Sound clips

East Lothian Museums Service has many sound clips in its archives. We present some of them here for you to download and use in your teaching. Keep coming back, as we will continue to add more sound clips to this selection.

Working in East Lothian

In this recording, Mr Davie Clark recalls the strong community spirit that bound the people of the town of Prestonpans together, throughout the twentieth century.

• A miner talks about Prestonpans community life
• A miner talks about Prestonpans community life part 2

In the recording below, Mr R Stein remembers some of the dangers faced in the mine, and recalls a quick way of getting up to the surface at the end of a working week.

• Dangers in the pits

In this next recording a Dunbar teacher (Mrs. Glass) reminisces about having to double up for dinner duty.

• A teacher remembers

Audrey Purves worked in Purves dry goods shop in Dunbar's High Street in the first half of the 20th Century. Here she remembers serving in the shop.

• Working in a grocer's shop

Up until the 19th century, Haddington employed a town crier, whose nightly cufew reminded citizens to put out all fires and be mindful of safety. Hear his cry below.

• The Haddington town crier's call

World War II

Click below to hear Miss Margaret Miller recall the feelings of solidarity between the local community and the influx of soldiers and strangers in Wartime East Lothian. The speaker was born and brought up in North Berwick.

• Margaret Miller remembers

In this recording, Mr Groom of North Berwick recalls a dogfight he witnessed as a boy over the Firth of Forth.

• A dogfight recalled

Click below to hear Mr. Sharp and Mrs. Trahearn recalling how airmen were billeted with families in East Lothian, while they awaited the building of aerodromes such as East Fortune and Drem.

• Billeting remembered

Mr McNair and Mr Sharp swap stories of deprivation and rationing during the war, remembering foods that were in short supply.

• Rationing in World War II

Here Mr Groom of North Berwick recalls supplementing his rations with seagulls' eggs.

• Collecting seagull's eggs.

East Lothian had two POW camps. Prisoners were often allowed to work in the fields, and sometimes forged unlikely friendships with locals, many of which continued after the war.

• Mr McNair recalls his family's friendship with Heinz

Medical supplies were difficult to obtain, and so local people had to be resourceful.

• Collecting sphagnum moss

110% Sport in East Lothian

To accompany our exhibition 110% Sport at Prestongrange Museum, we interviewed some local people about what sport means to them.  You can download their thoughts below.

• Archie Baird talks about golf in East Lothian (1.73MB MP3) 

• Archie Baird discusses rugby in the county (1.81MB MP3)

• Why Golf? by Archie Baird (1.07MB MP3)

• Dunbar United soccer team by Janette Hendrie (1.58MB MP3)

• Hugh Henderson discusses sailing (2.07MB MP3)

• Social Sailing by Hugh Henderson (831 KB MP3)

• Racing day by Donald Mansun (1.95MB MP3)

Notes: you will need Winzip for a PC or Stuffit for a Mac to unzip the downloaded zip files. Files are MP3 format and can be played back using Windows Media Player, Quick Time or similar.