rich
14-May-08, 22:37
It is ironic that ,in this era of nearly achieved Scottish Nationalism, the nation's architectural heritage should be at risk from a lobby of developers. Haymarket, the Grassmarket and - above all - the Royal Mile are under threat of demolition.
What is being lost here is not only buildings but entire communities.
This should concern everybody from Galasheils to John O'Groats, so I make no apology for posting this on the Caithness org.
But how to get across what is being lost? One way is to google up SOOT, Save Our Old Town.
Another is to read this acount of life in the Royal Mile and the Canongate, a mere - was it 25 years ago?? - well a couple of decades ago anyway. And I should declare my interest, my daughter and grand-daughter were both born into this community that is currently under threat by developers based in London.
So here is Janet Fenton, my dear friend and mother of my daughter, addressing the Scottish Ministers describing the treasure they seem hell-bent on destroying on the eve of Scottish independence.
Janet Fenton, Milton Street, Edinburgh
Objections
The Old Town , and its wonderful Canongate is important to me, to my family, and to many others who understand and remember that communities are made up of people.People like the young women that I can I remember watching (girls in fact, who were probably no more than five years older than I was a t the time.) They came out on early Saturday evening, from the old Arthur Street tenements, with their bouffant hair and ghostly lipstick and their sugar starched petticoats.
To me, they were the last word in daring sophistication. Even then I wondered at how they managed it from single ends that afforded little space and a shared stone sink on each landing.After I grew up I could not believe my luck as a young married woman at the start of the seventies when we were allocated one of the council houses in the newly refurbished Chessels Court .
There were a lot of us – young marrieds with children in the Canongate, and the grass at Chessels was a great play park as well as a shared social area for parents on sunny summer days. One Christmas when it snowed heavily on the first day of the school holidays, the children started the biggest snowball fight of the decade. Mums joined in and filled the court with laughter and snow, and as the afternoon light bled out of the sky, homecoming dads took over and about thirty men women and children continued to pelt each other until teatime.
My cousin was just down the Mile at Abbeyhill with her kids, and on the way there with mine I would walk past the homes of upwards of ten families I can still recall with children that played with mine.
One of my sons came in to the house one day after five minutes outside bewailing the loss of his shoes, taken away by a ‘big boy’. We found them, filled with dog’s dirt; I didn’t need to ask which big boy had done it, the culprit was run to ground by another mum, the grapevine alerted, confessions and apologies accomplished, in a functioning and observant, and caring community.
After attending St Saviour’s child garden in the Court, my boys attended Milton House School and their cousins went to South Bridge . My cousin’s kids went to Abbeymount. On Saturday mornings we went shopping.
I pushed my big pram up to the Bridges and, starting at J & R Allen’s Food Hall for the fancy stuff, I shopped along to the Tron and into the bank (there were three on the crossroads) back down the Mile where I had the choice of three butchers and the fish shop, several bakers, Willie Lowes grocers, the fruit and veg shop that doubled as a florists where my number one son always got a carrot and was allowed to wash it and start eating it on the way down the road - and of course the co-op, where I recited my number and handed over my milk tokens and arranged the week’s delivery of milk to the house. At Christmas time, I could do all my food shopping and all my present buying – lots in Eastern Crafts - without departing from that route.
There were the delights of Patrick Thomson’s department store, where shop assistants called you ‘modom’ and if you had the money you could buy clothes and have them altered. You could also go for afternoon tea, accompanied by a string quartet, and although I didn’t do that too often, I do remember when they installed escalators and my second son found the emergency switch that brought them to a standstill and the manager to despair. We also bought our clothes from Burrows Stores, and in addition to the remaining shoe shop on the Mile there was a bargain shoe shop where the Scandic Crown now stands, Universal Household Stores provided string and tin openers and nails and most of my children’s toys were brought from Plega, which had a wonderful selection of choices.
I remember a hand crafted Scandinavian pull along cow and the first anatomically correct boy doll I ever saw, as well as affordable stocking fillers and pocket money toys. There was also a launderette just below John Knox’s house. Apart from Patrick Thomson’s, these were family businesses. We went swimming in Infirmary Street , and saw movies at the Odeon, or at The Calton Studios, where there was a family event on Sundays. First lunch, then the kids could see a suitable film while the adults relaxed over a coffee or beer and a blether.
My firstborn arrived in the Elsie Ingles. I was with her in her Canongate home where she gave birth to my beautiful granddaughter many years later. What will the Canongate mean to her?Buildings need to come down and go up and they need to provide shelter for people and provide income for people and be fit for purpose.
They need to be financed, and they need to provide value for money. The needs and desires of different groups can conflict. Ordinary people who form communities do understand that and usually welcome the work done on their behalf and let their elected representatives and public servants get on with it.
When there is a concerted effort to question what is being done on their behalf, people rightly expect their opinions to be listened to and considered.I am aware that there is often a prejudice that suggests that so-called standard letters come from people who do not take time to consider the issues, or who fail to understand the finer nuances of what are appropriate criteria for decision making.
This kind of thinking can get out of hand, where it ceases to recognise the primary purpose of planning legislation or the raison d’etre of local authorities.Developers who stand to gain financial benefit invariably have more resources in terms of time, marketing advice, the production of printed and other promotional materials, access to the mainstream media and, it seems, the ear of the decision makers.
They are proactive rather than reactive and they are not trying to do it on a limited income with small children in tow. No stirring the mince with a child on the hip while on the phone for them.So rather than reformulate the clearly expressed objections which have been worried at as much as a rag by several terriers, and arrived at with broad consensus from the community ( who have been genuinely consulted) affected, I thought you might like to take the very human step of considering WHY I wish to lodge OBJECTIONS TO ALL 11 CALTONGATE Planning applications
What is being lost here is not only buildings but entire communities.
