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“Wester Hailes at 50: How a field of dreams turned into a concrete jungle”
(3 posts)-
Posted 5 years ago #
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Iain explained: “In 1971 I started on the flats at Wester Hailes as an apprentice joiner
“The build quality was terrible. The walls were lined with plasterboard. They had half an inch of polystyrene behind that. We didn’t have modern battery drills or anything like that, you just hammered the masonry nails in ... and they weren’t a great catch on the concrete, shall we say, so I kind of expected the walls to fall down. I don’t think they did.
“The kitchen cpboards, I remember there was one high level kitchen cupboard that was nailed to the wall and that was just two masonry nails battered in through a bit of wood on the back of it. They definitely fell off the walls.
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“I’m surprised they lasted as long as they did. Demolished in 1994, I think.
“That’s progress, they took people out of slums in Leith and other places and put them in Wester Hailes. It would have taken 100 years to create a slum in Leith but it only took 25 years to do it in Wester Hailes – progress!
“The block opposite was known as Vietnam when we lived there. There was that much trouble the polis were there just about every day. There was all sorts of s*** going on in that block.
“I built them and thought they were s***. Then I lived in them and I realised just HOW s*** they were.”
He added: “I actually spoke to the architect. I was working in the Scottish Arts Club in Rutland Square and I met the architect there and I had a few questions for him and he was not pleased, let me tell you.
“He was responsible for designing the double doors at the bottom of each stairwell. And I asked him why he’d designed them the way he had, because they were bloody impossible to open in a gale.
“He obviously didn’t have to live there. I think architects should be forced to live in their own creations. It might improve what they design.” [AGREED]
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Posted 5 years ago # -
I lived there as a child, went to the primary school. We only stayed a couple of years. It wasn't so bad back then, but it was brand new. I do remember being shocked on the first day of school at being the only kid in the class who could read. When I visited friends' flats it soon became clear why, as they often only had a handful of books in the whole place. I think the real problems started in the 1980s when all the decent council houses were sold off under Thatcher's right to buy legislation. Then Wester Hailes became a dumping ground for problem tenants.
Posted 5 years ago #
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