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Thank you to Ron Leckie, California, USA,
for sending me this photograph of his family's coal yard at St
Leonard's, taken on a cold winter's day.
Ron wrote: |
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Winter
"What you see is the offices of Hugh Leckie
and Sons, coal merchants, on a cold winter’s day in St Leonard’s Station.
The snow is on Arthur’s Seat and there is the remains of slush on the
cobblestones. I took this photo around 1965."
Family Business
"My grandfather was the Hugh Leckie in the
firm’s name and my Dad, also Hugh Leckie (Jr.), and his brothers, Willie,
Jimmy and John were the sons. Their sister, Jenny Bonar, worked in the
office. It was a real family business. They had several coal lorries, a
“tipper” truck, and a couple of vans. With some of my cousins, I helped
with delivering coal on weekends and school holidays – some times it was
the 28lb packaged fuel which we delivered to shops to sell. Other times,
I’d carry the full 112lb bags."
Coal Deliveries
"I remember some cold days, when the coal bags
would be so frozen that when you had emptied them, they still retained the
same shape and you would have to jump on them to flatten them for
stacking. Another memory was the first time I went out with my dad and
his crew. We got to the last delivery of the day and the men looked at me
and said, “Do you want to deliver the last one to this next stair?” Being
the boss’s son, I wanted to show that I could pull my weight, so I said,
“sure!”. They pointed to the stair and said, “It’s easy... just go up to
the last door you come to.” They weren’t kidding as it was a stair on the
High St, just down from John Knox’ house and I was exhausted when I got to
the top of what I discovered to be 5 flights to find that “easy last
door”. :-)
It was enriching experiences like this that
helped make me decide to use my brain instead of brawn, go to University,
and get into electronics. However, I would not have missed those days in
the coal business for anything." Ron Leckie,
California, USA: July 26, 2007 |
