Sunshine on Leith

No trip to Edinburgh would be complete without a visit to my father's childhood home and my own teenage haunt – the Port of Leith. Previously a separate entity from Edinburgh, Leith was incorporated into the capital city at some date in the not too distant past (as late as 1920s maybe?). A sea port for at least the past five centuries, the port has its own distinct identity and history. For a touch of distinction, Mary Queen of Scots arrived here in the early 1500s on return to the land of her birth after becoming a very young widow in France. Lamb's House, where she stayed on arrival still stands at the start of her tragic road to execution at the hand of her cousin Elizabeth 1 of England.

A number of other refurbished buildings remain to balance to the modern construction of the Scottish Office, a rash of reproduction apartments along the river and the massive modern Ocean Terminal which is home to all the usual mega-shops and movie houses as well as the now retired royal yacht Brittania.


The old sailors home transformed into the fashionable Malmaison hotel and restaurant. The Ship Hotel considerably cleaned up and popular after many incanations under different names.

The Tower Hotel, another of the oldest buildings in the area.

The Kings Wark, a former royal supply base has been a pub as long as I can remember. Known as 'The Jungle' in my younger days, it was the haunt of sailors ad call girls repeated in every sea port round the country. Seems its undergoing yet another renovation.

A mix of old, new and the best / my all time favorite wine bar and restaurant The Shore Bar. Limitations on space - or maybe just aesthetics - has produced creative options for offices and restaurants on the water.


A nostalgic question for all aging hippies - ever been searched in one of these?

This one really is the parting shot from my home city - waiting for the train south from Waverley Station.

Lang may yer lum reek

Sunday morning is time for a last leisurely look at Edinburgh before heading back south to connect with a 9.30pm flight out of London Heathrow. Not content to sit home with the olds and eat whatever is on offer for breakfast, I opt for some exercise before the long train and plane trip back to NZ. For a bit of self indulgence, I head down to the waterfront close by where I lived as a child. I learned to swim here, in what I later identified as a sewer outlet, had many adventures along the river walk and imagined many more on the causeway out to Cramond Island. Access to the island is at low tide only as the walkway is covered from about half tide onwards. I saw the most amazing bright green and black zig zag skinned lizard like creature in the water here once upon a time. Stories of overnight strandings, real or imagined, buzzed in fertile childhood imaginations, becoming bigger and wilder in the process.

The lasting memory is of pristine skies with an occasional tanker moving silently up the Firth of Forth, past the city, to the oil refinery at Grangemouth. Now a rancid, tobacco colored streak of industrial haze lines the horizon, a queue of tankers waits to load or unload at offshore pontoons, an idle oil rig lazes on a mooring and a thick column of smoke rises behind the island from some unseen industrial site. Hence the title of this post, 'lang may yer lum reek' – this is actually a wish for warmth and prosperity in the Scottish household, for if yer lum reeks (ie your chimney smokes) it means you have warmth, and by implication, the wealth to sustain it. The 'lang' part is probably self explanatory, even to non-native speakers.



The city may show all the signs of affluence, but clearly there is a cost.

The tide is out on this otherwise fine sunny morning, and so are a number of people, making the most of the glorious weather after a summer that didn't really happen. An unfortunately common problem in Scotland. Autumn comes on the tail of three short months of wet, cold, windy and only slightly warmer than spring months. Autumn is usually a lovely time, the weather calm with nature showing a few spots of color before the cold and frost of short winter days turn everything to brown and gray.



A lady sitting on the sea wall with a small dog on her lap, both enjoying the lukewarm sun, tells passers by that the old dog can't walk any further but doesn't want to go home yet. Who is that doesn't want to go I wonder? A young man walks on the beach stripped to the waist, his torso the painful purple / white color I have only ever seen on beaches in Scotland where bodies never see the sun.

Time is short, so I hurry back to where I left the car in old Cramond village. I've known this place for most of 50 years and realize that for all the history of Scotland I've learned in recent years, I still don't know the origins of this unique and lovely place with its whitewashed houses, old mill, ferryman crossing and ancient church and graveyard. Perhaps another time.

