Tommy Carson: Growing up in the Grassmarket, 1920s and 30s
May 27, 2020
Tommy Carson was born in 1922 and raised in the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh. Tommy is a real force of nature and is still very active in the community. His memory is detailed and his stories vividly recalled. He talks about childhood, school days, playing on the streets around the Grassmarket and Scots- Irish Day. We hear about the businesses in area, the lodging house for the homeless and the Palladium Theatre where he entered a talent show and met Johnny Victory. We finish with working as a page boy at the North British Hotel and then in 1939 taking the King's Shilling and joining the Black Watch. He paints an evocative picture. Not least in the amazing recollection of watching police and miners fighting in the West Bow during the General Strike of 1926. Its not a view of the past through rose tinted glasses. He talks honestly about poverty and how his mother struggled to make ends meet.