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    Childhood Memories of Gorebridge
    Childhood Memories of Gorebridge
    Childhood Memories of Gorebridge
    Ebook113 pages1 hour

    Childhood Memories of Gorebridge

    By Ian Hall

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    About this ebook

    Gorebridge, just ten miles south of Edinburgh, Scotland, is a typical village.
    "Childhood Memories" is a look back at the author's early memories, growing up in the 1960's and 1970's.
    Family, friends, school, leisure, and local tradition play their part in shaping a youngster. Each chapter is a personal accounts of adventures, interactions and memories of childhood life 'back in the day'.

    With over 18,000 words, and 88 full pages (many more on kindle) we are allowed a glimpse of a life less complicated than today, when children grew up at their own pace, not unnaturally matured by an overwhelming media. A time when, although still fascinated with the intricacies of nature and science, they adhered to certain local and cultural traditions, passed down through the generations.
    There was no politically correct agenda to limit development, just a feeling of optimism that pervaded all parts of life.
    This is rural, parochial, small town Scotland at its best and worst.

    All the author's own memories. All true.

    Ian Hall; "Although these are primarily addressed as my own memories, the intent of the book is to stimulate your own childhood memories and reminiscences."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIan Hall
    Release dateJan 20, 2014
    ISBN9781310836947
    Childhood Memories of Gorebridge
    Author

    Ian Hall

    Ian Hall is a former Commander Officer of No. 31 Squadron (1992-4), as well as being the editor and writer of the Squadron Association's three-times-a-year 32-page newsletter. He is the author of Upwards, an aviation-themed novel currently available as a Kindle download. This is his first full-length historical study, having previously penned a 80-page history of No 31 Squadron's early Tornado years.

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      Book preview

      Childhood Memories of Gorebridge - Ian Hall

      This book is a personal work of fiction and historical research. Names, places, characters and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living, dead or undead, is purely coincidental.

      Copyright © 2013. Ian Hall. Hallanish Publishing, thru Smashwords Inc.

      Published by Hallanish Publishing at Smashwords Inc.

      2nd Edition, dated January 2014

      ISBN;  9781310836947

      All rights reserved, and the authors reserve the right to re-produce this book, or parts thereof, in any way whatsoever.

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Childhood Memories of Gorebridge

      By Ian Hall

      Introduction

      Gorebridge and Gunpowder

      The Games We Played

      The Dumbest Shoes

      Wellies, Wellington Boots, Galoshes

      Rubbers

      Arniston Park

      Gorebridge Shops

      Newspapers

      The Pictures (Cinema)

      The 1968 Hurricane

      Of Roman Camps and Scottish Castles

      Birds and Eggs

      The Burnside Road Store and Hammy’s

      My 2 First Days at School (7 years apart)

      The Great Stovie Debate

      Granny and Papa Hall

      Granny and Papa Dyer

      Comics

      School Projects and Collecting Things

      Bonfire Time (Guy Fawkes)

      2 Student Teachers, 5 Years Apart

      High School Chemistry 1: Smells & Odours

      High School Chemistry 2: Gunpowder (Keeping the Legacy)

      High School Chemistry 3: Purple Clouds and the Flood

      Hi there.

      Here are a few memories from the village I grew up in and its surrounds.

      For those many passed away, I remember you with much affection. You know who you are.

      For those mentioned by name, I hope they remind you of those seemingly ancient times.

      I hope the stories entertain, but I hope also that they bring back memories in your own lives. Maybe you too can put yours to paper, or tell your families.

      That’s the whole point.

      Front Cover

      Stobhill Primary School, circa 1968-ish.

      Names are in the book at a later chapter.

      Back Cover

      A Birkenside bus (they pass through Gorebridge), circa 1970. Many a cold stand in Edinburgh or Dalkeith was warmed by the sight of these vehicles.

      I wish to thank all of the contributors who have helped with the details or photographs in this work.

      Robert Ramsey, Graham & Liz Dixon, Davie Matear, Lynn and James Slight, William Weir, Alex Latto, Valerie Reid, Carol Sheppard and many more who have added their own memories, or perhaps just jogged my memory with a name, a date, or a factoid.

      Trust me, without those friendly elbow nudges, this wouldn’t have been half as much fun.

      Thank you all.

      Ian Hall

      Introduction

      I was born in Edinburgh, in the summer of 1959. Back then most expectant mums in Midlothian were whisked into the city hospital for their childbirth. Mums had little choice in birthing back then, and I spent my first days in the Simpson’s Royal Maternity Pavilion, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh.

      Seven days later I came home to Gorebridge. Well, to Arniston really, but no one cared much back then. The two villages were stuck to each other like two spots of paint on a wall, kinda smudged at the join. No one really knew where the ‘border’ was.

      My address; 91 Victoria Street (with no post code).

      The Hall family, living at 91 Victoria Street, (my first home) around 1915. Ten children were not uncommon at that time. Alexander Mair Hall (My grandfather) is far left. My dad remembered his ‘Granny Hall’ as a scowling, fierce woman; she looks it. In my lifetime I met only three of these people, and was blessed by it.

      Unless my parents were writing letters, they never referred to it as Victoria Street. It was always the Tattie Raw. (Potato Row, for the fine diners)

      My father (Andrew Hall) had been born there, and his father (Sandy) had lived there for years. Before I could walk or talk, we moved to 103 Victoria Street, the very bottom house on the park side; right at the sand pit.

      I have only a few early memories of the house or the park, I remember one bright, sunny day riding in a cab in a tractor in a yellow corn field.

      The tractor was definitely red.

      I remember cows in that field too, and nervously feeding them grass over the wall (or was it a fence?).

      I recall dad digging a lot in the walled garden, and the taste of fresh, green, garden peas straight from the peapod.

      (He always complained about kids stealing his peas. It wasn’t till years later that my first wife (Elaine Merchant) admitted that she and the kids from the other row used to rampage our garden. She too, remembered the taste of dad’s fresh peas.)

      I remember the park, and the steep-walled circular sand pit. Hard concrete steps led down into the beach sand, and I played there for hours.

      I don’t remember mum looking down on me, watching over her precious child like the mums today.

      Victoria Street is gone now, bulldozed to make way for newer houses, but the park is still there. It’s modernized, and all the ‘dangerous’ rides are gone; the ‘Witches Hat’ was a crazy helter-skelter roundabout.

      The red see-saw, with the horses face, (I somehow remember the name ‘Dobbin’), and the imposing, green metal chute. We never called it a slide; it was our ‘shoot’.

      The ‘Monkey Bars’; A huge cubic maze of steel bars, polished to a blue hue by generations of kids climbing them.

      And endless ‘acres’ of thick hedge mazes,

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