Discovering "The Whole Scene": an afternoon at the St Andrews Memory Session

To use the cliché that St Andrews is a town steeped in history is a dramatic understatement. We who are lucky enough to live here are surrounded by markers of some of Scotland’s most defining moments, from scenes of the Reformation to the birth of golf. However, one place that focuses on the town’s more intimate, everyday history is the St Andrews Memory Session, a monthly event organised by the St Andrews Heritage Museum. There, I spoke with several elderly residents of St Andrews about how their hometown has changed over the years.

Sheila Kinninmonth, 77, described herself as “born and bred St Andrews.” Apart from spending four years away after her marriage, she has lived here her entire life. On growing up in the town, she described the simple fun of selling tickets to a football match door to door, or “just [going] out and [playing] in the street.” In the summer the “bairns” were always down at East Sands, whilst their mothers sat with their backs against the pier, smoking. In particular, Kinninmonth remembers the tomato sandwiches that she ate, layered with tomatoes from her father’s greenhouse. 

For Kinninmonth’s older cousin, Derek Bayne, 81, sport formed a big part of his time in St Andrews. His uncle played football for Cowdenbeath in the pre-war period, and this family tie sparked a passion. Locally, Bayne served on the St Andrews United committee for sixteen years and recalls playing at Hampden Park as the highlight of his time with the club. He was also involved in mountaineering and was part of the climbing group founded by his colleagues in the School of Physics.

While Michael Dominiak, 77, hails from St Andrews, his family is Polish. He proudly related memories of his father’s time as a prisoner of war in the Russian gulag, Vorkuta, and his family’s escape from persecution. Reflecting on his own generation, Dominiak explained that St Andrews was a “different” place for youth culture in his time, and pointed out the prominence of youth clubs as somewhere that his generation met and socialised. These clubs had “music for dancing,” as well as games and various refreshments. He also remembered the Step Rock tidal swimming pool (now on the site of St Andrews Aquarium), which he called “a great place in the summer.” During his childhood, he spent the whole day at Step Rock between June and September, only going home for meals. 

Patricia Harvey, 85, was born in Lower Largo and moved to St Andrews after WWII. Her parents lived here prior to the war, she explained, but her father’s wartime work (building wings for Hurricane aeroplanes) prompted their move further south. Her father, a blacksmith by trade, was also a Home Guard member alongside her older brother, who was only thirteen at the time.

Harvey recalled that teenagers spent less time in St Andrews’ pubs in the 1960s than young people do today. Back then, the “in place” was Joe’s Cafe, where Tailend now stands on Market Street. It was a place for “young folk” to meet, and was especially attractive to those who “didn’t have much money.” Harvey experienced novelties like jukeboxes and her first espresso coffee at Joe’s Cafe.

Those at the Memory Session also recalled their careers in St Andrews. Bayne worked for the University as a technician in the School of Physics from 1961 until 2004. Laughing, he remembered that he accidentally left three weeks early for retirement, but was reassured that after 43 years of employment, his pay would not be docked. His family is also well-established in the town: his mother worked as a waitress in what is now The Rule, and he showed me photographs of his grandparents, who sold their produce by Market Street’s Whyte Melville Fountain. 

Harvey was a Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and Bayne joked that she married half the town. Today, the Memory Session group considers her the main archivist of the many scrapbooks belonging to the St Andrews Heritage Museum. The earliest of the collection dates from the nineteenth century, and Harvey, who has worked on them for “quite a long time,” explained that they remain an ongoing project. To this day, photos are still clipped from newspapers like The Courier and pasted into albums.

When asked about how the town has changed, Bayne and his cousin had similar answers: St Andrews is twice its original size and continues to expand. Bayne remembered the area beyond Lamond Drive being built in 1947. 

The development of St Andrews’ shops is the other big change that the two cousins have noticed over the years. As a teenager, Kinninmonth worked in two shops, but both are gone now. She and Bayne agreed it is “a shame” that so many of the town’s stores now cater to tourists instead of locals.

As a newspaper boy and grocery deliverer, Dominiak got to know “masses of people” in St Andrews and developed “a very intimate knowledge” of the town. This knowledge of historic St Andrews has made Dominiak especially attuned to changes within the town. In his opinion, the biggest difference between the St Andrews of his childhood and the modern town is the role of the University. St Andrews “used to be a town with a small university,” he said. “Now it’s a university with a small town.”

On the topic of a changing town, Harvey described herself and her peers as “the most fortunate generation.” They knew what life was like after the war, particularly in the 1960s. “The ‘60s were probably the best,” observed Harvey, recalling how people began to earn more money in the postwar era. She remembers St Andrews as “a community” where the business people and their customers “were all local,” and all knew each other. This “honesty and trust” was “easier” within a smaller setting, and she feels that a sense of community has been lost because of the town’s expansion. 

She recalled that during her childhood, there was no Kilrymont Road, but fields, dubbed “the fairy glen,” where she would play with friends. She remembered feeling safe within her own community, and considered herself very “lucky” to have grown up in a generation before mobile phones. To this point, she stressed the importance of keeping the scrapbooks as paper records, even in an age of online archives. Documenting history on paper, Harvey said, is what allows you to “get the whole scene.”

Illustration by Tess Barbey