From the mechanical age to the age of artificial intelligence

When I was a boy... that was a long time ago now, at least sixty years and almost seventy from my first memories - a vague recollection of King George VI's visit to South Africa when I was two-and-a-half - apparently the King smiled at me, according to my mother but I can take that with a pinch of salt, because I saluted my small hand held up against my brow below a pancake of mt then bright blond hair - but all I can recall, or think I recall, was a big, shiny black car passing by while people waved flags and cheered).

The Broons

My first clear memories are from 1950 when at age 5, I lived for almost a year in Dundee. The streets were cobbled, the old trams were running; 'old' men looked like characters out of the cartoon strip 'The Broons' (Sunday Post) with waistcoats and fob watches, many with large moustaches, flat tweed cloth caps, and many smoked pipes. 

There were many horse drawn carts - milk carts, costermongers with horse and cart selling fruit and vegetables. Other men wore trilby style hats and some 'posh' men in pin-strip trousers wore bowler hats. Women tended to wear hats too, or head scarves. On a Sunday, many would wear fur coats or have a fox-fur neck wrap. 

TV was to all intents and purposes, unknown - 

we had large valve radios in living rooms. 

Women seemed to be obsessed with washing their front steps. 

My grandmother, Grannie Mem (Jemima) did not own a washing machine (few homes had one) so she took her washing to the 'steamie' - a public steam laundry - her 'washing' transported there in a converted pram. Then she'd bring it home to be put trough a 'mangle' - a wringer a mechanical laundry aid consisting of two rollers in a sturdy frame, connected by cogs and, in its home version, powered by a hand crank. It was hard work - especially when bedding was washed - usually by tramping on it in the home bath (a bit like squashing grapes to make wine!) The clothes were then hung on drying racks on a pulley system that lowered the racks from the kitchen ceiling and then raised them again.

We didn't own a refrigerator (a 'fridge') in the 1950s - just used the old food safe (see picture) usually kept in a cool and draughty place - and sometimes covered in hot weather with a wet muslin cloth which waskept moist by placing its ends in a basin of water. To keep butter cool, many used a butter cooler, crocheted from porous cotton thread and weighed down with beads.

(It was easier to crochet a perfect round than to knit one.) The cooler was made wet and placed in a dish of water (not shown) so that the edges dipped into the water. This kept the entire crochet wet, and the evaporation caused cooling. 

US sailors boarding Edinburgh electric tramcar in 1947

The 'old' trams were still running in both Dundee and Edinburgh, sparks flying from the above-head lines when trams crossed at junctions. Trams and buses still had conductors (and they continued on the buses until the 1970s, happily providing me, and my brother with employment during the summer vacations in our student days). Many people did not own cars in the 1950s and early 1960s. Travel beyond the immediate area in which you lived was unusual - so daring to travel to the continent (Europe). Airfares were very expensive and cheaper, but longer, travel was still common on ships. My brother, Donald, travelled to New York on a ship from Southampton in 1966 - I hitch-hiked down from Scotland to see him off.

Transistor radio or 'trannie'

I remember returning from Nigeria (where my father worked in 1959-60) with a small portable transistor radio in 1959 - quite a sensation when I showed it to friends at school. 'Trannies' became the 'must have' electronic device of the early 1960s! (NB Not transvestites as in contemporary expression.) But in many ways it did signal the beginning of the electronic age.

My father's struggle to run a chemist shop

When we returned from central Africa in 1953 it was mainly for the sake of my brother Donald's health. He had suffered for a number of years from sinusitis and related breathing problems in Northern Rhodesia (today's Zambia) and doctors had advised that he return to Britain. My father loved Africa and was reluctant to return, but did so for Donald's sake. The plan was that Donald would become  boarder at George Watson's Boys College in Edinburgh for a year while my father, a pharmacist, looked for a place to buy or establish his own chemist shop. However, my father also harboured the thought that, if Donald settled into his new school (where he was in his first year of secondary education), the rest of the  family might return to Africa.

As it turned out, Donald was very unhappy in boarding at Watson's. His boarding master was 'Butcher' Watson, the sadistic head of PE at Watson's. He punished the boys 'in his care' with fiercesome regularity and in nasty ways. One punishment was reserved for the boy who returned last (albeit  'in time') from a week-end leave. as a result, Donald fretted all day on the Sunday of a 'home weekend' that he would be the last to report in to Mr Watson. The lats boy back into boarding would be forced to crawl the length of the dining table while the other boys kicked him. Any boarder suspected of not kicking hard enough would also have to crawl under the table, so all the boys made sure they gave the 'offender' a good kick or two as he crawled passed. Years later, after breaking a boy's legs in the gym, the school finally sacked 'Butcher' Watson - although clearly the school authorities would have known of his reputation as a sadist without doing anything about it. 