The Kingdom of Fife

A day trip across the Forth Bridge from Edinburgh takes us to the ancient lowland home of Scottish kings, fishermen and more recently, redundant miners. The distance from the capital is short and my impression is that the rise in gas prices and costs of everything might have some positive impact – I can't remember the traffic in and around Edinburgh being so fluid for many years. No long queues, no snarl ups. Journeys take only as long as the distance requires.

The trip covers old stamping ground for my father – who spent holidays as a child at High Binns village above the small and still picturesque royal burgh of Burntisland. The royal charter was granted by James V in 1541 to mark the significance of the port, where remnants of pre-roman era fortifications remain on the coast, and a castle dates back to 1119 – though the current building has only been standing since the mid 1500s. The place fairly reeks of history. High Binns is only accessible by way of a 3-4km steep (and muddy due to persistent inclement weather) walking track. The local librarian reports that only gable ends of a few of the old cottages still stand so the trip is shelved for another time. Father remembers stone cottages in a square round a big iron pump from which the no power, water and outside toilet buildings drew water. Many of the town sites are familiar to me from more recent though still receding times. Not many local shops like these still operate in major cities where the global brand has largely taken over. Thankfully some places are to small to hit their radar.

Moving on to the childhood home of 'the other George Gunn' is a different proposition entirely. The town of Methil looks like the land that time forgot – maybe even ignored. Methinks he was lucky to escape when he did in 1939. Industry has declined, shipbuilding and mining, neither the most ascetically pleasing nor appealing professions, the town has a distinctive working class stamp. Though how many people are working and at what I have no idea. Father feels distinctly uncomfortable – it is lunch time and the only cafe does not appeal, so we high tail back via East and West Weymss to Kirkcaldy.

Wemyss is different again. The name, I have learned, means caves. The ones in this well preserved location are adorned with primitive Viking drawings. The name is significant in my family as at least five generations of George's up to and including my grandfather were given Wemyss as a middle name, though the reason for this remains obscure. East Wemyss is bigger and better serviced than West Wemyss which is an unbelievably picturesque and beautifully preserved village dipping its toes in the sea down a mile long dead end country road. The feeding routines of the older members of the party demand attention so a future visit to explore the area further is noted in the lone traveler's diary!

First class huh?

The British railways (not to be mistaken for the former nationalized service known as British Rail) have an odd idea of first class. A white linen napkin with two words and a number written draped on the back of the seat to catch dandruff is about the sum of it. No more space, no empty seats and no preferred service. Oh sorry, we did get our tickets checked first and I have a power point under my seat. This will come in handy if the train stops bumping and rattling enough for my fingers to hit the right keys.

Alighting at Leeds is reflective of the crowded, post industrialized, god knows what they all do for a living now kind of atmosphere of the city. The impression is of miles of red bricks, smoke blackened stone and masses of people.

The next few days are spent cut off from most of this on the Leeds University Campus. The ivory towers always stand apart from the run off the mill. A the end of it, there are no cabs to get back to the station – too busy – no option but to queue for the free city bus – squeeze into standing room only on the second one that comes along and stand through two dozen sets of traffic lights for a twenty minute tour of the town. Ask with genuine curiosity if it would be usual for young able bodied women to give up seats to elderly ladies with walking sticks. Excuses follow and one shuffles wide eyed from her seat. Disgorge at the busy and slightly chaotic train station to figure out where platform 9d might be – not 93/4 for the Hogwarts Express – and slightly easier to find.

I fully expect the crowds to thin out before this class conscious chariot crosses the border – it typically happens that way. Less people, more air, space to breathe and no in seat service north of Newcastle. Such a release of tension once the land of the Angles and Saxons is departed. The signs are good for a dry arrival in the city of historic Scottish kings and queens, now home to the upcoming nationalist parliament. There is even a hint of sunshine on the formerly gloomy horizon.

Looking back though, there were splashes of color against the grubby red and smoke black walls of Leeds. Popular art in the park and on the closed door of an award winning restaurant.

The University's business school demonstrates the industrial north's perception of god. All part of the unique local character.

The library building has also been repurposed.

