Interview with Mr JohnFisher (b. 1925) and Mrs Yvonne Fisher
29/11/13 at their house in Craiglockhart.
(John’s father, John Fisher senior (born 1901) was a ploughman at Woodhall until 1940 then at Baberton Mains until 1960. After that he was the gardener at Baberton Big House until he died in 1964. John Senior’s father had worked at Woodhall Mill)
.Ploughman on Baberton Mains
My Father was a ploughman for Baberton Mains Farm. First for the Andersons: the two brothers who had the blacksmiths up there near St Margaret’s Court Juniper Green. Their sister used to go to keep house for them. .. Anderson had Baberton Mains at that time. Then Eaglesham took over from the Andersons. They grew a mixture of turnips and corn. It was a small farm. The farmer worked beside him just like a working farmer. Dad would have gone out about half past six in the morning he’d go down and feed the pigs first and then come back and have his breakfast. He wasn’t long with Mr Anderson because he sold off to Mr Eaglesham . Mr Eaglesham was a real gentleman really good, really nice. He had two sisters and a niece and then Johnny Ritchie his nephew worked on the farm too .
My parents moved to the wee cottages right at the bottom of the golf course while I was away in the Navy during the war. My mum and dad stayed in the middle of the three cottages there. Dad was in his early forties. He was ploughing with horses during the war and even when I came back from the war. Eventually he had a tractor but he never liked the tractor. There was another ploughman: Tam. He stayed near the farmhouse. That was a piggery And then Mr Eaglesham( I always called him Mr Eaglesham) and his nephew Johnny Ritchie.. Mr Eaglesham did not sell to Wimpey but to Uncle Bert’s friend ( Mr Russell Forrest who had Hermiston Farm) I don’t know if he ran it as a farm. Mr Eaglesham moved to Kingsknowe when he retired…one of the bungalows on the road down from the Golf Course.
Johnny went to Canada, we had a party for him but when he arrived there he got appendicitis, had the operation and came back home again. Eventually he got married and stayed in Granny Taylor’s house at the end ( the end cottage of the three on Baberton road west of Baberton Mains farm. Later Miss Steel, Lord Steel’s aunt, lived there while she taught at Juniper Green)
Granny Taylor stayed in the end cottage and when we got married we had a cottage down there next to my mum and dad for nine years. Most of our family were born down there.
The Perils of finding your way from the village down to Baberton Mains Farm Cottages
When I was 17 I went off to the Navy and my mum and dad moved from Woodhall to the cottages. Baberton Golf Course grazed sheep in the war. I can tell you a laugh about the sheep. My mother and father moved down there to the cottages while I was away in the navy. I roughly knew my way The night I came back I thought I’d walk down through the golf course and find my way down there. A misty night and I’m right weary And there was a cough behind me and I swung round with my sailor’s wee case- if it’s somebody at the back of me I’m ready for them! And then out of the mist walked a sheep!
When I met Yvonne first and took her home to meet my mum and dad she wondered where she was going. You went right down the road past the clubhouse and then you had to go through the woods, over a stile and then there were stepping stones over the wee burn. Then cross over the field with cows and horses, towards the Big House and at the back there were the drying greens. You went through to the gate and down to the bottom part to the drive!
The very bottom hole at Baberton Golf Course has a bell near the cottages. There’s a gate there but the people in the cottages had a key because there’s a Right of Way through the course. Mrs Fisher used to push Yvonne in her pram up through the golf course. Mrs Robertson in the big house found out what she was doing and told her to use their drive instead.
( Mrs Fisher…)
The Robertsons at the Big House had two big mountain dogs one was Victor and the other was Happy. They had big white shaggy coats. One pulled my cardigan off the washing line and all up the driveway there was all bits of wool from it.
We had to pay for our children to go to Juniper School because we were in Midlothian. They could have got the school bus to Currie if the children had gone along to Whitelaw crossed the railway at the crossing but we thought that wasn’t safe so in the end we moved up to Juniper Green
John Fisher senior moves up to the Lodge cottage 1960
When Mr Eaglesham sold up the farm the next people at the Big House, the Cullens, were looking for a gardener so they gave my dad the job and the lodge cottage. All these big houses have a big walled garden. He grew all sorts. So from 1960 my father and mother lived at that wee lodge cottage at the very bottom of Baberton Avenue (now demolished!) It’s a turning circle now! The wheels of the cars in the turning circle would go right through my mum and dad’s house The youngest of the Cullens- she loved my mum and dad and always wanted to stay with my mum and dad in the lodge cottage. So they made a bed for her in the cottage and she stayed a night or two.
Dad was in the cottage maybe about four years. He came off the farm after 1960 and worked gardening for the Big House until 1964 when he died of a heart attack and hard work.
A wise man in every way
My dad was such a lovely man, a kind man, a wise man in every way.
He said whatever you do, work for yourself…you’ll no make money working for other people. And remember- if you have a pound don’t spend twenty one shillings :spend nineteen shillings . Mrs Cullen met me just after he died. She said “ I’m sorry about your dad. But there‘s one thing you can be pleased about. You know when people die you say he was a nice man, but…. Your dad was a nice man and No Buts…………
My mum moved up to Currie because they needed the cottage for someone else. She belonged Chirnside but was in service here in Colinton. She may have helped out in the Big House at Baberton but never worked on the land
John Fisher followed his father’s advice
My dad joined the Home Guard in Juniper Green. They met behind the church and the hall was the dormitory and if it was our duty we had to stay overnight there. I joined the Home Guard when I was fifteen. You got training at the rifle ranges but my mother hated it because you had your rifle in the corner of the bedroom. I joined the Navy in the war and served on the frigates. After the war I came back and worked in the paper mill and then started serving my time as a gardener for Bruce at Braeburn estate.
I started with a horse and a cart in 1948 delivering fruit and vegetables. I kept my horse in one of the stables at Baberton Mains Farm and later I had a lorry and then a travelling shop. I’d toot the horn and people’d come out to the shop. Twenty years with a lorry and a travelling shop and then twenty years with the shop (118 Colinton road) from 1968 until retirement in 1988.