Updating like a crazy woman who can't stop updating.

Well, went slightly 'update blog crazy' this evening.
Few new bits and pieces picked from the features that I've written over the past few months, quite a cross section of human life, as it turns out.
Makes me think what a great job I have - meeting fascinating people, hearing their stories.
Sometimes I leave an interview thinking 'hells teeth, how am I going to make that one work?', then I sit down, stare out of the window, drink lots of coffee, moan about it for a bit and then somehow it seems to come together okay.
I rarely read it once it's gone in the paper. It feels a bit too fresh, like I've already done that and now let's get onto the next thing. On, up and away.
Keeping cuttings.. well I suppose this is what this blog is, my personal record so I can look back in my old age and think, och, it wasn't too bad, really.
Anyway, it's refreshing for me to go back over some of these. One or two I'm quite happy with. Some I might have done differently, most - I think, at least - are interesting.
More to come soon..

Mining for Minecraft gaming glory in sleepy Scots town.

A quiet road in a sleepy town in a peaceful corner of East Lothian. A place where the population barely reaches 2000 and where the most notable feature is probably the brassy fountain in the town square with its four cherubs pouring their endless streams of water from bottomless bottles.

Yet here, across the road from the butcher and the small delicatessen, somewhere behind red framed windows and tightly-closed venetian blinds, lurks a world of vivid green Creepers and sinister black Endermen, where Steve - a fairly average bloke with blue T-shirt, jeans, huge cube head and fixed expression - uses his diamond sword to mine, build and battle across endless block shaped landscapes.

For behind an ordinary unmarked door leading to an office occupied by seven blokes and a lot of gaming consoles, is where Minecraft is gradually taking over the world, block by square shaped block.

If you've never heard of Minecraft, chances are you don't have a young person with an Xbox in your life. If you have heard of Minecraft, it's entirely possible you stared at it for a bit, scratched your head as you tried to figure out what it is actually going on, then shuffled off confused and feeling a bit old.

But for Minecraft addicts - about nine million have bought the Xbox 360 version of the game so far, helping generate £124 million of revenue for its creators - it's a must-have game, one that, much to the relief of many parents, comes without a bloodbath thrown in.

The numbers surrounding the on-screen Lego-style construction game are staggering. And it can be slightly intimidating - basically players create their own imaginary world while battling monsters like Creepers. It was originally launched on PC by creators Mojang. East Linton's tiny 4J Studios was later given the task by Microsoft of making an Xbox 360 version as an addition to its arcade game menu. Within hours of its release in May last year it had snared an amazing 420,000 sales.

Word spread rapidly and within five days one million people were playing the game on their Xboxes. On Christmas Day alone, more than 100,000 people downloaded Minecraft onto their Xbox hard-drive.

If Microsoft was surprised, Paddy Burns, chief technology officer at 4J Studios in East Linton - based in a room little more than 20ft square attached to the side of his home - was left reeling.

"No-one anticipated that level of interest in the game," he admits. "The sales Minecraft took in the first couple of days were pretty much what Microsoft thought would be its entire lifetime sales. It blew them and us away."

Since then, the Minecraft phenomenon has continued to grow.

More than seven million people play the game through Xbox Live - during one recent weekend 2.2 million logged on to play at the same time, a record for the game.

Merchandise has sprung up around it and is almost certain to find its way into many kids' Christmas stockings this year, and even YouTube videos of people playing the game can notch up six-figure viewings.

4J Studios' video launching the game and featuring a Minecraft version of the Forth Bridge, has been viewed by 1.15 million people.

More recently when a hard disc copy of the game was launched to cater for gamers who don't have an online link - with the Forth Bridge again featuring on its cover as a nod to its Scottish roots - a phenomenal two million copies flew off the shelves in weeks.

It is a remarkable success rate, even more so when Paddy explains that simply getting the technology arm of 4J Studios up and running in a small town with a ropey broadband connection involved many frustrations, some harmless white lies and a lot of sweet-talking among the local farming community.

"There was rubbish broadband connection down here at first," explains Paddy, 44, who as well as helping develop the technical side of the game for Xbox regularly plays it with seven-year-old daughter Bethany.

"There were times I was uploading stuff for America and I'd have to pretend that I hadn't actually started. I'd say I'd do it in ten minutes when, actually, it had been uploading for six hours at that point.

"We were considering having to move, then some farmers set up Lothian Broadband Cooperative to try to get a better signal over the hills."

Today the studio's internet link with the world is via a microwave connection from Edinburgh University, past Haddington and over fields with generators to help fire it up on its way, all the way to the tiny village hall in East Linton.

It may be a roundabout route to the global gaming industry, but 4J Studios does many things differently. For a start, the business is split in two, with the technology element done in East Linton and the artistic side tackled at the office in Dundee.

As for staff recruitment, one employee joined the firm after Paddy overheard a Scots couple chatting on an open-topped bus tour of San Francisco. He discovered they came from Haddington and had a son who was into "computer type stuff". Soon he was on 4J Studios' books.

Steven Woodward, one of Minecraft's games testers, who enjoys introducing himself to his girlfriend's little brother's wide-eyed mates as "Steve from Minecraft", was recruited via the newsagent in East Linton.

"I went to the newsagent wearing a Minecraft T-shirt," explains Paddy. "Steve was working there and recognised it. He said he'd been playing Minecraft for six months on PC and I said, 'well, we're making an Xbox version along the road and are looking for testers'."

Today Steve, who lives in Haddington and studied network engineering at college, sits for hours on end playing Minecraft and searching for glitches. It is, he grins, his ideal job. "I knew there was some kind of computer stuff going on along the road, but didn't know they were doing Minecraft.

"I can't believe this is my job," he says and laughs. "As a kid, this is the kind of thing I'd dream about. The great thing about Minecraft is that the only limit in it is your own imagination and how quick you can come up with ideas for what to do next."

Parents don't mind the game as much as others because it at least requires youngsters to use imagination and creativity to play. And there is even a growing body of parents and professionals who believe it offers therapeutic benefits for children on the autistic spectrum.

"One of my sisters teaches children with learning difficulties," says Paddy, who lives with partner Ros Lowrie. "They love Minecraft. It enables them to go off into their own little world, which is often what children with learning difficulties will do."

The game is so successful that 4J Studios now has 350,000 Twitter followers hanging on every tweet for details of the latest tweak. The last major update sent fans into a frenzy of pleading tweets appealing for hints as to what would be in it, then thousands of follow up tweets suggesting what they'd like to see in the next one.

More recently, the game has evolved further with the 4J Studios team creating an add-on "texture pack" that enables players to tweak their Minecraft surroundings to take on the look of another famous game, Mass Effect, prompting more online speculation over which theme or game style can be expected next.

"We put out a tweet asking what people would like," recalls Paddy, "and got about 6000 replies. We put them together and compared them to what our plans were. Skyrim was the top by far."

