New book recalls Leith's community spirit

IT'S a story of hardship, poverty and disappointments, of families thrust together in dilapidated houses and a rousing community spirit against the odds.

There was plenty of laughter and strong, hard-working women who glued families together and raised well-rounded children usually in spite of their drunken men.

It might sound a little familiar, but Leither Millie Gray wants to make one thing perfectly clear about the book she has just written based around stories from her own family in pre-war Leith.

"I don't want it to come over like it's Angela's Ashes," she bristles, refuting any comparison to Frank McCourt's book about growing up in Ireland .

"Leith wasn't like that. That book talked about the dirt on the streets and the filth but that wasn't Leith because the women did their bit to make sure it wasn't like that."

Today Millie lives in a comfortable home in Portobello. She is 74 but the dyslexia that held her back as a child provided her with a phenomenal memory – "I had to remember because I really couldn't write things down", she explains – that makes her a walking, talking history of an era long gone.

So much so, that she is now a professional storyteller, a published playwright and an Arts Champion for Older People.

Now she has put down on paper a fictional account of one family's turbulent life in the Port, which she admits draws heavily on her own personal experiences.

She was born in Admiralty Street – a true Leither, she calls it Admirality with an extra 'i' – the third eldest of seven children raised single-handedly by her mother. "My father deserted his family and went off to 'find himself'," says Millie. "Actually he didn't find himself, he got lost and we never saw him again. He was something of a pioneer," she laughs. "He started off the idea of one-parent families. And he left us very, very hard up."

Just like Rachel, the deserted mum of five in her book A Class of Their Own, Millie's mum suddenly had to cope with a growing family, meagre income and tending to her own drunken father. Little wonder the young Millie's mother struggled with bouts of depression.

"My mother was a brilliant woman," stresses Millie, who lives with her husband, Bob. "The mum in my book is my own mother and the stories are a reflection of everything she was prepared to do to take her children from the slum.

"She lived in terror that we would be taken into care."

To focus their minds on achieving a higher status in life, Millie remembers her mother taking her children to what they dubbed "Bungalowland", Craigentinny.

"She used to say 'One day some of you might be rich enough to stay here'," recalls Millie. "For her those bungalows and gardens were something to aspire to.

"As it turned out, quite a few of my family do now live there."

But then it was a distant dream for Millie's mother, who was raised by a family friend after her own mother died from TB.

"They did that kind of thing then, families pulled together because they wouldn't have wanted anyone to end up in the poorhouse," says Millie. "This woman had children of her own and hardly any money, yet she took in my mother. That's what people mean when they talk about the great community spirit there."

Certainly the book – Millie's first – has triggered strong memories for at least one reader. Sir Tom Farmer was touched by the stories, commenting: "This brings back many memories of a community that experienced difficulty. But it also reminds me of the tremendous community spirit that prevailed."

Millie's mother's home was typical of most in the area. In a stair with six houses per landing, with three rooms and a kitchen each. Downstairs was the lavatory shared by six families. Polio, TB, even measles claimed scores of lives.

"Couper Street, Cromwell Street and Admiralty Street were regarded as slums, so when it came time to pull them down my mother demanded she be rehoused in Restalrig – deep down, I think she was a bit of a snob!" smiles Millie.

She was only a fortnight old when the family decamped to their new home in Restalrig Crescent. But her grandmother and mother's memories of an area that was already undergoing dramatic change have helped mould her role as professional storyteller. One of the most poignant episodes in her book tells the story of her fictional mother's clever daughter, who dreamed of becoming a doctor and who secured a school bursary place only to be forced to turn it down as there was no money to buy her uniform.

"That was my sister," says Millie sadly. "She was brilliant and that was such a great tragedy."

Of course, the tenements of Millie's infancy are long gone and she believes that it's not only the fabric of the area that has been lost.

"I really feel there's now a loss of pride," she sighs. "What existed when I was wee was this great pride in being clean. Even though six families shared a toilet it was always clean, people were forever painting the walls – alright it was the same colour as the ships in the dock and it had lead in it, but the place was kept looking clean.

"I remember there was a woman who always had a beautiful washing out and my mother saying that when Mrs Anderson died, she'd be remembered for putting out a lovely washing. I told my mother I didn't want to be remembered for my washing, that I wanted to write. 'Aye well, you've nae ambition', she said.

"That's what mattered most to Leith women, clean washing and well raised children."

A Class of Their Own by Millie Gray is launched on September 11 at 6pm at Waterstone's, Ocean Terminal.