TANNERY Taken June 1955 looking East across the Tyne

George Angus was born and grew up at Alderston Lodge, less than a mile from the town centre. His scholastic achievements were not outstanding, although he managed to become sports champion. He served with the RAF from 1944 to 1948. Studied architecture for five years, switched to 35 mm fifty years ago so that he could take colour slides, and has never looked back. Made a photographic record of the town before the street widening and consequent demolitions, but this record was interrupted by his return to RAF service in 1956.

This time he served as a navigator for another 17 years. On his return the hit on the idea of "before and after" versions of the same view, which led to his "Haddington Old & New" shows and books. He has greatly enlarged his collection of "old" slides by buying and copying old postcards, with the result that, including all his "new" comparison views, his archive now totals some 6,600 slides of Haddington.

George has been a great supporter of the Haddington Festival since its beginnings in 1968, giving an excellent and very enjoyable three day show each year. The money from ticket sales he gives back to the Festival. He had also over the years, to many organisations "young" and "old" alike . His love of Haddington clearly shows in his slides and his enthusiastic shows.

New Set of Pictures

Haddington Old	Haddington New

LEPER HOSPITAL For years, the words ‘Leper House, site of’ used to appear on the south side of the Post road on large-scale Ordnance Survey maps of haddington. But it was only in the Seventies that this hundred-year-old photograph convinced me that it stood on the North side of the main road. Believed to have been taken by Dakers, who was at that time Editor of the Courier; about 1903. I have another view of this building, presumably also taken by Dakers, which shows picks and shovels, so we can assume that demolition was imminent. The extensive cracks on the West gable are sufficient reason to remove the source of danger.	KNOWES ROAD I took this comparison view in 1992, looking North-East across the Post Road to its junction with the domestic cul-de-sac on the left.

AULD DAVIE’S This photograph appeared in a Town Guide circa 1920, and shows the late Davie Rose’s first commercial garage just after the Great War. It stood in the open space between Kinloch House (background) and Market Street (foreground). Since there is no trace of pumps, it would appear that refuelling was carried out using cans.	KINLOCH HOUSE This photo, taken in March 2006, marks a milestone, because it is the first time that I have used a modern digital camera to obtain a ‘slide’. Kinloch House is on the left, and the shrubbery in the centre of the picture is the site of the garage, which collapsed sometime in the Forties (or was it pushed?).

NEILSON PARK Neilson Park , which will soon celebrate its centenary, has within its boundaries an arboreal rarity, in the shape of a bristle-cone pine. Roger Kirby in his 2001 book ‘The Trees of Haddington and District’ says - “an exceptional tree in many respects ... very rare in Britain. Native of South-West USA ...very long-living ... a tree of national importance”. This slide, taken by the late Jack Apps, is the oldest slide in my collection to show the tree (around 1950).	NEILSON PARK LODGE A contrasting view taken in 2002 shows that the lodge is no longer Council property, as the recent beech hedge marks the limit of the private garden. The bristle-cone pine has made a considerable increase in size, but the mystery remains - how did such a rare tree become established in Haddington?

CHIP PAN FIRE? Morga’s original shop at 3/4 High Street, on the morning after its disastrous fire in 1936. The building was only fit for demolition, and this became a gap site, often mistaken for a bomb-site, until the Edinburgh Savings Bank came along. (about 1960)	REPLACEMENT First occupant of the new ground floor was the Edinburgh Savings Bank, but by 1980 it was superseded by the Alliance Building Society. Then it became the Alliance & Leicester, as is the habit of building societies, moved to Court Street, and withdrew from Haddington altogether. Prominent in the centre of the street frontage is the scar which was left when the fluorescent strip street-lights were removed.