If that is a hint at what Minecraft devotees can expect next from their favourite game, another more definite indication of the next big thing is on a screen behind Paddy as he talks. It proves Minecraft PS3 edition - for PlayStation 3 - is well under way. As is a version for PS Vita and the two hot new consoles, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, both of which are humming away in the East Linton office, so top secret that they are tucked behind a screen away from prying eyes.

While the new Xbox One version will give players a much larger virtual world to play around in - and, smiles Paddy, maybe desperate pleas for Steve to finally have horses to play with may be answered - the PlayStation 3 launch of the game will make it suddenly accessible on a further 83 million consoles.

It is likely to spark even more interest in 4J Studios in East Linton, but Paddy is now prepared. For as word spread around local playgrounds that Minecraft's home was a small office in the town's main street, local youngsters were drawn there in the hope of catching a glimpse of Steve and the Creepers.

"We had to change the blinds on the windows," he says, laughing. "We had horizontal blinds and found school kids got off the bus and were holding camera phones up to the window to try to capture video of what we were doing. They absolutely love it."

 

GRAINS AND BRAINS NEEDED TO PLAY

Minecraft is a 'sandbox' game, which means players can roam freely through it, devising their story as they go.

Depending on whether they choose creative or survival mode, they may have to fight off monsters like zombies or skeletons.

They need to feed to survive and mine to find diamonds and iron to help unlock extra equipment and expand their gaming experience.

The PC version of the game was created by Swedish developer Marcus 'Notch' Persson and his firm Mojang.

Developing it for Xbox consoles - and now PlayStation systems - has been taken over by 4J Studios. Players can add to their game using texture packs and 'skins' for their characters.

The proceeds from a Hallowe'en skin last year went to charity, with Sands Lothian, which supports parents through neonatal death or stillbirth, receiving £160,000.

The tiny games developer - like Grand Theft Auto creator Rockstar based in Edinburgh - has woven Scottish references into the game.

Lead character Steve can switch his blue T-shirt for a kilt to become Scottish Steve, Edinburgh Castle features in the latest tutorial, and the team has used a Minecraft scene of the Forth Bridge in its videos.

Appeared Edinburgh Evening News October 2013

(c) 2013 Johnston Publishing Limited

Grand old lady shines again

 

The elaborate hand painted wall panels depict pretty birds perched on entwined branches with delicate Oriental blossoms. The carpet is sumptuously soft, the view from the window among the most stunning Edinburgh has to offer.

It's here, where crystal glasses and silvery cutlery sparkle, under a glittering deep pink chandelier in a room that oozes boudoir chic and feminine charm, that Craig Sandle is discussing how to go about shoving a plump raw chicken into, of all things, a pig's bladder.

The pig's bladder, he explains enthusiastically, is actually a beautiful thing. Big and, obviously, watertight, pop in the best chicken he's ever found, herbs and a slug of Armagnac and watch it simmer and inflate. Once it's puffed up like a balloon ready to go "pop", a smart young waiter will carry it high on a silver salver, lay it with due reverence on the pristine white linen tablecloth, and watch as the words "pig" and "bladder" melt away like a knob of creamy butter smoothed over steaming hot baby potatoes.

The theatrical display of punching it open to release its steaming, aromatic contents is often enough to spark a scramble among diners. Pig's bladder at The Pompadour by Galvin, it seems, is going down a treat.

"We've done five or six in one night," nods Edinburgh-born Craig, executive head chef at the newly refurbished, as strikingly pretty as ever restaurant on the first floor of the Caledonian Hotel. "Diners like it. Usually when one table orders it and the others see it, then they want to try it too."

Unusual perhaps, but those pigs' bladders - actually the dish is called poulet en vessie - along with award winning chef Craig, the backing of two superstar restaurateur brothers, the Galvins, and a £24million plus investment are combining to restore this grand old lady of Princes Street to former glories.

Not before time too. For years she was left to slowly decay as her flamboyant "sister" at the other end of the strip slapped on the style and lured the cream of city guests through her constantly revolving door.

Both railway hotels, both built in lavish style for Victorian travellers, The North British, as it was before becoming the Balmoral, provided rest for tired travellers at Waverley, while the red sandstone edifice of the Caley gave sanctuary for steam train passengers stepping off the platforms at the Princes Street railway station below. Like wally dugs on the mantelpiece, they've stood sentinel over tramworks, buses, cars and weary shoppers for over 100 years.

Competition over which could claim bragging rights as the best swung back and forth, east versus west, North British or the Caley. In recent years, however, there was an outright winner and it definitely wasn't the faded and dishevelled Caley.

Now with the Waldorf Astoria brand behind her, the Caley has fixed her smudged make up, put on her best frock and is clawing her way back. And it's entirely possible that some time soon The Balmoral will have some Michelin star competition from her old chum at the West End.

The Caley's not so secret weapon is sitting on a velvety soft, pale green and dusky pink chair beside huge windows in the rococo dining room, the view on one side is of the castle towering above, on the other, Princes Street and her bitter rival.

Craig Sandle only had to stroll along that street to take up his new executive chef title here - he used to be head chef at the Balmoral's fine dining restaurant, Number One, working under the hotel's executive chef Jeff Bland and a key figure in helping it achieve and retain its Michelin star for an impressive nine years.

He was lured along the road by the Michelin star Galvin brothers Chris and Jeff, who sealed the deal to bring the Caley's Pompadour and Brasserie dining rooms into their stable of London based French inspired restaurants. While Craig is not going to confirm he's setting his sights on a precious star for the newly revived Pompadour, there's clearly everything to play for.

"It's not something I think about," he shrugs. "It was the same at Number One, once you get a star, you don't spend all your time then thinking that you must do this or that to keep it, you just get on with what you do because you have 50 covers booked that night and you want to make sure it's nice and you're doing the best you can.

"If we achieve a standard here that Michelin think is worthy of a star, then fantastic. But the real reason I do this is because I like cooking, I like it that people come and enjoy themselves and have a nice time."

 

Taking on the role at the Caley is only natural for Craig, born and raised in Edinburgh until he was six, he recalls returning on summer visits to play in Princes St Gardens, beside the fountain and to climb the rocky path up to the Castle.

While he can't specifically remember looking towards the Caley and thinking "yes, one day I'll be chef there", there's no doubt the grand lady must have been in his line of vision.

"Mum's Scottish, dad's English," he explains. "

We moved to Derby when I was still quite young but we'd come back here in summer. I reckon I'd have been ten or 11, I remember walking around the Gardens, the Castle, seeing the sights."

He learned to cook the basics at his mum's side: "Just good home cooked stuff," he recalls, no pig's bladders that he can remember. The need for pocket money drove him to working as a kitchen assistant in his spare time and by the time he was 16, it seemed natural to just keep on going, learning on the job and working hard enough to keep on impressing his superiors.

He returned to Edinburgh aged 17 even though the city then was hardly a gastronomic centre of excellence with just a handful of decent restaurants and most "fine dining" opportunities limited to a few hotels.

