Your memories: 'Running around with glass eyes'

FROM glass eyes to blood samples, there wasn't much that grandfather David Brown didn't deliver during a 20-year career as a courier.

The 56-year-old from Livingston worked for various courier companies in the Capital between 1985 and 2005, including Pony Express on York Place and QED Couriers on Dundas Street. He even set up his own company, Central Couriers, in Livingston in 1985, which still exists to this day.

The father-of-three recalls: "I would take blood samples from the city hospital and various hospitals around Edinburgh to the haematology and chemotherapy departments at the Royal Infirmary on Lauriston Place.

"I also delivered glass eyes to the Eye Pavilion and false teeth to local dentists. I was just running around with blood samples and you name it.""

Edinburgh-born David, who is now semi-retired, was paid 1 for every hospital delivery made, with his average weekly wage amounting to between 50 and 60.

"I wasn't making very much money but occasionally I got a nice, long job to go somewhere like North Wales or the north of England, and those were quite good because you could take your time doing them," he says.

David delivered the letters and parcels on a motorbike or three-wheeled car, depending on the size of the delivery.

He adds: "I also carried blood samples to the HIV labs at the Royal Infirmary on Lauriston Place. One time the box on the back of the motorbike blew open as I was coming through Tollcross, and the samples blew onto the road. I had to pick them up and put them back in the box."