I moved into a flat on Constitution Street in July 1990. I had viewed the place when the block was covered in scaffolding. (Remember the Community Repair Grants? They paid for new windows, stair flooring, stone cleaning and pointing, the lot.)

The flat had gone to a fixed price because, the sellers told me, all the other viewers had taken one look at the graveyard opposite, freaked out, and refused to look at any more of the place.

My colleagues at work said “What? You’re going to live in Leith! By yourself? No!” Later, of course many of them came here too, but that took a while.

The street then, of course had parking on both sides, and the 12, 16 and 35 buses all jostled for space in the middle. The hooting of everything, the reversing-bells of lorries, and general racket was terrible. Nobody was too concerned about localised pollution in 1990; acid rain was the “thing” then, and it was happening somewhere else.

My new neighbours called me a yuppie, although as an NHS manager I don’t think that was accurate, but as I was the first non-Leither here I suppose it was forgivable. Other residents had been here for decades, and they made me very welcome, even bringing vast amounts of rum and whisky they to my house-warming party. Were they chored Maggie?

That party was held on the shredded remains of a foam-backed blue nylon carpet, and there were red nylon velour curtains, yellow walls, and every door covered with tacked-on sheets of hardboard to cover the ‘original features’.

Gradually I explored Leith. Very gingerly, because of the dire warnings of my colleagues, and soon I found Spence’s Ironmongery shop.

In the corner window, rat-traps and mouse-traps took pride of place. The rat-traps seemed enormous but I had yet to see a Leith rat. Have you noticed the cunningly-designed kerb-stones the tram-works have given us? Walk along Constitution Street after dark and you can sometimes see a little ratty face peeping out of its five-star hotel.

And of course I discovered the Port of Leith. As long as Mary Moriarty was behind the bar, a lone woman could have a drink in comfort and total safety. That was a rare thing in 1990.

Another safe place was Pierre Victoire’s restaurant, for salad, and seafood, with the shells still on, in Leith in 1990! Getting to Pierre Victoire’s involved walking along Coburg Street, which was a ‘Toleration Zone’ for street prostitution.

The working girls were kept comparatively safe, and I felt safe too. Most of the kerb-crawling drivers knew exactly how to recognise what they were looking for, and it certainly wasn’t me, in jeans and woolly coat, rather than those freezing souls wearing sparkly shorts and a skimpy top.

Sometime later back at Constitution St: all the hardboard sheets were peeled off the doors, the coloured walls toned down, the false ceiling taken away, and the flat became the home I now love so dearly. A ring-side seat, incidentally, for watching the tram works.

One by one all the neighbours moved away and I’m now the oldest bat in the block. I know the building’s history because when I paid off the mortgage I was sent all the deeds going back to 1793. I can tell new neighbours about the alleged ghost, and none of them gave a damn about the dead bodies unearthed on the road during the Tramworks.

The ghost is a young Edwardian-looking gentleman, in a grey suit, who appears where the stairs used to be, looks around himself in a baffled sort of way, and disappears again. He certainly doesn’t seem threatening. but I’m writing from hearsay. I haven’t seen him myself.

Yours sincerely,

Maggie Cuddihy

N.B. Moving to Leith is the best decision I ever made