Ian, Café Truva, Leith

“I went on to the oil rigs in ’74. I came down here for an interview with a company called Santa Fe. This American guy said, “D’ya wanna go offshore boy?” I said ‘Yes’. There was a pallet on the floor with boxes on it. He said, “I'm going for coffee now, so move those boxes from there to there.” I thought, “So, that's an interview? Alright.” He came back 10 minutes later. “Good jab,” he said, “you’re goin’ offshore tomorrow.” And that was it!

I got paid £3.00 an hour which was fantastic wages. That was 106 hours per week, which included overtime. So, it was £300 a week. I had two mates at the time who played for Hearts and for Hibs called Alan Gordon and Jimmy O’Rourke. They were the two top goal scorers in Europe at the time. I was getting paid way, way more than they were.

My dad was a very good footballer. He was earning £8 a week as a crane driver in 1949, when he went to Hibs for a trial. They offered him a contract – at £5 a week! So that was, “No, thank you!”

Were you good at sport?

“I did a wee bit of boxing and a wee bit of wrestling. I used to go to the El Dorado on a Tuesday. All the big guys were there like Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy. I used to go backstage to do what they called ‘warm-up wrestling’ with them. You got thrown about for 10 minutes to warm up the big guys, and then they came out for the big fight. It didn’t hurt you or anything, they’d just put you into locks and things like that. Mostly it was showmanship. They were all friends. After the wrestling was over, they all went to the pub and had a few pints together.”

How do think Leith has changed over your lifetime?

“Oh, massively. See twenty-five years ago - some of the pubs down here, you'd need a platoon of SAS to go into them! They were rough. My brother and another guy came off a boat in Leith at lunchtime once to go to their union office. Then then they went into the Tower Bar which was next door to it, to have a quick pint before they went back to the boat, and they got set upon by two guys in the bar - and the barman! And my brother is a local. And that was at lunchtime. And the Police didn't want to know anything.

See now, though, anybody can walk around here at night, and nobody says boo to them. We've moved on. And it's a good thing.”