Oxgangs - A Pastime From Time Past #6 Stuart Mclean Photographs 4 Oxgangs Avenue

From left to right two of the Allan girls including Gina; Audrey Mclean and Les Ramage far right on the side of the wall

Children resident at 4 Oxgangs Avenue including members of the Allan family; Keith Robertson and Carol, Derek and Les Ramage circa 1964

The Field In Winter and the Last of the Mohicans

I've alluded to The Field on several occasions over the months.

It served all the kids at The Stair well as a playground over the four seasons of the year.

And although we at the four stairs at 2, 4, 6 and 8 Oxgangs Avenue saw it as our personal fiefdom it actually also represented a neutral point in the community which drew in others from Oxgangs Street and also across Oxgangs Road North including children and teenagers from Oxgangs Farm Drive.

In the main this was to play football - occasionally someone would fly a kite and for one summer we actually played some cricket!

This was courtesy of Norman Stewart who had received the cricket set from his grandparents for a birthday.

It was actually good fun.

For Norman it was a game he could play and compete on a level playing ground so to speak as he didn't play much football.

These were all mainly boys orientated, but the one game which was gender neutral and all the better for it was the games of rounders that both girls and boys participated in. Rounders were great fun and normally no team was in for too long which kept the interest going.

From around 1966 onwards 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 it indeed they were; certainly the Blades, the Hoggs and the Hoffmanns didn't need a fire on bonfire night such was the heat that emanated toward the Stair. 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.

Where the field really came alive however was when the snows of winter came. It was then that The Field truly came into its own.

The ground may have been frozen hard as iron and to all extents dead, but it was alive with children and young people both girls and boys.

What a sight it was to behold - a carpet of white adorned with well wrapped up stick like figures, some quite colourful, but more likely inside the dark blue nylon anoraks or duffel coats that many of us wore at that time, starkly contrasted against the landscape, black on white, the scenario was straight out of a Lowrie painting.

And then when dusk came and the night fell and the street-lights on Oxgangs Road North slowly began to flicker on and the dancing headlamps of the cars and buses carrying the workers home, watchers by the threshold could catch happy flitting figures dancing across the white landscape of The Field.

Dozens of sledges of different sizes would come down the hill.

The more adventurous ones had polished up the runners so that the sledge flew; others were much more apprehensive and went down with their feet hanging over either side. The more daring would aim to both extend the length of the run by skilfully manoeuvring through the gap in the fence and fly into the drying green; some were even full hardy enough to fly over the steps too coming down to rest adjacent to our back garden at 6/2!

As mentioned on a profile of Douglas Blades the Blades family enjoyed using the big sledge that Mr George Hogg had built; and Norman Stewart had the classiest sledge in the district The Flying Dutchman.

Gavin and Heather Swanson had sledges but were quite conservative on the slope.

The Ramage twins, Les and Derek from 4/3 had nice light sledges.

I don't recall the Hanlons having sledges.

The Hoffmanns didn't have sledges, although Iain may have used an old beer tray that our father, Mr Ken Hoffmann possibly brought home from a pub, but essentially we never owned a sledge so we became boarders instead - not always popular with many sledgers because we would await for a passing sledge to come by and then try to run alongside and dive on board it; those individuals who were lying on their stomach on the sledge were particularly prone to being dived upon or sat upon.

Of course we were not always successful and often ended up missing the sledge or falling off or indeed bringing the owner off too - still great fun ending up rolling in the snow!

We'd play outside for hours until we became too cold, too wet or we were called in and then we'd head for home chittering as our mothers pulled off our wet clothes that had stuck to our backs and we'd hop around as we encouraged others to pull off our Wellington boots. The drying cupboard in the sitting room would be chock-full of clothes and our Wellington boots would be lined up like soldiers in front of the coal fire to dry out

Just before coming in we'd have made sure we'd taken part in one of the other fun rituals of playing at The Field - throwing snowballs at the slow moving vehicles going up the gauntlet of Oxgangs Road North.

We mainly chose the buses as they were large slow moving targets with as many as a dozen of us lined up and at a given call an array of snowballs would be fired at the bus windows.

It must have pissed the passengers off no end - it was like medieval warfare in the dark midwinter as many as twenty snowballs flew through the air and bombarded and thudded against the windows of the bus.

Once home and inside and later into the evening I would occasionally glance out from our living room window and look out to The Field. 

It had become quieter; numbers had dwindled as children made their weary way home, until there might be only a solitary figure left, sledging downhill; of a sudden the last sledge run would take place and The Field became eerily silent.

