SCOTLAND (2)

The Royal Mile

Maybe one day I will tell you everything that happened to me on that trip to Edinburgh but not now; I'm not ready to expose myself so publicly at this stage and so early on in proceedings so I will stick to the PG rated version. I did meet Madame McCrae's friend as arranged for that first sight-seeing trip of Edinburgh. I was to meet him on the front steps of some building, (I'm not sure which one), around Princess Street. As I approached I saw a number of people standing around including a fat lad in a kilt. I prayed to God for it not to be him; it was.

I don't doubt for a moment that he was a nice guy; after all, he was putting himself out to show a total stranger his home town but an hour or so of his company was more than I could take. I hadn't the heart to tell him we weren't connecting so I 'lost' him by nipping into a large store. Of course, I couldn't lose Madame McCrea. She had promised to arrange an interview for me with someone she knew in the Council, (she had connections apparently and was also fencing in the Commonwealth Games that happened to be running in the city at the time, or so she said and who was I to question her veracity), so I continued to visit her and the silent companion and attended the interview as arranged.

Looking towards the Castle

My summer job in Edinburgh lasted only a couple of weeks. I was employed with another young guy (sadly I have forgotten his name and he was a very nice, and very innocent, boy), as a statistician on a one-off project working the night shift in a large office. We had the place to ourselves and very little work to do; it was definitely easy money. I got digs with a Miss McNeil, a lovely old lady who was only too happy to let out her spare room for a couple of weeks to a nice Irish lad. (That's me, in case you are wondering). When the council job finished I became a volunteer at the film festival where I met a very nice Susannah York who was there for a screening of her movie "Country Dance". All of this happened almost 50 years; some things you never forget.