The auld farts thread

[Stuart Lyon]

Getting 3d - 1 and a quarter pence for a bucket of horse manure from my grandparent so they could put it on their roses! Used to follow the store bakery horse round West Pilton so I could be first there.

[maggieb]

Is it Danube street you mean?

 

 

that's it dude , sorry

[Doctor FinnBarr]

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

 

Becoming more popular again due to dog food makers bulking cans out with chalk.

[maggieb]

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

 

 

that's well posh grub in a v posh region[having just moved from Craigmiller to Muirhouse] , about 69 was my first oyster, a couple o pennies more than the blackman and although class, seemed to be half the value ,,robin bastas those vans

[maggieb]

I seemingly liked tripe when I was a bairn.

 

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

 

gant then, still gant now  furry broon stuff,nice white jumper stuff milk n onions

[Dagger Is Back]

Recording the top 40 on a Sunday onto a cassette tape only for the DJ to ruin your favourite song by talking halfway through it

Not just the DJs. Mum used to shout up 'Yer suppers ready'. Just so ignorant. Had to scrap the recording and try another time

[Randle P McMurphy]

that's it dude , sorry

Just a lucky guess......honest!

[Dagger Is Back]

Putting plastic cups over vertical dog poos, hiding and waiting for the next Denis Law to wander along.

[Dagger Is Back]

Being nominated TV channel changer or even worse holding the TV aerial until you got a decent picture.

 

Folks are bloody spoiled these days.

[gorgie boy]

Grew up on Gorgie remember climbing the wall at Tyncastle early Sunday mornings to get the empty beer bottles to sell back to the pubs. Murrayfield after a rugby international match you would see family's at 8 in the morning with big prams to take all the empty beer bottles. Once found a ten shilling note thought I was a millionaire ,plus picking up the empty fag packets to collect the embassy or Kentasis coupons then selling them to he shop when you got 100

[muiry]

Catching bees and wasps in jars then in our bare hands

[gorgie boy]

Going to the Tivoli in Gorgie Road with your mates we would put our money together so one of us could get in the rest of us would stand in the lane then your mate would open the fire exit then 10 of us would sneak in with the usherettes running about with their torches trying to catch us. First year Gorgie farm opened sitting in the Green Tree and a guy coming in trying to sell the turkey and chickens he had taken from the farm the turkey broke free and was running round the pub. I lived above Strattys and every Celtic or Rangers match all the women in the stairwould be armed with buckets of Lysol to pour of the supporters who used to use the stairs as toilets.

Getting a job before school as a butcher boy to deliver butcher meat early morning I would meet my mum at the bottom of the stair and take a rasher of bacon out of each parcel then one sausage out each parcel once finished the round big fry up before school.

Getting your haircut by acetoli he came to your house and every one had bole cuts

[WorldChampions1902]

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.

Oh my lord! We must have crossed paths over the years.

 

I lived in Eyre Place. My dad had business premises in Cumberland Street (Brakes & Belts) a car components company in a shop that used to be a butchers shop. It was at the far end of Cumberland Street near the church.

 

I used to swim at Glenogle baths a couple of times a week. Do you remember seeing the glass cabinets with the Heart of Midlothian badges/memorabilia? It was the swimming club name. Every Saturday morning I took a trip to the Ritz cinema for the ABC Minors. On one occasion, there was a real Dalek in the entrance (presumably to promote the Dr. Who feature film at the time?).

[luckyBatistuta]

Confused, you will be on the next episode of ?????

[Sharpie]

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.

 

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.

Sorry the name is not familiar and he was 5 years older than me, in those days that was quite a gap. The other thing was we were very territorial, we didn't infringe on others territory e.g didn't hang around Causewayside other than to go to Dicksons chip shop which was close to the lane for the wash house, we most certainly never went around Henry Street, or St Leonards Street/Pleasance other than to the hall in St Leonards for school dinners. There was a family named Winton who lived in that area, I think they were George and Albert.  Didn't know anyone who went to Sciennes, that wa so far away from South Oxford Street. The other important factor anything in Causewayside took you to close to Braid Place Police Station, and there was always a fear of being abducted and going missing forever, by a big policeman.

[Sharpie]

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

 

There probaly was I don't remember it though, the one at Duddinston Road West was big, on both sides of the road, one side had been an estate and the old mansion house was still there, the prisoners used to have lots of freedom, you would see them in Princes street with their older battle dress type clothes, and they had different colored patches on their pants and jacket, which we were told was their risk level, I am not sure now that was the case.

 

Immediately after the war the Nissen huts were used as housing for families, I am sure a lot of them ended up in prefabs when they were built.  The old mansion house was still there when I went into the police, and we had a full time job continuously arresting people for stealing lead from the roofs.

