“Thanks for coming!” said a voice, as we made our way up a couple of steps and slowly along a narrow dark corridor. We passed a door on our right; an entrance to a bar, where the air was hot and humid and smelt of booze. Someone blundered in front of me, holding a plastic pint glass filled with lager, and followed our path to the exit.
Outside, it was dark. Although the air was fresher, it was still humid. After a couple of minutes of loitering, I had managed to plot a route on my phone to our accommodation. I didn’t know the route, so I started to blindly follow the path of blue dots that were set out in front of me.
After a couple of turns, we were walking down steep steps of a cobbled path towards familiar roads. Street lights soaked everything in orange and cast dim shadows over our path. On a normal night, I would expect the path to be empty; on this night, we were one of many people who were all heading somewhere. Voices were louder than usual because of the booze. Young women held on to each other as they descended, careful not to fall or trip over discarded bottles. A claustrophobic section widened and led us to a road where we took a left turn. I glanced at the phone; we were going in the right direction.
It was not too long to go before midnight when we reached a bus stop. A bus had arrived. The pavement was packed, forcing the crowds towards the closed shop fronts. We had stopped moving, hemmed in, surrounded by people, chatter and the repetitive thrum of a diesel engine. I put my phone in my pocket, out of view. Being a Londoner, I was used to crowds, but these seemed intense. I took a breath, accepting the moment, and accepting that we would be through to the other side once people had either got onto their bus, or had moved aside so the walkers could pass.
A few streets later, we were walking on some familiar streets; streets I recognised from the morning. I recognised posters, and signs; signs advertising comedy shows and theatre events. On our right was a park. Dance music and cheering emanated from a distant corner where there was some kind of open-air disco or rave. I could see little, except for shadows of figures hiding the street lights.
“Could I do that?” I thought to myself. “Would I enjoy doing that?” I began to reflect on my age and my tiredness; a day of walking had diminished my energy. Although the idea of a late-night disco had distant appeal, the idea was nothing more than a distant curiosity.
We reached the end of the park, and crossed a road, and followed a path until we were next to an arterial road that led out of the city centre of Edinburgh.
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“After the Olympics and The World Cup, the Edinburgh Festival is probably the third biggest public event in the world” said Jean, who was renting us a room for a couple of days. Jean lived in a neat art deco apartment block, close to the centre of Edinburgh, with her Ragdoll-Bengal cat, Timo.
“Are you here for the festival?” she had asked the first morning, whilst we made our way through an impressive continental breakfast. I explained that we were visiting a part of the city called Juniper Green, and that our destination had been chosen randomly by a simple Excel function.
“Do you know what there is in Juniper Green?” I asked.
“I think there’s an Iceland supermarket” Jean replied.
The following day, Jean had asked her brother about a walking route from her flat to the centre of Juniper Green. She gave us a slip of paper which contained approximately six written instructions. I had become accustomed to trusting my phone; it seemed to be reliable, having helped us to find our way back through the busy late-night streets of Edinburgh. Whilst my phone plotted a route that included a ride on a bus, or a walk next to a busy road, Jean’s route included a walk by a canal.
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The canal was easy to find. We took a left out of the apartment block, followed by a right onto the main road that heads towards Edinburgh, and then another left onto a residential street. At the end a street we found a section of a canal that was known as the Lochrin Basin.
The Lochrin Basin lies at the end of the Union Canal (also called the Edinburgh and Glasgow Union Canal), which runs between Edinburgh and Falkirk, and then onto Glasgow. It sits in a district that is called Fountainbridge. A sign, entitled “Coal, wellies and beer” says something about its industrial history. It was closed in 1965, but then reopened in 2002 following a period of restoration.
Jean’s brother had suggested that it was an interesting site, and had been subject to redevelopment. The sign offered some suggestions about its distant industrial history: “The North British Rubber Company made everything from hot water bottles and wellies to tyres and boots for soldiers in the trenches during World Wars I & II. Fronting the canal, the factory site was the size of eight football pitches.”
Another sign offered hints about its modern use; it was a part of a 54-mile canoe trail between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The sign gave suggestions about “your next challenge”, which might include the “Great Glen Canoe Trail” or the “River Spey Canoe Adventure”.
Canoeing wasn’t the central sporting activity of the day. Instead, it was running; there were lots of runners. Runners who were clearly part of some kind of running challenge. As we slowly ambled along the tow path, numbered runners passed us, followed by the occasional serious cyclist.
