HISTORY SCOTLAND

Vol. 22 No.1 January/February 2022

I am delighted to announce that I have an article in this publication.

What would you have read about in a Scottish newspaper in February 1705?

Thanks to a collection of valuable and rare old newspapers which I inherited from my great grandfather, William Gilmour Wallace, (the journalist whose columns feature in my social history book “OCULEUS: The Musings of a Liberal Victorian In Ayr”) I can now answer that puzzle.

My article explores not only how I came to be in possession of the first edition of THE EDINBURGH COURANT from 1705 but also explores the historical and social significance of this publication at that time in the 18th century.

Toy Theatre

To a child whose upbringing was dominated by enthralling visits to our local theatre, where I watched my parents on stage, having a ‘real’ toy theatre was heaven.

Its green, wooden proscenium contrasted with a deep red velvet stage curtain - embellished with golden tassels - and the drapes around the orchestra pit. Miniature footlights, and spot lights with coloured filters, clipped on to the sides in the wings, and were wired up and fully functioning. Cycloramic backdrops depicting woodland scene or grand interior had matching freestanding side pieces, and the cardboard characters, each slotted into a wooden block, glided on and off stage on wire hooks - I can remember the smell of it still.

The theatre was a product of the toy manufacturer, Tri-ang. This famous name and trademark was established in the early 1920s when the three Lines brothers, having survived WW1, returned to working for their father, Joseph Lines, who had first begun making toys around 1850.

In reality, sumptuous though it seemed to me in the 1960s, the art deco inspired theatre had seen better days having first belonged to a child in the 1920s before being passed on for my mother to enjoy in the 1930s.  Three decades later, the gilding had lost its glimmer and some of the best loved characters from the theatre’s repertoire of fairy tales, including Cinderella, were bent or cracked. The raising or lowering of the curtain generated a quaint squeaking sound and the well-thumbed pages of the accompanying scripts were often incomplete or in places, unreadable. Undeterred, improvisation was often more exciting, anyway. Most often the theatre, which was stored in my grandmother’s house, would be assembled in the ample bay window in the spare bedroom of her home, the curtains of which were drawn to create the required ambience and audience members were issued with handmade programmes – no expense spared.

Little Red Riding Hood is the story I most clearly remember re-enacting, the face of the wolf in Granny’s bonnet still easily conjured. Productions could however prove challenging and certainly not easily created alone which was where my little sister came in – or rather didn’t. With very different interests, it was not a foregone conclusion that she would be a willing helper, which often resulted in the curtain coming down early!

Fast forward to the 1990s and the theatre underwent a significant renovation. With a lick of paint, new fabric, the replacement of the Bakelite two-pronged plug with a safer modern equivalent and a squirt or two of WD40 on that squeaky curtain, it was ready for the next generation of fascinated children - in the shape of our two daughters. And as we all played together, what a joy it was to revisit my childhood pleasure, even if Barbie and Ken did make the occasional appearance behind that proscenium.

Now it’s lovingly packed away again, but always ready to make its comeback for another generation.