The auld farts thread

[Jambo-Jimbo]

Ten half time, twenty one the winner........who cares that it's pitch black outside!

 

Or raining.

[John Findlay]

We used to make our own bikes with parts from other bikes. Only thing was we never had any brakes. Not even a back brake. Coming down Orchard Brae with no brakes was hairy at times. The roundabout at the bottom we didn't go round it just straight over it.

[22HMFC22]

The Bon Accord juice lorry coming round and also China selling the Sunday papers and rolls round the streets from an old shopping trolley

[maggieb]

What about a 'Basher" Wafer with ice cream and a snowball then another wafer! Also Oysters. Half the oyster was covered in chocolate and coconut the other half being wafer. Half the inside was full of mallow like the inside of a snowball and the space that was left took a scoop of ice cream.

 

 

oysters,so friggin posh you , we only got these . when the auld man got a line up, in hindsight maybe twice in a lifetime

[Jambo-Jimbo]

We used to make our own bikes with parts from other bikes. Only thing was we never had any brakes. Not even a back brake. Coming down Orchard Brae with no brakes was hairy at times. The roundabout at the bottom we didn't go round it just straight over it.

 

I must have been posh then as I had a back brake    Mind I still had two different sized wheels tho.

[Sharpie]

We used to make our own bikes with parts from other bikes. Only thing was we never had any brakes. Not even a back brake. Coming down Orchard Brae with no brakes was hairy at times. The roundabout at the bottom we didn't go round it just straight over it.

 

Went through a period of being in a cycle speedway team and league. Made up bikes from parts, no brakes if I mind right.  I was on the Redford Diamonds team, There were tracks in Saughton Park, down in Granton, and I can't remember the others.  The star of the league was a boy named Billy Haldane. I probably started when I was about fourteen, wqas still at it when I started working and my boss a speedway nut done some welding and handlebar shaping for me. On a Sunday we used to go down to Meadowbank, and the speedway riders were there working on their bikes after the Saturday races.  We used to go into the pits and volunteer to give the riders the push start they needed.

[Sharpie]

This thread is pulling stuff out of my head I had forgotten or at least didn't think much about, how different life was, how you passed your time was based on your own initiative, some bad things you done, sometimes you were punished for nothing. The old polis working from the box in Preston Street would flick you on the back of the head with his marble loaded white cotton glove, cries of I done nothing were met with being told thats for what you might do and I dinnae catch you. Never told we were going to jail, being told I'll take you to your faither was threat enough to get guilty pleas, and cries of contrition.

 

Not saluting a teacher in the street out of school time was material for public rebuke re lack of respect in class the next day. Class starting with the Lords Prayer was standard.

 

Being caught on a Saturday morning in Preston Street by Dr Goldbergs sisters, and made to go up and do some housework as they couldn't work on the Jewish Sabbath. The solution was to go from South Ocky up to Dalkeith Road, down to Lutton Place and on to South Clerk Street to the New Vic for the Saturday Morning Club. We were always thinking.

[John Findlay]

This thread is pulling stuff out of my head I had forgotten or at least didn't think much about, how different life was, how you passed your time was based on your own initiative, some bad things you done, sometimes you were punished for nothing. The old polis working from the box in Preston Street would flick you on the back of the head with his marble loaded white cotton glove, cries of I done nothing were met with being told thats for what you might do and I dinnae catch you. Never told we were going to jail, being told I'll take you to your faither was threat enough to get guilty pleas, and cries of contrition.

 

Not saluting a teacher in the street out of school time was material for public rebuke re lack of respect in class the next day. Class starting with the Lords Prayer was standard.

 

Being caught on a Saturday morning in Preston Street by Dr Goldbergs sisters, and made to go up and do some housework as they couldn't work on the Jewish Sabbath. The solution was to go from South Ocky up to Dalkeith Road, down to Lutton Place and on to South Clerk Street to the New Vic for the Saturday Morning Club. We were always thinking.

That's the thing Bob. Not many of today's bairns can't think on their feet so to speak. They're not allowed to. It's everything on a plate and far to mollicodled. One of my late dad's favourite sayings was. You won't get the better of me as I ken every trick in the book and how's that you ask? Because I wrote the book.

[aussieh]

We used to make our own bikes with parts from other bikes. Only thing was we never had any brakes. Not even a back brake. Coming down Orchard Brae with no brakes was hairy at times. The roundabout at the bottom we didn't go round it just straight over it.

My GMX was my favourite bike ever.

Grifter Motor Cross.

[Stuart Lyon]

Maggie - posh me? I enjoyed oysters occasionally when I lived in West Pilton and Wester Drylaw in the 50s and 60s. 

