A Pastime From Time Past #21 School Part-Time Jobs

Graeme Robb: Like a lot of our generation if you wanted anything you got a job. My first job was delivering papers for Ewarts Newsagents (Oxgangs Broadway) - quite a good round with everything above Ewarts i.e. Caiystane, Swanston, Oxgangs Road up to Fairmilehead Crossroads providing good Christmas tips. Then sweeping up and stacking shelves in the chemist at Oxgangs Road North now The Chip Inn. The best job I had was washing dishes at the Hunters Tryst Inn - a good laugh. I remember the fist things that I bought with my paper money - T. Rex,  Ride a White Swan and Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Child - I still have them both.

George Fraser: I worked in the Hunter's Tryst too, washing dishes - a good job, but all the chefs were toss-pots. I can remember a fellow dishwasher - when a plate came back with a bit of fillet steak on it he ate it; I will not name him and it wasn't me. I was disgusted - all I will say is he was from the Oxgangs Farm side of the area!

Ruth Kaye (Blades): Yes I delivered papers for Ewarts too.

June Rafferty: My husband John Rafferty cleaned at Hunters Tryst before he left school

John McDonaugh: I also washed pots and dishes and cleaned at the HT - enjoyed the occasional knocked bottle of beer as well!

Audrey Dixon (McLean): My god when l was about 13 l worked at Hunters Tryst pot washing - had some great laughs.I also worked at the woollen mill shop in Morningside on Saturdays and during the holidays. In the summer-time I was at Toni's Cafe down Leith at weekends and on a Sunday; he would take me to the beach where I manned the ice cream and sweet trailer. The first record l bought was Marc Bolan's l Love to Boogie.

Peter Hoffmann: Nice post -  #70sSummer

Laurence Calder: I delivered milk at Gemmells Dairy 223 Morningside Road during the week and behind the counter. I carried on at weekends once left school up until I was 20. The owners then bought the Kildonan Lodge Hotel at Craigmiller Park and I worked there at weekends for many years. My first job was an apprentice draughtsman at Mackenzie & Moncur at 49 Balcarres Street Morningside for five years. I also played rhythm guitar in The Paper Chase from 1966 until 1970.

Paper Chase and Friends. Tiny Burns; Mike Jarvie; Howard Anstruther; Duncan Mathews; Laurence Calder; Billy Wilson; John Kennedy and Douglas Miller.

Lisa Sibbald: I had a couple of jobs when I was about 14. I delivered the local free paper - think it was maybe the Edinburgh Advertiser in these days. I covered most (or it might have been all) of the Oxgangs Farm streets. Hard work, but well paid. In fact, it was so well paid that I used to pay some of the younger kids to run up and down the stairs for me! I also was an agent for Cancer and Polio football coupons. I used to have to go round to the people who took part in them and collect the money. I can't imagine a 14 year old doing that sort of job these days. The army houses at Dreghorn were part of my round and I remember one particular house I called at where the wife was usually out at the bingo and the husband never had any money. I'd end up having to go back again the next day.

George Fraser:  I delivered the Edinburgh Post in 1972, paid £1.20 to deliver 500 and I had two of the high flats at Firrhill.

Lisa Sibbald: It would have been 1972 for me too, so must have been the Edinburgh Post.

George Fraser: To be honest I can't really remember if they all got delivered.

Dougie Begbie: I delivered papers for Ewarts aged 13 then at 14 years old I delivered milk for Murchies Creameries Ltd, Lochrin Place. I then worked for Edinburgh Dairies - John Clement was a driver for Edinburgh Dairies; I met him years later and he reminded me that I bumped him - gladly he doesn't hold a grudge!

Yvonne Thomson: I delivered papers at Oxgangs Park and Oxgangs Road for Ewarts; I can't remember how much we got - 5 shillings or maybe not.

Morningside Road, Scotsman Publications Ltd.

Carole Shearer: I worked in the Orchard at Morningside (now Boots the Chemist) on Monday Thursday and Friday after school and all day Saturday, during the school holidays I was full-time there or at their shop in Dundee Street. i worked alongside Diane and Marion Watson and Moira Wilson.

Colin Laidlaw: I delivered papers for Ewart's, but was called 'Sleepy-Joe' by Ian; thereafter as I was always late.

Dougie Begbie: Was that the afternoon delivery ha ha!

Del Trotter: Same way for me to - I think we all did.

😂

Sorry boys, size does matter-the Caramac bar!

How can something be bigger, yet smaller?

This was the conundrum faced by many children on their visit to Ewarts Newsagents at Oxgangs Broadway during the 1960s in relation to the Caramac bar.

