Margaret Gray (second back row, fourth right).

Margaret would have been in her second year at school, aged five or six. She started school at age four years and nine months. There were 44 pupils in the class, the teacher was a Miss Mann. Miss Mann was the class teacher over two years, which was unusual, the norm being a change of teacher each year. In the final year of primary, the class was usually taken by a male teacher, although this didn’t happen during Margaret’s time at school, as many of the men had been called up to serve in the war.

The school at the time was fee-paying, which cost 10 shillings a quarter, or maybe it was for the year.

Margaret remembers playing on ‘Giant’s Brae’ on Leith Links, and playing with diabolos, and at peevers. For peevers, some of the children took pieces of granite from the graveyard nearby, other children would use old shoe polish tins.

Also in the photograph are Bertie McLeod (front row, second right) and Wilma Watson (second row, fifth left). They later married, and Margaret remained friends with them throughout their lives.

Photography – JR Coltart & Son, 8 Dalmeny Street, Leith

Donor number: 0555-002