No stars so lovely: what to write when Edinburgh’s your home town

August 5, 2007 · by Joanna Paterson · in

When I got tagged by Robert Hruzek to write about my home town I thought it would be a relatively easy writing task.  Edinburgh, capital city of Scotland, festival city, historical city, literary city…

But of course, like all writing tasks, the more there is to say the harder it is to find the right words.

On the eve of the Fringe I could have told you about the wild burst of music, art, comedy and drama that hits Edinburgh’s theatres, pubs, clubs and streets for the month of August.  About buskers, hustlers, mime-artists, circus acts bamboozling the crowds on the Royal Mile.  About the hordes of tourists who arrive by the bus-load at this time of year, looking for accommodation, for tickets to the best shows, for hot off the press reviews, for a cool beer in the summer heat or shelter from the rain when the heavens open.

But that’s only part of Edinburgh, of course.

Perhaps I could have told you about the seemier side of the city streets.  The Edinburgh of detective stories and crime novels.  The underworld of Ian Rankin’s Rebus.  The Leith of Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting.  It’s another part of the city.  Another narrative. An other world: true and complete in itself.  And yet still.  Only part of the story.

Perhaps I could have told you how it is possible to travel through time in Edinburgh.  How you can be walking one moment through warm, sweaty crowds of Australians and Americans, past the tourist shops in the Royal Mile, past the crowds watching the free entertainment, squeeze past the people blocking the pavement and step down, down into a quiet, cool, dank close.  Lose your bearings for a moment and wonder where you are.  Wait for your eyes to adjust to the sudden, sharp contrast of sunlight and cool, damp, dank darkness.  Look about and see you’re alone.  Transported, suddenly, instantly, into a different world, a different atmosphere, a different place, a different time… maybe.

Perhaps I would take you instead to the villages that make up the surrounds of the town.  Tell you what it’s like to wander the streets half an hour’s walk from the city centre.  How I can turn, one way, from the street at the end of my door and be on a busy, dirty, grimy thoroughfare, a road choked with traffic and buses, the pavements strewn with crisp packets and bags of chips.  How I can turn, the other way, and find an oasis.  The calm of the canal, green, calm, peaceful.  Ducks parading for bread.  Rowing boats showing off their reflections in the still water on a sunny day.

And still none of these would tell you the whole story.

Edinburgh is all of these things, and none of them.  It is a city of contrasts: rich and poor, darkness and light, ancient and modern.

It is Hugh MacDiarmid’s “mad god’s dream”.

It is busy, manic, dirty, grimy, touristy, tacky, overwhelming in summer… with a beauty you can’t shake off.  To echo the words of Robert Louis Stevenson:

“I will say it fairly, it grows on me with every year: there are no stars so lovely as Edinburgh street-lamps.”

The home town meme

Struth.  Now I’ve written it I’m not sure I’ve even answered the question… Never mind – I hope you enjoyed reading it anyway!

Here’s the question Robert’s put: What, in your opinion, is or are the most amazing, unusual, strange or just plain weird things about where you live?

Now, all you have to do is write a post answering the above question, then tag a few folks (choose your own number).

Don’t limit yourself to just one thing, either – in fact, the more, the merrier. PLEASE include photos as appropriate (to amaze us all, and, you know, prove you’re not kidding – we all know what a picture is worth, right?), but remember – the more memorable, the better!

Please link back to Robert’s original post so he can pull them all together (so he says – although there’s another group writing project running too…)

Feel free to jump in (and link back) if you want to join in, meantime I’m tagging some regular readers and commenters here:

Laura at Writing Thoughts

Jeanne at Writer’s Notes

Yvonne at Grow Your Writing Business

Brad at Word Sell