Interview with Peter Tuffy and Yvonne Tuffy 5/12/13 in 268 Baberton Mains Drive
Peter and Yvonne moved in in 1974, brought up two children on the estate and still stay in the same house. They have not extended it.
You paid your fifty pounds and you got your house!
It started 1973 down that way (indicating eastwards along the Drive ) and by the time it got round to us it was March 1974 when we moved in. The building was up to our street ( the Drive going west as far as the Wynd) and there wasn’t any of this ( pointing across to the other side of across the road on the north side of the Drive )It was mud as high as the house. This was attractive because you paid your fifty pounds deposit and you got your house. We’d been pipped for other houses. At first I didn’t think I could afford it because it was very difficult to get loans at that time. The University where I worked had an arrangement with the Halifax Building Society for a mortgage, but the re-payments could only be a quarter of my monthly salary, after tax. And the loan amount calculated only on one salary. It cost £9450.
And Jackie Ritchie said….
We came to see to Jackie Ritchie (the site agent)and he said “Great place to have a house because right across from you will be a park and you’ll have great views down to the Forth!” And I think he told everyone else the same. We thought it was going to be a park for the children!
But he was a nice guy. His daughter lived on the estate too …one in the Green and one in the Row. He could have sold snow to the Eskimos! People took Jackie as a bit of a joke. If that happened today you’d be up in arms but people couldn’t afford to wait because prices were rising so fast.
Jackie Ritchie said it was the biggest estate in Edinburgh- 999 houses!
We came from Easter road and we’d looked at houses in other places and been pipped from them. We thought we’d bought the house across the road on the plans. It’s the same size as the detached ones. I think Jackie may have……… I did hum and haw about it.
My mother’s great friend was a Wimpey director and his wife. He said “Peter.. go with it because there’s going to be another release of houses and they’ll go up another five hundred pounds!” That sealed it
(Yvonne) Peter bought the house on his own and he brought me to see it and all it was, was a doorway in the front, the wooden frame for the walls and a ladder to go upstairs!
We watched it being built I used to come up and take pictures of the house as it was going up. After it was finished the night watchman used to come round with his dog and have a cup of tea with us. The roads were all mud, not finished and just a semi- pavement. There were foundations going in up to the Wynd. Nothing at the back of us, and nothing at the front of us. It was just mud!
Mud!
The bottom of the estate was where the builders had all their stuff. On the day we arrived to get into the house I had to go round to the hut in that yard to get the keys.
(Yvonne)I found it difficult when we first moved here, I’d been in a flat and I liked it. It was very central with the shopping being easy. The house seemed huge. The whole place was covered in mud. Here I had to walk across the road to the Centre get the bus to go into Corstorphine to do my shopping. Up the road in Juniper was only the Co—op, the Post Office and the butcher and when there was only steps up it was like a workout pushing the pram through the mud. Mark played out the back on the mud.
Different styles different choices
The houses on the Drive east of the Wynd have no downstairs toilet. After the Wynd they have, but they have no chimney stack. We had no central heating because you had to pay £500 extra. We paid a fiver extra to have a white toilet seat and bath panel instead of the standard black. But we took the basic fireplace! The other choice was the twelve slabs for the back instead of the coal bunker ! We weren’t allowed to decorate for a year because Jackie said we had to let the moisture out…..…
The houses have changed: the first ones had red slate window ledges then there was a wooden ledge then later no window sills at all. Some of them had metal windows which slid which were absolutely awful! But the standard of the harling has been terrific.
The house styles changed terrifically. As you go downhill the styles change and they look smaller until further down there are four bedrooms.
These houses have got solid concrete floors: I was worried about the porosity of concrete but they laid membranes to stop the dampness. They’d used it in garages before. But this was new: other Wimpey houses had wooden floors.
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The WH Baptist Church bought one of the first houses opposite the show house down near the Terrace where the other entrance to the estate used to be. Of course there was no bypass then. When we first came into the house there were cows in the fields all the way down, where the bypass is now. The farmer would come and take cows away with his trailer: black and white cows. I played badminton at the University of Edinburgh, and one night I came home late and there was a stag standing in the road. Deer often got caught in the school playground .
.Coming of the Bypass in the 1980s
The bottom entrance to the estate (under the railway bridge) went in at the same time as the bypass. I went to the meeting with Danny Hodsden who was an engineer. The first plan was to run the bypass on stilts right over from the bowling club on Lanark road to get over the railway. At the meeting Danny said “Have you not thought about going under the railway?” and there was a hush in the room. Danny said “If you go under it will deflect the noise.” And I have to say it for the surveyor because he said it was a good suggestion. So then they had to go for a new entrance (to the estate) with a proviso that the closest house boundary to the bypass was a hundred and fifty yards. There was a lot of worry about the noise, the fumes, the safety, how it was going to look and the bunding used to camouflage the road. The majority were not happy, especially those who were edge onto the road. For me it was great because I could get to the University at Kings Buildings in twelve minutes. They had a debate about where they were going to get onto the bypass because it was a steep approach.
Once the greenery was established..they made a beautiful job of it. But at first you could see the road. It’s a beautiful road ……..one of the nicest, when you drive in the evening with all the light on the hills.
Getting to know people
We got to know one another talking in the streets, at the school gates, (the school is central) the nursery, ballet, cub scouting ( meeting in the school) any social event the Village Association put on at the Hall. We were all young families every one was in the same boat and very friendly. In the street there are three of us left from the beginning. A lot of friendship groups for us are to do with the Church. There was a Bible group in the house just across from us. There was a young women’s group in the Juniper Green Church and you could also played Badminton there. We got to know five or so people and we would do a progressive meal (starter at one house, main meal at the next and so on) or go to a dance in the Village Hall. There was a tremendous movement of people becoming Christians in the estate in the early 80s.
