Peter  Sellar

Mississauga, Ontario

I was born in 1927 at 43 Primrose Street, a second floor room and kitchen with the ‘lavvy’ on the landing, a small cubby hole , with square sheets of newspaper neatly hanging on a nail but without a window and believe me a place where one is surrounded by different aroma’s and if you had trouble exercising this natural event you were never short of reading material. But god help anyone who used it after someone had a problem with their bowels where the relief was to set alight a piece of paper then extinguish it and allow the burnt smell to permeate through the air.

he street is still in existence but the old flats have been knocked down and new modern flats now stand in their place; something that should have been done years ago. But in those bad old days ‘Slum landlords’ prevailed and people in need had to grab whatever was available. But we had a backyard called Leith Links that was fit for a king and Leithers made good use of this playground where you could watch the bowlers trying to hit the Jack or listen to the band on a Sunday afternoon.

There was also the ‘Steamie’ a large building where housewives could be seen trucking their weekly wash to in a pram, and after it was washed there were large mangles that squashed out the water then the clothes were neatly packed into the pram and taken back to the flat to be hung up on either an outside pulley if it was fair weather or one that hung from the ceiling, a practice that created a clinging damp.

The flat had a jaw box below the window where dishes were washed, where  father shaved, and ablutions were carried out, and below the jaw box there was usually a bunker that held the coal to supply the range that stood gleaming on one wall, and  the only means of heat and hot water and where mother cooked the family meals assisted by a small gas burner.

The lighting in the flat was by a single gas mantle which gave light to a very small area and when going to bed at night your path was guided by a candle or an oil lamp. This is perhaps an austere way of life to the family of to-day but we knew of nothing better and many a happy evening was spent listening to a small radio run by accumulator or battery. And Sunday’s were special days when the family dressed in their Sunday Best and smelling of moth balls would troop down to the kirk for the weekly blessing, ours being South Leith, then after church visiting the grand parents to get our weekly penny.

We later  moved to 389 Easter Road (top flat) which looked over Leith Academy; an up market flat with an inside lavvy, however with no bath.  We still had to use the Vickie plunge baths or the old Zinc tub in front of the fire. And although we were  only a pitching wedge from Primrose Street I had entered a new life stream and had lost all my old pals plus the wee chippie round the corner where we got a halfpenny bag of little pieces of crispy batter left over after the fish had been fried was now worlds away.

I still attended Lochend Road School and managed to see some of my old pals during school, but after school I had to go right home because mum wanted to know where I was.

There was a great furore when the Board of Education decided to use the Lochend Road School gym for Catholic pupils from St; Anthony’s up Lochend Road while it recovered from a fire. This was sacrilege to most of the parents who were up in arms, and paraded outside wailing at the thought of their Proddie children mixing with Catholics. But somehow we kids didn’t seem to mind and mixed freely with them.

Father had a barber shop at 66 Junction Road and the back door led out to a carpet bowling rink behind it and we kids spent many hours rolling the bowls down the carpets, but the entire building was taken over by Levi a paper company that dealt in school supplies , so dad had to move to another shop close to Henderson Street where he remained until he retired.

It was shortly after this that my parents separated and the 3 children went with our mother to live  in Newhaven, which was a small fishing village which ran into from Leith just across the Lindsay Road brig, but once in the village it was like going into a new world. The Bow-tow’s as the natives were called  spoke a language all their own, and many of mum’s brother’s and sister’s lived there.  Granny Harcus who lived  up Auchinlecks Brae, Auntie Meg Dryburgh who lived up the Klondike, Auntie Kate Linton who lived up the Pend at Victoria Place, Uncle Sandy Harcus a Trawlerman who lived at Starbank, and Uncle Fred Harcus also a Trawlerman.  So there were lots of family around to help mum through this crisis in her life.

Be that as it may to the Bow-tow’s we were classified as  ‘Leith Keelies’.

      

Once settled in at New Lane we were enrolled at Newhaven Victoria school where my teacher was the conductor of the Newhaven Fishwives Choir who often had us singing ‘Caller herring’ and many other fishy songs and although I missed  Leith, I think every kid should spend some time living in Newhaven as there are so many exciting things to do there.

While living there the war started and one Sunday morning along with a bunch of kids we all sat on the wall at the Fishy Park and watched planes zig- zag over the Forth, then listened to the rat- a- tat of machine guns, and we learned next day that we had been spectators to the first dog fight between Royal Air Force fighter planes that had been fighting German bombers  trying to bomb naval; ships at Rosyth Dockyards and damage the  Forth Bridge.

After I passed my Qualifying exam at Victoria, Mum moved to a new house at Ferry Road Gardens  and whilst it was a palace  compared to the wee flat up New lane  it was away out in the sticks so once again I lost all my old pals, and when we settled in Mum enrolled me in Flora Stephenson school at Comely Bank, I was not a happy camper because all my mates had gone to either Broughton or  D.K so I pressured mum to get me transferred to D.K  where I spent the next 3 years leaving school at 14.

After working in a few dead end jobs I started to serve my apprenticeship at Bruce Peebles as a fitter/turner but with the war still raging I volunteered for the Royal Navy where I spent the next seven years and travelled all over the world. When serving on board H.M.S  Cygnet we docked in Belfast and one evening we went to the Plaza ballroom where I met an Irish Colleen called Sheila who was to become the love of my life, and unknown to me at that time was also to become my wife.

I swear her Irish eyes had me in a trance from the night we met. And when I was demobbed from the navy we got married and settled in that place we Leithers seldom mention, (Auld Reekie). When I left the navy I received a grant that enabled me to take further education at Heriot Watt and afterwards I got a job with a Plumbing and Heating Merchant designing and selling small bore heating systems.

Sheila worked for a spell with the British Oil and Cake Mills then got a job at Menzies in Rose Street, and we bought a house at Colinton Mains and joined the Swanston Golf Club, known as ‘The Goats Course’ where many happy days were spent walking over the Pentland Hills.

With both of us working and bringing in good cash, things seemed to be going  quite well for us but it was always a tight squeeze meeting the bills, and almost impossible to save any money, so when an old friend  who had  immigrated to Toronto wrote telling us how much he  was enjoying life in Canada and making good money we decided  to immigrate to the land of the maple leaf.

After getting the go ahead from Canada House in Glasgow we sold the house and car and  on April 1st 1960  flew from Prestwick and landed in Toronto in a cloud of uncertainty. This was a large step in our life and we both wondered if we had done the right thing. Our friend had rented us a flat in Toronto which was very nice but Sheila was very home sick and I swear if we had a return ticket available we’d have been on the next plane home.

However we gradually we got used to our new surroundings, and landed good jobs then after a year in our new surroundings and with some money in the bank we decided to adopt two boys who were the light of our life.

Both Mike and John are now both married with families of their own, and Sheila and I are both retired and live just outside Toronto in a city called Mississauga. We are  both in our 80’s  and  belong to a nice little golf club called Acton Meadows which lies between Georgetown and Guelph where we  play golf all summer long then when winter raises its ugly head we  pack the car and along with thousands of Snowbirds head down to Florida where we play more  golf  until the courses open at home again and long may this cycle continue. 

Over the years we have returned home quite often and it’s always great to return to your roots and meet all our old friends. We think Leith has altered over the years,but it really hasn’t changed much. As the old adage goes:

              “you can take the Leither out of Leith, but you can’t take Leith out of the Leither”.

                                                         “ Need I say more.”