The Caramac seemed gigantic in comparison to any other bar of chocolate; indeed it must have been at least twice the size in terms of width and height. This was a clever marketing ploy, because many wide eyed children would have made their selection based on size. However, its depth was very slim compared to the other bars on the market.

I occasionally bought them; not because I was bamboozled by how much chocolate was in the bar, but because of the novelty of the taste. It had a creamy, slightly sickly taste to it. It wasn't a chocolate that one could eat a lot of, so often a few squares were enough. It was made with condensed milk and was a pale yellow in colour-again a novelty of the bar.

It was produced by Mackintosh's-sadly no more. They were absorbed by Rowntrees, who were subsequently taken over by the giant Nestle company. The Caramac was created in my first year at Oxgangs in 1958, with production beginning the following year. The name of the product was determined in a competition. The competition was held in what was the Norwich factory of the company and won by Barbara Herne. It cleverly combined the caramel in the bar with the Mackintosh name.

I've mentioned it before, but if you're interested in chocolate, business and the Quaker movement I'd recommend Chocolate Wars by Deborah Cadbury. 

And, sadly, at least in business, size does appear to matter! 

Further Shops At The Broadway And The Crescent And Colinton Mains

'Every day, I walk up the high street to work, and as I pass those little shops, a nice, friendly, warm atmosphere seems to come wafting out...' Sergeant Wilson, Dad's Army

The shops not thus far covered in the blog which were important parts of the lives of those who lived at The Stair included three butchers shops; a fruit and vegetable shop; Allans Grocery; Campbells Newsagents; and Cruickshanks Grocery.

The butcher's shop at The Broadway was a well run clean shop which was above the average. It was owned by Crombie Smith. 

My memory may be playing tricks but I think it was here that Iain Hoffmann and Boo-Boo Hanlon began work as apprentice butchers.  

Les and Iain went on to work and have adventures at Leslies Butcher's shop at Comiston Road just around the corner from Bairds newsagents shop. The shop remained there for many decades. They had many adventures there which I'm sure they'd happily tell you about. I think what eventually drove Les from the shop was that he used to panic when serving customers because he found it difficult to work out the change when he was serving customers! Only Boo-Boo stayed with this trade as a career.

Neil's Butcher's shop at Colinton Mains was there for many decades too - again it was a relatively high class shop for the area. It was his brother, Dr Neil who opened the lovely garden at Duddingston Village to the public. 

Both brothers died in fairly recent years. However, if we ever had to visit a butcher then it was at The Store - this would be for Ayrshire Middle bacon - also for a quarter pound of chopped pork which made my stomach turn! Meanwhile, the butcher's shop at The Crescent was Warner's. I was never in this shop.

There was an old fashioned fruit and vegetable shop - Holmes - at The Broadway. It remained there for decades and must have been one of the original shops - it always had that particular smell unique to such shops. These shops have mostly disappeared although there is still one in Dingwall. When we lived at Colinton for seven very happy years between 1989 and 1996 there was a similar fruiterer's shop in Colinton Village. I visited it because it took me back to The Broadway. 

Even then I thought it must close down, but it's kept soldiering away with the same lady owner, Patsy Downes, who never seemed to change in appearance - she had the look of a gypsy with dyed black hair. A few years ago we took a family walk from the flat at Gillsland Park up though Colinton Dell and stopped off in the village for coffee and cakes - well blow me down it was still on the go - it was like walking through a time-warp - it's surely gone to the great shop cemetery in the sky? (It's not as of 2018!)

A Mr McNish ran a little wool shop both at Oxgangs Broadway and Colinton Mains and at a later date  also took on the post office in both locations too.

He must have realised that in the years ahead it would be difficult to earn a living for his family from selling wool, cotton reels and items of school uniform - does anyone remember the snake Hunters Tryst school belts as well as the school tie and badge? When the opportunities arose for both Post Office franchises he must have seized the moment.

He wasn't a very popular chap - serious and pinched, he didn't have the easy personal skills that made for a good shopkeeper. Even I would notice this as a wee boy when I was collecting the Family Allowance - the magical money that my mother received every fortnight. I believe the McNish family stayed at Greenbank. His would have been another of these tales of entrepreneurship at The Broadway now probably sadly vanished and untold - we need a social historian going avisiting with a tape recorder!

