Prestonpans
Annette Gilroy voices the impression these various groups made on her when a small girl:
My teenage sister went to the Ebenezer Gospel Hall and she was persuaded to take me along there. I didn't mind where I went as long as I was able to sit with her and, for a while, everything went well. An elderly couple, Mr and Mrs Campbell were in charge and they had nice stories and nice singing and everyone behaved nicely, until the morning we arrived to find a young man sitting in the front row wearing a gabardine raincoat, over his pyjamas! I didn't know that under the stage was an enormous bath which had been filled with seawater and he was to be "saved", baptism by total immersion and the sight of him in his striped pyjamas walking down the steps into the water was just too much for me. No reasons were given for this service and I collapsed with almost hysterical laughter at the sight of this grown-up behaving in such a manner in public. My sister was ashamed of me and would not take me back.
She did however, take me to see a religious celebration of another kind but emphasised it was to be a secret. At that time most of the Roman Catholics in the town had moved from the west of Scotland to work in the Grange and Links Collieries and services were held in their hall as they didn't have a church. Nearby, though, there was a monastery where the main festivals were held. One Sunday, an Irish lady visited our neighbour to show off her young daughter dressed in all her finery for her first communion service later that morning. The little girl was like a fairy doll in her white tulle and veil. Our neighbour said, "You must be very proud of her ... She's like a princess."
"Shore and why not?" said [the lady].
"Oi'm descended from the Kings of Oirland meself."
I gazed in wonder at her but my mother told me later that all Irish thought they came from royalty and she retold the tale to a neighbour who said, "Her! She's got the map of Ireland etched on her face!"
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