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"Thank you for so many happy memories looking
at your site has brought back to me."
Mrs O'Malley's Sweet Shop
"I lived in the Cowgate in the early 60's in
Solicitors Building right next door to Mrs O'Malley's home made sweet
shop. She made the most wonderful toffee apples, tablet and macaroon
you have ever tasted.
You
could buy a glass of something like Vimto (can't remember what it was
called) for a penny and you drank it in her shop standing up, and trying
not to take too long about it."
There was a sweet shop across the road from the school that
I attended in Bradford, Yorkshire, in the 1960s. It also sold 'pop'
to be drunk standing up on the premises, but the price charged was 1d, 2d
or 3d depending on whether you were given 1/3 glass, 2/3 glass or a full
glass. - Peter Stubbs
The Brewery
"My Uncle John Parkinson worked in the Brewery
down the road until it closed in the early 70's, I think it was, and used
to bring us the thick dark malt they used which my Mum would add to all
sorts of things to "keep you healthy in the winter". I was
never quite sure how it was supposed to do that but we ate it just the
same."
Aggie Beanie
"I remember Aggie Beanie (don't think that was
her real name) who had a slight drink problem, and lived it seemed, all
year long in the ally way next to the police garage, sitting on the window
sill with her bottle, wearing a long tweed coat with a fox fur collar,
complete with head and feet, cursing any poor man that may have looked in
her direction.
One bright sunny day we saw her fighting with
two big polis men in Poli-Olie Close (Old Fishmarket Close) as they tried
to take her up to the Police Station on the High St, all us children where
cheering her on, which she played up to, knocking off their hats and
sending them rolling down the hill, the polis not knowing if they should
save their hats from a crowd of cheering children or carry on trying to
drag Aggie up the Close. A bloody nose or two seemed to get the
better of them and they dragged her away, warning us not to run off with
the hats, which of course we did not...."
Nits
"I used to wear my hair in a high pony tail in
case I got nits (which my mother checked for every Sunday night). It
was a great cause of shame if the school nit nurse sent you home with a
letter.
Jimmy Boyle sometimes friend sometimes enemy,
used to take great delight in pulling my hair out of it's tight knicker
elastic band and leaving me to explain to my mother that I had not put my
head next to anyone else's."
Happy Days
"Oh happy days when the streets of Edinburgh
were my playground. I was never harmed or afraid, if only today's children
could say the same...minus the nits though."
Jane Jones (nee Richardson), Cambridgeshire, England:
August 16, 2006 |