So he worked his way through the three-star Ellersly House Hotel at Murrayfield, moved up to four stars at Norton House Hotel and then hit five stars at the Balmoral when the old Grill was evolving into what would become the Michelin star restaurant Number One. En route there have been too many awards and honours to list, certainly enough to suggest Sandle, a father of two young daughters, could easily break out of hotels and put his own name above a restaurant door.

Instead he seems content to set sights on ensuring The Pompadour can return to its former glory as one of the places to dine in Edinburgh. And to persuade old diners to return - and lure new ones in - The Pompadour and the Galvin Brasserie de Luxe are setting out their stalls this week, in a week-long Galvin Festival of Food and Drink which is running at all of the brothers' six outlets. The highlight of the event here is an exclusive masterclass led by Craig at The Pompadour on Sunday, already sold out.

"For years the Caley wasn't in the running," admits Craig, 37. "It wasn't competing with the Balmoral, it was shabby and run-down and a complete mess. Everything needed work, the kitchens were a shell, it all had to be started from scratch.

"What is great about here is that Chris and Jeff Galvin didn't want to create a hotel restaurant. They wanted this to be a restaurant that happens to be in a hotel."

"I think we're giving people a good reason to come to the Caledonian again."

 

 

Hand-painted panels lovingly restored

THE Caledonian Hotel has undergone a major GBP24m refurbishment to restore it to its former glory.

At its heart is The Pompadour by Galvin restaurant on the first floor. Its listed interior decor is designed to reflect the sumptuousness of the Palace at Versailles, with elaborate cornice work, large windows and delicate Chinese style painted panels.

Smoke, food damage and wear and tear had left the hand-painted panels, created by Paris-based De Gourney and hung in the dining room in the mid-70s, in dire need of restoration.

Faced with ripping them out or attempting to replace them - re-papering an average sized dining room with the paper would cost around GBP15,000 - the hotel opted to have them restored.

Incredibly, having searched UK-wide for over a year for an expert to restore the panels, a chance discussion with one of the interior designers working on the refurbishment led the hotel to Leith-based artist Rachel Bell.

The 51-year-old, who has worked on interiors for The Honours, Prestonfield House and The Witchery, had already worked on panels in the hotel's Castle Suite two decades earlier. And as a little girl, she remembers being taken to The Pompadour for tea and marvelling at the pretty panels. She has since completed several panels.

 

Built above station

1. The Caledonian Hotel opened in 1903.

2. Its famous guests have included Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Elizabeth Taylor, Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Nelson Mandela.

3. Sir Sean Connery has described the hotel as his favourite place to stay in Edinburgh.

4. The hotel's most unusual guest was Trigger, Roy Rogers' "wonder horse" who entered the hotel's foyer with his famous owner in February 1956.

5. The hotel was built over the three main archways of the Princes Street Railway Station. Trains ran from there to stations at the likes of Balerno and Leith.

6. The hotel was constructed by the Caledonian Railway Company from red sandstone, unusual for Edinburgh, it is the same kind of stone used in all of its railway hotels.

7. The railway closed in 1965 and demolition work began four years later.

8. The hotel's Peacock Alley is a favourite spot for afternoon tea, but was once the entrance to the hotel from the station. The original Caledonian Railway crest can been seen carved above the doorways.

9. When Marlene Dietrich stayed at the Caley in 1963, she demanded a king-sized bed. One wasn't available, so the hotel handyman, Jack Herckes, was sent to make one. He still works at the Caley today.

10. The Caley's staircase has impressive stained glass windows which depict all the towns located on the Caledonian Railway network.

 

Appeared Edinburgh Evening News May 2013

(c) 2013 Johnston Publishing Limited

 

 

Author's DNA journey of discovery

MERGING history with a dollop of mystery, bestselling Scottish author Sara Sheridan's novels delve into the past and often end with a spectacular twist in the tale.

But when it came to real life, the Edinburgh-born writer was fairly sure that her own family story was rooted quite clearly: Russian Jew on her mum's side, Irish Catholic on her dad's.

Now, though, a simple DNA test has blown apart fact from fiction. And the unexpected results of her own life story have left her with an even bigger mystery to solve - of exactly who she is and, more perplexing, how on earth she ended up here.

"I didn't anticipate the outcome at all," admits the author, whose DNA findings have just revealed she is actually an Oriental genetic rarity most probably descended from a captured slave from a tribe so unusual that finding them had left scientists scratching their heads for months.

The irony of being at the centre of a historical conundrum created by her own DNA is not lost on the writer. "My job as a historical novelist is usually to embellish facts like crazy to make a story," she smiles, "and now I'm finding myself having to strip everything back to try to get to the facts."

Her mother's family's Jewish faith led her to assume their origins were somewhere in the Middle East. Results from ScotlandsDNA, a research project which is compiling a genetic map of the nation, instead revealed she is one of a "vanishingly rare" female line that developed 17,000 years ago in the area around Sakhalin, Japan's most northerly island, and were eventually taken as slaves.

Incredibly, this new found real-life background has faint echoes of a story from one of her own novels, Secrets of the Sands, which tells how a young Abyssinian woman is forced into slavery.

The findings were revealed after 11 painstaking months of research which, according to Alistair Moffat, managing director of ScotlandsDNA, had scientists scratching their heads. "It's incredibly rare to see this," he says. "There is an amazing amount of diversity in Scotland's population and Sara's findings have just made it even more diverse. It really is surprising."

Her DNA revealed her distant ancestors were almost certainly part of the rare Ainu tribe, indigenous people who were primarily hunter gatherers with their own language, rituals and customs and who followed a form of religion based around nature.

Eventually trade with other countries led to the introduction of disease, claiming many of the tribe. Ainu women were captured and taken into slavery as the island fell into Russian control, while centuries of intermarriage and movement means the precise number of true Ainu is unknown. In the mid-19th century, there were only around 17,000 Ainu people left.

Sara was unaware of the ancient tribe when she took the DNA test last year. "My husband organised it as a birthday present last June, he'd heard about work to map Scotland's genetic heritage and how people were finding out how much of their background was Viking or Pictish. All that was right up my street," she explains.

She provided a saliva sample and expected to hear within a few weeks. "After three months when I chased my sample I was told that I was 'unusual' and that geneticists and historians were working on my case. My husband was joking with me, saying they'd discovered I was really a sea creature or a hobbit. I even thought that as it was taking so long I should ask for my money back."

In fact, scientists had hit a wall as they scoured the globe in a bid to match information contained in her mitochondrial DNA - the strand passed from mothers to their children.

"We get six billion letters of DNA - three billion from our mother, and three billion from our father," explains Alistair, whose organisation has now mapped more than 7000 different DNA samples. "Sara's DNA had what we called a Sakhalin marker, after the island where it's most commonly found."

Sara's search for more detail led her to online images of Ainu women and she was immediately struck by the physical similarities she shares. "One particular tribe was famed for physical features that endure in my family today - very thick hair and wide cheekbones. Somewhere along the slave route that runs along the southern border of Russia one of my female ancestors - likely a slave - whose mother and grandmother and great-grandmother might well have been raped and abused by men on the route - of many genetic persuasions - must have met a Jewish bloke.