[Boston Jambo]

Grew up on Gorgie remember climbing the wall at Tyncastle early Sunday mornings to get the empty beer bottles to sell back to the pubs. Murrayfield after a rugby international match you would see family's at 8 in the morning with big prams to take all the empty beer bottles. Once found a ten shilling note thought I was a millionaire ,plus picking up the empty fag packets to collect the embassy or Kentasis coupons then selling them to he shop when you got 100

I grew up on Livingstone Place and every stair had a pram in the back passage. My mum used it to load up the laundry and had me push it along Sciennes Rd to the wash house on Causewayside. The wash house was truly something out of a Dickens novel, all steam and huge drying racks, the smell of the bleach, When we got a better model pram the wheels of the discarded one became part of that year's guider.

[Boston Jambo]

Super Saturday Show at the Ideon Cinema...fekin brilliant

Kicking the seat backs during the chase scenes, and I remember wedging the Zoom ice lolly sticks together and then launching them in the air like frisbees.

[Boston Jambo]

Levoy and chainy in the playground

 

Stuffing your face with the sugar lumps in cafes

 

The Water Margin on bbc2 at 9.00pm

Levoy??? i'm sitting racking my brain trying to remember the game, the name is so famiiar but  I can't remember how it was played. Can you remind me?

Thanks.

[The White Cockade]

aye we played levoy

remember something about freeing everybody by saying levoy out or something!

and white horse

short and long chainy

kick the can

peevers

games of hide and seek that lasted hours when you buggered off and left people searching

[John Findlay]

Remember playing kick the can and helpy in the street. J a p s and commandos in the back green especially in the summer when shall we say the grass was a wee bit longer. In the winter we used to get four of us each side of the street and pretend we were playing tug of war just to see the odd car nearly come to a halt.

[John Findlay]

Just watching MOTD2 and seeing old footage of Man City end of the 60s and start of the 70s and seeing the old light blue 3 wheeled disabled cars. Can remember seeing them at the school end by the main stand at Tyne castle.

[argyjambo]

Boots and Saddles

The Lone Ranger

Rawhide

Wagon Train

The Buccaneers

**** me! I remember all of these, apart from the buccaners...alzheimers kicking in now

[argyjambo]

bobsharp, on 06 Mar 2016 - 9:46 PM, said:

Sorry the name is not familiar and he was 5 years older than me, in those days that was quite a gap. The other thing was we were very territorial, we didn't infringe on others territory e.g didn't hang around Causewayside other than to go to Dicksons chip shop which was close to the lane for the wash house, we most certainly never went around Henry Street, or St Leonards Street/Pleasance other than to the hall in St Leonards for school dinners. There was a family named Winton who lived in that area, I think they were George and Albert.  Didn't know anyone who went to Sciennes, that wa so far away from South Oxford Street. The other important factor anything in Causewayside took you to close to Braid Place Police Station, and there was always a fear of being abducted and going missing forever, by a big policeman.

Thanks for the reply Bob, you're right, at that age a few streets away could be a lifetime away.

[J.T.F.Robertson]

I grew up on Livingstone Place and every stair had a pram in the back passage. My mum used it to load up the laundry and had me push it along Sciennes Rd to the wash house on Causewayside. The wash house was truly something out of a Dickens novel, all steam and huge drying racks, the smell of the bleach, When we got a better model pram the wheels of the discarded one became part of that year's guider.

Pretty much the same, only the wash house at Davie Street. My mother had a job (sometimes two) yet still did all that other stuff. I only wish I had appreciated all that at the time.

[luckyBatistuta]

Kicking the seat backs during the chase scenes, and I remember wedging the Zoom ice lolly sticks together and then launching them in the air like frisbees.

 

used to do that too

 

Levoy??? i'm sitting racking my brain trying to remember the game, the name is so famiiar but I can't remember how it was played. Can you remind me?

Thanks.

 

That's weird, it feels like only yesterday, but I can't remember the rules of it either. I'm sure we had a base at either end of the playground (SCIENNES) and you had to just keep running to the other base without getting touched. If you got touched, then you joined the ones trying to stop them, until only one was left...I think?

 

aye we played levoy

remember something about freeing everybody by saying levoy out or something!

and white horse

short and long chainy

kick the can

peevers

games of hide and seek that lasted hours when you buggered off and left people searching

Remember 'White Horse' but not how you play it???

[joondalupjambo]

Tudor cinema on Saturday mornings, sitting in the stalls and getting pelted from folk in the circle chucking stuff.

Getting chased by "The Beddies" as you walked along Stockbridge.

Going to Glenogle baths and hiding your wrist band so you could stay for a second session.