[Doctor FinnBarr]

Slider is just ice cream between to non chocolate wafers. Blackman is ice cream between wafers with chocolate round the edges. To the youngsters looking in. We auld farts have our own language too :-)

 

Naw, that was a double Blackman, normal one just had a wafer on top.

[maroongoals]

used to get an old pram and build a guider with the axles and wheels, great fun with my mates on it, used my shoe as a brake on the wheel, my mum used to go nuts when she saw the state of my only pair of shoes

[Maple Leaf]

Tin bath in front of the fire, sometimes followed by the dug.

You went into the bath BEFORE the dug?  Bloody toffs!

[muiry]

Sliding down the dip (southhouse) on beer trays and nicking apples and Toni the ice cream van

[AyrJambo]

Bus tokens

The shows at Portobello

Speedway at Meadowbank

Family Chinese takeaways every Saturday

Working all day Sat in a butcher shop for ?1.50 and a parcel of meat!

Going to St Cuthbert's Depot on Morrison Street at 6 am to try and get on a milk round

The old tramp around town with wellies tied to his knees

Buying jeans in Cockburn Street

The Commie Pool when rubber key bands were state of the art!

Single fags from newsagents and fag machines outside cafes

Playing football from dawn till dusk...street, parks, school playgrounds

Getting chased by school jannies!

 

Fantastic thread!!!

[J.T.F.Robertson]

You went into the bath BEFORE the dug?  Bloody toffs!

Normal human arrogance.

Loved that dog.

Lassie, a collie and clever as feck. Would let it "doon the stair" in the morning and it would head up Hardwell Close, do it's business, then come back up.

Passed away not too long after I came here, was gutted!

[luckyBatistuta]

Sitting having Sunday breakfast as a family and listening to the phone in on the radio, can't remember what the show was called, but you got some serious basket cases on it.

[Gulpener]

Getting barred from Gio the ice cream man in Clerie for calling him a microphone heid (he had an afro)

 

Gio was the only person who used to call me by my full first name even though everyone used the shortened version.

His Dad Tony and Gio must have had that ice cream round for years.

[Talk-o-the-North]

Sitting having Sunday breakfast as a family and listening to the phone in on the radio, can't remember what the show was called, but you got some serious basket cases on it.

Cannot remember the name of it but if it's the one on Radio Forth, it was the late Margo MacDonald that hosted it. As you say there were some beauties that used to phone in.

 

There was also the other phone in show hosted by Stevie Jack (who eventually owned a boozer for a while up at Tollcross) called "Voice Your Choice" where you phoned in your song choice. My family got me to phone in as a kid and they all listened in the car in case of the delay caused by the phone being in the front room beside the wireless.

[Jambo-Jimbo]

That's the thing Bob. Not many of today's bairns can't think on their feet so to speak. They're not allowed to. It's everything on a plate and far to mollicodled. One of my late dad's favourite sayings was. You won't get the better of me as I ken every trick in the book and how's that you ask? Because I wrote the book.

 

My laddie couldn't understand how I always knew that he'd been up to something, he seemed to think I must have just appeared as an adult one day, he never gave it a thought that I was once his age.

[graygo]

Sitting having Sunday breakfast as a family and listening to the phone in on the radio, can't remember what the show was called, but you got some serious basket cases on it.

 

Dial David Johnston?

[Marvin]

wedding `scrambles` at st christophers church,all the coins chucked from the wedding car and us lot diving to the ground

to gather em up

 

 

Remember those down at that church on Boswell Parkway.

[Marvin]

Bus tokens

The shows at Portobello

Speedway at Meadowbank

Family Chinese takeaways every Saturday

Working all day Sat in a butcher shop for ?1.50 and a parcel of meat!

Going to St Cuthbert's Depot on Morrison Street at 6 am to try and get on a milk round

The old tramp around town with wellies tied to his knees

Buying jeans in Cockburn Street

The Commie Pool when rubber key bands were state of the art!

Single fags from newsagents and fag machines outside cafes

Playing football from dawn till dusk...street, parks, school playgrounds

Getting chased by school jannies!

 

Fantastic thread!!!

 

all this

[132goals1958]

In the war years going in the backgreens, and shouting "put out that light" like the air raid wardens and watchinhg the blackout curtains twitch as people checked them.

 

Going to the upstairs flats, and tying the two doors toigether , ringing the bells and watching the tug of war to open the doors.

 

Same scenario, but if there was someone the gang didnae like, send them up to tie the door, but when he had just started to tie the second one, ring the bells, his grief was so satisfying.