"This history may not be that distant," she adds. "Russia abolished slavery in 1723 but serfdom continued until the 1860s, the decade incidentally when my own great-grandmother was born."

The DNA discovery has made the author keen to unravel her father's side of the family - a test that will have to be undertaken by a male member of her family. "I always thought that bagels and lox was my soul food but it turns out it's sushi. I had envisaged ancestors who had survived slavery in Egypt, not on the Steppes. It's made me realise how insubstantial are many of the stories we create about ourselves. It turns out that I not only write fiction but I am fiction too. My identity is more complex than I'd imagined."

Discover your DNA story. Visit www.scotlandsdna.com

 

'Immigrant' genetic make-up in every Scot

WE all carry six billion DNA letters, three billion from our mother, three billion from our father.

Fathers pass on Y chromosome DNA to their sons and mothers pass on mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, to their sons and daughters. But mtDNA dies with men and it survives only in the female line.

It means researchers can read two ancestral stories in men's DNA, one for their Y chromosome lineage and one for their mtDNA lineage. In women they can only read only their mtDNA story.

Tiny blips known as markers can appear which reveal fascinating detail about precisely where a person's ancestors came from and pinpoint when they lived there.

Unravelling the information means scouring DNA databases around the globe.

Britain has a rich and diverse genetic make-up drawn from across Europe, Asia and even Africa. Unpopulated until 11,000 years ago, it means every Scot has some kind of "immigrant" make-up.

 

Tom Conti has link to Napoleon Boneparte

AUTHOR Sara Sheridan has discovered her roots lie far away in the east, however DNA research among Scottish men has revealed ten per cent are directly descended from the Picts.

Researchers at Melrose-based ScotlandsDNA found a Y chromosome marker suggesting a large number of descendants of northern tribes known by the Romans as "picti" meaning "painted ones".

The fatherline marker, labelled R1b-s530, was found to be ten times more common in those tested who had Scottish grandfathers than those with English grandfathers.

The project has tested more than 7000 people, some from as far away as New Zealand and Australia, since it began 18 months ago.

The hope is to eventually draw up a "map" of Scotland's genetic make-up.

"Every result is interesting," says managing director Alistair Moffat.

"We are already finding that Scotland is incredibly diverse with more than 100 lineages already found.

"It turns out we are all very, very different.

"Because we are on the edge of beyond, people tended to move westwards and this was as far as they could go.

"We have found a lot of men descended from Berber and Tuareg tribesmen from the Sahara.

"But that just tends to throw up even more questions than it answers about how that has happened.

"We simply don't know.

"There is also a substantial group of women in Scotland originally from central Siberia."

More than one per cent of all Scottish men are descendents of the Maeatae, a Scots tribe whose historic homelands were near modern-day Stirling.

And Alistair's own DNA marker from his Hawick-born mother's side revealed Pakistan connections and English roots on his father's side.

When ScotlandsDNA tested Scots-Italian actor Tom Conti, the findings revealed the astonishing link with a relative of Napoleon Bonaparte, while an ancient ancestor of Scots radio presenter Fred MacAulay is thought to have been sold as a slave in Dublin in the ninth century and then brought over to the Hebrides.

The DNA of the Duke of Buccleuch was found to be an exact match of a descendant of Charles Stewart, who fought at the Battle of Culloden, with both men descended from a Breton aristocrat, whose family came to Britain in 1066 with William the Conqueror.

DNA research costs from £170, and the results are added to the genetic map of Scotland.

The test process involves a small saliva sample which is posted to ScotlandsDNA headquarters and then analysed.

 

Appeared Edinburgh Evening News May 2013

(c) 2013 Johnston Publishing Limited

French connection for Freya

You might imagine actress Freya Mavor shouldn't have far to travel to get to the glittering world premiere of her very first feature film.

Along the road from the family home in Canonmills, a quick sashay up the red carpet and straight through the doors of the cinema. Watch the film, go to the inevitable post-screening knees-up, back home for supper in no time at all.

No booking flights, no suitcases to pack, no troublesome journey to worry about.

Of course as it's Freya, expect the unexpected. For as we're coming to assume from the Queen Bee bitch of E4's Skins, starlet Freya Mavor doesn't always follow the most conventional route.

Just look at how she fell into acting, screeching head first, like some kind of human cannonball, one day pottering around doing bits and pieces like school plays and youth theatre shows, next launched onto the nation's television screens, all short skirts and surly attitude as feisty Mini McGuinness in the sex, drugs and booze fuelled "yoof" cult series.

Still just 16 years old and dazzlingly pretty with flowing blonde hair, freckles, angelic looks and a mean line in put-downs, she bypassed the bother of minor roles in Casualty and endless auditions for a starring role as an instant pin-up girl. Her nomination as Best Actress in the TV Choice Awards capped off a phenomenal leap from a few months earlier when she nervously auditioned for a part as an entirely different Skins character, convinced she was probably not what they were looking for.

Barely time to catch her breath before she carved herself a modelling niche and parachuted straight in as the face of wool brand Pringle's 2011 spring and summer campaign. Some plug away for years desperately trying to earn some fashionista points, not so for Freya, who then took the fast lane straight into being named Fashion Icon of the Year by the Scottish fashion industry.

No wonder then that rather than sit around waiting for the next big thing, Freya's already moved on. She's quit the UK altogether and hot-tailed it to live in France.

It means that as the countdown begins to the final day of the Edinburgh International Film Festival in June, when Not Another Happy Ending - the film she's just made with Dr Who's Amy Pond, Karen Gillan, gets its first global screening right here in her home town - Freya will be in Paris. Of course.

Quitting home is one thing, quitting the UK when your fledgling television career is on a high to live in a city where the phenomenon of Skins and Freya Mavor is totally unheard of, perhaps quite another. But as we now know, Freya is not the kind to do things gently or, indeed, by halves.

"It's mainly fulfilling a childhood dream to live in Paris," she shrugs.

"It's that old cliche, that everyone says it is beautiful and romantic, everyone sits around drinking strong coffee, smoking and looks like a struggling artist. In many ways, it's partly for that.

"I have lots of friends who live there. I'd love to get involved with doing some French work - French theatre or cinema.

"It doesn't close any doors for me really," she insists, "because Paris is so close to London. And Edinburgh is further from London than Paris is. Most job opportunities happen in London. It's crazy to think that it'll be a problem."

It's that kind of "go for it" spirit that saw her through her first major audition, when she braved an X Factor style open battle for a role on the hit E4 series, emerging victorious as one of Skins' most striking characters.

She recalls the auditions as a kind of "mass hysteria", up against other actors who had brought along their whole family for support, dressed to the nines - or should that be "undressed" - in the hope of snaring the part of superbitch sex kitten Mini. Freya played it a bit cooler, originally trying for another role only to overtake everyone and steal the part of the show's key female character, the overbearing Mini, whose loud mouth and attitude is largely a front for the vulnerable girl within.

