Mrs Carroll: Were they taught separately?

Mr Leiper: Ah well, there was half days. Sometimes, sometimes we would have got maybe; they would have maybe one of the classes. We had four classes, well eight classes but there were four classes - there were two classes in one class. There were forty in each class and they would maybe put one, say look we're stopping at dinnertime today because evacuees are coming in and then they came in on a Saturday you see, and the teachers came in on a Saturday. How the teachers got up here, I'll never know. Let's put it another way - they weren't wanted. But some of them had awful dirty habits, oh terrible.

Mrs Carroll: Was it all ages of children?

Mr Leiper: Oh aye. You were getting kids up to the age of ten, twelve, in fact there was one or two older than that. They just weren't wanted. When you look back now you think to yourself - it was a shame.

Mrs Carroll: So did you make friends with any of the children that came, or were you too old?

Mr Leiper: Not really. You see, I have a different mind now as I had back then, know what I mean? You ran with the herd. If you'd been trying to be a mate, the rest would say, you're not talking to them.

Mrs Carroll: So were you brought up in the village? Have you been here all the time?

Mr Leiper: Yes and we didn't get fancy buses to go to school. We had to 'hoof it', rain or shine. I was asking Jim, he's younger than me and he went to Cove School as well, are there any Covers here that I would know? No, there's only one or two. The rest have either moved or are dead, cause it's a long time.

Mrs Carroll: So what did you do when you left school?

Mr Leiper: When the war started all that we were doing was working outside. Do you know Catto Park?

Pupils: Yeah

Mr Leiper: Now, Catto Park was all dug up, the whole lot was dug up. Some of it was dug up and big trenches put in for gliders coming down. The other half was dug up and made to grow cabbage, tatties (potatoes), all the vegetables. I think all the vegetables were supposed to be sold to make money for the troops. But it was a good life. I wouldn't mind going back to fifty years ago. Life was slow, nobody to harass you.

Lauren: I'm just amazed because Catto Park is now a football pitch and swings. It's not vegetables.

Mr Leiper: I don't often go to Cove nowadays. I don't even know Cove. You see, Cove, when I was at school, was just little. You know when you go down Cove Brae and you go over the bridge and you go left and down by the hotel, or you can turn right and go up the hill. Well, just that square, that was Old Cove. And then if you came down the brae again and go along Loirston Road. Do you know Loirston Road?

Pupils: Yes

Mr Leiper: Well if you go right round, almost to the end of Loirston Road. Do you know the houses on the left hand side? They're just a square. Now those houses went up in 1936. That was the new Cove. Then after that, just after the war of course, houses started to go up.

Chris: Where did you go after?

Mr Leiper: I worked for a farmer, just up the road here, but oh, he's dead now. Then this other farmer offered me a job steady, so I went to him. In fact, there were neighbours of ours. He was working with the Co-op, delivering milk. And he said to me, "I'll get you a job working for the Co-op, which is better money." And I said to David, "Oh no, I don't think so." And he said, "Why not? It's a caker of a job." And I said, "But I can't count!" So, then I was called up to the army.

Chris: How old were you at this time?

Mr Leiper: I was just eighteen when I was called up.

Lauren Runcie: Did your dad work in the army as well?

Mr Leiper: Oh, no, no, no. He was dead a lot of years before that.

Chris: By the time you were eighteen, was the war still on?

Mr Leiper: Oh yes. Then when I came out of the army I started working with a company that I was a long time with and then in 1953, I got married. Is this Loirston School that you are with?

Pupils: Yes

Mr Leiper: Well that was all fields and there was a burn that run right down the centre. We used to trail the water back when I was your age; we used to trail all the water back. And then all that back here, that was all trees, just a wood. Nothing there now, it's all houses.