Memories of Juniper Green
A Belmont road resident remembers...
...in an interview with Val Hawkins in December 2006.
I was born in 18 Belmont Road in 1928 and christened in St Margaret's Church by the Rev Buchanan. You can still see the font there.
Parents and Home Life
My father worked as a cutterman in a big machine room at the Kinleith Mill. My mother stayed at home. Father had been to the old Juniper Green infant school at 28 Baberton Avenue and I used to have a photo of him and his classmates outside the school.
Father was among those who fell out with the Rev Henderson at St Margaret's. A group walked out of the church after he had led prayers for the enemy during the war. After that, the family went to my grandparents' church which was Currie Kirk. We walked along the Lanark Road to get there. When I was 3 or 4 the family moved across the road into a house called Hill Mount with an outside stair. It had gas for lighting and cooking. Our old house had had an outside toilet, but the new house had an indoor bathroom with a metal bath. Later the family moved into the middle cottage of the three at the bottom of Juniper Avenue.
My grandparents lived in the house behind them. The cottages were called The Knowe. It was here that a friend of my father, who worked in the GPO as a sorter, helped my father put in the electricity for lights and electric fires. This would be during the war. The Board had to come and check it was safe. My mother still cooked on a gas stove, but instead of an old black one she had a new enamel one, and instead of a floor sweeper she had a Hoover Junior vacuum cleaner. Typical meals were mince and tatties, stew and vegetables. The fishwife came up from Newhaven and stood at the foot of Baberton Avenue.
Behind the cottage was a big garden with a pony that grazed at the bottom. Attached to the big house was a washhouse where a fire was lit to heat the water in a boiler. Huge wooden tubs were filled with the hot water and the clothes washed in them before being put through the mangle and rinsed. The tubs then had to be lifted and emptied by hand down the drain. My mother had a heart complaint so our washing was sent to the laundry which was part of the Co-op. he Co-op had everything - a butchery, bakery, grocery, drapery, shoe and dhardware departments.
School Life
I started school in 1933. My teacher was Miss Mulholland who taught the beginners. Other teachers were Miss Nell Fraser and Miss Black, who was the Head. There were two levels in the class with perhaps 30 children. On my first day at school I sat next to Flora Gilchrist - the two Floras side by side! My best friends were Jean and Jessie. Although they were not my age, I also knew Evelyn Andrews and Tom Tweedie. He later became a painter and decorator.
The school was heated by radiators. The milk was set to warm on these before the children drank it. There was a school uniform of a navy blazer with the school crest and a red striped tie. I walked home for my lunch. Playground games were skipping with a long rope. Two children held each end and the rest skipped for as long as possible. We also played peevies with a chunk of broken paving stone.
When war broke out the children were distributed around different rooms in the village to learn their lessons. One was in a house in Foulis Crescent. There were no bedtime stories, but we walked to the Library in Colinton over the bridge and by the other side of the river. Later I attended secondary school at Boroughmuir.
Pocket Money, Pastimes and Toys
My father made me a doll's house which had two storeys and four rooms. There was wallpaper on the walls and lino on the floors. The fireplace and furniture were made with stained plywood. Little tables and chairs, all hand made. The bathroom had a toilet and a bath. Pocket money was the Saturday penny, spent at the sweet shop owned by a Miss Linton (a later owner was a Mrs Benson circa 1939-40). I remember ice cream and some tables upstairs (maybe a cafe?). For one of my mother's birthdays I bought a green pottery rabbit from Mr Porteous's shop. I still have it.
I had a fairy cycle. My father held the seat and let go without me knowing so I learnt to ride it. My first trip to the cinema was to see "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". I was taken by a friend's aunt and her boyfriend to the cinema near Castle terrace on the number 8 bus. I remember the bus conductor, Gilbert. He was very strict and kept everyone in order. Then, there were Brownies and Guides (Juniper Green) and Rangers (Currie). At school there was some tennis.
At home we had a wireless. It ran on batteries which could be recharged at the little shop at the top of Juniper Avenue. The family had to share a set of earphones. Sometimes we went to the park to fly a little kite my father had made.
Holidays and Outings
There were church outings by train to Aberdour, and a group of mothers, maybe three with us children would go on day trips to Portobello for a dip in the pool followed by a picnic and sandcastles on the beach. To get to Portobello, there was a walk to Colinton and a tram car ride.
We took holidays on a country estate at Lochcote, where a friend's friend who was the chauffeur there had a cottage. We children ran wild in the fields and rabbits were caught in the woods and made into rabbit stew. Other holidays were taken at Cellardykes just beyond Anstruther. We stayed with the same lady each time who would cook for us from food we'd bought ourselves. We would go to the harbour and wait for the boats to come in. One day we came back with some mackerel. The landlady threw up her hands in horror "Oh, no! Not mackerel! They're the scavengers of the sea!"
Later life
When I left school at 15 I went to work in the local bank, filling in for the men who were at war. The bank was The Commercial Bank on the Lanark Road (later the National Commercial Bank, then the Royal Bank of Scotland). The working conditions were lovely. From 9am to 3pm and back home as soon as the books were done! I had to work between the branches at Juniper Green, Colinton and Balerno.
When the men returned from the war I found another job in the offices of Commercial Coach Craft in Dundee Street. The bus conductor of the number 14 bus would stop the bus outside our house and shout for me in the mornings! I was married in Currie Kirk in 1952 and stayed at work till my daughter was born.