As related elsewhere, my father took locum positions for chemists all over the UK - meaning we moved from guest house to guest house for the best part of a year with devastating consequences for my schooling and my 'fear' of school that stayed with me until senior years at high school. Finally, he took a position as manager of the Co-operative Society Chemist shop at Ormiston in East Lothian. By which time it was clear that Donald could not continue as a boarder at Watson's and my father decided to saty in Scotland and open his own shop. He found a suitable property in the Main Street of Pathhead in Midlothian on the A68, a main road from Edinburgh south to England. The attraction was that Pathhead had no chemist shop and the nearest ones were at Dalkeith some 5 miles to the north and at Lauder about 12 miles south. It seemed perfect, especially as my father had special qualifications as a veterinary pharmacist, and Pathhead was a country location surrounded by estates and farms.

The doctors' surgery, led by a Dr Ireland, had been able to act for many years as a dispensing surgery, that is, the doctors both prescribed and dispensed prescriptions - a very lucrative operation (as they only had to stock the drugs they knew they would prescribe). Dr Ireland fought hard to prevent my father opening his chemist shop for once a pharmacy was established all the dispensing of prescription drugs had to be done through the chemist shop. With advice and legal aid from the Phamaceutical Society, my father won the battle. But it was something of a pyrrhic victory as Dr Ireland set about trying to destroy my father's business. 

It was a relatively easy, but unscrupulous thing to do. Dr Ireland, with his previous experience as a dispensing doctor, knew that certain drugs (potions and pills) had to be purchased in volume. He would prescribe a drug for say 12 pills to be dispensed, then move onto another drug, leaving my father with large amounts of stock on his shelves in the back-room pharmacy of his chemist shop untouched. Also, these were still the days when pharmacists often had to make-up a prescribed potion from various 'base' ingredients. all this stock had to be paid for by my father up-front - and I recall his anger and despair at the way Dr Ireland was undermining him.

Yet Dr Ireland was a church elder and prominent in local affairs - so much so that he was awarded an OBE (made a member of the Order of the British Empire) just two years or so after we moved to Pathhead. I remember my father snorting in disgust and saying, 'Yes, the OBE: it stands for Other Bodies Efforts!' 

The other thing that Dr Ireland did was to go slow with his evening surgery so that evening after evening my father would have his chemist shop open with few people coming down from the doctors' surgery until there would be a 'rush' of patients with prescriptions coming in just before and after 8 PM - so that my father would not be able to shut up shop until close to 9 PM. The other doctor was a Dr Stewart who got on well with my father, but their relationship didn't really develop until after Dr Ireland's retirement.

Despite these difficulties, my father made a success of his business - and had a glowing reputation among the villagers. He made up his own potions to treat various problems, but always had to caution people to go and see the doctor - as he knew it would be big trouble if Dr Ireland could prove that Mr Edmonds was 'diagnosing' and 'treating' patients. In fact, my father was a practising 'community pharmacist' long before that concept became accepted.

Mr Jim Gregor, the gamekeeper on the Callendar estate, with whom I worked for many years, first as a beater and then as team leader (rounding up village lads who were prepared to go up to the moors to beat the grouse towards the guns), always spoke with admiration about my father. 
'Yer faither wis a grand man, the best chemist I've ever met. He could make up a potion tae cure an itch - and he gave me something I'd tak wi' the Belhaven stout he said would do me the world o' guid - an' it did! We were a' that sorry when he have the business up - and we had to gang back to the surgery.'

For yes, when my father finally threw in the towel and went back to Africa (to Northern Nigeria as deputy head of medical supplies), the doctors' surgery applied again to become a dispensing surgery - and won a concession from the Pharmaceutical Society that they would not support another pharmacy opening in the village.

First awakening of a social conscience

I well remember the first occasion that I felt something akin to outrage at what I perceived to be  - albeit in a work of fiction - a social injustice, that is something I thought just wasn't fair.

I was seven going on eight. There was a story in my school reading book about a Dutch farmer and a farm worker, who was fed each lunch-time with bread and cheese. Eventually, the farm worker asked the farmer if he could have some variety in his lunchtime meal, to which the farmer agreed.

However, the next day the farmer again provided just bread and cheese to the farm labourer. When the labourer complained that the farmer had not kept his word that he would provide a different lunch from braed and cheese, the farmer replied, 'Oh, but I have. Today you're getting cheese with bread.'

It was, of course, meant to be funny, but I couldn't see the humour in it, only the injustice. It was the beginning of a life-long concern about injustice.

'sports' I was involved with as a boy relating to the Olympics

These 'memories' were jogged by me thinking as I watched (on TV) the Rio Olympics (2016). What Olympic sports have I been involved with or tried at one time or another?

