Your Memories: 'People would stagger out of the pub to join the Salvation Army singing'

Published on Saturday 14 March 2009 10:42

THE port of Leith has always been home to plenty of colourful characters. Eighty-one-year-old Peter Lomax, who was born and bred there, has vivid memories of some of the old regulars in the port's bars.

"I distinctly remember a piper who used to play outside the pub right opposite the Gaiety Theatre at the Kirkgate," he says.

"Everyone knew he liked a drink, so he would play, walking up and down the street, but keeping one eye on his hat outside the bar.

"People would throw money in the hat, and as soon as the amount reached a shilling, he would stop playing, put his pipes under his arm and go back inside the pub for a pint.

"Ten minutes later he would come out again and play for more money."

Mr Lomax, a former Leith Docks worker, was born and raised in the port, growing up in Tollbooth Wynd in tenements that have now been knocked down to make way for multi-storey housing.

He now lives in Trinity.

At the age of nine, he began working for J Easton the bakers as a van boy, working at weekends from 5am until 7pm, delivering rolls and bread across the Capital.

"I earned 3/6, the equivalent of 17 and a half pence, and my family got all the money. I was the middle child of a family with five boys and three sisters."

Growing up on Tollbooth Wynd, he remembers the Salvation Army band playing at the Foot of Leith Walk every Saturday night at the Queen Victoria statue. They would be accompanied by some entertaining, impromptu singing by drinkers from the nearby pubs.

"The band used to march from Bangor Road to the statue, where they would also sing," he said. "People would come out of the pubs and the Salvation Army would ask them to repent.

"This would take place on a Saturday night of all nights, and I would see people staggering out of pubs, coming out with all kinds of repentance stories and joining in with the singing. It was very amusing."