Today The Field remains in winter, but winter throughout the spring, summer and autumn seasons of the year too. 

The only figures there are the trees which were planted many decades ago and somehow thrived and of course the ghosts of the Hanlons; the Duffys; the Blades'; the Hoggs; Norman Stewart; the Swansons; and the Hoffmanns and all the hundreds of other children from all those decades ago. 

I wonder what child was the very last sledger?

Not Swimming, But Learning!

One possible divide in The Stair was the children who regularly went to Warrender Swimming Baths and those who didn't. There may have been a cost dimension for some of the children, but generally many of the children managed to get the bus fares and entrance money, if not money for secondary spend.

I cannot ever recall seeing Heather or Gavin Swanson ever going to the baths. Even if they had the inclination to go they never seemed to have the freedom that all the other children enjoyed once they got to a certain age-the interesting dynamic of control was clearly a factor there which as a parent I can now understand. Looking back, for many of us, being able to go swimming without parental supervision was a right of passage. It was another example of the inordinate freedom to roam, that certainly The Hoffmanns were able to enjoy. Because our father would have done the same at the Glenogle Baths at Stockbridge as a boy in the late 1920s/early 1930s, it probably wasn't considered a health & safety issue in our house.

I don't remember seeing The Hogg girls Christina, Maureen or Eileen going along; similarly The Blades and The Duffys. Generally speaking there seemed to be a gender split, because the children who attended regularly were boys-The Hanlons-Michael; Boo-Boo; Colin; and Alan; and Iain and Peter Hoffmann, as well as Ali Douglas (8/3); Les and Derek Ramage (4/3) and many others.

Iain and Boo-Boo were great pals and for several years they used to go along together weekly It was the one activity that Ken Hoffmann used to very occasionally come along with us. He was an excellent swimmer, with an effortless, smooth and powerful front crawl; but it was his diving which attracted great attention. Because the deep end was only six feet deep, unfortunately, all that Warrender Baths had back in the 1960s was a small spring-board-but even from this he performed lovely swallow dives. I enjoyed watching him perform these. What I didn't enjoy was when he might swim under water and suddenly take my legs from me and pull me under the water. I couldn't swim at that stage so it was always a scary experience.

The bold Ken Hoffmann diving off the bridge of a ship

One distinctive memory for me about how life might have been, was when he had the loan of a black Riley car. It must have been during the autumn school holidays-the tattie holidays. It was a wet, overcast Friday. Over lunch he announced that the three of us-Anne, Iain and I would go swimming at Warrender Baths. It was a great feeling to be driven in luxury, rather than queueing for buses and then walking to and from Bruntsfield Place to Thirlestane Road in the rain. We were driven straight to the door! Even the route he took seemed to be magical-through the Braids, Cluny, Blackford and then Marchmont. And the luxury of a chilly bite and then chauffeur driven home!

We usually always treated ourselves to a chilly bite after our swim-it was a hot chocolate drink from a machine which cost sixpence. We really did shiver after our swims so it was welcoming initially, but I usually found it a bit sickly toward the bottom of the plastic carton. There was a rather classy shop with a a lime green painted façade (probably Farrow and Ball paint!) called Elizabeth's at the top of Thirlestane Road from which I'm ashamed to say we used to nick sweets from-perhaps because she was used to a better class of clientèle it was as easy as stealing sweets from a baby.

Edinburgh Corporation were very go ahead with their swim lessons programme which were usually held during the school holidays. For this one would usually be issued with a swim pass on the last day of term dated for say the two weeks of the Easter Holidays which gave one free access to the baths. It was on one of these occasions at Bruntsfield Primary School (Sean Connery's old school) where they had a pool in the basement, that I first learned to swim-what a feeling! The instructor obviously realised I'd mastered the stroke, but didn't have the confidence. He gave me water wings to put on for confidence-what I hadn't realised was there was no air in the wings-bright or what?

After that one was able to make progress through their swim development programme-a lovely certificate for swimming a length-thereafter it got progressively more difficult, but because the certificates were so classy, one wanted to get better to obtain them-back to my collector tendencies! Anyway, I managed to get certificates 1, 2 and 3, but never sat no 4 which included life-saving at a higher standard than level 3. Part of some of the tests included diving for the heavy rubber brick.

Aye, if we weren't swimming we were learning and if we weren't learning we were swimming!

The Raleigh Chopper-A Rude Awakening!

