Nostalgia: ‘New school was an eyesore even then’

Back then, the school was based at the golf course in a building which has since been turned into flats.

Mr Tweed, 64, left school in 1963, just before the new Portobello High was opened on Duddingston Road.

He said: “The old school was at the bottom of the golf course and I used to cross the course four times a day as I used to go home for my lunch.

“I left just before the new school was going to open and the building I was in was more than 100 years old.

“They knocked down all the annexes and built some modern flats in the playground and the core of the school was turned into flats.

“I thought the new school was an eyesore, even back then, just as I think most of the buildings built in the 1960s are eyesores.

“I have spoken to a lot of people who went there right from the start who said it wasn’t fit for purpose then, and it certainly isn’t fit for purpose now.”

Mr Tweed said he was a “well-behaved” pupil, but it didn’t stop him getting the belt from time to time.

He said: “The teachers still wore gowns then and they were all terrifying.

“There was no psychology back then, it was just the belt.

“I had one or two trips to the headmaster’s office.

“I was a well-behaved pupil and only once skipped school. I was bored to tears that day and never once did it again.”

Mr Tweed believes the proposed location for the new Portobello High, on Portobello Park, is ideal.

He added: “It’s within half a mile of the original building.”