My memories of Juniper Green
by Valerie Cant

A room and kitchen at Curriemuirend

Our house was just east of the old Juniper Green Bowling green so we could watch the games out of our bedroom window

My parents moved to Juniper Green after they were married in March 1933 and lived in Pentland Terrace where they had an upstairs house with an outside stair. We went to Curriemuirend before I started school. Our bedroom over-looked the bowling green and we spent many an afternoon watching the bowlers.

470 Lanark Road is where Valerie Cant lived

The house is still there and I can tell you that we had only cold water to a deep sink at the window where we washed ourselves, gas light and a gas cooker and a big range for heating the house. It had to be blackleaded every week and we had a 'modern' fireplace in the only bedroom. A room and kitchen is how it was described and our toilet was in the top of the stairs which was outside for the first few steps and the remainder were in a draughty tunnel. By this time there were two boys, me and mum for the most part, dad was called up and was driving an army lorry in France, Holland and Belgium.

Games at home

We played snakes and ladders and ludo and told stories, saved up scraps and exchanged them and cut out film stars and stuck them into scrap books. Being in such a small house meant that we were a close family I suppose. No television of course, but we had a wireless which had to have a battery charged up and an accumulator which had to be topped up. We used to take them to Willie More's shop to have that done and Willie used to do the shoe mending too.

School

At school, we had milk for our break at probably eleven o'clock and if it was cold then the milk was put on the radiator to warm up. The milk was in real bottles and they had a waxed paper top which had a serrated hole punched out. If you were really well in with the teacher, you got to push the holes and put in the straws. The bottles held a third of a pint I think.

Once a week the library basket arrived at school and we all got to pick a book which you were allowed to take home to read. Sometimes, the teacher would read us a story in installments and I think we would have taken offence at anyone who, through not doing their work, stopped us from having the next installment.

Mostly, the teachers had two classes in their classroom so you got a teacher for two years and then you moved to another teacher and another classroom.

Playtime at school

During playtime, we played peevers and skipping ropes. It seems that there were special times for certain games. Would you believe we played What's the time Mr Wolf, Hide and Seek (where on earth do you hide in a school playground?) One game where one person started off and on catching someone, they joined hands and kept on catching people until you were travelling at what seemed to be fifty miles an hour because you were on the end. I got many a sciffed knee at that game. However, if you played it well, then you could encircle a lot of the players who were still free. Playing with a ball against a wall, the chant being Plainy, clappy, rolly, foldie, highy? lowy? throughy, big birlie-oh.

Once we were older and going to the 'pictures' we all loved the cowboys and Indians and Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Hop-a-long Cassidy and Gene Autrey became our heroes. I seem to remember running around the playground slapping my hip with one hand to get the horse going and it didn't seem too far home if you got going 'on your horse' rather than just running home.

Playing at Mossy mill

The bridge leading to Mossy Mill

At home, we had a wonderful time as we had such a lot of places we could play. After the harvest, when the fields of corn were all 'stooked' we would dismantle them and build them into gang huts. We played in the warehouses at Mossy Mill where we made great finds - old paper - Wallpaper books were especially welcome as we could use the old paper for so many things. Any unprinted paper was taken home and used for drawing. The Water of Leith ran past Mossy Mill with a lead off as they used water for pulping the old paper to re-cycle into brown paper.

There were plenty of good places to play by the river in Juniper Green

The river was especially good for fishing - tiddlers of course and we knew where to find the tadpoles in the spring. The railway was still in use and it was great to play on the banks of the railway in the summer and keep an eye out for the train to pass. We could work out when it was time to go home by the trains.

The trams were best!

When word came that Rankins at Tollcross had bananas we all went in and queued for hours to get a couple of bananas and we didn't even know what they tasted like, what if we hadn't liked them! The trams to and from Colinton were best for us as we could travel in to town with a full sized pram and the conductor never ever complained.