Walking home from said baths and buying orange joob joobs or a poke of chips - assuming you had time and not being chased by "The Beddies".

Going to Inverleith Park in the evenings or on a Sunday and just joining in a kick about.   Seven corners a goal was it or seven corners a penalty?  Edinburgh rules whichever one it was.

Going to Inverleith Park and sitting at the bandstand listening to some brassband playing.

Going to same park to play tennis on the tarmac courts, oh and pitch and putt.

Going out in the morning and coming back at night.

Walking all over town and learning every street name at 10 years of age.  It was called exploring and learning.

Getting on buses and travelling from one terminus to another.  It was called exploring and learning.  Now folk cannae get from a to b without a smart phone and do not even know their own city.

The milk float and the horse coming up the road.

The ice cream van and asking for a black man.

Penny trays.

Half penny trays.

Black and white telly.

Every Friday walking on my own from Comely Bank, through Inverleith Park, along Rochied Path with nobody around and coming out at Howard Place to meet my Grandad and stay at his house in Eyre Place.  I cringe when I think about it now given I was only around 9 or 10.

Walking to Flora's.

The list is endless.  Would not swap it for anything. 

[iantjambo]

Being nominated TV channel changer or even worse holding the TV aerial until you got a decent picture.

 

Folks are bloody spoiled these days.

I remember the first tv we got that came with a remote control, it was like holding a piece of space age equipment. We also had to sit bursting until an end of part or even the end of the program you were watching, no pausing to shows back then.

[Салатные палочки]

We had a colour TV from the moment I remember watching it.  Then it started to go all pink around the sides and got progressively worse until there was only one wee circle in the middle that wasnt pink.  Then it wouldn't turn on so they took me and my sisters black and white one out our room (incidently my old man won that in a bowling club raffle).  Then my old man must have got a bonus at work so we went into town one Saturday morning to get a new colour JVC (which was black......woah man) and matching JVC video recorder.  It was the day of the cup final, Celtic v Dundee Utd (1988?) and I was amazed by the green of the pitch and the orange of the United strips.  That was my HD.  

[the shed]

Friday night during the summer when the yellow solripe van came round. Always got a limeade, a pineappleade and an american cream soda (for ice cream floats).

What a great shout....mind trying to talk my mum into an extra bottle if she could afford it

[luckyBatistuta]

We had this screen that attached to the front of your tv and turned it from a small screen into what seemed like a cinema screen at the time?must have been about 1975/76. Looking back on it, the thing was shoite, but it seemed amazing at the time

 

Anybody have one?

[the shed]

Playing kerby in my old street as there were hardly any cars in the street back then plus I can still name everyone from mr Robinson at start of the street to Mrs kitchen at the end if the street

 

House I've stayed at now for 10 years and I couldn't tell you who stays in the street never mind their names

[¼½¾]

The first VCR we got had a remote control. It was on the end of a wire that reached from one end of the livingroom to the other.

[John Findlay]

Speaking of videos. When I first started going out with my ex wife 1980. Her mum and dad were going out do she decided to get a video for us. She put it on as her mum and dad were about to leave. The first scene was a young lady giving a guy a BJ in the shower. All I could say was she chose it

[JAMBO1957]

Regular at Ronnie Simpsons sports shop in Rose Street. A lot of the time the great man would be in the shop and tell us all about the famous games he played in. Football Legend. 

 

As I grew up in Rose Street in the 60s Princes Street Gardens was our playground, watching the steam trains from the bridges in the gardens, climbing up the castle rock, sliding down the big hill from the castle on large bits of cardboard at what seemed like 100 mph, chased by the old parkies at walking pace, sneaking into the Tattoo and getting smacked cause you were late getting home.

 

Strawberry milk from vending machines in the gardens.

 

The big peanut machine in woollies dispensing bags of roasting hot peanuts at 6d a bag.

 

The WIMPY in Frederick street where you could sit in and be able to buy a Wimpy Burger and chips. I think it was the first burger place in centre of Edinburgh,

 

A treat of fish suppers on a Saturday night. One for my dad and one for me and my mum to share.

 

You only got Lucozade when you were ill. You had to buy it from the chemists.

 

The Ross Bandstand kids shows where you were given massive amounts of sweets.

 

Saturday Matinees at the Odeon, when I was about 10 you were able to join a special club where you were given a badge and became an unofficial usher/bouncer and kept the younger kids under control.

 

Going to the "Store" with my mum to collect her annual "Divi" and being amazed at the money being put in capsules and then sent whizzing around the store in tubes.

 

Sneaking out when the power cuts were on during the 3 day week, central Edinburgh in total darkness, nowadays there would be rioting and looting. 