Allans the grocers I've alluded to when remembering Helen Blades. Was it two sisters and a brother who ran the shop? A friend of Liz Blades married the son of one of the Allans - also Douglas Blades worked there as a bicycle delivery boy. The Hoffmanns didn't give any trade to this shop; instead we got the vast amount of our provisions at The Store. Also, it was quite expensive at Allans - being able to sell wines and spirits must have helped the business survive over the period 1958 to 1972. The Blades seemed to be the only family from the The Stair who regularly shopped there.

The two shops which I visited regularly at The Crescent were Campbells Newsagents and Cruickshanks Store. The Campbell family must have led a similarly good life to the Ewart's at The Broadway. They had a monopoly in that part of Oxgangs and Firhill. The shop always seemed to me scruffier compared to Ewart's and although it too sold confectionery wasn't so well organised; unlike Ewart's it didn't have the jars of penny sweets lined up in military precision. Like Ewart's it sold rolls on a Sunday - buying in the dozen rolls and the Sunday Post sometimes took me in this direction. As I said I found old man Campbell a wee bit gruff, but humorous.

My main visits to The Crescent were to Cruikshank's which in essence was a baker's, but really a small grocer's and sweet shop. 

For such a small shop unit they seemed to have found the magic formula. 

At lunchtimes the schoolchildren swarmed over the shop like wasps to jam. I suppose it was less a baker's than a grocer's but less of a grocer's and more a baker cum sweet-shop - if you know what I mean! 

A bakery of  sorts and also a grocer's of sorts, but selling a limited amount of products, but what it had hit upon were the sweets, chocolate and juice that kids liked. 

We were able to buy Koolapop here - a brand of fizzy juice that I've never been able to come across since. It's a brand that has vanished off the planet. I don't know who manufactured it. It came in a bottle larger than a Coca Cola bottle, but only the top part of the glass had that novel twist. It had a screw top, but not metal - instead it was akin to a rubber cork that screwed into the bottle. The taste wasn't as strong as Coke. The bottle was the perfect size to wash down our Paris buns or pies from the shop and also slaked your thirst. 

Returning the bottle meant one got threepence old money back, thus it really cost one shilling and threepence. Everything was piled high in Cruikshank's making the most of very limited space - even the jars of sweets at the front counter meant it was difficult to see over. 

They also sold the popular ABC cards and gum - many footballers series which the boys enjoyed swapping; they also sold The Beatles and The Monkees cards as well as the American Civil War. They were clearly a good example of a business which worked back from the market and provided and satisfied a need with a rapid turnover.

One other shop which we visited at Colinton Mains and was similar to Cruikshanks was a grocer's shop called Andreetti's; it also sold rolls and we visited it for many years. Mrs Andretti was a lovely woman. For those who remember the shop, they will also remember that it closed down for tragic reasons. The son of the owners was disturbed and murdered a little girl in the neighbourhood and hid her small body in the flat above the shop. The Andrettis found it impossible to run the shop into the future, although I think they tried to.

As I've said on more than one occasion I believe that a social history of the original shopkeepers at The Broadway; The Crescent; and Colinton Mains who were pioneers in the first decade or so of the new housing schemes which arose at Oxgangs after the Second World War would have made a very interesting book. All parties benefited - the residents at Oxgangs were provided with a service; some local employment was created; and the owners made a living for their own families through their brave entrepreneurship.

'You'll Take What You Get!'

Ian Ewart (Photograph courtesy Shelley Wall)

On a blog a few days ago on Ewarts Newsagents I mentioned the sweet jars which were set up along one counter of the shop behind glass. For small children this of course was at a perfect marketing height-eye level. For many of us we were in there very regularly for our treats. 

In the mid 1960s as I got toward the age of nine or ten, if my father was working and we had been given school dinner money we sometimes just held on to the money and bought our lunches at Oxgangs Broadway. For me, lunch would consist of three Paris buns for nine old pennies with a bottle of Koolapop-a cola drink, which also cost nine pence-a grand total of one and six i.e. one shilling and six pennies. However, on returning the Koolapop bottle I would get threepence back which would go on a little mixture of sweets. 

I’d usually go for sports mixtures-little fruit gums which were very hard and which took a lot of sucking and chewing. They took the form of sports kit-little boots or racquets. Green or red were the best flavour-orange was fine, but black was unpalatable to all but a few; on placing the order I would ask the shop assistant for no black ones. Sometimes they would oblige, on other occasions they would say Ye'll take what you get son! After all they could hardly do this for all customers and be left with a jar of black sports mixtures!

Because the sweets were bought towards the end of the lunch period and also to improve the quality of the school afternoon we would run the risk of eating surreptitiously in class. This was high risk-if you were caught, which was often the case, you had to spit the offending morsel out in to a basket, but more worryingly you might have to hand over the offending sweet bag to the teacher. 