Let's start in the pool. Living in central Africa and with access to the marvellous swimming pool (and diving boards) at the Luanshya Club (no doubt provided by the copper mining company Rio Tinto Zinc), I was quite a good swimmer - and a diver (from the spring board and the first level of the high boards), so on returning to Scotland and going to a school where they had a swimming pool (George Watson's Boys College) when I was 10, I was a 'natural' - but it didn't last long as  began to pile on 'puppy fat' (a natural occurence or due to the more indoor lifestyle and my fondness for all the wrong food - chip butties, fish and chips, suet puddings, jelly pieces (ie Bread and jam), and anything sweet). 

Then there was cycling. Like almost all kids, I had a bike. There were 'family-  road trips (cycling from Pathhead to the coast - and back - usually North Berwick: so quite a distance, 30-40 miles); later cycling to school in Dalkeith (not very often) or to visit friends who lived at or near Blackshiels (again about a 5 mile ride). There was also playing at being at the speedway - usually with village friends down in the nearby woods - what we'd call mountain biking today - only with standard bikes, BMX days etc. being way in the future. 

Athletics. It was compulsory at school - so I tried long jump, hop, skip and jump, the high jump (straddle jump only), throwing the discus and javelin, putting the shot, and running (including hurdles): all of which were a bit of a disaster for me. I was no good at the sprints either - so I made 'long distance' my 'speciality' - but even there I was at best second rate, but I tried. 

I recall as a fourteen year old trying out for the senior event, the mile, against older opposition, including 6th formers aged 18. I kept up with the pack for the first two of the four laps, but then started to fall behind and was 'lapped' early in the last lap, but valiantly pushed on - greatly embarrassed by Mr 'Fatso' Watson 'calling' the race on the loudspeaker system and shouting encouragement to me, 'Come on, Edmonds! Don't give up!' As if I had any intention of 'giving up'! 

Mind you, I could scarcely put one foot in front of the other so I can see know where he was coming from, but at the time I just kept wishing he would shut up so that spectators could ignore me and look at other events like the on-going jumping and so forth. But no, Mr Watson kept the attention on me and encouraged the spectators to applaud me over the line. Perhaps some did, but the blood was pounding in my ears and my lungs seemed to be about to burst and my legs were beginning to feel not only a dead weight, but wobbly with it. After that, Athletics for me, except during compulsory PE, became a spectator sport.

As for boxing and wrestling (or even judo),  participated in forms of these 'sports' but only when challenged - to a play-ground or after school fight that is. Boxing would start upright and exchanging blows that vaguely resembled something of the Queensberry rules of pugilism, but soon descended - literally and figuratively - into wrestling/judo - grappling with another trying to pin him down. I had some success with the latter. I recall being challenged to a 'fight' at Ormiston Primary School and managed to get the challenger down and then I pushed his head against the railings - it must have looked like I was trying to push his head through the railings - and he was in some discomfort/pain and 'gave up.' Now whether or not he would have resumed the attack on me when I released my hold on his head, I know not, because at that moment the Janie (janitor) arrived to 'break up' the fight. So I was the undisputed victor - and I was never challenged again at that school.

Being challenged to a fight - and often more than one fight - was obviously a rite of passage or an initiation for new boys at school in those days. As explained elsewhere, I attended many primary schools. My primary school days began and ended at 'independent' schools, both of which by coincidence had maroon uniforms - Harris Academy, Dundee, and George Watson's Boys College, Edinburgh. In between, I had a few years at Luanshya primary school and then about a dozen two-week attendances at various schools through England and Scotland while my father took on locums at various chemist shops in various towns. Then there was half a year at Ormiston Primary School, followed by a term at Pathhead Primary School, before finishing with three years at Watson's.

I was never challenged to a fight at Harris Academy or, to my best recollection, at Luanshya, nor at Watson's, but particularly at the Scottish schools it seemed de rigeur for lads to challenge the new boy - especially one with what they thought was a Sassenach (English) accent, mistaking my Rhodesian clipped tomes for English. I recall returning many times from school at Pathhead with a blood nose and skinned knees. There were two lads in particular who went out of their way to challenge me - Rob McNiven and James (I'm sure it was 'James' not 'Jim' or any other name) McQueenie. There was an Andy, too - or was it Andy McQueenie?

Anyway, the usual thing was for these lads, with others, to follow me down the Main Street from the school challenging me to a fight 'in the park' - a playground that lay beyond my father's shop - and a place I did not intend to visit in order to fight. So I'd be called 'feart' and 'a cowardy custard' until a ring of my fellow school pupils would surround me before I reached the safety of my father's shop: so it was a bit like a 'boxing ring.'  One of Rob/James/Andy would demand that I 'put up my dukes,' ie, raise my fists in boxing fashion. Then there would be some 'dancing around' while the crowd of kids chanted, 'Fight! Fight! Fight!' - not so much a demand that we start to exchange blows but a kind of announcement to the world that a fight was about to get under way - almost a 'ringing of the bell' as it were. 