A parting shot as the batteries of this wonderful portable tool run down is that maybe first class is worn on the inside. No privileges necessary, the knowledge of sitting a class removed is all the British psyche needs. My own excuse - the rail pass is cheap overseas, this is the only way to guarantee a space without reservation in the hope that some work might be completed en route.

This thought is dispelled on the return journey from Edinburgh to Newcastle on a beautiful and otherwise peaceful Sunday morning. Passengers are treated to a comedy act consisting of intimate conversation and occasional bursts of song from two getting steadily drunker, scantily clad and extremely loud Glasgow 'ladies.' I guess they are heading off on a package holiday. No need to guess their judgment of first class travel. Though their routine is amusing and culturally stamped, its a relief when they get off after two hours without a break. By the time we have changed at Leeds before the next train gets to Doncaster, the carriage has been declassified due to overcrowding in the standard class cabin. Chaos reigns as usual in this densely populated nation of queues.

PS: Wellington's boots.

Historic Barking

The two words in this title might be strange bedfellows to many who have a rather different perception of Barking.

I acquired a copy of Billy Bragg's book The Progressive Patriot on recommendation and saved it for the trip to England, believing that to be a fitting place in which to peruse its contents. Thanks Billy for an intelligent analysis of what it means to be patriotic in England (not Scotland, Ireland or Wales) today.

Attempts by the xenophobic minority British National Party (BNP) may have been most prominent in the news of recent years. Interestingly enough, this happened at pretty much the same time as the Pauline Hanson phase swept across parts of Australia and other unreasonably close to the chest exclusive players tried to grab a share of the political agenda. Thankfully this ugly face of the nation didn't gain firm footing, and a more reasonable / less paranoid understanding of what it means to be English in this day and age seems to be winning through. Bragg's historical perspective was a welcome spot of education for me. I've reading a fair bit about Scottish history in recent years but that puts England in the role of 'enemy' – or at least the opponent. Current situations always make more sense to me once I have explored the 'approach road.'

The book prompted me to use a free afternoon to travel east on the district line to Bragg's home territory of Barking in Essex. Not a place that attracts too many tourists, the town is purely functional now with little sense of being the site of possibly one the oldest settlements in the country. A major port sited at a bend in the Thames long before London appeared on the map and the settlement of Uphall Camp – which predates the Roman invasion - have left no trace. Even more recent history is all but gone. The oldest things I found on a wet autumn afternoon were the Brittania Hotel and a street named Fishermans Hill.


I didn't walk down as far as the river – a missed opportunity. I did eat fish and chips (with salad) in a friendly, down to earth cafe which was refreshingly 'English' after the continental style of the central London Museum cafes.

Shabby and not so chic

The bus from Shoreham-by-Sea to Brighton costs 2.80 return. For this princely sum, the traveler is treated to a sightseeing tour of a popular stretch of the south coast where chic has ceased to accompany shabby, and plans for further commercial and residential developments are on hold pending the passing of a situation that shows every sign of turning into a severe economic recession come the winter.

Grand old Victorian buildings a block back from the waterfront have peeling paint facades, broken blinds and tatty blankets draped over bay windows that have seen, but now forgotten better times.

Rusting equipment outside derelict factory shells are everywhere, the dying remains of industry. Beach huts usually manage at least to hint at sunnier times. Here they form a line of uniform institutional green spikes along a narrow ridge where the lower edge disappears into a restless gray band of English Channel and the upper blends into a similarly bland strip of sky - and they cost a fortune. This is England on an autumn afternoon. Almost colourless, neither warm nor cold, damp but not really raining. I remember living like this for years before opting for a rather more stimulating environment. Here, a splash of colour seems something quite remarkable.

Between the old and the not so old, the derelict and the grand lies something ubiquitous – the characterless 1980s shopping mall that has been copied and pasted into most corners of the developed world over the last 30 or so years.

Some of the old is very old so the overall effect is patchwork. The oldest pub in Shoreham dates back to the 1730s. The flats across the road have yet to reach 17, others are already 30. The Marlipins is approaching 300.

More on the dark side

The affluence / extravagance of tourists and locals up on the pier seems to be accompanied by blindness to the irony of the presence of veterans for peace and homeless people that reports say include many ex military personnel.





