When Edinburgh Corporation built Westfield Court in 1951, the development was immediately hailed in the press as a 'showpiece'. The eight-storey block of 88 'labour-saving' homes, at an average rent of 38 shillings and seven pence, was then - at 90 feet - the tallest block of flats to be built in Scotland. It boasted gas-operated incinerators in each apartment, to reduce refuse to ash, 'sun-trap' balconies overlooking a bowling green, constant hot water and a small, self-operated lift. To cap it all - literally - on the top floor of the building, a purpose-built nursery was opened in 1953.
This August the Westfield Court Nursery School will celebrate its 50th birthday. Head teacher Lucy Fraser-Gunn says the planning for the event has already started, with calls going out to parents of children currently at the nursery as well as to past pupils, who include the present Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Eric Milligan.
The nursery has now seen three generations of some families and has always had strong links with the local community, an inner city area of mixed local authority and private housing. When it first opened it accommodated children aged from two-and-a-half years to five-and-a-half. Now it has 60 places for three- to five-year-olds, and eight integrated places for children with special educational needs.
The nursery pushed boundaries from its inception. In the mid-60s, it was one of the first in the country to accept 'exceptional children', as those with special educational needs were then known. Lucy Fraser-Gunn, who has been in post for just a year, says that looking back through the records she can see that doctors came in from time to time to see children 'with severe difficulties'. 'You can read in the archives how these children blossomed and were then often able to go on to mainstream schools,' says Lucy.
The nursery does not offer hours later than 3pm as part of its 'good neighbour' policy towards the residents of the Westfield Court flats who are housed below. 'We do try to make as little noise as we can when re-arranging the rooms for lunch,' Lucy says, 'but our neighbours have always been remarkably tolerant.' Some, of course, attended the nursery themselves years ago.
The layout takes full advantage of the location with all three playrooms, therapy room and staff accommodation facing the sunny south side, with views to Edinburgh Castle. The Family Room, library and storage rooms (originally the bed stores for the 'little canvas beds', see box) are on the cooler, north side of the nursery.
At the end of the corridor is a rooftop playground, decorated by a Community Art project with nursery rhyme characters and filled with plants and outdoor equipment. Here the children can play in the fresh air, although the nursery also has shared access to a ground-level community garden just a few minutes' walk away.
Naturally, being on the top floor of a block of flats makes safety and security of paramount importance. The nursery is served by a dedicated lift and monitored by CCTV, and has a full-time janitor on site. Every week the fire alarm sounds and at least once a term a full-scale fire drill is carried out, where evacuation of the building is practised. Lucy adds that the staff also use the stairs as a form of early morning exercise!
REMINISCENSES
* Eric Milligan was one of the early pupils at Westfield Court Nursery, attending as a three-year-old in 1954 (pictured above). Eric, who is now Lord Provost (Lord Mayor) of Edinburgh, recalls boys wearing blue or green dungarees and playing in the blue or green room and girls wearing pink dungarees and, under strict sex segregation, playing in the pink room. He also remembers the little canvas beds wheeled out for the afternoon nap.
'I've been keen on sleep ever since,' he says.
Lots of international visitors, particularly from Eastern Europe, were brought along to the nursery in those early years, not long after the war.
'They were trying to build up their countries again, encouraging people to have families, but, at the same time, they needed women to go out to work,'
says Eric. 'Edinburgh was at the forefront of developing nursery education and certainly was working in this field before most other parts of Scotland.'
Eric also remembers how 'glamorous' it was to ascend to the nursery in a lift. 'I was brought up in a tenement where you had no choice but to walk up all the stairs,' he says. 'The lift was really swish.'