"It was amazing for a first job," nods Freya, still just 19 and whose latest role as an awkward young author in Not Another Happy Ending could hardly be further removed from that of the trashy Mini.

"Mad, but very educational."

Skins was done and dusted when the film role came along, starring beside Gillan, one of the hottest young actresses of the moment, shot in Glasgow by a Scottish film company and directed by John McKay, whose work includes hit television show Life on Mars and Lip Service.

Set around a book publisher and his most successful author, played by Gillan, the story kicks off when she suffers crippling writers' block just as her hard-up publisher Tom (French actor Stanley Weber) desperately needs another bestseller. As he tries to inspire her to write once more by causing chaos in her far too comfortable and happy life - the reason for her sudden block - he falls in love.

Freya, who is also about to star in the BBC's blockbuster summer drama The White Queen, plays one of his less successful authors, desperate to be noticed for her own talents.

"I don't think she even knows Karen's character," explains Freya.

"She's not as successful, she is more awkward and kind of weedy.

"One of the lines of her description was 'pale and wispy'. She is shy and reserved, kind of quiet but on the inside she is screaming for someone to notice her.

"It's completely different to Skins.

"The roles are as diverse as you can get as an actor - it's nice not to be working in shorts and massive heels and crop tops, feeling like a blow-up doll. It's nice to have a slightly more reserved character."

Indeed, while starring as Mini brought her attention, Freya confesses that not all of it was that welcome.

"I was terrified at the start," she recalls.

"I was 16 and my character was being so provocative and extreme. I was terrified about how people would react. It is just a job, but some people believe you are that character.

"I suppose on one hand that's fine because it means you have done a convincing job.

"Then you get people who walk past you and say 'Skins is sh***'. I look at that as just like if I went to a restaurant and didn't like the food, I'd say to the chef, I didn't like the chicken or the lamb was a bit under-cooked, it's a job.

"I'm open to criticism, some like it and some don't, as long as you're happy and I don't let it gnaw away at my soul."

On the other hand comes the unexpected praise, and the moment when she was the last person in the room to imagine she'd be named a Scottish fashion icon.

"I was literally stuffing my face with popcorn as they announced the winner," she giggles, recalling the moment her name was called out at the 2011 Scottish Fashion Awards.

"I had to hobble up on stage wearing shoes I couldn't actually walk in.

"I was walking up there on my toes.

"It was so undeserved. They asked afterwards 'Who's your favourite designer?' and I had no idea.

"I usually get all my clothes from my godmother who's a fashion freak, she goes through charity shops and finds weird busy, designer outlets, picks bits and bobs up there and puts on sales.

"She will find wedding dresses, Chanel suits. I felt so unworthy among so many glam people."

She has the looks and the credentials to cut it in modelling, but it would be an unlikely career move: "Modelling is fantastic if the opportunity arises but not something I'd look at as a career," she insists.

"You're just a coat hanger.

"You get to wear fantastic clothes and meet fantastic people but it's less about you as a person and less about being creative.

"It's not as stimulating intellectually, no research required to do it, it's just about moving in the right way and anyone can do that, it's not necessarily a talent or skill."

So she's focussing on acting.

Having snared a role in the BBC adaptation of Philippa Gregory's story based around the War of the Roses - the lavish trailers for The White Queen are already creating a stir - she's now in Paris focussing on a bit of theatre work, some messing around making short films with friends and just soaking up the atmosphere. She might even consider getting some additional training under her belt - incredibly, she's picking up all these key roles without actually having bothered with the typical three years of study for a drama degree.

She's even too busy for romance - hints a few months ago that she was romantically entangled with One Direction's Niall Horan are, she insists, nonsense. "I've not even met the boy," she scoffs. "At the moment I'm doing so much moving around, even in Paris, it's hard to be in the one place for anything to really happen."

Come the end of June, however, it's likely she'll be back home to savour the moment when her first film is unveiled. Being recognised by fans here, on home territory, will be just part of the thrill.

"It's fantastic to meet people who appreciate your work and know what I have done - I love that recognition. It's not just a dream any more, it's not just an ambition, it's something that's feasible."

 

 

Drama in the blood with playwright father and from feisty theatre critic grandfather

Freya Mavor was in her final year at Mary Erskine's when she was chosen from 8000 hopefuls for the high profile role of Mini in E4's cult series Skins.

Drama, however, was already in her blood - her father James Mavor, 51, below, is an award-winning playwright who heads the MA screenwriting course at Napier University.

Among his most recent work was an adaptation of Ian Rankin's best-selling novel Doors Open which was screened last December on television with Stephen Fry in the lead role.

Her grandfather was Ronald Bingo Mavor, The Scotsman's theatre critic in the early 1960s before he became the director of the Scottish Arts Council.

He was instrumental in encouraging Jim Haynes and Richard Demarco to develop the fledgling Traverse Theatre.

And her great-grandfather, the playwright, Oswald Henry Mavor, helped to set up Glasgow's Citizens Theatre.

Her mother, Judith, 53, used to be an opera singer and is an artist.

The family live in Canonmills.

Freya's brother, Zander, is currently studying at Bristol University

Arctic Convoys: through hell and high water to victory.

THE waves crashed around them, 60ft high, and the men of the Arctic Convoys, frozen to the bone and in terror of the German bombs, pressed on in what Sir Winston Churchill once called "the worst journey in the world".

Of course, he might well have thought that. Those hardy souls on board the merchant ships and the navy vessels charged with protecting them knew better. They knew it was much, much worse than that.

A freezing hell spent dodging Hitler's deadly U-boats and vicious Junkers 88s, sleepless nights and terror ridden days, when the journey around Norway in Arctic seas towards Archangel and Murmansk took them past hundreds of hidden inlets and coves - perfect hiding places for enemy attack.

Conditions were horrific enough. Then there were the sights, the heart-stopping moments when men could only watch helplessly as comrades plunged to their deaths from frozen decks into ice cold water, where within just three minutes they would perish.

Jim Simpson was there, fresh faced, just out of his teens. Today he is in his 91st year, ramrod straight, medals pinned over his heart glittering; the Arctic Emblem - a white polar star with a red Russian dot in its centre, pinned proudly upon his immaculate jacket, his brand new Arctic Star medal shining the brightest.

He sits in a plush armchair in his Barnton Avenue home, a model of a ship on a table nearby, some naval type prints on the wall clues to a remarkable war service that, 70 years on, is as painfully vivid as ever.

Not that he's one for talking too much about it. He hands over some notes a relative has made with help from his wife, Sybil, which detail how he joined HMS Devonshire and headed off on an ocean voyage from which more than 3000 men would never return. The notes are factual and detailed enough yet there is little in the pages to hint at what it was really like for a young Edinburgh lad on one of the most hellish journeys imaginable.

Gently ask him to share some of the emotional turmoil of four years spent bobbing on Arctic waters like a plastic duck in a fairground shooting game, and he looks down at well polished shoes at something suddenly fascinating and totally absorbing.

