Torry Matters > Heritage > Local Memories

We lived in Girdleness Road, Torry, from 1967 (when I was four) to 1980. We were among the first families to move into the new ‘hen houses’ on Girdleness Road, with the flat roofs and the bedrooms downstairs, living rooms upstairs and ‘sunks’ next to the front door which, being a right tomboy, I enjoyed climbing in and out of when a little older. My first friends round about were also boys, and I remember playing marbles, hollowing out a ‘kypie’ in the earth by twirling round and round on my heel, ready to roll the marbles into, or playing Japs and British in and out of the stairs leading to Farquhar Road. I learned to ride my bike (complete with stabilisers to start with) along the path outside our front door. We used to get into trouble for swinging on the whirlie outside, which we shared with next door.

Once I was a little older there were more girls around to play with, and we used to play balls up against the front wall, bouncing the ball under our legs and singing

Red roses on my wall
When winter comes they’ll fall
When shall they bloom again
Hallelujah, Amen.

I also learned all the clapping songs, like

Have you ever ever ever in your long legged life
Met a long legged sailor with his long legged wife

Under the black bush, under the tree,
boom boom boom
True love to you my darling, true love to me,
And when we’re married, we’ll raise a family,
So it’s under the shade of the blackberry bush
Boom boom boom
Esso blue, I love you
How many miles to Timbuctu
Farmer Brown says 54
So shut your mouth and say no more
No more, that’s sore!
(this last bit while hitting each other’s hands, palm to palm, as hard as possible!)

and the skipping songs too. I was never much good at skipping in and out of the rope, especially if it was ‘Lindies’ (the rope turned by someone at each end, but turned in rather than out the way – really hard!). I was better at Chinese ropies (jumping in and out of joined up elastic bands, held round the legs of a person at each end, and raised each time to make it harder).

We also used to buy scraps (sheets of pictures of, e.g. cute animals, angels, Victorian children etc.) from the paper shop up on Balnagask Road, and swap them, and stick them in scrap books. My memory of decimalisation (apart from learning about the new coins at school) is of counting new pennies going up to that shop.

I started school at five at Balnagask Infant School, and went on to Tullos Primary. I remember that the scraps from school dinners at Tullos Primary went into a metal bucket, and were kept to feed the pigs which were kept on what was left of a wee farm just over the bridge at the foot of the Gramps. I remember going for walks and having picnics on the Gramps. I work now in an office on Greenbank Road, and our back window looks out from what was once the Gramps, across the railway line to the house where I used to live. The cement hopper on the railway line is still there – I used to think it was shaped like a dog’s head.

This was a good while before the swimming pool at Tullos was built. We used to be bussed for swimming lessons to the old Middle School (next to Marischal College in the middle of town).

Once I moved up to Torry Academy, we were bussed in first year to the Annexe on Belmont Street, which is now the Academy shopping centre. I remember riding on the bus, listening to Noel Edmonds’ breakfast show on Radio 1 on a wee radio. I remember feeling overawed standing in the large circular hallway looking up the curving staircase, which is still there. I also used to go to band practice on a Saturday morning in the same complex, roughly where The Pier shop would be now, when I was having a (short lived) go at learning the clarinet.