Growing Up

This section relates the experiences of 32 very different individuals who spent their childhood and youth in various parts of East Lothian. That so many made the effort to write their reminiscences is largely due to the persistence of Stephen Bunyan, Chairman of the East Lothian Statistical Account Society, and to his wide network of contacts maintained over many years. Some contributors grew up in the nineteen forties and fifties, others in the sixties, seventies and eighties, so their experiences are splendidly diverse.

Some contributors have remained in the county during their lifetime, others have travelled further afield over the years but returned to East Lothian to live, while some are living elsewhere. Their reminiscences, when read in conjunction with the parish accounts, provide a vivid impression of life in East Lothian between 1945 and 2000.

What unites these people is their love of the county and the joy, warmth and affection they communicate in their memories of growing up here. Welcome to their world, a world that, despite the passage of time, still lingers on in this lovely county.

Sonia Baker, Editor

Alex Smeed (1979) 1980s & 1990s in Dunbar

Looking back on growing up in Dunbar in the 1980s and 1990s, I realise how ...

Alison Cowe (nee Ford, 1946) – Gullane 1950s

Born in Gullane in 1946, the sea and the rolling sand dunes are the over-riding ...

Arnott Craigs (1935) – Macmerry and then golf at Gullane, 1950s

When we moved through from the Borders to Greendykes Farm, Macmerry in December 1949. I ...

Benjamin Tindall ARIAS RIBA FSA (Scot) (1953) – Haddington, and encounters with builders, 1950s

My earliest childhood was spent in the pretty stone building just over the Nungate bridge, ...

Catherine Walker Acton (nee Foggo 1957) – East Barns, Dunbar, 1960s-1973

I was born in 1957 at the Vert Hospital in Haddington and brought up at ...

Christina D. Anderson (nee Kerr, 1931) – Guides & Brownies, Belhaven 1948

I was born and brought up in Belhaven. Late in the 1940s, the 'tree' scheme ...

Cynthia Stephens (nee Dale, 1953) – schooldays at Miss Duncan’s Academy, Belhaven, 1957-1962

I am the daughter of William Paterson Dale and Kathleen Ann Simpson, and I spent ...

Stephen Bunyan – Dunbar Sailing Club

The formation of Dunbar sailing club had an important effect on many young people growing ...

Francis Ogilvy (1969) – Winton House Pencaitland, 1970s-1980s

I suppose I thought that my upbringing was as normal as anybody else's and made ...

Giles Weaver (1946) – Greywalls, Gullane 1950s

I was just two years old when my parents started Greywalls on its life as ...

Gordon Easingwood (1948) – Dunbar 1950s and early 1960s

Like most people, I think my generation was the best era to grow up in ...

Ian Gardner (1969 – Dunbar, 1970s)

Looking back to my childhood in Dunbar, one item stands out which could well have ...

Jacqui Burke (1964) – Dunbar 1970s

I love to sit for hours watching the ever-changing sea, one minute a peaceful millpond, ...

James Douglas-Hamilton (1941) – rescue at North Berwick, late 1940s

When I was a schoolboy at school in Dunbar during one recess, my father took ...

Jane Murray (nee Bunyan, 1964) – Dunbar 1970s & 1980s, schooldays and her experiences of the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme

We moved to Dunbar from Berwickshire in 1968 when I was four. I attended a ...

Janet Helen Hunt (nee Forrest, 1946) – North Berwick 1950s & 1960s, and family memories of Lowe’s farms in Musselburgh & Longniddry

I have spent most of my life living on or near the coast of East ...

Jean McEwan (nee Roy, 1943) – a peripatetic childhood on farms all over East Lothian in the 1940s

Both my father's family and my mother's worked on farms in East Lothian. One of ...

John B. Halliday (1943) Stenton, late 1940s-1950s

How far back can you remember? What are your earliest memories of childhood? Stopping to ...

John Bellany CBE, RA (1942) – Idyllic childhood in Port Seton

I was born at 8 Gosford Road, Port Seton, in the very heart of the ...

John Wood (1937) – Haddington 1940s & 1950s

Born in 1937 in the Vert Hospital, Haddington, I have spent my life in the ...

Kenneth Stevenson (1949) – Aberlady, then East Linton 1950s

I was born in Aberlady in 1949, which I can remember vividly, with the main ...

Kingston School from the log book

Sonia Baker This logbook provides a rich source of information on education during the 1940s ...

Lorraine Weselby (1961) – long hot summer holidays in Dunbar late 1960s, early 1970s

In 1965 my family moved from Nottinghamshire to Dunbar; I remember being disappointed that although ...

Mark Iain Lees (1973) – Dunbar 1970s & 1980s

For the first 25 years of my life I lived at Harbour Court, Dunbar. Living ...

Martin Dudgeon (1953) – Memories of Holt School, Whittingehame House c1966-70

Interviewed by Pauline Smeed Holt School was a boarding school for boys. It was situated ...

Pat O’Brien (1941) – Prestonpans 1940s and 50s

I was born in 1941 at number 1, Gardiner Crescent, Prestonpans. My earliest memories are of ...

Pauline Jaffray (1956) – Thornton Glen, Innerwick

My grandparents were 'small holders', a way of life that involved the whole family. Looking ...

Pauline Smeed (nee Folkarde, 1957) – Dunbar in the early 1960s

The overriding memory of early childhood in Dunbar in the early 1960s is of long ...

Peter Ford (1957) – Musselburgh, 1960s

I was born in 1957, the youngest of three children to Jim and Jessie Ford ...

Recollections of Sister Bernard

collected by Michael T.R.B. Turnbull (1991) and now held in the Scottish Catholic Archives GD52/1/1 ...

Robert Gray (1954) – Morham, and the joys of Cranshaws gob stoppers, 1960s & 1970s

From the age of six (1960) I lived in a council house in the village ...

Ross Drummond

I was born on 15 may 1970 in Simpson’s Memorial Hospital, Edinburgh. Growing up in ...

William Doig – Some Reminiscences of a Country School Headmaster

It was during the 1960s and early 1970s that I enjoyed eleven happy years at ...

Betty Wilson – Street games from 1945

Nowadays there is no end to the variety of games available for children but in ...

Susan Deacon (1964) – Inveresk Village, Musselburgh 1960s & 1970s

I have always used as a talking point the fact that I was born in ...

Thomas Knox Anderson (1927) – Dunbar 1930s-date late 1940s

Pre-1939 Born in 1927, my lifetime has seen the growth of Dunbar from a town ...

Victoria Fletcher (1942) – Yester House, Gifford during war time and just after

Mrs Marjorie Nettlefold (nee Wagg) came to nurse Grandpa's first wife Margueritte Ralli who died ...

Alphabetical list of contributors

Acton, Catherine Walker (née Foggo) - East Barns, Dunbar, 1960s - 1973 Anderson, Christina D ...