Other sweets which were popular with us all from the Ewarts sweet jars particularly for chewing in class were Fruit Salad and Blackjacks. Because lunchtimes were busy and some kids could be very slow in making up their mind and the shop assistants patience low, the lunchtime theme tune for Ewarts could have been Come on, make up your mind! I was never like that. I knew exactly what I wanted. However, there was such a bewildering range of sweets to choose from, perhaps it was understandable. In Sunday's blog in a quick Cooke's Tour I'll tackle the impossibly large topic of the bewildering range of sweets that were available.

Ewart's Newsagent

Newsagents, The Broadway - not much has changed, apart from the name (2012)

My favourite and most visited local shop was Ewart's, the local newsagents. 

The Ewart family ran the shop for decades. 

Compared to the more risky nature of some of the other shops it was a sure fire business with no chance of failure. 

From early in the morning until teatime, the shop was always busy. 

It was the shop at The Broadway which, depending upon the time of day attracted working men; housewives; teenagers; and children, both boys and girls, so it had an all-round appeal.

It had significant newspaper runs in the mornings and afternoons as well as Sunday newspaper runs too. 

I recall delivering Sunday newspapers for Ewart's, probably because it was my day off from Baird's Newsagents, Morningside Drive. 

The shop always had a different feel to it on Sundays because it was the one day of the week that Ian Ewart (who ran the shop) took off.

Ian Ewart 

I liked Ian - he was an absolutely lovely gem of a bloke - a legend in Oxgangs - he had a good heart and excellent customer care so his absence on a Sunday made a noticeable difference. 

Other relatives came in to open the shop in the morning until it closed at Sunday lunchtime; possibly it was Ian's father. Indeed it was probably his father and mother who initially started the business in the early 1950s?

His mother (whose name appeared as the addressee, Mrs E. Ewart) appeared at various times during the week, but not so much in a serving capacity. She was a serious looking, older woman, who appeared very efficient and business like. Indeed, whenever I saw her she seemed to be undertaking book-keeping and other such tasks. 

Perhaps because the shop proved to be so busy and lucrative and to allow them to expand at an early opportunity, Ewart's took on the let of the adjacent first shop on the precinct, 1 Oxgangs Broadway previously run by McNab's the Drycleaners. It thus became a double shop unit. 

Some people may be surprised at what a good mark-up there is on newspapers. 

When that is multiplied by hundreds of newspapers each day, seven days a week, fifty two weeks of the year, it really adds up. It was only after reading A Season In Dornoch by Lorne Rubenstein that I became aware of this. So the Ewart family made a very good living indeed; that said Ian Ewart in particular had to work hard and long hours. 

Because Ewart's sold comics the shop was a big attraction for me. 

When there were free gifts in The Hornet I would set off early on a Monday morning to buy my copy. 

I might arrive at the shop as early as seven o'clock. 

As I neared the shop my little heart would race to find out if the comic had arrived or not. 

Sometimes there was a delay. 

As well as being very disappointing this was a great worry too, in case by the time I returned after school at Hunters Tryst that all the copies of the comic had been sold out and I would miss out on the free gift; I think Ian Ewart was probably bemused, but entertained by my angst and keen enthusiasm!

The free gifts were a simple and clever piece of marketing by DC Thomson - usually it was a plastic wallet with some football team photographs.

The shop also sold some toys which were displayed in the window. 

We played a bagsy game. 

Like something out of Dickens, a few of us would line up along the shop window front with our little noses pressed against the glass. 

In turn we would bags the toy which we were going to get for our birthday or Christmas. 

I don’t ever recall actually buying or getting a toy from Ewarts' and many of the boxes remained unchanged in the shop window for years. I guess it was an easy way of filling the large space for little work and imagination.

Whilst newspapers, magazines and comics were the main-stay of the business, tobacco and cigarettes would have come next in the pecking order. 

In the 1960s a significant part of the adult population smoked and this figure would have been higher in Oxgangs which was predominately working class. Players No 6; Kensitas; Embassy Regal - all the common brands, but of course no Gauloises or Disque Bleu which my father smoked!

Most children and some adults bought sweets regularly and the shop sold hundreds of sweets and chocolates each and every day. 

For the shop assistants, this must have been a tiresome business. 

Within the shop one whole side was devoted to children’s confectionery. 

There was a long glass counter. 

The whole of the front cabinet was lined with jars of penny sweets which were what most of the children came in for. 

The shop assistants had to bend over and stretch forward in an awkward position. 

Many of the kids took an age to make up their mind to the tune of ‘Come on now!’