And of course the school had things on. And the park you’d take the kids to play and meet others there.
It’s like a modern village but without the amenities.
You’ve got the countryside : just cross the road and you’re in the countryside…
In those days most women were at home while now children are going to a childminder or get taken to a granny. In our day women were at home and so we did want to meet others. People don’t know one another so well now. I chat with young mums because I know how hard it is.
We used to go into other people’s houses and take your children to their’s to play. People were coming from all over to this estate. It could have been quite a lonely place. It was all the women got to know one another the men wouldn’t meet. There was a great social thing among the women
People stretched themselves to buy here: they felt it was an upmarket place but they were toiling. The funny thing was grocery vans came in sold cold meats and vegetables, the fish van so people met at the vans because all you had was the Coop and the butcher and of course there were no credit cards so you had to pay with cash and you paid for it all differently
Change, extend or leave?
When people first get married and move here they start with the smaller houses then progress up to the larger ones when they have children.
There’s one person we know who moved to five different houses and have ended back here in exactly the same house they started in. . My neighbour next door is the son of a neighbour four doors down …..he was brought up here!
Another neighbour has moved three times in the estate. You can know what you’ll get for your house.
That’s been a massive thing recently. In the last ten or fifteen years people are staying in a smaller house and extending it. You weren’t allowed to do anything in the front garden. There were designated places for garages: in the back garden. No hedges or fencing allowed.
A chap across the road built a double garage in his back garden and his neighbour went to Wimpey to complain about the height, because Wimpey still held the feu, the chap had to take the garage down.
Now people stay and rent out: that’s unusual.
We’ve not extended at all.
The cost of moving……….People don’t want to move out because the school’s a draw. It’s a big big thing! It was fantastic…….! One year the Primary School took a ski trip abroad to Morzan. And then when the kids moved onto Currie, the year my son left from sixth year I think every child went onto University. But when Emma went to the Primary ( b 1977) there was a composite class in her last two years, because it was so full, it got to over 600 in the end. It was a safe place, and not very many cars then.
There wasn’t the problem with nursery. The playschool in the Village Hall was run by Jennifer Brown ( later Mrs Birrell) but now it’s so difficult to get places, people go further afield…or a lot of people here do childminding.
You’d go far to find a house like this….and we like the village idea . My mum liked the fishmonger and the little grocer in the village . She said JG was known as little Switzerland because it had clean air! “ Oh” she said “The air up there is wonderful!”
Transport to Secondary school
We thought about moving off. But once the children had gone to secondary school that was it! With Mark (b 1972) there was debate whether they would go to Firrhill or Currie. The boundary for free school transport runs right through the middle of our house so we got free transport to school for the kids and next door never.
I prefer the top end of the estate to the bottom. I think it’s the railway line, plus it’s a long way for the kids to come up the road to school. Now we’re established here I wouldn’t move for all the tea in China. I do know that people of Mark’s age have moved out and then came back and have their own kids here.
We thought about moving to a four bedroom down at the bottom but …..
Trees
It was plant a tree year when we moved in so Wimpey designated which gardens had trees. Some had one or some had two. We had one but it died and its life expectancy was twenty or thirty years. It was a Japanese tree like the neighbour across the road. There’s still some left along the road, just as you come into the estate, most were silver birch though. When our tree died we replanted a specimen tree in exactly the same place, it hid the lamppost. Azaleas grow very well it must be the soil, the ground’s really quite good! The sun hits the back garden all the way round, one of the main reasons for buying the house.
The coming of the bus
We protested against the bus and made a human chain it was horrendous. We had the kids with us. A whole group went down to the bus and the route it was taking. My main argument was about the route and the danger to the children going to school. Now there are a lot of children coming from WH.. I suggested the bus came in at the bottom and go out at the top…but they said with de-regulation they could go any where. Now most people like the bus. One time we had a tootley bus and a night bus and the 33 and the 30 used to come in here. But the roads were never built to take heavy buses. Now I wouldn’t be anti the bus…the problem we have now is people driving too fast. A lot of people come off the bypass and get lost in here looking for the way up to the village.
There are some problems….
There’s problems with the Wynd, because if they have a second car and park it on the road they are on double yellows. Or people park right across peoples drives to take their children to school. Or park here in the Drive to walk up to the Wynd and then when there’s snow they bring their cars and park right along the Drive … There’s no lollipop lady here to help the children cross-over the Drive.
I know someone with four children who walks them all the way up from the bottom of the estate. Other children.. I think there parents think they have lost the use of their legs.
The school and the Village Hall are in the ideal place for people, they’re central. We hoped that the old school would be used for the community…..I think it has been a big opportunity lost.
We don’t get anything provided here by the council, just get our rubbish lifted. The green lump (we don’t have a name for it!) is used for bonfires and dogs. When it snows is the only time you see it being used. The other green part is at the back of the Wood.
You can feel at home in an area
There’s going to be huge change here over the next twenty years, there’s a whole lot of people all of roughly the same age. As we all get older it will be more difficult to get near the shops, you will definitely need a car. We both feel at home here: you can feel at home in an area. It’s not just your house it’s a whole lot of different things. If you have your children here…Emma was born here …and that has a lot to do with belonging. When you walk up to the village, it brings back memories of walking up with the kids. Or we can walk up to the top bit, just at the new school and look out, where else would you have that whole panorama of the Edinburgh Skyline. Later I might be interested in a flat in the old school. The bit that was the art room will have a fantastic view. You’d still be part of the village……..right at the heart of everything.
EAB January 2014