The back garden is seen to be owned by every body. But it is not clear, you see, for those of us who live on the ground floor: is it commonly owned right up to our windows? Because there was a complaint from my neighbour upstairs. One of the things she said was because I have put my plant pots outside my house no body else could sit there. But, I don’t want people sitting outside my bedroom window. one of the reasons I bought the flat was because I love the access to the garden. I think the other downstairs neighbour did do some work in the garden. So we got into a set of routine of taking turns in cutting the grass. And they have the cupboard under the stairs because you could keep a lawn mower there, and we use to share the key. And when they moved, I came to an arrangement with the next neighbours that because this transferring the key was problematic that they would cut the grass and I did everything else. So I maintain all the shrubs and hedges, the borders and the edges of the grass. And then over the years I have slowly moved just from planting stuff in the flower bed that was right next to me to planting in the next flower bed. And to also moving things into other patches in the garden. So really overseeing the whole garden on my own. I maintain it so that people can use it. I have dug out some of the flower beds, but I haven’t dug it all out. If it were my garden, I wouldn’t hardly have any grass. But I have maintained the grass and also have an awareness of when people use the washing line, of how further washing would swing out, and so it wouldn’t gonna get caught on branches and things. I am aware then of also how it looks from the above, so I have hidden the compost bins and things.

Oh, no body thanks me. There is one woman who thanks me and another woman who’s been only there a couple of years. So it is only two people who thank me. Now, I had to pay a friend to cut the grass. So now I asked the neighbours for £25 for a year, from April to October to cut the grass. And this year, I have got money from three neighbours. On the other downstairs have refused and she is the only one who uses the garden. I mean she hangs the washing out nearly all the time. And I don’t really do the flower bed that is right next to their house. So I have planted a big bush and behind that is a piece of waste ground. In fact, even where the current bush is, was a piece of waste ground and I spent ages digging it out. So behind that now I grow vegetables. They are doing great! And the only thing is, that one woman planted one thing. And the upstairs neighbour, I went and asked for me for cutting the grass, but I did also asked if she could turn the TV down late at night. And then she said to me that I have got the cheek asking for money for cutting the grass because I treated the garden like my own garden. And that I have cut a patio out from my back door. Em, but I said to her that it does take me a bit of a time to cut the grass. And the electricity for the mower is my electricity. The reason for doing the bit around my window was to prevent people from hanging around my window. But I did do the rest of the garden. So in a way it looks like my garden. But, I did do it so that it looks nice for other people as well. I do it for the beauty, the aesthetics of it and because I grow my own vegetables. This saves me money and also I just like being outside.  Well, if I stop, all what will grow is weed.

Well, the benefit to the residents was that I used to go to the healthy food shops, em in Tollcross, Bruntsfield, em, because we used to be able to buy spices, herbs down at the shop where Lidl [in Wester Hailes] is now. But, they would sell you a jar, like this. It will last over two years. Whilst I can go to Tollcross and say to the bloke: “I can give you for the blah, blah”. And he would say: “Oh, aye, aye, alright fair enough”. And I could get half pounds of this whatever herb it was. It cost pennies. In fact, I would go round the ladies in the course and say: “what would you want hen, what would you want hen, picked up from the shop for the next week”. I use to make a wee list and get it for them for the next week and give it to them instead of them buying a big jar. It costs them coppers. It keeps their expenses down, and their pensions down as well, you know. Oh, I use to walk in thinking, what the bloody heck am I doing here. These women have their husbands and families and used to keeping their house and here I am telling them how to boil an egg, you know.

She says: “Dad, they are looking for a Santa, are you interested?”

Hey, who is?

“At the Plaza there”.

Who is that?.

“The manager”.

Well I said: “I will go there and have a word with him anyway”.

So I go down and had a wee chat with him.

He [the manager] said: “Have you done anything like this before?” I said: “No”.

He said: “First things first. Do you like children?” I said: “I have five of them”.

He said: “Ok, you will do”. So I started from there. I was paid, but just enough to buy me a bottle of wine, and leave you that little bit extra. You know, you’ve got to cover that.

Personally, well I don’t know about any body else playing Santa, when it comes around September every year I used to go round Toysarus and these other big toy stores and find out exactly what is available, what new toys to have in the market. Because, to me, it wasn’t just a case of sitting there placating children with; oh! I am not sure if your mum can afford that, you know. Or, what about this instead, you know. Because, to me, as soon as you say to kids what would you like, I will turn the wee one away in the booth, the next one you know. To me, it wasn’t that. Well, I went through four managers. Three of them, they complained because I had a queue and did not speed up a bit with them, you know. I say to them, the mother or guardian or whoever is paying their money, each child is entitled to stay as long as he deserves to stay with me. That way I will get them back next year. If you are not happy with that, give me back my boots. Again. I said the same thing to now Frasers in the West end, they were the first in Edinburgh to ban Santa from taking the child on the knee. Em, they supplied me with a stool for the child to sit on. The manager told me it is against the law. I said: “Stuff you with the law. I was checked out by the police many years ago before I started Santa. If you have the bloody indication in your mind that I am a bloody paedophile, you can have your Santa suit right now!”. [He said] “Oh! No, no, I don’t mean that”. I said: “Your business is outside the grotto to look after the centre. My business is inside the grotto here making sure that regardless of what state is the child in when he comes into my grotto, he walks out with a smile in the face. When a kid walks with a smile in his face, I have done a good job”. You see I used to have young girls, well, they are still young, coming with their children to see Santa. I have the mothers of those children on my knee years before. I had them coming, from afar, from Witburn, to see me at the Plaza because she remembered that when she was a child her mother brought her in to see Santa. So the manager still kept me on.