A bright spot on the horizon is that many homes around Santa Monica and Venice Beaches see the same window of opportunity, which might just lead to beneficial change - if the prospect becomes an opportunity.

On the dark side

It is not the first time I have seen the temporary graveyard called 'Arlington West' on the beach at Santa Monica. The Sunday routine – I don't know for how long, but at least a few years as I think this might be my third sighting – is to set up a small wooden cross for every US soldier killed overseas – the current count includes Afghanistan and Iraq. People come and write messages to loved ones they have lost in these – some would say senseless – battles initiated by their own government.

There is also a head count of Iraqi deaths and graphic evidence of serious injury to many who survive. This group takes neither national side, they pursue peace.

For no reason other than the senselessness of the deaths and the pathetic looks of the pictures of dead people that some have affixed to the crosses, this morning's brief visit has tears streaming down my face. Young men - more like boys in uniform ad that in a nation that decries the existence of child soldiers in remote countries whose loss is felt by a dozen, maybe two close family members. Pictures of boots, helmets and a US flag draped over a box. Is this all human life is worth in the country that no longer can count in billions the annual cost of this war?

The location of this weekly silent protest is probably perfect. Right below the pier with fun park, placed to eat more at one sitting than the esplanade dwellers might enjoy in a week. There must be a certain kind of blindness in this part of the world.

Just to round off the experience, a copy of the UK Sunday Telegraph (affectionately known as the Torygraph) picked up off a table at the airport tells me that one prisoner in 11 in the UK is an armed forces veteran. Most crimes involve drugs and / or alcohol and violence. Which would you choose? Living out of a shopping cart, sleeping on the esplanade and eating out of rubbish bins or a UK jail term? I guess its not a choice, but a bad luck of the draw that depends on where you happen to have been born.

Land of the free and home of the shopping cart dweller

Coming in to Los Angeles is a familiar script nowadays. This may be the seventh or eighth time descending from pristine blue altitude towards a thick blanket of grime that reminds me of a daytime pub atmosphere before the ban – topped by a pall of tobacco smoke. This one is pierced all over by tall skinny palm trees and as we get closer to the ground, blotches of turquoise back yard pools highlight the homes of the affluent. Eight lane freeways snake through repeating patterns of industrial and residential sprawl before tailing off in the distance to places like San Diego, Pasadena, Burbank and east towards Texas. That vast expanse of desert encountered just a few short months ago.

This arrival is as easy as any. The border paranoia seems worse from the outside – though I know it is not this easy for everyone. Through and out the other side in less than 30 minutes to wait for the blue super shuttle back to the stamping ground of H Santa Monica, surely one of the best hostels in the best locations on the planet. If it had a pool it would be perfect.

But who needs a pool with the ocean just a block away? The backdrop of affluence seems to have cranked up another gear since a year or two ago. The contrast of the shopping cart dwellers on the esplanade at the warm edge of the continent has not shifted, yet is another degree removed by the move at the other end of the spectrum.

The haze over the city is as bad as I have seen – maybe worse. The mountains at the north end of the beach are barely visible. The air seems unusually hard to breathe, but life goes on in all its glory.

The pier is really crowded – seems I have landed in a holiday weekend for labour day. All the beautiful people are out in force. A busker with no name sounding like Jimi Hendrix – about the same age had Hendrix survived the excesses of the 70s s,d and r and r culture which sadly of course he did not. Two CDs for $20 and a photo later I have some good souvenirs and he is one happy busker.

A leisurely stroll along to Venice Beach brings back many familiar sights.

Back to the pier I started from, I play voyeur to a photographer and a wet Asian model as the light fades far enough into late afternoon to allow pictures to be taken without washing out. Its better light than NZ and Australia with the hole in the ozone layer that afflicts that part of the world. better, but not much, and that is no accolade.

A young couple make me smile – they have never seen a sail boat as big as one cruising past the pier and insist take a picture. The Viaduct Basin and the Waitemata Harbour back home in NZ peppered with floating palaces would surely be a treat for their gorgeous hispanic eyes.