 

Climbing the walls to the bulldog a garden in East Newington Place, to get apples, it was pure and unadulterated theft, but the two catholic kids were o.k. they went to the chapel and confessed so they could eat the stolen fruit in all good conscience.

 

Playing cowboys and indians in the Park, all along the radicle road, around Arthurs Seat, and through the bog to where the magazine for the rifle range was, that area was known as the valleys.

 

Watching the home guard and the territorials doing rifle practise and later going up to the butts and picking up the lead.

 

Playing rounders down from the Echo Rock, with a tennis racquet, some of the kids could hit the ball a mile, and score multiple rounders with one swing.

 

Bonfires,

 

Football at the West Meadows, ****** or a hen selection system, game started in the morning and continued non stop for the day.  No one turned away, but constant personnel changes for various reasons.

 

Jumping on our bikes and heading the miles from south ocky to Hillend

 

Sunday morning walk with the parents, all in best clothes, no playing in the street on Sunday. Wee Robert holding his big sisters hand, and Mum and Dad walking behind making sure nothing was done that would break the Sunday rules.

 

Special daytime treat of a Vantas, evening treat of bag of chips with brown sauce and vinegar

 

Movies at the Scabby LaLa, films change monday and Wednesday, sometimes went to the New Palace in the High Street, never sit in the stalls, that wetness from the balcony was not a leaky roof.

 

They were certainly different times, only radio at home, or books from the library, we made our own entertainment, looking back, much of it was criminal, dangerous, but always fun.

 

The street experience and education you gained at least in my case proved more valuable in my chosen career than any University degree, you knew all the kids tricks, motivation, and appropriate action, most of which were not official, but effective.

 

Similar selection process at the pennypit in the Pans,although we sometimes adapted it to Pug or Engine.During the school hols it seemed as if you played dusk till dawn..Auld geezers in their thirties infiltrating the game when they came out the Legion. Great Memories. 

[Hector Riva]

Cycling out to the Bridges at Queensferry                                            On a Raliegh Chopper loads of times                              Sometimes 2 up!

[Tasavallan]

It was the Ritz in Rodney Street for me.

Saturday mornings I would take my cousin to Glenogle Baths, after we'd walk to the Ritz for the ABC Minors then to our Gran's in Cumberland Street for tripe & onions for tea before watching Dr Who (Patrick Troughton) from behind the sofa.

 

I would have been 10, my cousin 7, but our parents never worried about us getting the No 8 bus from Silverknowes to Rodney Street. Happier times.

[John Findlay]

Saturday mornings I would take my cousin to Glenogle Baths, after we'd walk to the Ritz for the ABC Minors then to our Gran's in Cumberland Street for tripe & onions for tea before watching Dr Who (Patrick Troughton) from behind the sofa.

 

I would have been 10, my cousin 7, but our parents never worried about us getting the No 8 bus from Silverknowes to Rodney Street. Happier times.

Glengogle baths. Where I learned to swim. Use to walk there and back from Royston. Bus fare was better spent on sweeties or a bag of chips. Parents knew you were fine as you were it the baths with half a dozen pals. Remember getting a special card for the summer holidays that allowed you cheaper admission.

[Sharpie]

Glengogle baths. Where I learned to swim. Use to walk there and back from Royston. Bus fare was better spent on sweeties or a bag of chips. Parents knew you were fine as you were it the baths with half a dozen pals. Remember getting a special card for the summer holidays that allowed you cheaper admission.

 

Used to go to Warrender Baths, when we came out went to the baker and got a bun as a "shivery bite"

[John Findlay]

Tasavallan. Tell me you don't eat tripe now.

[Tasavallan]

Tasavallan. Tell me you don't eat tripe now.

One of the better things from living in Turkey is that I can buy the stuff by the bucket load. An acquired taste, stinks the kitchen out I'll grant you, but once smitten. The first thing I look for in a French bistro is "tripes ? la mode de Caen" Offal right, enough.

[John Findlay]

One of the better things from living in Turkey is that I can buy the stuff by the bucket load. An acquired taste, stinks the kitchen out I'll grant you, but once smitten. The first thing I look for in a French bistro is "tripes ? la mode de Caen" Offal right, enough.

My dad loved it. Me it gives me the boak .

 

Definitely an aquired taste. One that I will never aquire. BoUn appettito

[luckyBatistuta]

Dial David Johnston?

 

the original Jeremy Kyle, but on the radio

[Currahee!]

One of the better things from living in Turkey is that I can buy the stuff by the bucket load. An acquired taste, stinks the kitchen out I'll grant you, but once smitten. The first thing I look for in a French bistro is "tripes ? la mode de Caen" Offal right, enough.

 

I seemingly liked tripe when I was a bairn.

