The day that terrorism came to south Edinburgh - Donald Anderson

The first letter is posted through the post box which was first in the UK to bear the insignia of Queen Elizabeth II

I’ve written before about my friend Bill Cook’s fantastic book about the creation of the Inch housing scheme in south Edinburgh where we were both brought up. The Inch was designed as Scotland’s first “Garden City”, and the book tells the story wonderfully well.

One part of the book features an extraordinary event that took place on February 16, 1953. On that day terrorism visited this quiet residential area. The cause of the incident is even more extraordinary – a new pillar-box.

The previous year Elizabeth had been crowned queen after the death of her father. This very paper reported on the “First Scottish pillar-box of the new reign”, which was heralded as the first pillar-box to carry the insignia EIIR; Elizabeth Regina Second. Therein lay the reason for the attack, because of course Scotland had never had an Elizabeth the First.

There was a ceremony to launch the new pillar-box arranged around a city Baillie posting a letter to the Lord Provost.

The box was in a prominent location beside Walter Scott Avenue, and a bomb went off completely wrecking it. Just after the bomb had been placed a number eight bus had dropped off some passengers. One local woman passing by thought that the bus itself had blown up, but thankfully nobody was injured.

The police had staked out the area after an earlier incident and the culprit though seen fleeing the scene after placing the bomb was never caught. Bill Cook highlights in the book that Blackford Quarry just a mile away from the box was actively using dynamite at that time. Perhaps that’s where the explosives came from.

The pillar-box was replaced, and its replacement bore the insignia of George VI, which was a neat solution that prevented repetition of the shocking attack. In Scotland, new pillar-boxes simply referred to the Queen as ER.

I was brought up in the Inch and went to school over the road from Walter Scott Avenue, but until Bill’s book was published, I had never heard the story of how terrorism came to south Edinburgh.