Winter is Coming - The First Of December and The Onset Of Winter

One of James Taylor's most lovely songs, Sweet Baby James, includes the lines Now The First of December was covered in snow. And so was the Turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston. 

Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas, Norman Rockwell

Before the boys were born and my wife Alison was a high flyer she flew up from a business week in New York to join me in Boston in the Fall.

A small highlight was our visit to the famous small town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts which featured so memorably in James' song.

At The Stair, as we moved into the late Fall - autumn - and the ever shorter light days of November were ticked off the calendar and with winter now fast approaching on the first of December it was time to look out the hot water bottles from the depths of the cupboards.

It wasn't that we had turned our noses up at electric blankets - no - it was just that in the early 1960s they were as scarce as hens' teeth in Oxgangs.

Whereas in direct contrast, you could just imagine that come the frosty mornings and nights of winter, our Greenbank neighbours were sleeping more comfortably under a fug of electric blankets, whilst the adjacent population at Oxgangs trooped off to bed chittering as they carried their hot water bottles through to cold bedrooms.

Greenbank Cottage in the snow.

If you were smart and remembered, in the immediate period leading up to bed-time you would pay a few quick visits to the bedroom to move the bottle around the bed to help take the winter chill off the sheets and spread the heat around, before diving in after brushing your teeth.

But more normally it was a case of slipping into a cold  bed with one lovely warm toasty spot where the hot bottle lay.

Indeed the hot water bottle was usually so hot you would have to carefully move it around touching it gingerly every so often with your toes.

For many years we had old stone hot water bottles which I think we inherited from grandparents; they probably sell for a small fortune today.

However, gradually, rubber hot water bottles began to appear in the household; they always gave off a distinct smell - was it the chemical reaction of the hot water against the rubber?

So, filling up hot water bottles was an evening ritual in Oxgangs throughout the long, dark months from December through to early March and the onset of spring. And it was also the signal that very shortly we three young children would have to reluctantly head off to our beds - my father would twirl his hand around, before pointing toward the bedroom whilst doing a Roger Whitaker-like whistle saying Okay, time to get the hot water bottles made up!

Rather like transporting the hot water from the stand alone gas boiler in the kitchen to fill the bath, similarly filling up hot water bottles was a potentially dangerous thing to do - indeed even if we've had to fill up a hot water bottle today I'm reluctant to allow our sons in their early 20's to do so, but back then we seemed to manage fine over the years with no mishaps.

I'm sure having a hot water bottle in our beds was far healthier than an electric blanket although I wonder what that old-young sage Oor Wullie would say - I'm sure such stories must have featured in The Fun Section over the decades.

Today, I like to kid on how stoical I am by voluntarily sleeping without any such comfort keeping the window open throughout the winter - at least until more recently since hitting my early 60's. I guess we all find ourselves repeating many of the things our older relatives said - you really do feel the cold more as you get older; indeed as soon as I finished today's running session the long sleeved tops, buffs and woolly hat were straight on.

And so, Winter is Coming.

But in contrast to the stark image above, over the decades we've bought wee serendipites from such trips to Stockbridge to lighten the dark and decorate our cheerful Christmas tree, so the small wooden church we purchased 30 years ago will soon be making its annual appearance.

But no hot water bottles or electric blanket thus far...but my wife returns from Oz this Friday, so who knows...

Roundabouts, Police Pillar Boxes and Cutbacks

Does anyone remember the old police pillar boxes?

Fiona Blades (6/6 Oxgangs Avenue) and I - possibly also Liz Blades or one of the Hogg girls (6/4) too, used to walk from Oxgangs to the play-park at Morningside Drive. The attraction was to play on the children's roundabout. At the time there was no roundabout at the Oxgangs play-park.

It was a long walk, particularly on hot summer days, because we had to walk the length of Oxgangs Avenue and then work our way through the sweeping avenues and bungalows of Greenbank, not to mention all the way back home.

We must have been keen and devoid of alternatives - there must have been only so many times we could take a spin on the roundabout.

I said to Fiona do you recall us making rogue phone calls on the emergency services speaker-phone which was located along Greenbank Road?

Fiona couldn't even recall the pillar, never mind the calls.

Anyway, we would open the small door which formed the torso of the police pillar, pick up the speaker-phone - and once we heard the operator on the other end, we usually panicked and hung up - possibly on a few occasions we had the chutzpah to go further and report a kitchen fire or some such emergency. After doing this we took to our heels and ran like the clappers and absolutely flew along the road, for fear of the 'bobbies' appearing; we didn't feel safe until we reached Oxgangs.

A main reason why I recall the police pillar was that I always looked forward to seeing it as I found the design to be aesthetically pleasing. I wasn't thinking in such conceptual terms at that age - all I knew was that I liked the shape, the blue colour (I've discovered some were red too) and that it represented something from a bygone era. The design is clearly based on the human body. If I could get hold of one now I'd have it as a garden sculpture.

Looking back, I never saw another one anywhere else however, after doing a wee bit research, Edinburgh was a significant area for them with over 500 miles of lines laid throughout the city.

They were designed by the Ericsson company and were introduced around 1931. I think this was the design of the one at Greenbank, but I may be wrong. A mark 2 came out around 1938 and then further designs in the 1950s which are less appealing.

The idea behind them must have been to give households access to a phone to contact the emergency services - fire, ambulance or police. Those were the days when very few homes had their own telephone - also pre-police radios it was a way of peripatetic police officers out on patrol being able to contact police stations.

It was also promoted as a way of saving money and allowing the city to close twenty five police stations - yes even before David Cameron's dad was born, they were looking at cutbacks!