"I can't really explain it," he says quietly. "When you're being attacked with Junkers and bombers and U-boats on your tail at the same time, wherever you went there was a U-boat behind you.

"Then look around and you can see a wall of water 60 feet high chasing you. We had a lot of near misses. We lost a corvette one night," he adds, and in his mind's eye it's almost certain he can still see a small but hardy little boat, specially built to serve with honour in the convoys, broken by a U-boat torpedo.

"He's never really spoken about it until recently," chips in Sybil, who has heard more about her husband's Arctic Convoys experiences in the last few years than in all their 65 years as a married couple.

She is not the only wife who is only now learning of how spectacular and humbling a job their husbands did during the war. For just what it was really like for the thousands of brave sailors has only recently started trickling out, voices finally found as a campaign aimed at recognising their contribution in the form of a special medal gained momentum, led by, among others, Jock Dempster from Dunbar. Jock, of course, died just weeks after receiving his longed for Arctic Star and before he had the chance to wear it at a public ceremony.

Jim's Arctic Star shares space on his jacket with the 1939-45 Star, the Atlantic medal, the War Medal and a special Russian Convoy Medal awarded by a grateful Russia to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the convoys. His wife keeps the ribbons bright and fresh by scrubbing at them using a toothbrush smeared with a little gentle soap.

They were on his chest again yesterday as he stood in the War Museum at Edinburgh Castle, VIP guest at a new exhibition which tells the remarkable story of the Arctic Convoys through striking images, first-hand testimony and poignant, personal objects.

Among the items on display are an aged telegram delivering the worst news possible to a wife back home of her lost husband, alongside a packing case covered in beautifully coloured labels including one that says simply "with thanks to the British convoys", well-worn uniforms, grainy photographs, and the bell of HMS Edinburgh, sunk by the Germans with her cargo of gold on board, payment from grateful Russians for American help.

Jim was 19 years old when he left home to work in Skara Brae in the Orkneys, building camps for the army and Royal Air Force. After six months he was back in Edinburgh to answer his call-up papers.

Waiting for him after brief training at Devonport was HMS Devonshire, newly refurbished with hi-tech radar designed to help detect U-boats - radar that, along with a brilliant captain, would save the crew's lives time after time.

Her role was to provide cover for air operations by planes launched from aircraft carriers - a death-defying task in itself - from the guns of German battleship Tirpitz, lying in Altenfjord in occupied Norway. The Tirpitz was just one enemy vessel facing the 50 or so ships in the convoys taking vital supplies to Russia, danger came also in frequent fire from Nazi planes and U-boats firing torpedoes night and day.

"We hardly slept," remembers Jim, whose job was "damage control", closing off the bulkheads to prevent the ship taking in water in the event of a direct hit.

"We were never in our hammocks when at sea, if we slept it was usually on the main deck - we could be at 'action stations' for hours.

"Our job was to keep her [Tirpitz] in harbour while the aircraft carriers sent off their planes to bomb her.

"Some of the planes didn't make it back. Sadly quite a few men were lost," he adds. "There was no time to rescue them, there were other planes coming in. It was horrendous for all concerned."

Men went days without sleep, he remembers, warming now to the idea of talking about it. Clothes went unchanged - it was minus 50, the idea of stripping off was unthinkable.

"Conditions were unbelievably bad, the seas were rough, it was freezing cold," he says. "The deck would often freeze - so did the moisture in our noses and our moustaches."

And all the time enemy spotter planes buzzed the convoys, followed by the Junkers 88s in wave after terrifying wave of attack.

"The Junkers dropped their torpedoes mainly at dusk," adds Jim, "it was difficult to see where they were. We opened fire, gunners were shooting all day long. We had to be alert at all times, U-boats were all around. We fired off depth charges from the stern of the ship when they were too close for comfort.

"We didn't think too much about the Germans," he adds. "I suppose they were lads just like us. But it was them, or us."

Jim was eventually demobbed in November 1946 - having left the Arctic he joined HMS Jamaica for service in Indian waters. Life with Sybil from then on involved the much less dramatic task of working in construction and raising their family. Today, they have five grandchildren.

Telling his story now, says Sybil, is mostly for them and their children's sake, so the vital chapter in British war history won't be forgotten.

"He didn't speak about it until there was an Arctic Convoys veterans reunion recently. Since then he's been telling more stories," she adds.

"We want the grandchildren to hear his story before it's too late."

constant threat of attack from air or U-boats

The Arctic Convoys sailed from Britain from August 1941 until May 1945, delivering urgently needed supplies to the Soviet Union including tanks, vehicles, weapons and raw materials.

Their route took them through incredibly harsh environmental conditions in dense fog and turbulent seas, with freezing temperatures causing ice to form on the ships to the extent that it could cause vessels to capsize if it were not removed immediately.

As if the appalling conditions were not enough, there was the constant threat of German attack from the air or from U-boats based in Nazi-occupied Norway. Churchill, right, privately admitted that he would have been happy if even half of the Convoys got through. In fact, the success rate was rather higher, with 707 of the 811 merchant ships to sail arriving safely. However, over 3000 sailors were lost.

One of the most poignant stories in the exhibition is that of convoy PQ17. It was passing the west coast of Nazi-held Norway when incorrect intelligence suggested that the Germans were going to launch a concerted attack. The convoy was ordered to scatter, leaving ships wide open to attack.

Twenty-four of the 35 merchant ships in the convoy were lost.

A frantic rescue operation ensued, featuring vessels including the SS Rathlin which was credited with rescuing 634 crew from 13 sinkings.

One of the personal stories in the display is of James K Thompson, a boatswain on the SS Rathlin. In January 1943, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his role in shooting down two enemy aircraft in defence of convoy PQ17.

The Russian connection is brought up to date with the loan of objects by Timofey Kunitskiy, who works in the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Edinburgh. His grandfather was a senior officer in the Russian navy and was involved in many air reconnaissance operations. Objects on loan include winter-weight fur gloves used in air reconnaissance and various navigational instruments

 

Appeared Edinburgh Evening News May 2013

2013 Johnston Publishing Limited

 

From Leith to Liverpool for new lord mayor

THOUSANDS gathered under a clear blue sky by the banks of the Mersey with patriotic pride in their hearts as they waved, cheered and gave thanks to those who bravely fought in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Gary Millar was there, too, standing alongside the First Sea Lord, navy veterans, dozens of dignitaries. Later he'd find himself in one of Liverpool's cathedrals, sitting at the end of one VIP pew, the Princess Royal at the other.

"I sat there thinking, it's a dream," he says, chuckling. "There's me, from a slum near Easter Road, working class, gay, Scottish. Fast forward and I'm lord mayor of one of the biggest cities in the country.

"How did that happen?"

How indeed? For if it's perhaps a little surprising to find a son of an Edinburgh bus conductor and hardworking laundry woman in the splendid robes of Liverpool's lord mayor - never mind the fact that he's the first openly gay lord mayor in the land - the road to getting there is a

n astonishing and humbling journey that not a soul could have possibly predicted.

