There have already been several events and publications celebrating Edinburgh 900.
The latest of these took place at the Central Library on Wednesday, focusing on Alan Taylor’s edited volume Edinburgh: The Autobiography. This anthology of essays about Edinburgh, takes us through the pivotal periods in the city’s history and explores some of the key figures and institutions that have shaped Edinburgh.
The event was due to also feature Alistair Moffat (author of Edinburgh: A New History), but he was unable to attend. Instead the event was a lively and enjoyable discussion between two of Scotland’s best-loved authors and journalists, Alan Taylor and Rosemary Goring. The conversation between the married couple had the feel of the best podcasts, with gentle probing producing interesting tangents and asides. Together, they captured the personality and character of the city perhaps better than a formal lecture.
Lunatics off the street
The conversation had a strongly biographical aspect. Though born and bred in Musselburgh, Taylor has spent much of his life working in Edinburgh. In particular during his years at Scotland on Sunday and then the Scotsman, as deputy editor. The venue was particularly appropriate as Taylor had begun his working life as a librarian. First at McDonald Road Library and then the Central Library – in the reference department. He had also spent many hours across the road in the National Library, working on his acclaimed book on Muriel Spark, Appointment in Arezzo . Spark’s large archive is at the NLS.
Taylor talked amusingly of the way that public libraries attract a wide variety of characters, including “lunatics off the street”. These included one man who had somehow brought his kitchen sink into the Central Library one day! His experiences in the library had been an initial inspiration for his writing. For a time he combined his journalism with his library work, often disappearing into the stacks to fulfil his editor’s urgent requests (“I need 800 words on Georges Simenon by 6”).
A divided city
At heart of the discussion were the deep contradictions and divides on which, Taylor believes, the city is built. The clearest manifestation of this is the creation of the New Town, created by the “Edinburgh bourgeoisie” to escape the cramped and fetid Old Town. This “social apartheid”, and the snobbery it bred has, in Taylor’s view, marked Edinburgh since. It has provided the city with a profound sense of superiority, especially in relation to Glasgow. Edinburgh “wears its snobbery on its sleeve”. As Taylor remarked, this was captured in the response to the ‘Glasgow’s Miles Better campaign’: ‘Edinburgh’s slightly superior’.
Taylor contrasted his book on Edinburgh with that on Glasgow. In both he was trying to prick some of the preconceptions and stereotypes. In his Glasgow volume, he paid attention to Glasgow’s undoubted glories, its parks, and its rich architecture and cultural life. Glasgow was far more than a sprawling industrial powerhouse. In the case of Edinburgh, he wanted to prick some of the pretension and provide a more accurate portrayal of the city, including its less salubrious features.
These included the character of the Old Town in the past, when it had been “the object of fascination” for visitors. It had been “a hotchpotch” of a city, formed by the need to build up rather than expand. This had, in time, produced an Old Town that was very different from today’s tourist friendly ‘iteration’. As captured in Muriel Spark’s the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, many considered the darker nether regions of the Old Town to be like a foreign city, a place they would not venture. “the Cowgate was a cesspit”.
The Edinburgh outlined by Taylor was one of enduring class divides. In Glasgow, the key divides are sectarian; in Edinburgh it relates to education. Not only the split between private and state schooling, but also the subtle, often unstated, hierarchy among the private schools. Where did you go to school? remains a way of quickly placing someone: “that’s how Edinburgh gets you”.
Stopping things happening
For Taylor, Edinburgh’s domination by its legal fraternity and its elite institutions (such as the New Club) has shaped the city. The New Club, “a place of whispers”, had been the site of many key decisions. More generally, Edinburgh’s powerful middle class has, over the decades, succeeded in “stopping things happening”. Most notably, they had prevented the building of the Inner City Ring Road, which would have torn through parts of the Old Town and led to stilted highways through the Meadows and the edge of Inverleith Park.
More broadly, the city, for better or worse, has been marked by a tendency to resist change. This does give it a different feel to most modern cities, with the virtual absence of high-rise buildings. Taylor compares it to Florence, in that both cities are highly historic and rather hemmed in, causing both to be battling overtourism.
One institution that Taylor focused on was The Scotsman. This had, historically, played a key role in articulating a vision of Edinburgh, and a Unionist vision of Scotland. The paper had high ambitions, aiming to be a local paper, a national paper for Scotland but also one with international reach and credibility. The editors had sought to challenge the UK broadsheets of Fleet Street and in Taylor’s view had produced something superior. “it was a fantastic paper”.
This had again fed into Edinburgh’s boastful tendency, though in this case it was entirely legitimate. These glory days of The Scotsman are now over, reflecting a much wider trend of decline in the ‘legacy media’. For many, the Scotsman’s decline has been particularly steep. Taylor did the “unthinkable” in moving westwards to work for the Glasgow Herald. He did so, in a cheeky aside, to “run away from Andrew Neil”, referring to Neil’s controversial stewardship of the paper.
A unique aspect
Taylor talked about the way that the Scotsman’s preparation for the Festival was similar to “organising for a war”, with “the combatants” (the reviewers) given the herculean task of covering every show. This might have been possible in the 1980s and 1990s, but we’ll be impossible now given the thousands of shows. The Scotsman used to be a significant force within the Festival and Fringe. Though it still has some profile and clout, through respected critics such as Joyce McMillan and Kate Copstick, it no longer has a central role.
While The Scotsman and its role in the Festival had declined, Taylor didn’t share the disgruntlement that some in Edinburgh have about the Festival. For Taylor, its arrival “by chance” had given it a “unique aspect”, and one to be truly proud of. The first Festival had, through Rudolph Bing, attracted an amazing array of talent”, securing Edinburgh’s place in the cultural sphere. Though Taylor admits that some find it “irksome”, he believes that this is a minority. Echoing cultural figures such as Richard Demarco, Taylor believes that the Festival added much needed colour and energy to a rather drab city.
Taylor largely resisted nostalgic takes on the city. A recent visit to Leith had allowed him to witness the “transformation” of the area, with its “bubbling ethnicity” helping to add to its “amazing energy”. In general, Alan Taylor’s book is something of a love letter to the city, despite its many “stupid things”. Ultimately, “I love it to an incontinent degree”.