There were four boys from the local stairs who had the radically innovative Raleigh Chopper bicycles. The boys were all the same age and in the same class at Hunters Tryst Primary School - Les and Derek Ramage; Ali Douglas; and Iain Hoffmann. Les, Derek and Ali all got their bikes first - Iain got his on Saturday, 8 May, 1971. Les and Derek had a red one and a blue one, Iain's was yellow.

The Choppers were a wonderful design and exuded coolness. They were so different and so ahead of their time that they made an enormous cultural impact. In the UK we hadn't seen anything like them - it was a radical change of direction. That said I may have seen something broadly similar in American comics.

Whilst they looked fantastic ironically they were useless for cycling - they were fine to go around the four blocks or for a short spin to the shops - indeed one revelled in looking cool if one was spotted on it by other boys-but even better if it was by girls! It encouraged backies because of the length of the seat, but the bike was awkward to ride.

Les Ramage and Raleigh Chopper

Iain Hoffmann and Raleigh Chopper plus Simon the cat!

The anticipation of getting the bike however had been immense. After Les, Derek and Ali had got their Choppers I felt sorry for Iain. Because of the various jobs which I had I'd saved up a bit of money and was able to put down a sizeable deposit - the bike cost £36 with credit, but I had to persuade my mother Mrs Anne Hoffmann to act as the guarantor; thereafter I had to pay the remainder over a period of months.

The design mitigated against the bike being useful for rides to say Morningside or beyond. It was slow, heavy and had wide tyres. The high handlebars were based on the motorbikes which the Hell's Angels rode. It meant however that one couldn't get any real leverage or power when it was needed. For example when I first collected Iain's bike I cycled it home from Dalry - I noted in my diary 'Cycled all the way up from Dalry-Craiglockhart Hill was a killer...' I was clearly breathing out my arse. It was a rude awakening or wake up call to the design flaws of the bike.

Good Time?

Good time?

In the summer of 1971 that was a question often on the lips of the younger residents of The Stair, as well as kids from numbers 2,4 and 8 Oxgangs Avenue and also for others from Oxgangs Street. 

In June, 1971, Paul Forbes, Iain Hoffmann and I visited a pawnbroker in the Grassmarket with the express purpose of buying a stopwatch. It cost me a fiver (£5). I had decided that my latest wheeze for the summer would be to organise athletics over the school holidays. Little did I know that it would attract over thirty kids as active participants. Today the relatively useless Active Schools Coordinators scheme pay officers £30k a year for doing less work with less success! Supplementing the stopwatch, was a measuring tape that I had managed to borrow from Bill Walker at Meadowbank Sports Centre and a little notebook and pen.

Paul Forbes and Peter Hoffmann at Meadowbank Sports Centre asking Bill  Walker for a wee loan of the measuring tape!

Within the notebook there was a section for each participant recording their best times and their best jumps. As Ruth Blades (Kaye) mentioned in a previous comment the events consisted of: Fence (Hoffmann garden) to Lampost (outside No 8 Oxgangs Avenue)-a pure short sprint: Bus Stop (outside No 2 Oxgangs Avenue) to Lampost (outside No 8 Oxgangs Avenue)-the classic sprint distance; Once Round The Two Blocks-a lap (or loop) of Nos 6 and 8 Oxgangs Avenue-three short bursts and two longer bursts with four left (right angles) turns; and finally the classic distance of Once Round The Four Blocks-The Stair's equivalent of one lap of an athletics track. We were quite happy to accommodate other requests too e.g. twice or three times Round The Four Blocks.

Some of the Oxgangs Mini Olympics competitors.
Esther Blades; Iain Hoffmann; Ali Douglas; Ruth Blades
Alison Blades; Boo-Boo Hanlon; and Eileen Hogg

Paul Forbes; Peter Hoffmann; and Iain Hoffmann 'jumping for joy!'

We also used to put on long jump and triple jump competitions too, which were held across from The Stair on the other side of Oxgangs Avenue on a grass strip beside the bus stop. These events could easily last for over an hour and more; they must have been quite entertaining for those queuing for a bus!

Triple Jump Venue Oxgangs Avenue

To help make everyone feel involved a relatively short distance would be marked out. I knew everyone could make the distance-even those as young as say Esther Blades. Each participant would have three attempts at each set distance to be able to advance to the next round and distance. The distances would be incrementally increased, but only gradually-this meant that everyone was involved for a good length of time, because each person had to complete the challenge. For those who were younger it would take a big effort to progress; if you were older or quite athletic one might show off or fool around in the early rounds and it served as a good warm-up.

As the distance became more challenging everyone was very supportive encouraging their pals to make a big effort to try to reach the distance and progress to the next round-if a younger child made it, a big cheer went up-if one didn't make the mark, there was commiseration that you'd make it next time!