He was raised in a Leith slum room and kitchen in East William Street, with an outside toilet shared with the neighbours and loo roll in the shape of scraps of newspaper on a hook, upstairs bed was an alcove with a curtain slung over it.

There was devastating family tragedy, disability, hardship and foster homes to get through, various primary schools for a few lonely months at a time and a heartless teacher who called him a "dunce".

And yet at the end of it, stood Gary Millar last weekend, with the sumptuous robes of Liverpool's first citizen wrapped around his shoulders, a stunning - and, he points out, ridiculously heavy - gold and diamond encrusted chain of office glittering round his neck, his "consort" and civil partner Steve McFarlane by his side.

The 70th anniversary battle celebrations were his first major role since being sworn in as lord mayor a few days earlier, an emotional ceremony attended by family who made the trip from Edinburgh to Liverpool City Hall to watch with pride, acutely aware of the astonishing achievement they were witnessing.

Gary, 52, speaks from his City Hall office without a trace of Liverpool accent despite having lived there for around three decades. He's still on a high after a phenomenal baptism which saw him help lead the poignant anniversary celebrations and is minutes from trade talks with the high commissionaire of Trinidad and Tobago.

Life now revolves around this year-long role during which he aims to raise GBP1 million for various charities close to his heart, endless whistle-stop engagements - in less than a week in office he'd already notched up 30 appearances at events - and too many ambassadorial and civic appointments to even guess at.

But his thoughts, for the time being, are back "home", to a grim Leith tenement and what turned out to be a slightly unconventional childhood. He recalls being four years old when East William Street and the other slum tenements around it were finally cleared away. While scrapping crumbling and cramped homes was for the best, on the other hand it destroyed a tight-knit community and separated families and friends into newer parts of town.

Parents Gordon and Madge took Gary and his

younger brother, Norman, to Burdiehouse and a house that overlooked rolling fields and where, he recalls, the fresh air was often tainted ever so slightly by the whiff of "donkey poo".

"It was like going from the city slums to heaven," he says, grinning. "Wide open farmlands, it was incredible."

In a bizarre and shocking turn of events, he was five and lying in hospital having had an operation when he met his younger brother in the most harrowing of circumstances. Baby Leslie had been born with serious disabilities caused by thalidomide - not that the young Gary knew it.

"I'd gone to the Sick Kids hospital to have my adenoids out. I came out of the general anaesthetic and the nurses presented Leslie to me without my parents' permission.

"He'd been very ill and mum had been ill, too - and they hadn't told me about him. They'd been waiting to see how he got on - in those days they thought he might have just passed away. I completely freaked out."

Leslie did not have the typical limb problems related to thalidomide - instead, he couldn't hear or speak, issues which made it even tougher for the family to fight for compensation. "It took a long time to prove," adds Gary, who has placed raising money for disability charities at the top of his "things to do while I'm lord mayor" list. "I was 11 or 12 before they received any compensation and even then it was only enough to enable us to buy a house in Gorgie.

"It was a tragedy."

Sadly depression and ill health stalked his mother. And as her health dipped, Gary was placed into foster care. To this day there are swathes of his childhood which are blank - he does not know which schools he attended or even which parts of town he lived in.

"I'd like to know," he says. "I had spells staying with my Auntie Sandra, my mum's cousin, but I can remember being in this person's house in Portobello, I don't know how long for or which school I went to.

"I think I must have been in at least eight different primary schools - I went to Granton, Gracemount, Sciennes and Burdiehouse, but there were others, too. It was sad. Mum was in and out of hospital, dad was working, who else could look after me? I can't even remember if Norman was with me or not, we were so young."

Today he's a successful businessman - Coldplay and Paolo Nutini have recorded albums at his Liverpool recording studio - but being hunted around schools and without time to settle in any meant he struggled through primary school.

The sting of that teacher's "dunce" comment - he was shoved in a corner for being "stupid" - spurs him on: "I'm very patient about helping infants and junior school children," he says. "I've visited a lot of schools, I run competitions because I want to inspire kids to do better."

Tynecastle High, however, was "brilliant", and Gary thrived, scooping prizes for history and English and forging friendships which remain remarkably solid 40 years later.

But even then, home life was difficult. With his mother often ill, Gary took on a young carer role long before the term had even been dreamed up, cooking family dinners of Spam or haslet with tinned spaghetti hoops, making do with hand-me-down clothes and taking on a string of after-school jobs - delivering the Evening News was just one - to help earn a little extra money.

Today he's known in Liverpool for his sharp suits and elegant style and was even recently awarded the title of the city's best-dressed businessman - a hangover, he says, from the days when, desperate not to be embarrassed at high school in tatty old clothes, he used his earnings to buy his own clothes.

Now he has traded all that in for a different kind of outfit - the Lord Mayor of Liverpool's robes are vivid red and sombre black, a lacy white ruffle at his neck and one of two glittering gold chains - a day chain of solid gold and formal chain encrusted with jewels - shining on his chest.

He wore his robes with pride when, watched by his overjoyed Edinburgh family: his late father's sister, Ina, from St Leonard's, his Auntie Margaret from Richmond Place, Uncle Allan from Moredun, brother Norman, sister-in-law Lorna, and their children, Lisa and William.

And, of course, his other brother, Leslie, who made the trip from Glasgow and who followed the events and communicated through a typist and sign language.

"He gave a speech for me and we were all crying," says Gary. "It was great that Leslie was there. Someone who is deaf, who can't speak . . . just imagine how hard it is for them to understand and communicate.

"He is very proud of me, and I am very proud of him."

 

RESPONSIBILITIES OF THOSE GOLD CHAINS

Liverpool has had a mayor since the 13th century.

Today, there is a mayor and a lord mayor.

The lord mayor's year-long role is to act as a representative of the city, chair council meetings and supporting charities. The post is always held by a councillor. The mayor is elected every four years, often on a ticket of pledges that can include building homes and schools.

The lord mayor chooses charities to raise funds for during his or her year. Gary Millar is raising money for the Michael Causer Foundation, set up in memory of the gay Liverpool teenager who was killed in 2009 in a gang attack.

He is also working with Sir Paul McCartney's eldest daughter, Mary, to raise money for the Linda McCartney cancer appeal. And he also plans to raise funds for the Variety Club of Great Britain, which provides services and supplies for the disabled.

 

'Being gay has never affected my career'

GARY Millar left Tynecastle High with thoughts of becoming an architect but ended up working in the civil service.

He went on to work as an adviser at Westminster for Labour's Hugh Brown and then Conservative minister Malcolm Rifkind.

He met partner Steve McFarlane in 1981, pictured, and become interested in his work in a new kind of "industry", computer technology. When Steve's work took him to Liverpool, Gary followed and studied at Liverpool Polytechnic.

Gary become an IT specialist and entrepreneur - one of his business interests is the highly successful Parr Street studios, where Coldplay have recorded.

