Some Characters from Juniper Green's history
Juniper Green's diggers researching the 300-year history of the village have been intrigued with stories of some of the village characters, both great and small. Our reminiscers have provided rich tales of the two nurses who did their village rounds on their bicycles, nurse Young and Nurse Beekie, the long and the short of it! Nurse Young had a thing about the value of charcoal for the digestion and would beg a Sprat's Oval dog biscuit to prove it.
Vital services were provided by local residents. Mr Noble the lamplighter, always known as Leerie, went round with his ladder to climb up and light each street gas light individually. Electric street lighting after the war made his job redundant. Hammy the sweep swept school and domestic chimneys with his pipe clenched in his teeth. At the beginning of the week it jutted up the way with tobacco in it, but towards the end it drooped down and out! In Baberton Avenue Mr Howitt the joiner would make you a good coffin for £20 after Granny More on Lanark road had laid you out for a small fee. Mrs More also kept the village's radios running by re- charging their accumulators!
Anne Kane was the local "gaun-aboot" woman who slept in the Muir Wood protected by her shawl and her big black brolly. When she died in the poor house in 1940 the community collected the money for her funeral.
Dr Ross, family doctor in Juniper Green after the Second World War, supplied the diggers with some wonderful stories of life in Juniper Green
As for our "great" folk: Sir John Falconer was an elder and a Sunday School teacher at St Andrew's Kirk and served on the committee of the Village Hall although he lived in Colinton. The widowed lawyer became Edinburgh's Lord Provost in 1944, being "kirked" with his council here at St Andrew's and supported by his daughter who was a "Wren" in the Royal Navy. He went on to found the Edinburgh Festival in 1947: an event which has brought fame and wealth to our city.
All these stories and many more can be found on Juniper Green 300's website which was officially launched on March 1st 2007 at http://www.junipergreen300.com/ where you can read more about the characters described in the article above.