Topics discussed include: Family life; living accommodation; quality of construction; design flaws; district; shortage of shops and play areas; church; Cramond foreshore.

INTVEEs have six children and have lived in their flat for four years. The husband has lived in the area from the age of 7 and knew his wife from school. He ran wild as a child round the district in the 1930s and 1940s, his father was in the army and a drunk. Their stair is nice but noisy. Their complaints are mainly about the quality and design of the house: Windows have rusted, floors are not nailed down and are noisy and uneven, the doors are warped, the walls and ceilings are not square and it was difficult to put up patterned wallpaper - they used a plumb line all the way round but it still came out wrong. The stairs are narrow and have glass windows at foot level which get broken. Tenants are responsible for cleaning the windows but can't do it themselves from the outside. The flat is arranged along a corridor running parallel with the front of the building with cupboards and bedrooms on one side. The living room is at the front with the kitchen leading off. The only room to adjoin the neighbouring flat is a bedroom, some of the other flats in the block have adjoining living rooms with the INTVER thinks must be "hell". INTVEEs do not like the arrangement of the coal cellar which is immediately behind the front door and means the coal man has to come into the hall, shut the front door to be able to open the cellar door, shut the cellar door before opening the front door and so on for each sack. Husband says if the house was his he'd knock through a wall to make an entrance chute directly into the cellar. In the living room there is only one long wall against which you can put furniture, the front wall has windows and the other walls are broken up with the fireplace, recesses and access to kitchen. Despite these complaints they are quite pleased with it on the whole but would prefer to be in a house on their own. They think the district is quite rough. There is a shortage of shops and nowhere for the children to go and play. Muirhouse Drive is dangerous because of parked vans. The wife misses having a shopping centre as somewhere to go to break up the monotony of being at home with the children. The vans don't carry a wide range of goods so you don't know what else is available. In the summer they spend as much time as possible at Cramond foreshore, there is nowhere else to go. Husband thinks the district will not be as rough in ten years time when the children have grown up. They go to church but not the white church which doesn't have a holy atmosphere and looks like a laundry. Husband thinks Cramond foreshore should be developed more as a recreation place for Edinburgh, he had heard the corporation were negotiating to extend the forefront road right through to South Queensferry but this depended on the Dalmeny estate. They've redecorated throughout, it was all yellow when they moved in which was fine but they wanted to make it their own.