Edinburgh History - Fountainbridge

Lena Mary Conway
(nee Moran)

1927-33

Lesley Conway wrote:

"My mother, Lena Mary Conway (nee Moran), was born in Fountainbridge on 6 December 1927. She is now the eldest living member of the Moran clan.

She now lives in Sydney, Australia, after first immigrating to Melbourne, Australia in 1960."

Lena Mary Conway's memories (recorded for her by her daughter, Lesley Conway, now living in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia):

My Fountainbridge Home

"I was born at 10 Freer Street, Fountainbridge, a but and ben with one room and a bedroom upstairs. It consisted of a kitchen with a fireplace with the other room, being the bedroom.

Due to a lack of space, my parents' bed went across the doorway. I can remember crawling under their bed to get into the bed I shared with elder siblings, Peter, Rose and Isa."

Primary School

"I went to Tollcross Primary School. I remember my first day at school, getting up in the pitch black and being given a cup of tea to drink whilst sitting at one end of the fender in front of the fire."

Vaccination

"My earliest memory is of getting a vaccination when I was about two years old. It turned septic and was still purple when I married, some twenty years later."

Granny Malone

"Granny Malone lived on the corner of Grove Street at number 90, right at the top, above the pawn shop stair. Her full name was Rose Ann Malone (nee Kane). She was a fruit vendor, selling her wares from a cart.

All the bairns would go to Granny Malone’s on a Sunday morning. The grandparents would be watching for them coming and as soon as they saw them would shout: 'Here come the bairns!'.

Granny Malone and Grandad use to lift the bairns over the bunker to look out the window. Granny Malone used to go to the “jug bar” for a wee snifter."

Grandad

"Grandad (Johnny) Malone was a nice man, small and slight with nice features. He died when I was eight.

He only had one leg and told the bairns he had had an accident at a school he was helping to build. In actual fact, he was blind drunk and fell asleep with his leg in the fire – he was burnt to the bone and got gangrene."

Granny's Brother

"Granny Malone’s brother, Pat Kane, lived in Brandfield Street just off Grove Street. He was cross-eyed. His wife’s name was Peggy, and they had very clever bairns! One of them became a pilot."

Cousin Cathy

"Auntie Susie and Uncle Alfie used to live in Fountainbridge, just down the road from the Palais de Danse, with their daughter, my cousin Cathy McGraw.

I used to ride Cathy’s fairy trike, “Hi-Ho Silver!” while she got stuck riding the wooden chest.

Cathy and I would go to the pictures at the Regal on a Saturday and stay at her house every weekend, from about age 6 right up until being a teenager.

Cathy would give me her slippers as soon as I arrived and generally treated me like a queen. No wonder I liked going over there!"

Christmas

"For Christmas one year, I got black stockings, as well as the usual orange and apple in my stocking. I was that excited! Another year, the gift was a school case.

Only the two youngest of the Moran clan received presents, so presents at Christmas were the exception rather than the rule – how different, today."

Work

"My mother worked at the North British Rubber mill as a golf ball maker.

At this time, there were five breweries in Fountainbridge. I didn’t notice the smell but visitors would comment on the smell of rubber and hops mixed with the smell of sweeties from McKay's sweetie works.

One of my Dad's jobs, when he was working, was in the brewery and he used to go to work with a hot water bottle strapped to his belly and come home at night, with the bottle filled with beer. They also used sugar cane in the brewery and he would sometimes come home with a piece of clear sugar cane and hand it out as a sweetie."

Asa Wassa

"I can remember Asa Wassa (or as we called him, Isi Wazzy), the rag and bone man. Even after we moved to Niddrie, my mother often gave me a bundle of rags to take to Asa in exchange for a few pennies. I recall his premises as being opposite McKay's sweetie works."

Food and Drink

"We used to like the 'soor dook', the buttermilk from the milkman. He used to come around with a horse and cart, which contained a big vat of milk that you used to ladle out.

I was sent out to get the horse’s droppings and also sent up Arthur's Seat for 'sheep's purls' for the garden.

I used to get Smiths Crisps with a wee waxed paper of salt which you mixed in yourself. A treat used to be peas and vinegar from Kings in Fountainbridge."

Move to Niddrie

"In about 1933, when I was 6, the Moran clan – Peter and Molly, along with Peter, Rose, Isa, me, John, Ronald and Patricia, left Freer Street, Fountainbridge, for Niddrie where we stayed for about the next 12 years."

Sean Connery

"Tam (Sean) Connery was brought up in Fountainbridge. He was great palls with my eldest brother, Peter.

At some stage in the 1940s or '50s, after we had moved away from Fountainbridge, my husband, George, got Tam a game of football for Fountainbridge.

Later, in 1960, George and I were on our way to catch the train from Waverley, heading for Southampton Dock to emigrate to Australia, and we met Tam at Tollcross. We stopped to speak to him. He was the last person that we spoke to before leaving Edinburgh!"

Lesley Conway recording the memories of her mother Lena Mary Conway: April 25, 2007

Liz Gatley, England

and Doreen Campbell (nee Brown)

Thank you to Liz Gatley who wrote:

Murdoch Terrace

"My Great-grandmother, Elizabeth Imrie, nee Clark, lived at 12 Murdoch Terrace, Fountainbridge from 1908 until 1963. Her husband worked at the rubber mill. The flat consisted of one bedroom, a lounge come kitchen and a loo.

Here is a photograph of Elizabeth Imrie with her granddaughter, Doreen Brown, taken on the back green at Murdoch Terrace, around the 1950s.

Elizabeth Imrie and her granddaughter, Doreen Brown on the back green of Elizabeth's tenement at Murdoch Terrace, Edinburgh - around the 1950s

Everything in the house at Murdoch Terrace was highly polished and immaculate. My Great-grandmother had Victorian values. Women in the family were not allowed to smoke in her presence, and drinking was frowned upon."

Liz also sent me recollections from Elizabeth Imrie's Granddaughter, Doreen Campbell, nee Brown, the girl in the photograph above.

Doreen wrote

Smells

"What I most remember about Murdoch Terrace were the smells. The wash house was a few steps up the street. Women used to trundle past pushing old prams laden with washing, with their hair in curlers & turbans on their heads.

Then at the foot of the street was the rubber mill, where they made anything from Dunlop tyres to plimsolls. Next to that was the Scottish & Newcastle brewery. The smell from that was enough to put you off drink for life.

All these smells, put together, were really awful - no such thing as fresh air!"

Liz Gatley, England,: February 8+9+16, 2008