Scotland Remembered - Memories of an Edinburgh childhood

Childhood in Edinburgh in the 1940s and 1950s involved Halloween guisin', bonfire night fun and Sunday School picnics, as Derry Traill of South Africa recalls in our latest reader memory ...

I was born in Edinburgh in 1944 and a year later, my father was appointed headmaster of the two-teacher primary school in Bellsquarry, a small village just west of the capital.

When I started school at the age of five, Mrs Johnstone, the infant teacher, taught me for the first three years, and it was fun.  This changed, however, when I moved into the headmaster’s classroom for my last four years in primary school.

When he had to leave the room unmanned, bedlam often broke out. On his return, if the culprit couldn’t be identified, I was usually picked out and punished accordingly.  This involved ‘The Belt’ – a thick, leather strip of nastiness.

'Hold out your hand,' were the terrifying words no schoolboy wanted to hear, only slightly better than both hands, one on top of the other, which was extremely sore.  I’m glad corporal punishment has been banned from schools, but wish it had happened earlier!

Sundays were dreaded days. First it was Sunday School and then church with Mum and Dad.

After lunch, I was not allowed to play outside with friends and teatime and bed seemed a long time coming. But life was not all bad, by any means.

There was Halloween, with its turnip lanterns and cries of 'Penny for the guisers!'  The snag - everyone had to perform a party piece before the sweets and coppers appeared.

Then it was Bonfire Night in the old quarry. For months we all struggled to collect enough wood, but the young farmers always came up trumps, dragging larger branches with their tractors, making the pile impressively high. As darkness fell on 5 November, the huge heap was doused with petrol and set alight.

Soon sparks and flames leapt high in the night sky. 

Fireworks were let off at random, creating much excitement and some danger. But all too soon it was over for another year and everyone made their way home, with the smell of gunpowder hovering in the air.

Christmas came next. Excitement grew day by day and any trip into Edinburgh found us counting the lit Christmas trees in the windows on the way home. If we were lucky, winter would bring snow and we sledged down the slope behind the school.

Summer was the time for the Sunday School picnic. Crepe paper streamers spilled from the windows of the bus, giving it a carnival feel, as we set off for the seaside amidst loud cheering. Then it was Gala Day, with its procession, headed by a piper, races and side-shows. At last it was time for summer holidays – playing in the woods and football in the park.  

Despite the discipline, life for children was somehow freer then.

No one seemed to worry where we were, knowing we would return home when hungry. I was very lucky growing up in the country, in a village community, and going to a small school. But not having my father as heidmaister!