In Naples, at roughly the same time, one could walk through the back lanes and see families eating their meals in rooms that gave out onto the street. The beds of the older generation might be wheeled out into the front room so that they could lie there, fully lit, and look out on the life of the street, visible through the large open doors. One might still be able to do this in Naples, but I suspect one might have to look a little bit harder. In so many places, real life has retreated, squeezed out by the inauthentic and the superficial.
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()So how might one visit Edinburgh and escape the particular inauthenticity that has taken hold of parts of the centre, of the High Street, for example (also referred to as the Royal Mile), or of that once great but now sadly tawdry thoroughfare, Princes Street? The High Street is now one long collection of tartan souvenir shops, kiltmakers and sellers of small sets of unplayable bagpipes. There are bits of it that have survived the depredations of the tourist industry, and so it is still possible to wander off down small closes that are lived in and worked in, but one has to look for these. The High Street always had the look of an opera set to it, and now this is even more so. And yet, architecturally, it is worth looking at, and there are experiences to be had. If one is in Edinburgh on a Sunday, for example, one might slip into Old St Paul’s Church, which can be approached either from the High Street or from Jeffrey Street on the lower level. This is a dark and glorious Scottish Episcopal church, where a particularly fine choir can be listened to for nothing in exchange for sitting through a service that is deliciously high and theatrical. This church has a strong past association with a well-known contemporary Scottish figure, Richard Holloway, formerly primus of the Episcopal Church and now more of a lay philosopher and social critic. Holloway is typical of those who contribute to the contemporary intellectual flavour of Edinburgh: iconoclastic, a direct speaker and approachable in a way that would never be possible in a larger city.
Or, the visitor might slip into the Canongate Kirk, a few yards further down the High Street, to listen to advice from the minister there, Charlie Robertson — another well-known Edinburgh figure. The organist at the Canongate is Richard Neville-Towle, who doubles up as the musical director of another well-known Edinburgh institution, the Really Terrible Orchestra, a collection of musically challenged amateurs who delight audiences with their out-of-tune performances. Edinburgh is home to numerous amateur orchestras and ensembles, and it is not unusual to find people occupying professional roles in one context popping up as violinists or singers in another. Such is the very civic nature of the city, and its surprising intimacy.
Also just off the High Street, in Parliament Square, is the home of the Court of Session and the High Court. This is centred on Parliament House, which housed Scotland’s parliament in its previous incarnation — there was a gap of almost three centuries between the parliament that ended with the Union and that which re-emerged with devolution. This is worth visiting, as the advocates (Anglice barristers) who walk around in their court dress, under the splendid hammer-beam roof of the old hall, are as good an example of the douce Scottish professional classes as might be spotted anywhere. Look at the faces. They are quite strikingly different from the faces one sees in equivalent circles in London. That is not in any sense intended to disparage either group; it’s just that the Scottish professional classes are craggier. They just are. (The country’s craggier too.)
The High Street runs down the centre of the Old Town. If one leaves the High Street just short of its western end and walks down The Mound, a wonderful sight presents itself. There is the Firth of Forth and beyond it is Fife (weather permitting). And what a gorgeous, elevating vista it is! The distances seem shortened and one might almost reach out and touch the other, and the skies often there are impossibly purple clouds over the green fields and hillsides on the other side, or, in different conditions, shafts of clear northern light. Stop and look, and appreciate the sheer beauty of the roofscape and the water and land beyond. It is a beauty that, in MacDiarmid’s memorable lines about the little white rose of Scotland, “breaks the heart”.
Dominating the bottom of The Mound, enduring Princes Street with all its chain-store vulgarity (Jenners department store notably excepted), is the newly redone National Gallery of Scotland. One of Edinburgh’s more colourful characters, Sir Timothy Clifford, together with his colleagues in the gallery, has transformed what was a slightly down-at-heel set of buildings into refurbished glory. The recently completed Playfair Project, overseen by Clifford’s associate Michael Clarke, has seen the creation of a whole new set of rooms below the existing galleries, and linked the National Gallery itself with the Royal Scottish Academy building. The National Gallery has a warm feeling to it, rather like a set of private drawing rooms in which one might sit and appreciate the paintings.
On the other side of Princes Street lies the New Town, and it is here that one might get a strong sense of rarefied Edinburgh. This is not the bourgeois Edinburgh of Morningside — the Edinburgh that WH Auden described as “well-set” in his famous Night Mail poem. This is a very particular Edinburgh in which one will see the rather stylish side of the city, with its numerous small art galleries, antiques shops, rather polite coffee shops, and great swathes of elegant Georgian flats. Dundas Street is one of the best streets to walk down to see the galleries. And unlike the gallery quarters of many other cities, where one would feel quite out of place in walking into a private gallery unless one were terribly grand and well heeled, one can go into any of these galleries and not be made to feel unwelcome. So if one is interested in Scottish art, one can wander into the Open Eye Gallery and talk to Tom Wilson about what Mr Bellany is up to these days (still painting yellowish pictures of fishing boats). Or one might cross the road and go into the Scottish Gallery, run by Guy Peploe, the grandson of the famous Scottish colourist William Peploe. Again, like just about everybody in Edinburgh, he is very approachable, and although Peploes now reach astronomic prices, his grandson will happily give you bits of information about how his relative painted and why small grains of sand might be found in some of his wonderful studies of Mull from Iona.
This, in essence, is what makes Edinburgh special. It is a city that has not been preserved in amber, as some beautiful and historic places have been. It is a working city, on a smallish scale, where people know one another and know one another’s secrets. It is generally not regarded as being as friendly as Glasgow — and that is probably true — but Edinburgh’s problem is probably reserve, rather than real unfriendliness. It is actually a rather welcoming place, with a very dry sense of humour. It is not all that noir. In fact, it’s not noir at all. It is full of light and art and interest. And now it has got a brand-new Parliament. But that’s another story altogether, and a rather interesting one at that. Try asking your taxi driver about that on the way in from the airport. Allow several hours for a full explanation.
The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith is out this week (Little, Brown £14.99). The launch will be celebrated in the Usher Hall, Lothian Road, Edinburgh, on Wednesday (tickets £4; 0131 225 4495). To buy a copy at the reduced price of £11.99, excluding p&p, call The Sunday Times Books First on 0870 165 8585
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()Doing Edinburgh in style: where to sleep and eat
Skinted or minted, it disnae ma’er: Jeremy Lazell picks the city's best, whatever your budget
Mingling ultramodern hotels and restaurants with others that haven’t redesigned the napkins since Queen Victoria last visited, Edinburgh is the city weekend for all tastes.