The reason I mentioned going round to Toysarus is this: to me if a kid say to me I want a U2 Santa, I have to know what the hell a U2 is. What its purpose is. Otherwise if I say to him: “What’s a U2?” hey, [He would say] “You are Santa, you are supposed to know!” You get asked so many awkward questions that you are not just going to blow a lot of crap to the kids. You have to have your mind very active. Say out of the blue, when a wee girl said to me: “Santa you’ve got wee elves working for you, haven’t you?” I say: “Oh yes, I’ve got a small army of them”. [She said] “Why don’t they grow big like me?” Hey, you have to answer that! I said: “Well, because of the extreme conditions, weather wise, up where I am, up the Artic, I have my workshop underground, and it is so much hard work cutting through that earth. It is so solid that I only have to build it small and I only able to employ small people to work there”. [She said] “Oh! Oh, I see. I wandered about that”. Hee, hee, hee, One up to Bill!

So you have to be a liar to be a good Santa. But you also have to be a very good liar to be a very good Santa. One year, these two little girls came in. They were in bloody tears when they came in. Some rotten swine had broken into their house. Stole the televison, the video player. Ransacked all the drawers and even stole the bloody little children’s presents from under the tree.  Ah, to me that is the lowest of the low, when you steal from the child. I mean no matter what I did to console them, they were still so upset. The best I could do was say to them: “Anything extra I can have when I have done my deliveries, I will send one of my minions back to your house”. That helped.

But, since that was cleared and a lot of new houses have been built round about. Brand new dwellings were built about and now a lot of people are attracted to come into Wester Hailes from outside. Before then there would be a long waiting list of people wanting to leave Wester Hailes to relocate to other areas of Edinburgh. Now there is a long list waiting to come into Wester Hailes. You see, the new dwellings built by Prospect Housing, I was told that 70 per cent was taken by local residents. Because the mortgage that was offered by the local housing was cheaper than the Council rent. That’s the thing. If they offer houses that people can afford, they can take them. And there has not been any problem in these areas since these houses were built. No graffiti, no drugs, no problem. I found out that since we moved here, at least, 16 to 18 cars would be parked out there. And we are here now, 8 years in May, last month, and there has not been one car vandalised, stolen or nothing. To me, that is a plus mark for the area and for Wester Hailes. I am quite happy to live and die here. When I first moved here, no! Because, well, it was reported in the press, your pensioners walking into the post office on a Monday were get mugged before they go to the bus stop. In the evenings you would be afraid going out in case you are attacked by drunks. I can’t remember the last time I saw a drunk in Wester Hailes.

At the present moment, I am an official carer of my brother-in-law who lives in the house with me. And I care for him officially. I do his shopping, I do the cleaning. I do his cooking. I do house washing, his ironing. Tell him when to change his shirt. Well, just. It was his health care worker who came in one day and says to me:  “I take it you are getting carer’s allowance?” Hey, I said: “What’s that? I didn’t know anything about it.  I could have been claiming it for years. And damn know nothing about it until this chap mentioned it to me. That’s what I find with a lot of people em, old and elderly, that, that’s what is wrong. The government themselves know that lot of pensioners like me are not claiming what they are entitled to. But nobody tells you what you are entitled to. How can you claim it if you know nothing about it?, you know. It could be that it is the government bending the rules a little bit. They don’t tell you to save money. It is quite possible, you know. They are all bloody crooks. They’ve not just been found out yet.  But I have got it now, so I am not too bad really.

Originally this site was set aside to build an old folks home, which is moved to Clovenstone. The reason was that because the community has staked a claim to this site, as squatters. It was one of the few suitable areas of open space that huts could be built on. So what happened was that creatively people got together to pull their resources and organisations to get this site developed. Initially, the Council was in opposition to this. But they realised that em, that the community backed this. So it could have gone quite angry, quite messy if the Council had stuck to their opposition. So it put Wester Hailes on the map as well. Because, in the beginning, people were being moved into Wester Hailes from all over Edinburgh. There were massive social problems and this was looked upon as really, really something positive to pull people together. And it did pull people together. This was a focal point. It was the beating heart of community development. Had it not been for this base, many services would have been closed.

The added value in having our offices in community flats is that you are beside the nuts and bolts of the population. You are actually with them. You are actually a person and we are neighbours, as if you are actually in my flat. So you are there. Before this, there was talk that this project and all drug projects in Edinburgh would be relocated to a central place in the city centre. Well, it was knocked on the head, as I think a drug project should have a presence in the community. Drug users are famous, very famous for not travelling very far. That’s why you should have a service at their door step.

There was some resistance from the police in the early days. I mean some people, we had put in place a hotline, and some people really think that it was hotline to the police. And they say: “Don’t trust them, don’t go there”. And what happened actually as well was that the police started a hotline, and they called it a hotline. So we have to drop our name, Hotline to the West Edinburgh Support Team (WEST). We poke to the police as well about our project for them to understand that rather than focussing on arresting and sending drug users to jail, we can prevent this. In the early days, we train the police on these issues. We also had to change the name to attract funding. Because it is west Edinburgh, and at this time knew we are going to get continued funding, but because it was a Service Level Agreement, it wasn’t just going to be Wester Hailes. It was going to be west Edinburgh.