In an age where we no longer memorise phone numbers and even the three digit security code on the back of our bank cards takes a moment to come to mind, there's still one number that Edinburghers of a certain vintage will always remember - their divi number.
If you lived around Leith in the 20th century, you most likely shopped at the Leith Provident Co-operative - known fondly by locals as the 'Provi' or even just 'The Store'
But the Co-op, customers weren’t just customers - they were stakeholders. You would be assigned a dividend number - known as ‘divis’, where you could recoup some of the money you had spent over the year based on how much profit the co-op had made. A member would collect stamps and fill a book which could be traded for goods in store. To this day, many Edinburgh residents can still rattle off their parents’ - or their own - divi numbers.
READ MORE - Former wife of American fugitive in Edinburgh jail speaks of his 'creepy notebooks'
One Edinburgh Live reader remembers the very important household task he had as a child - "to lick all the provi stamps and put them in the savings book".
Sign up to Edinburgh Live newsletters for more headlines straight to your inbox
The co-operative movement had started in 1840s Yorkshire, and the idea of a society that would allow anyone to join and get affordable food and goods quickly became popular. The Leith Provi opened in 1911 and merged with St Cuthbert's Co-operative in 1981.
As well as affordable prices, it seems that the stock was made to last. One Edinburgh Live reader bought a Formica top table in 1969 which she sold 45 years later - "still in excellent condition." Another remembers “going with my grandchildren’s dad to buy a Silver Cross pram for their firstborn who is now 36. My daughter still has the pram.”
Elayne remembers getting in trouble after knocking over a mannequin when shopping for new clothes - and more than a few mothers confess to having carried the shopping home and then remembering they'd left the baby in the pram back at the Provi. Babies would often be left in their prams beneath the covered entrance outside the shop.
The shop staff seem to have enjoyed being there as much as the customers.
Former Provident window dresser Linda has nothing but good memories of her time there, saying she and her colleagues “had some great laughs pretending to be a model in the window and then moving to give people outside a fright.”
Many couples started their adult lives out by stocking up at the Provident. "I was only 18 when I got married, so places like that felt like very grown up places to visit," former Leith resident Fran says. Not too grown up, though - I particularly remember going in the lift just for the fun of it, as it was so slow and shaky!”
Now, the building is split between flats on the upper floors and the lower retail units where individual companies are based, including Leith Bed Centre and The Tartan Blanket Company. It’s a far cry from the 60 departments boasted by “the downtown store with the uptown look” as it billed itself.
The original lift is still in use servicing the Taylor Gardens flats, working smoothly - and slowly - as ever.
In fact, there are several of the store's old fixtures present in the flats, including a large display stage and the glass-fronted cases that still bear the labels of the menswear they contained. It's a small slice of history sitting alongside the everyday life of modern Edinburgh.
READ NEXT:
Edinburgh contestant on The Wheel has celebrities in stitches with hilarious request
Scottish mum heartbroken after son's killer who fled scene avoids jail due to age
Fuming family 'appalled' after hotel turns them away due to daughter's age
Scottish mum flabbergasted after spotting Donald Trump's face on her toastie
Louis Tomlinson cancels Edinburgh shopping centre album signing after hospital dash