Jean’s instructions had mentioned two key bits of information: we were going to find an aqueduct, and a river that was known as The Waters of Leith. Before our night out at the Edinburgh Festival, I had taken a short trip to a part of Edinburgh known as Leith to visit a former colleague, Maggie, who was a mathematician and folk singer.
I had met Maggie for lunch in an exclusive club called The Scotch Whisky Society, which also seems to double up as her ‘local’. The main club room is a unique combination of spectacular, friendly and cosy. Walls were painted in a deep maroon colour and adorned with the occasional painting. It is furnished with aging leather sofas and smart wooden chairs surrounding practical tables. At the far end of the club is the bar, which had hundreds of whisky bottles on show. Rather than giving names of whiskeys you wish to try, you give numbers which relate to individual distilleries. Maggie had her favourite distillery, and was in the market for a new bottle.
Over a scotch and a sandwich, we caught up. Maggie continues to teach mathematics at the university where I work, is currently studying Ancient Greek. She had also recently completed a short folk tour. She shared an anecdote that connected a folk singer with the origins of the Scotch Whisky Society, and said that she would send me a CD that contained a recording of a song which dates back to 1649.
After about an hour or so, it was time to go. She took me to see the nearby Waters of Leith, a striking riverside, which was just around the corner from the Society.
“If you follow the path of the river for 9 miles, you’ll get to Juniper Green” On the river, I saw a pair of canoeists, having a break.
Maggie stopped to take a picture of them.
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“How do we get from Juniper Green?” asked Sarah, at the Water of Leith visitor centre.
We had walked along the length of the canal and had found an aqueduct and a path that took us to a tourist information centre.
I wandered around an exhibition which shared some information about the area; in the 1880s there were 70 water powered mills along the river, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic, the SS Sirius was built in Leith, and up until 1967 there was a railway between Edinburgh and nearby Balerno, known as the Balerno line, which supported industries and villages that followed the path of the river.
It was apparently easy; all we had to do was to find a path that followed the river, and this led to a disused railway line that went all the way to Juniper Green. We crossed a road, followed some signs and soon found a narrow tree-lined path that meandered its way with the river. As we walked, an occasional canopy of leaves darkened parts of the path, and took us away from any sense that we were in a capital city.
The winding path gave way to a straight one, and our route became very clear. With a mile or two ahead of us, we shared stories.
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Whilst I was deciphering a set of whisky tasting notes, Sarah was attending a 9-year old’s birthday party on the other side of Edinburgh. A visit to Juniper Green had also meant an opportunity to visit her goddaughter, who was incidentally visiting the city from nearby Bridge of Allen, a small town half way between Edinburgh and Glasgow.
“They’ve stolen my shoes!” was the first thing Sarah had said to me, when I met her at a communal garden in the centre of Edinburgh.
“They’ve stolen your shoes?” I slowly repeated her announcement, trying to understand.
Introductions were impossible. There were about five children, most of them around nine years old. It was a game of alliances being created and broken. Three children were ‘against’ Sarah and wanted to confiscate more than shoes, and another was ‘on her side’, who wanted to get her shoes back. Since I was the newcomer, and clearly knew Sarah, it was deemed that I was ‘on her side’.
Whilst Sarah was being chased by the children that were ‘against’ her, I got chatting to some of the adults of the group; the parents. We spoke about the Edinburgh fringe, the Scotch Whisky society, and parties.
“Have you seen this before?” asked the father of Sarah’s god daughter. Sarah had been wrestled to the ground by the ‘against’ gang. She had clearly charmed all of them. I heard children’s laughter, and screams of “stop it!”
“Once before. I saw her playing football with my friend’s kid once; she was very good. She really challenged him. He really liked it.” I remember that she kept the ball away from him, and didn’t let him win it back.
With Sarah on the ground, one child, had found a foam rubber sword and was approaching the ‘against’ gang with a degree of menace.
“Can you do something!?” Sarah implored.
“They’re not my children”.
After the menacing child had been called off by his father, Sarah made her escape.
When I found her, she was bent double and out of breath. She had a rest of seconds before being caught up by two giggling girls; one in the ‘for’ contingent, another in the ‘against’.
“Where are my SHOES!” she shouted.
It was time for piggy-backs. The two girls look turns to be carried. Sarah was now starting to sweat and stumble. I couldn’t help but admire her strength and resilience, and how much joy she had given those kids.
