Out of the Camp Ch. 38 – Gilmerton Dykes to Hyvots to … 

It didn’t take long thanks to Edinburgh’s council house tenant exchange programme, for Mr. Smith’s singing and drinking and yelling to move us along once again to our next destination, Hyvot Avenue. At least this time we had the consolation that, at barely five-minutes from Gilmerton Dykes Crescent, it wasn’t so far to drive as…

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Out of the Camp Ch. 37 – Canada

As I’ve so earnestly engaged myself in bearing my soul on these pages over recent months, I have from time to time unintentionally unearthed the strangest recollections. For example, my early mornings in Moredun would often find me lying in bed having just woken up and listening to the radio playing from the kitchen. The…

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Out of the Camp Ch. 36 – Turnhouse, Morcambe Bay and more

Around the same time that I left Moredun Primary School to go to the Inch Secondary Modern, we moved house. I was six when we arrived in Moredun from Duddingston Camp and had turned twelve when we moved to Gilmerton Dykes Crescent. My mother was always talking about “exchanges”. I didn’t understand it but basically,…

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Out of the Camp Ch. 34 – Sunday Mornings in Moredun

Before I get back to Moredun I need to finish this story referred briefly to in OotC – 22. “Ten days later he was gone. Irina told us that he’d received a late-night phone call from the police in Genoa where there was a problem with the truck containing his equipment and that this had…

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Out of the Camp Ch. 33 – Back to Moredun via Worksop & Music

Pleasurama was a duo consisting of songwriters, Mike Young, aka David Motion, and Dave Kovacevic. They produced and released a 12” dance mix vinyl record released on Sedition Records called ‘Come Dance With Me’ which we published and which I’d completely forgotten about until I found a copy during a search of demos and other…

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Out of the Camp Ch. 32 – Jeddah, Moredun, the Chain Pier & Music

(This continues the story prior to the ‘flashback’ following the Saudi Arabian episode, ‘Out of the Camp–23’) As Wali drove us back to the hotel from the Sheik’s compound – Dima had left his car there earlier – I was processing the events of the evening and, indeed, the additional other-worldly events of the past…

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Out of the Camp Ch. 31 – The Leaving (2)

The day came for me to go to London for my audition at the London Academy of Modelling. My recollections of this are very hazy. I travelled down to London on the overnight train – second class, of course – which meant I had to share the cabin with another passenger. Fortunately, I arrived first…

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Out of the Camp Ch. 30 – Fish, Chips & The Infirmary

All this bouncing around was unsettling enough except that all the while I was trying to devise a story that would get me the hell out of an unhappy home situation and off to London…, and my fortune! Really! I was daft enough to believe this; I was going to be a famous pop star.…

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Out of the Camp Ch. 29 – Grants & Mason Webb

When I worked at Grants Furniture Store, we were based in the service department on Niddry Street, which was off the High Street just down the road from the store. They fixed TVs, radios and radiograms, etc. there, if anybody remembers what those gadgets were. I worked in homes all over the city and beyond…

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