19 Why No Photos? Loudon's Ancestors' stories: A murder, a pub and Auld Reekie

Why No Photos? Loudon's Ancestors' Stories: A murder, a pub and Auld Reekie

One thing which puzzled me, and muddled me, was that Loudon's family name was Parkin, which is a Yorkshire name, but although Loudon's wife Alice is from Yorkshire, he is Scottish.

Loudon's Mother Winnie Parkin
Loudon's mother Winifred Gladys Parkin, was called Winnie.

He recalls, "At one stage she didn't like me, but had more affection for her first born, my older brother Ian Robert Parkin. He's just celebrated his 90th birthday!  I was born 10 months later, so he was always 10 months older than I was.

"My mother threw away all the negatives which showed the family."

Of course, her married name, Parkin, came from her husband, as was usual in those days.

Loudon's Father
"Our father, Robert Parkin, known as "Bertie" was in Hong Kong in WWII - he was moved to Singapore when the Japanese war started, as the Japanese were allies of the Germans.

Loudon's Maternal Grandparents
Loudon says, "My maternal grandmother and father were from Kent. They lived in Gravesend and he worked in the dockyard.

"Their neighbour murdered his own family. With a hatchet. Then committed suicide."

"They were so upset, they went to Scotland. There were plenty of jobs in the Rhosyth shipyard, a dockyard outside Edinburgh. It's over the go Firth of Forth bridge. There was only one bridge then, before the rail bridge there was a ferry.

"My maternal grandmother's maiden name was Barker.

"The name Parkin comes from my paternal grandfather who lived in Bridge of Weir, a village in the West of Scotland. It was a small place. My grandfather, Ernest Parkin, ran the village's only pub. he used to go regularly from Edinburgh to Bridge of Weir to help at the pub, every other weekend, taking me and my brother and sister.

"My father worked for the Civil Service on the accountancy side, stationed in Edinburgh. He was posted there and probably had digs in a tenement and went dancing and met up and married.

"The Edinburgh tenements were roomy - bigger than your three bedroom bungalow. They had high ceilings, and a big kitchen range, like an Aga, with an open coal fire, a cooker on top to bake bread and boil a kettle. The Kitchen range was originally coal but later converted to gas. Coal - that's when Edinburgh was called Auld Reekie - because you could see smoke above the houses. They converted to gas when I was 7 or 8. The baths were galvanised steel in metal colour, not white or coloured like today. Steel would rust, so it was dipped in zinc.