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The path led to a wide tunnel. A van was parked just outside the tunnel entrance. Someone was sitting on the side of the path with a clipboard and pencil. He was sketching something; a plan for a mural. Inside the tunnel was evidence of earlier paintings; a mural of flowers, followed by white paint that obliterated evidence of earlier graffiti.
At the other end of the tunnel we found a sign for Colinton station. It told us that the last passenger train had travelled on 30 October 1943. There was a reference to a stationmaster called John Kerr, who lived in a house at the top of a staircase that went from the tunnel entrance. The sign also told us that “Mr Kerr we renowned for his loud voice and hot temper”. I couldn’t help but feel that there was an interesting story here somewhere.
After a mile and a quarter, we reached the point in the path which was the site of the former Juniper Green train station. We left the path, and found what was a modern housing estate on a road called Woodhall Millbrae. The houses were modern, large and detached. Fancy cars sat on driveways.
The remainder of our walk was through a place called Dr MacKay’s Wood. A sign offered quite a bit of information. The land had been donated to Edinburgh council in 1939, by a local doctor, who had purchased it “partly to keep a pony, and partly to preserve the views”. He had stipulated that the area be “kept as an open space and laid out as an ornamental pleasure ground”. The area was said to be planted with a range of different trees, including juniper trees.
Juniper Green is a small village that sits just off the A70, a road which roughly follows the path of the Water of Leith. The village comprises of a small number of residential avenues, crescents and terraces which are populated brick and stone bungalows and houses. You could walk from one end of the village to the other in about ten minutes.
It wasn’t too long until something struck me; the people who we passed on the street said hello and smiled as we passed. There was the old couple who were coming out of the church, arm in arm.
There was a couple taking their aged Labrador for a ‘walk’, which involved wheeling it in a trolley that resembled a child’s pushchair, and a chap who was busy cutting his hedge. This was the second time we had come across Scottish friendliness on the A to Z.
At a cross roads, we found the heart of Juniper Green, perhaps the green itself, which was represented by a simple stone monument, that sat on a patch of grass next to a set of tennis courts.
“So, this is it, then?” asked Sarah.
I looked around. I was standing in the middle of a village that was just outside Edinburgh. In the distance I could see the Pentland Hills, a regional park which has 12 peaks; a place where people go mountain biking, walking, and horse riding. I had really enjoyed the walk from Edinburgh on the disused railway track. I quite liked the place. It was very different from where I was living.
We wandered to the main road, where we found the landmark that Jean had mentioned to us: the local Iceland supermarket, and then made our way to a place called Molly’s Café.
Molly’s Café seemed popular. It was split into two parts; a delicatessen on one side, and a café on the other. It was busy. A group of lads came in and sat down; they were after a lunch time fry up, and were possibly recovering after a night out. Behind us was an old man on his own who was trying to read the paper. There were two young women who were sitting down next to the counter, catching up over a coffee.
With sandwiches ordered, I asked the waitress about the area.
“There’s not much here, really… You can get your hair cut in a couple of places, though” I brushed my hand over my bald head, making her laugh. “I really like living here; you’re close to the city, which is small anyway. There’s a real sense of community and there’s always a lot going on in the Parish Church. Nothing bad, really”.
In the deli, Sarah bought a copy of the local newspaper, which was called the C&B news, a glossy full colour publication which covered the areas of Currie, Balerno, Juniper Green, Baberton and Colinton. The front cover highlighted three key features: a beer and curry festival, Molly’s scone recipe, and an article about busses, trams and the climate crisis.
As local publications go, I can only describe it as excellent. It contained a lot of articles: a letters page, a detailed ‘what’s on’ listing page, a summary of planning applications, and an article about bins. It seemed to convey a sense of positivity.
An inspection of the planning pages revealed an interesting story. Molly’s tea room had recently moved, crossing the Lanark Road to its current location. The planning application was to “recreate the hole in the wall between the Deli and the former butcher’s shop”, where Molly’s café is currently situated. It goes on to say that “the application is unique in that it includes historical information – and a poem by Delia Perves”.
Delia’s poem was about Michael who used to run the butcher’s shop and his wife, Eileen, used to run the adjoining delicatessen. The last four lines of the verse, “a customer’s lament” reads: “the pensioners too would respond to your wit, mostly by collapsing and having a fit, but now that you're gone and decided to sell, to you and Eileen we wish you both well.”
After spending about an hour at the nearby Kinleith Mill pub, it was time to go. Although we could have easily spent more time talking to people and uncovering more stories, we had a long journey back to London.
We began the return journey by catching the number 44 bus back to Edinburgh.
