Sch.5 Summary of an interview with a married couple regarding the education of their children at a fee-paying local authority school, female interviewer, 1962

Couple’s eldest daughter started at Leith Academy despite receiving a letter to enrol at Dr Bells, then moved to Wardie against rector's advice as female INTVEE thought it essential she could come home for lunch. Their daughter sat the entrance exam for Gillespies and was awarded a place but didn't take it up owing to snobbishness of the pupils. She went to Trinity Academy instead [fee paying corporation school]. Couple did not want their children to go to Ainslie Park; female INTVEE regularly watches children of 11 and 12 coming from the school smoking and being rowdy and is quoted as saying, "if you can afford to give them the chance, you should do so". Female INTVEE felt that Trinity could be stricter about enforcing the uniform. The children cycle to Trinity Academy but return for lunch - "it's too near the harbour you know". Both parents are sitting their driving test so they will be able to drive them to school. INTVER describes the family as aspirational but different to the Silverknowes aspirations which is "self-conscious and manipulative". Male INTVEE works shifts and was not present at the interviews owing to visit of King Olaf. His father had been a rivetter in Belfast and wanted his children to "get something you won't have to take your coat off for". His mother, however, was glad he didn't go into riveting. She had gone into the shipyard her husband worked at and asked the manager if there was any future in it, when she was told no she sent her sons off to Glasgow. Male INTVEE’s brother returned to Belfast as he didn't want to bring a family up in an Edinburgh tenement.