 

What does it taste like? I can't remember.

[argyjambo]

Growing up in Abbeyhill, fond memories of the colonies. Cowboys & Indians/**** & Commandos in London Road gardens, sledging there when it snowed. Summertime sliding down Calton Hill on flattened cardboard boxes & climbing the garden walls of the posh hooses on Royal Terrace and stealing apples & plums from the trees.

 

Endless games of football (as mentioned elsewhere) in Holyrood park where, at that time, sheep were grazed. As a result loads of sheepshite fertilising the grass. Later on in the evenings, spying on the " courting couples" in the gorse bushes above St Margarets loch & throwing tuffets at them when things were getting steamy. Often got chased by irate guys for that.

 

Also played football in Regent road park on a wicked slope. Going into the bushes there looking for scud books such as Titbits, Parade  & Reveille. Throwing tuffets at the steam Engines as the trains entered Abbeyhill Tunnell before getting into waverly Station. Using an abandoned chemical factory as a gang hut. Its now the horrible looking houses at the foot of Abbeymount opposite the side entrance to Holyrood palace.

 

Saturday morning pictures at the Regent on Abbeymount, Choring sweeties at Morgan's sweetie shop at the top of Abbeymount prior to trying (& usually failing) trying to sneak into said pictures.

[argyjambo]

Sems l

 

Growing up in Abbeyhill, fond memories of the colonies. Cowboys & Indians/**** & Commandos in London Road gardens, sledging there when it snowed. Summertime sliding down Calton Hill on flattened cardboard boxes & climbing the garden walls of the posh hooses on Royal Terrace and stealing apples & plums from the trees.

 

Endless games of football (as mentioned elsewhere) in Holyrood park where, at that time, sheep were grazed. As a result loads of sheepshite fertilising the grass. Later on in the evenings, spying on the " courting couples" in the gorse bushes above St Margarets loch & throwing tuffets at them when things were getting steamy. Often got chased by irate guys for that.

 

Also played football in Regent road park on a wicked slope. Going into the bushes there looking for scud books such as Titbits, Parade  & Reveille. Throwing tuffets at the steam Engines as the trains entered Abbeyhill Tunnell before getting into waverly Station. Using an abandoned chemical factory as a gang hut. Its now the horrible looking houses at the foot of Abbeymount opposite the side entrance to Holyrood palace.

 

Saturday morning pictures at the Regent on Abbeymount, Choring sweeties at Morgan's sweetie shop at the top of Abbeymount prior to trying (& usually failing) trying to sneak into said pictures.

Seems like the PC sweary filter doesn't like the word Ja*s...(Rhymes with caps)

[Adam Murray]

Getting one of your sisters roller skates and placing an old dandy or beano album on it then hurtling yourself down the nearest hill whilst sitting on it.

[argyjambo]

Adam Murray, on 06 Mar 2016 - 3:48 PM, said:

Getting one of your sisters roller skates and placing an old dandy or beano album on it then hurtling yourself down the nearest hill whilst sitting on it.

Ha Ha I remember vividly doing that. Also when the milkman's horse & cart had been & the horse had left a huge pile of dung, going down the street fast on our bikes/scooters and skidding through the dried dung sending a shower of desiccated horse-shite over anyone unfortunate enough to be in the way.

Some keen gardners in our street used to have a race, armed with shovels, to see who could get to the shite first & spread it on their roses.

[The Real Maroonblood]

I seemingly liked tripe when I was a bairn.

 

What does it taste like? I can't remember.

I liked it as well.

[The White Cockade]

anyone mind going to the shows at Waverley Station?

The rag and bone men - you gave them about a tonne of old clothes in return for a balloon!

Going to stay at a caravan at Pease Bay or Thornton Loch

playing putting in Princes St Gardens

the big bus station in Dalkeith for all the SMT buses

I remember watching ice speedway at Murrayfield Ice Rink

The Caley, Cameo, ABC and Odeon cinemas

St Cuthberts at Surgeons Hall and what was that picture house next to it La Scala? became the Classic!

all a bit off topic but threads like this get the old nostalgia going

[Sharpie]

Growing up in Abbeyhill, fond memories of the colonies. Cowboys & Indians/**** & Commandos in London Road gardens, sledging there when it snowed. Summertime sliding down Calton Hill on flattened cardboard boxes & climbing the garden walls of the posh hooses on Royal Terrace and stealing apples & plums from the trees.

 

Endless games of football (as mentioned elsewhere) in Holyrood park where, at that time, sheep were grazed. As a result loads of sheepshite fertilising the grass. Later on in the evenings, spying on the " courting couples" in the gorse bushes above St Margarets loch & throwing tuffets at them when things were getting steamy. Often got chased by irate guys for that.