The fight proper began, when my challenger pounced forward with a flurry of blows usually aimed at my head, forcing me to retreat - but not far, as the wall of fight supporters surged forward to push me 'away from the ropes' and into the middle of the ring to accept my pummelling. Try as I may, I never seemed to be able to land a decent blow - or if I did it seemed to hurt my knuckles and wrist more than it did the challenger. In return, I'd cop a few hard smacks in the face, often enough to start a nose bleed, before the crowd urged their hero on with advice to 'Knee him where it hurts!' - 'Gi'e him a fat lip!' - 'Put the heid on him! (Head butt) - or simply, 'Get him doon!' 

The last remark had nothing to do with giving me a knock out blow, as that rarely if ever happened in such fights, but the fight ritual seemed to demand that the one defeated should be on the ground, held down by the other, who would continue to smack, punch, pinch, and even pull the hair, all the time asking, 'Gi'e up?' - an affirmative answer not guaranteeing an end to the punishment as there was usually some other demand designed to humiliate. In my own case, it was to admit that I was a Sassenach - something simply couldn't do! So there would be further slapping and punching or pushing my head into the dirt. Inevitably, tears would flow - yes because real pain had been inflicted but also because of the embarrassment - and, in my case, a kind of outrage at the unfairness of it all, the stupid name-calling by those standing around - and sometimes their cowardly and unfair kicks - as well as the shame at being beaten, ie being a loser.

The tears, of course, only made things worse. The name-calling and abuse intensified. 'Cry baby!' and other similar taunts, usually from others, both girls and boys, who would not try to take me on themselves. Eventually, and perhaps it was never more than five minutes, someone, always an adult, Mrs xx who lived opposite my father's shop, or perhaps a passer-by, would put a stop to the fight. Occasionally, it would be the challenger who, not knowing what more  do, would get up, give me a last dismissive kick, and declaring me 'useless' as if to indicate he was wasting his time on someone who hadn't made a proper fight of it. Surrounded by his admiring followers, he'd go off in triumph, leaving me to pick myself up and make my home, pinching my nose to stop the blood flow.

Mind you, if I had it bad, it was nothing like the torment my younger sister was put through, hair-pulled slapped, and pushed to the ground by some very nasty little girls - a nightmare that continued for at leas a year longer than what I had to suffer as she continued at Pathhead primary school after I went off to Watsons'.

Other sports - well,they included golf this time and that has been my number one sport for the majority of my life. Although, sadly, I didn't take it up until after my father's death. He did age 56 when I was 21 - and golf was his sport - and, therefore, not looked kindly on by my mother. To play would have been regarded as a 'betrayal' of sorts!

I've also tried basketball, hockey - both at school and in later as an adult in Australia. Could  not stand the sledging - and the dirty play (yes, even in basketball which I had been told was a non-contact sport). I only tried these for recreation and pleasure and could not see the point of all the hassle and bad feelings generated.

I've also played (and that's the operative word as these were all holiday activities rather than sports) beach volleyball, kayaking/canoeing, trampolining, and horse-riding (hacking). The last was more a case of the horse taking me for a ride - on one occasion at Buderim in the 1980s, my horse reached the 'turning' point and set off for the stables at the gallop - with me hanging on for dear life (and losing a rather decent bushman's hat that blew off)! Somehow I clung on -  and that was as close I came to 'eventing' - but, no, I'm no horseman, and therefore full of admiration for those I watch in the jumps, cross-country event, and dressage.

I tried some pistol shooting, with Greg Smith a friend, colleague and gun enthusiast, at Bunbury for a few weeks. And at Scripue Union camps as a lad I tried archery. But, I clearly don't have the best eye and in both sports rarely hit the target.

I've also tried a bit of rowing - in two-some sculls - with Dr Richard Hutch in my early days at Emmanuel College; and in Bunbury for about three seasons in Bunbury in the late 1970s, I was a member of the Koombana Bay Sailing Club. And I also given tennis a go - just social games - but I was always keen to run down even impossible balls - and as I grew older I had a few nasty falls, including a wrist injury that continues to play up from time to time - so I gave the tennis away, a pity 'cos I think I'd enjoy playing in the cooler conditions in England, considerably more accommodating than the heat and humidity of Queensland.

So all in all, not a bad total of Olympic sports that I've had a go at - and because I'm very much at the ordinary end of things, I am full of admiration for all who compete - at whatever level.