the link below:

https://www.scotsman.com/news/family-pays-respects-to-german-pilot-killed-in-historic-pentlands-plane-crash-1-4658299?fbclid=IwAR3LFwyQZAzZ09IskLT2zCXmdJIfysEXJA52sg-oUlH-wB6QecSr0f4hGcY