Born In A Very Special Place

A Memory of Dalkeith.

I was born in Dalkeith in 1936 and shortly after moved to 17 Gibralter Terrace, Dalkieth, Midlothian, Scotland. I was the fourth to be born and already had an older sister by 5 years and two older brothers. By the time I was 11 years old I had another two sisters and two brothers.
We lived in a 3 bedroomed council house with a sitting room, scullery, bathroom and toilet (combined). Only two of the three rooms were big enough to accommodate the four brothers in one, three girls in another and the third was the small box room my oldest sister was in. Our ma and father had a double bed in the sitting room.
We were pretty crowded when I think back but at the time none of us thought about it. We certainly never complained, as it was a fact of life that could not be changed. I remember how loud and busy our house always seemed to be and that all the playing of friends of all of us old enough at the time of my growing up was done outside in all weathers. It did not seem to bother any of us. We all went to the same schools and our ma and father knew all their parents.
We were soon put right as to who was suitable and who we were not allowed to hang around with. Sweary, rude and vulger children from families moved into the area from other places were not encouraged to play around those of our friends and our houses. It seems a bit cruel now to think we were made to be selective so young. Our father didn't want these banned children to be a bad influence on us. He knew their families and how they lived and didn't want any of their habits rubbing off on us. He lived by pretty strict moral standards and as poor and crowded as we were, we had to live by the same standards. It was his way or we would never have been allowed out in the street to play at all. We learned to comply at an early age.
I remember starting the Dalkeith Primary School which was only a short walk from our house to the school when I was 5 years old and I was very happy. Some of the teachers we had, had taught my father and his brothers and sisters who had been born in Edinburgh before moving to Dalkeith and the four that were born after they moved. He was 5 years old when he came to Dalkeith. There were nine children in my father's family.
He was very fond of story telling and he told us some stories about his school days and about some of the teachers he had had and what they were like. None of us in my family were quite game enough to be too much trouble at school, as he told us when he seen the teachers he knew he used to ask about how we were all getting on and woe betide any of us if he had got a bad report.
He was always very interested in our report every year and if he could see we were weak in any subject he would be at the school looking for more homework we could do at home to help us improve on the subject. He was always more interested in the remarks on our behaviour and times absent from school, than the marks we got. That was second on the list for discussion and a 'please explain'.
Our mother was a typical soft ma and we could talk her into most things and when our father was working away from Dalkeith, in England, on the rebuilding of the houses after the war (he was a bricklayer) we got very slack in our behaviour and helping our ma with our jobs around the house that usually run like clockwork when our father was home. Our attendance at school was inclined to slacken off too while he was away. Our ma wouldn't push us to go if we said we were not feeling great and she would enjoy one of us home with her every so often. (Our father would have put us through the third degree to make sure we were not pretending to be sick.) We would also stay out playing longer than we should and ignore our ma's calls for us to come in for the night. We would go to bed later than we would if our father was home. We did take advantage of our ma's good nature and her hate of arguments and squabbles. We all have a bit of guilt and a tinge of sadness as adults that we treated such a caring mother as we did.
We liked when our father was back for a while, as order was restored and the Cummings' ship was on an even keel again and our ma had a sense of relief we felt, our ma was never a good decision maker and preferred not making any.
Both our parents have been gone now for quite a good many years but we still talk about our childhood and the great time it was. We were poor with one wage coming in for so many years and so many mouths to be fed but we were happy when we were all together and we still are, we love when we can get together for whatever reason and have a good natter between us.
There wasn't a season we didn't enjoy in Dalkeith as children. I loved the freedom we had to go walks in the woods with each other and our pals. My two very best friends lived right next door to me and we used to love getting together. Both were called Helen. Our ma had known the mother of one of the Helens before she lived near us. Other Helen came later.

---

---