 

Also played football in Regent road park on a wicked slope. Going into the bushes there looking for scud books such as Titbits, Parade  & Reveille. Throwing tuffets at the steam Engines as the trains entered Abbeyhill Tunnell before getting into waverly Station. Using an abandoned chemical factory as a gang hut. Its now the horrible looking houses at the foot of Abbeymount opposite the side entrance to Holyrood palace.

 

Saturday morning pictures at the Regent on Abbeymount, Choring sweeties at Morgan's sweetie shop at the top of Abbeymount prior to trying (& usually failing) trying to sneak into said pictures.

 

We were voyeurs also in our childhood days, but it was up on the radicle road that the couples met, we were up on the Crags, able to throw stones at the Italian POW's who were defiling our women. We all thought the Italians were as stated in the news etc, not to much into fighting, when a bunch of them sneaked up behind us and kicked our little asses we realised we had been told wrong. Funny enough later on we discovered their camps at Duddingston, talked to them and found they were really decent guys, as I have to say were the German prisoners who worked in the fields just outside Mid Calder.

[maggieb]

Glengogle baths. Where I learned to swim. Use to walk there and back from Royston. Bus fare was better spent on sweeties or a bag of chips. Parents knew you were fine as you were it the baths with half a dozen pals. Remember getting a special card for the summer holidays that allowed you cheaper admission.

sure we used to get a yellow 5p? bus token , run there and back and use the tokens for smokes[20regal KS the smoke of royalty] at a grocer van and if times were hard no6

[The White Cockade]

We were voyeurs also in our childhood days, but it was up on the radicle road that the couples met, we were up on the Crags, able to throw stones at the Italian POW's who were defiling our women. We all thought the Italians were as stated in the news etc, not to much into fighting, when a bunch of them sneaked up behind us and kicked our little asses we realised we had been told wrong. Funny enough later on we discovered their camps at Duddingston, talked to them and found they were really decent guys, as I have to say were the German prisoners who worked in the fields just outside Mid Calder.

 

i'm sure there was an Italian POW Camp up Frogston Road

[The Real Maroonblood]

anyone mind going to the shows at Waverley Station?

The rag and bone men - you gave them about a tonne of old clothes in return for a balloon!

Going to stay at a caravan at Pease Bay or Thornton Loch

playing putting in Princes St Gardens

the big bus station in Dalkeith for all the SMT buses

I remember watching ice speedway at Murrayfield Ice Rink

The Caley, Cameo, ABC and Odeon cinemas

St Cuthberts at Surgeons Hall and what was that picture house next to it La Scala? became the Classic!

all a bit off topic but threads like this get the old nostalgia going

Went to the shows about the 2nd January every year.

[maggieb]

and a combo of yer remember white dug shite and cowboys n Indians , while the neighbour was just keeping an eye oot, while mine were working, did a commando roll to avoid getting shot by an incoming arrow,right on a bright orange, red hot .newly laid scitty jobby . I can still taste the smell on my back 45yrs later. imagine turning up next door now crying your eyes oot ,honking, covered in orange crap bubbling ma eyes oot...

[argyjambo]

bobsharp, on 06 Mar 2016 - 4:22 PM, said:

We were voyeurs also in our childhood days, but it was up on the radicle road that the couples met, we were up on the Crags, able to throw stones at the Italian POW's who were defiling our women. We all thought the Italians were as stated in the news etc, not to much into fighting, when a bunch of them sneaked up behind us and kicked our little asses we realised we had been told wrong. Funny enough later on we discovered their camps at Duddingston, talked to them and found they were really decent guys, as I have to say were the German prisoners who worked in the fields just outside Mid Calder.

Bob,

As you grew up in the Southside, I wonder if you knew my late dad? His name is Frank Pilcher and he lived at 20 Causewayside, opposite the Victoria bar. He had an older brother & sister Harry & Connie. He went to Sciennes Primary & Jimmy Clarks college. I say this because if he was still alive he'd be 86. He became a stonemason & was a keen amateur boxer. Maybe any other southsiders of a similar vintage may have known him too.

[maggieb]

promise I only went to sand the floors as an apprentice but 32 Dundas st rings a bell?

[The Natural Order]

Something you don't see any more, white dog shit.

[¼½¾]

I saw a white dog shit a couple of weeks ago. I wish I'd taken a photo now.

[The White Cockade]

setting off bangers in piles of cow shit

[Randle P McMurphy]

promise I only went to sand the floors as an apprentice but 32 Dundas st rings a bell?

Is it Danube street you mean?