Willie Taylor; Derek Ramage; Mark Robertson; John Duffy; and Stephen Westbrook

Because everyone was so involved from the start, even once you were eliminated, everyone tended to stay on to see how the event progressed; to see who would eventually jump the furthest; and how far each person actually leaped. Also if you were knocked out you might become a judge or set the marker distances. And, although it was a competition, ultimately everyone, both won and lost-this was because you would usually get a personal best, but eventually we all failed at some stage to reach the marker.

Similarly, by running and timing each of the set distances, these were mainly done individually, so one was competing against one's self trying to improve one's personal best; if you were competitive, you could compare your times against your peers.

I kept the notebook for decades-I think it was stored in my grandmother's attic, until she died, when it became lost. It may still be amongst my own papers, but I don't think so. I was always tempted to take Will and Tom out to Oxgangs Avenue to see how they might compare to our generation's times. They would certainly have been game.

Will Leading Tom, National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
(Peter Hoffmann, 2009)

Until relatively recently when we visited the National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, I always had to time them on a lap of  the Charles Jencks Garden. Will started to outpace 'the old man' two years ago (but only up to 200 metres!)-it's taken Tom (16) until this year-I think!

Will (1st) (Second right, black T shirt) age 16 finally beats  The Old Man (3rd)
Final Open 100 Yards Strathconon Highland Games 2010

The Generation Game

Derek Cameron, Owner and Manager Dominion Cinema (Photograph by Yerbury)

'Nice to see you'...that's always been the friendly approach deployed at the family owned and run Dominion Cinema, Newbattle Terrace, Morningside, Edinburgh. Their approach to customer care is one which veers towards a relationship rather than a transaction-a concept which I'll explore in a future blog.

Dominion Cinema circa 1972

The cinema has remained in the ownership of the Cameron family for three generations. Until his death last year, Derek Cameron, the manager, never seemed to change in appearance even into the new century'. He was a charismatic individual; as you go down the steps inside the building to the lower level the walls are adorned with lovely old photographs of stars from the glamorous world of the cinema-Derek Cameron was at least as handsome as Cary Grant. And of course as mentioned in the News Column, it was Oxgangs' very own, Bernie Calder who was the projectionist for decades.

During the 1960s many, very happy Saturday afternoons were spent at 'T'he Dom'. Seven Brides for Seven Sisters seemed to be on regularly as did Genevieve and Reach For The Sky-Kenneth More had a very comforting presence. In Genevieve, the mews lanes in London reminded me of those at Merchiston.

The cinema was large-back then the Art Moderne building could seat 1375 people in its cavernous space. Saturday afternoon matinees were the most usual occasion for our visits-there would be a mix of us in attendance-Iain Hoffmann; Ali Douglas; Boo-Boo Hanlon; the Ramage twins, Les and Derek; and others too. After the matinee performance finished we regularly tried to sneak in to see the tea-time performance, by hiding in the loos; then when the lights dimmed, we went back in to the cinema under the cover of dark-as you could imagine, this wasn't always successful.When we were successful it made for a long day in front of the cinema-too long for Iain who might end up with a migraine

We were never flush with money, particularly when one added bus fares and the price of a Kia Ora drink onto the cost of admission. When we were hungry could we delay gratification for the pleasure of a nice, comfortable bus journey home at the expense of a sweet treat? It was always a tough call, because the walk home was a long one with much of it uphill. More often than not we would end up spending our bus fare home to Oxgangs on some sweets.The ideal was of course to have the best of both worlds.

Morningside Road on board the bus home. (Photograph by  Douglas Corrance)

Often we would chance our hands, get on board the number 16 bus and tell the bus conductor we had lost our fares. Try doing that today! Anyway, sometimes the conductor would be sympathetic and let us ride for free-I wonder if that was gender influenced at all? Did female conductors show a more caring dimension? If we did get told to get off the bus, hopefully it had at least travelled a mile or so up Morningside Road; although I think one or two caustic or even toxic conductors rang the bell several times for an immediate stop!

In the early 1970s I didn't attend regularly-I notice from a diary that I went to see Where Eagles Dare on Monday 19 April-the Edinburgh Holiday and declared the film to be 'fabulous'.

The following year the cinema was converted to a dual screen facility-today there are four screens.

Whenever I'm down in Edinburgh Tom and I always go along on a Friday evening; whenever they're in the capital, Will and his girlfriend Diane, always attend too-great to see the next generation experiencing the simple pleasures we got from half a century before.