Whispers from the Close Echoes from the Glen

'In this his 70th year, James Boswell, a town and country dweller, publishes the first of his journals - January - which will go on to cover the four seasons of the year. It's a memoir of Scots, Sorts and Sensations set within small world Scotland based upon the diaries, journals and notebooks which he has kept since he was a 14 year old Boroughmuir schoolboy growing up in Oxgangs and into late 20th century Edinburgh of Colinton, Morningside, and Portobello before to moving to the Scottish Highlands in 1996. But unlike most memoirs, the vignettes record the story of day-to-day Scottish life as recorded at the time, rather than through the telescopic lens of memory.'

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!

Oxgangs - A Pastime From Time Past Shell-shocked - Old Sandy's Story

Painting by Ed Newman

Exchanging memories and stories can be quite revelatory. 

Andrew Baird son of the founder of Baird's Bookshop & Newsagent

When Fiona Blades (6/6 Oxgangs Avenue) and I met at Starbucks, South Gyle, Edinburgh back on 23 July, 2012, we were talking about days forty years previously when we did newspaper rounds for Baird’s Newsagents at 13-15 Morningside Drive. 

I asked Fiona if she remembered old Sandy. 

Sandy was a small, wizened old man. 

No matter the weather or the season of the year he always dressed in an old overcoat and cap. 

He was toothless and I could never quite understand what he was saying, however Fiona and Pamela Baird (who ran the newsagent’s) could. 

Sandy was always punctilious; probably getting the first early morning number 41 bus down from Greenlea Old Folks Home, Greenbank to the shop where he collected a bundle of newspapers to thereafter distribute to his fellow residents at Greenlea. 

Pamela Baird who ran Baird's Newsagents between 1966 and 1972

In return for doing this I think Pamela provided him with his bus fares and tobacco. 

Sandy also came down to the shop in the afternoon to collect copies of the Edinburgh Evening News and deliver them to the home too. 

Looking back it probably provided a welcome structure to his day - a diversion; it got him out and it would have been good for his self-esteem too as he would have felt he was being useful and making a contribution, something that is important to us all, young or old.

Fiona Blades 6/6 Oxgangs Avenue

Peter Hoffmann 6/2 Oxgangs Avenue

On dark winter mornings Fiona and I would sometimes stand in the shop doorway with Sandy whilst he awaited the number 41 bus for its return journey up Morningside Drive. 

Old Sandy always had a cigarette in his hand, but it was very difficult for him to smoke it because his hand shook so much. 

We would try to converse with him - being young and lacking in empathy we would probably exchange the odd, knowing glances at each other at this poor figure who shook quite violently. We weren’t nasty at all, but we were young and of course couldn't envisage ever being infirm ourselves. 

Anyway, over coffee, Fiona said to me ‘Peter, do you know why Sandy shook so violently?’ 

I said ‘No.’ 

‘Well, it was shell-shock from the First World War.’

Postscript from Fraz Jacobs, 8th August, 2018:

'I think Fiona may have been mistaken about why Sandy shook. 

I worked in Greenlea when I was a student in the 1970's during the summer holidays. 

I remember Sandy as he was in Dalgetty which was the name of the section of Greenlea he lived in. 

I remember Sandy going to collect newspapers in the morning and the Evening News in the late afternoon. 

However, Sandy did not have 'shell shock'. 

In his working life he had been a roofer. He had an accident and fell from a roof which had caused damage neurologically as he had hit his head. This was exasperated by him developing Parkinson's disease a few years later. 

I know this from being told his background from one of the nurses who handed out the medication to residents. Sandy was on medication for Parkinson's disease - I had to give him his medication after receiving it from the nurse, so I think Fiona was mistaken. 

One of the symptoms in late stage Parkinson's was difficulty in speech. Sandy found it difficult speaking but you got used to working out over time what he was saying. 

We used to keep his meal at tea time aside because that was when he went down to Morningside to collect the Evening News'. The 41 bus stopped right outside Greenlea. 

If Baird's closed in 1972 after Pamela gave it up then either he collected the newspapers from who ever took it over or another newsagent as I worked at Greenlea as a student in the holidays from 1976 for the next few years.'