 

kids at primary school being lined up to be given the strap, double if you pulled your hand away.

 

Mum cooking tripe for tea and the smell lingering for days (boak) 

 

In Princes Street gardens collecting empty lemonade bottles and collecting the 1d bounty from your local shop for each one.

 

FREEDOM AND FRESH AIR (maybe not as fresh I remember it as it was Auld Reekie at he time)

 

Moving out to Ferniehill and a new house that had a bath and an inside toilet. Luxury

 

Happy days.

[Brian Whittaker's Tache]

Great thread!!

I mind staying at my Grans in Musselburgh for what seemed like the whole summer when I was a kid.

Getting sent to the shops for the messages with the money wrapped up in the note and my net bag to carry it home in.

Stealing apples and pears from a big garden somewhere near Inveresk. Being July/August they were never ripe but you ate them anyway.

 

Spending hours on Dial a Disc! "Music in your earhole! Dial a Disc!!"

[jack D and coke]

Lucozade in an orange plastic wrapping

I honestly almost liked being no well at times cos my old dear would get me some lucozade[emoji1]

Wrapped up in that weird way but it was feckin great!

[jimmyjambo]

The party telephone line, you would go to use your phone and one of your neighbours would be on the feckin line so you couldnt make a call but you could listen into theit conversation

[Салатные палочки]

I used to get sent to the shop for fags for my uncle with just a note.  The guy in the shop knew my gran and would happily give them to me.  I also got sent round to the bookies to put my granddads line on, also with a note.  He would give me 50p for my trouble.  This is the late 80's/early 90's as well, no 50 years ago.  

[Jambo-Jimbo]

Anybody remember these.

 

 

Better than Mars Bars IMO.

[luckyBatistuta]

Used to be obsessed with Creamola foam and always at my mum when we were at the shops?please,please,please

 

Tried it a few years ago and it's rubbish?had to put nearly half the tub in, just to get a hit of flavour.

[¼½¾]

 

Man, for Tudor I'd climb a mountain!

[Brian Whittaker's Tache]

What will kids these days talk about on this thread in 40 years?

Remember yon Starbucks on Frederick Street? ?4 for a latte, mind Lattes?

 

Mind when your dad ran you to parties every weekend and we had DVD players in the car....

[Harry Potter]

Speaking of videos. When I first started going out with my ex wife 1980. Her mum and dad were going out do she decided to get a video for us. She put it on as her mum and dad were about to leave. The first scene was a young lady giving a guy a BJ in the shower. All I could say was she chose it

Ha Ha, quality

[Maple Leaf]

Speaking of videos. When I first started going out with my ex wife 1980. Her mum and dad were going out do she decided to get a video for us. She put it on as her mum and dad were about to leave. The first scene was a young lady giving a guy a BJ in the shower. All I could say was she chose it

Did her mum and dad still leave?  If so, how was the rest of your evening?

[alwaysthereinspirit]

I remember our first house phone in 1974. It was on a small table in the lobby with a small jar next to it to drop a 2p piece in it if you used the phone.

Stealing window putty out off the newly installed school windows. See who could have the biggest putty lump. Getting chased by the janny(ie).

Jumping on and off the old open back buses when the conductor went upstairs while the bus was moving. Not even a thought of falling off. Crazy.

Pretending you were sleeping when the bus inspector got on to check tickets or jumped up and got off the bus like this was your stop anyway.

[Tazio]

The wee square bus tickets. To this day the best tasting ticket LRT have ever had. 

[Tasavallan]

We had this screen that attached to the front of your tv and turned it from a small screen into what seemed like a cinema screen at the time?must have been about 1975/76. Looking back on it, the thing was shoite, but it seemed amazing at the time

 

Anybody have one?

 

Winston Ingram, Series 3 Episode 5. 

[The Real Maroonblood]

I remember our first house phone in 1974. It was on a small table in the lobby with a small jar next to it to drop a 2p piece in it if you used the phone.

Stealing window putty out off the newly installed school windows. See who could have the biggest putty lump. Getting chased by the janny(ie).

Jumping on and off the old open back buses when the conductor went upstairs while the bus was moving. Not even a thought of falling off. Crazy.

Pretending you were sleeping when the bus inspector got on to check tickets or jumped up and got off the bus like this was your stop anyway.

Sometimes a conductor would split the fare with you and no ticket issued.

[John Findlay]

Did her mum and dad still leave? If so, how was the rest of your evening?

Aye they still went out. After forementoned video was removed from the machine and confiscated. There was no hanky panky as her dad was the Chief GI (gunnery instructor) onboard our ship HMS Intrepid. Chief GI's were commonly referred to as God To say I was S h I T T I n g myself is an understatement.