This should concern everybody from Galasheils to John O'Groats, so I make no apology for posting this on the Caithness org.
But how to get across what is being lost? One way is to google up SOOT, Save Our Old Town.
Another is to read this acount of life in the Royal Mile and the Canongate, a mere - was it 25 years ago?? - well a couple of decades ago anyway. And I should declare my interest, my daughter and grand-daughter were both born into this community that is currently under threat by developers based in London.
So here is Janet Fenton, my dear friend and mother of my daughter, addressing the Scottish Ministers describing the treasure they seem hell-bent on destroying on the eve of Scottish independence.
Janet Fenton, Milton Street, Edinburgh
Objections
The Old Town , and its wonderful Canongate is important to me, to my family, and to many others who understand and remember that communities are made up of people.People like the young women that I can I remember watching (girls in fact, who were probably no more than five years older than I was a t the time.) They came out on early Saturday evening, from the old Arthur Street tenements, with their bouffant hair and ghostly lipstick and their sugar starched petticoats.
To me, they were the last word in daring sophistication. Even then I wondered at how they managed it from single ends that afforded little space and a shared stone sink on each landing.After I grew up I could not believe my luck as a young married woman at the start of the seventies when we were allocated one of the council houses in the newly refurbished Chessels Court .
There were a lot of us – young marrieds with children in the Canongate, and the grass at Chessels was a great play park as well as a shared social area for parents on sunny summer days. One Christmas when it snowed heavily on the first day of the school holidays, the children started the biggest snowball fight of the decade. Mums joined in and filled the court with laughter and snow, and as the afternoon light bled out of the sky, homecoming dads took over and about thirty men women and children continued to pelt each other until teatime.
My cousin was just down the Mile at Abbeyhill with her kids, and on the way there with mine I would walk past the homes of upwards of ten families I can still recall with children that played with mine.
One of my sons came in to the house one day after five minutes outside bewailing the loss of his shoes, taken away by a ‘big boy’. We found them, filled with dog’s dirt; I didn’t need to ask which big boy had done it, the culprit was run to ground by another mum, the grapevine alerted, confessions and apologies accomplished, in a functioning and observant, and caring community.
After attending St Saviour’s child garden in the Court, my boys attended Milton House School and their cousins went to South Bridge . My cousin’s kids went to Abbeymount. On Saturday mornings we went shopping.
I pushed my big pram up to the Bridges and, starting at J & R Allen’s Food Hall for the fancy stuff, I shopped along to the Tron and into the bank (there were three on the crossroads) back down the Mile where I had the choice of three butchers and the fish shop, several bakers, Willie Lowes grocers, the fruit and veg shop that doubled as a florists where my number one son always got a carrot and was allowed to wash it and start eating it on the way down the road - and of course the co-op, where I recited my number and handed over my milk tokens and arranged the week’s delivery of milk to the house. At Christmas time, I could do all my food shopping and all my present buying – lots in Eastern Crafts - without departing from that route.
There were the delights of Patrick Thomson’s department store, where shop assistants called you ‘modom’ and if you had the money you could buy clothes and have them altered. You could also go for afternoon tea, accompanied by a string quartet, and although I didn’t do that too often, I do remember when they installed escalators and my second son found the emergency switch that brought them to a standstill and the manager to despair. We also bought our clothes from Burrows Stores, and in addition to the remaining shoe shop on the Mile there was a bargain shoe shop where the Scandic Crown now stands, Universal Household Stores provided string and tin openers and nails and most of my children’s toys were brought from Plega, which had a wonderful selection of choices.
I remember a hand crafted Scandinavian pull along cow and the first anatomically correct boy doll I ever saw, as well as affordable stocking fillers and pocket money toys. There was also a launderette just below John Knox’s house. Apart from Patrick Thomson’s, these were family businesses. We went swimming in Infirmary Street , and saw movies at the Odeon, or at The Calton Studios, where there was a family event on Sundays. First lunch, then the kids could see a suitable film while the adults relaxed over a coffee or beer and a blether.
My firstborn arrived in the Elsie Ingles. I was with her in her Canongate home where she gave birth to my beautiful granddaughter many years later. What will the Canongate mean to her?Buildings need to come down and go up and they need to provide shelter for people and provide income for people and be fit for purpose.
They need to be financed, and they need to provide value for money. The needs and desires of different groups can conflict. Ordinary people who form communities do understand that and usually welcome the work done on their behalf and let their elected representatives and public servants get on with it.
When there is a concerted effort to question what is being done on their behalf, people rightly expect their opinions to be listened to and considered.I am aware that there is often a prejudice that suggests that so-called standard letters come from people who do not take time to consider the issues, or who fail to understand the finer nuances of what are appropriate criteria for decision making.
This kind of thinking can get out of hand, where it ceases to recognise the primary purpose of planning legislation or the raison d’etre of local authorities.Developers who stand to gain financial benefit invariably have more resources in terms of time, marketing advice, the production of printed and other promotional materials, access to the mainstream media and, it seems, the ear of the decision makers.
They are proactive rather than reactive and they are not trying to do it on a limited income with small children in tow. No stirring the mince with a child on the hip while on the phone for them.So rather than reformulate the clearly expressed objections which have been worried at as much as a rag by several terriers, and arrived at with broad consensus from the community ( who have been genuinely consulted) affected, I thought you might like to take the very human step of considering WHY I wish to lodge OBJECTIONS TO ALL 11 CALTONGATE Planning applications