I was brought up at the Buttercup Poultry Farm in Corstorphine in the 1950s and remember the most idyllic childhood. By that time most of the hens had gone and we had the run of the farm and the adjacent Corstorphine Woods. We would go out in the morning and spend the day playing all sorts of games – sometimes building bogies with spare wood, and pram wheels from the nearby children’s home.

My most special memory, however, was of the old man we used to pass on the farm. His name was Andrew Ewing – he owned the farm and had built the once famous Buttercup Dairy Company, which had 250 shops across Scotland and the largest poultry farm in the UK. However, to us children he was our very own ‘Mr Chips’ and invariably we would each receive half a crown whenever we encountered him on his afternoon walk. If we were particularly lucky, he would send us to the ‘Big House’ for ice-cream – a rare treat in the early 1950s.