The sudden death of his father, Gordon, in 2002 after a thrombosis was quickly followed just six weeks later by his mother Maude's sudden death from an aneurysm - prompting him to rethink his life. He become involved in charity work and decided to stand as a councillor in Liverpool.

He was elected in 2008. He served as deputy lord mayor last year.

He and partner Steve celebrated their civil partnership in 2007.

"Being gay has never affected my career," he says. "It's never been an issue. He is my soul mate and I am his."

Appeared Edinburgh Evening News June 2013

c) 2013 Johnston Publishing Limited

The Edinburgh rooms with a view: 50 years of estate life.

EVERY morning, almost without fail, for the past 50 years, Jean Rooney has thrown open the living room curtains in her council flat to gaze upon one of the most spectacular views Edinburgh can offer.

From her vantage point above the tree tops, she looks down on scampering grey squirrels, birds' nests and the lush carpet of grass beneath her window, and up towards the bright yellow flowering gorse bushes that are sprinkled across the rising slope.

Above the bursts of green and yellow, the Radical Road gently winds on a journey up the rugged face of Salisbury Crags, where the ripples of rock appear to change colour and texture as the sky shifts from sun to rain, to cloudy grey, occasionally even brilliant blue.

The scene is stunning, not that Jean knew much of it on June 16, 1963, when she was one of the first tenants in a brand new block of high-rise flats built to replace grim slum tenements.

"It was a Tuesday," nods Jean, who is counting the weeks to her 90th birthday but remembers walking through the door of her eighth-floor flat in Holyrood Tower as if it happened yesterday. "The mist was right down to the park, I couldn't see what was in front of us at all.

"It was like that for three weeks, right up to the Trades' holidays. We didn't know what the view was like, we couldn't see it."

When the mist finally cleared, Jean discovered that along with her husband Jimmy and their young son Brian, she had snared a council house in a prime location with the kind of five-star view that today's property developers would surely gaze at with pound signs rolling in their eyes.

Back in 1963, the area around Holyrood was an industrial melting pot of breweries and printers, humble and rundown houses, bakers, butchers and spit-and-sawdust pubs - a far cry from today's mix of upturned boat Parliament, glass-fronted media offices, the white shrouded visitor attraction of Dynamic Earth and bars and cafes with their pavement tables and outdoor dining.

But while all around has since morphed into the modern age, Dumbiedykes - with its two high-rise tower blocks dominating the skyline and the honour of being the only council estate slap in the heart of the city centre - has, apart from a frantic tidy-up to coincide with the influx of MSPs and a dramatic rise in rent from $4 a fortnight to around £80 a week now, barely changed.

Jean was one of the first to arrive at Holyrood Tower, arriving from a prefab in West Pilton Crescent so prone to flooding that it made more sense to move than to continuously try to dry it out.

She left behind a bungalow with two bedrooms and a garden with a crop of potatoes that was usually submerged and crossed town to an area that had housed crumbling slum tenements and was then what the council clumsily called "St Leonard's Comprehensive Development Area, Phase 1a Dumbiedykes".

High-rise life might not suit all, but other than the pigeon deposits on her little balcony, Jean found she liked it just fine: "It's lovely to be above the treetops," she says with a smile. "My dad used to visit me and he'd say how well I looked and I used to say, 'it's the hill air, dad, it's good for me'. Look at my big garden," and she points out the window to the glorious view outside, "isn't it lovely?"

From the window of the newly-renovated kitchen - where just two years after moving in, Jean, then 39, stood trying to make sense of what her sister-in-law was saying, something about her husband being hit by train at work - there's an alternative view, equally fantastic, that takes in the roofs and spires of the Old Town.

"Our son Brian was just seven years old, he was in the living room and I was in the kitchen," recalls Jean of the awful day she went from wife to widow. "It was the Talisman that got him, the London-Edinburgh express, ten past two, it was running late. He must have stumbled on the line.

"It was at the time of Beeching closing down the railways," she continues sadly. "He was a train driver and a union man and he was going to tell the fire droppers their jobs were safe for another six months. He crossed the railway - he should never have done it - and he was killed.

"Never got a penny," she shrugs. "I got a widow's pension, 25p a week more."

Across in Lochview Court, Isa Duncan's ground-floor home is a lonelier place since her husband Joe passed away a few years ago. They arrived, a young couple with dark hair and broad smiles, with 14-month-old son Alastair in their arms from a rented flat in a house in Portobello to what Isa remembers thinking was "heaven".

"Everything else was a building site," she remembers, "Lochview Court was the first to be built and then everything happened rapidly after that. The low-rise flats went up like Lego houses and there were lots of complaints about them.

"People weren't happy they weren't allowed to keep dogs, it was choose the house or the animal. It was a bit unfair - the folk's dogs were more civilised than some of the men in those days."

Isa and Joe, an engineer, were in the house three years when second son Gordon was born in the back bedroom. Children welded the new community together, young mums met at the gates of what is now the Royal Mile Primary School - back then it was called Milton House - or at the nursery in Braidwood House which is now the community centre, and planned Avon and Tupperware parties and bus trip away days.

 

Isa, now 73, keeps the solitude at bay by throwing herself into the local writers' group, penning the estate newsletter and various community events. "There have been lots of changes here," she adds. "A lot of them have been good, like the Parliament and Dynamic Earth.

"And for all the area is decried by some, I've never had any bother. These flats will still be here long after I've gone."

More than 80 families moved into Lochview Court and then Holyrood Court in 1963, some from well outside the area, others from just a stone's throw away.

Ann Cameron moved less than a mile, from a tiny room in the Royal Mile for a house a couple of storeys above Isa.

"I didn't think we were going to get one of the houses," recalls Ann, 72, who turned out to be first to get keys to a Lochview Tower home. "We were in a room that had a kitchen-come-living room with a wee recess where the bed was, for me, my husband and two kids, Jean, who was three and Steven who was two.

"Lots of people lived that way, we weren't unusual, but I put my name down for a house as soon as I saw them building these flats."

She was over the moon when the keys to the second-storey two-bedroom house finally arrived. "Someone said 'you've not got a hope in hell of getting one of those'. There was a stampede for them. It meant we had to find more rent - £4 a fortnight - but it was worth it.

"I got a house with a lovely view. I open the curtains and it's lovely. I think that's why a lot of private landlords have come in and bought up a lot of the houses, because of the views."

Indeed, many of the council homes were sold under the right to buy scheme and are now in the hands of private landlords. It's meant a fluid community with an older generation like Jean, Isa and Ann rooted at its heart and a much younger, itinerant and multi-cultural influx around them.

Jean, who as a young widow relied heavily on the support and kindness of her neighbours to help look after young Brian so she could work, has seen many of her old neighbours pass away. Today, she hardly knows a soul.

"There's Nigerians living here, people from Eastern Europe, Chinese, Polish, they come from all over. They all seem nice enough, but it's not the way it was, because everyone used to know each other. Now you don't see your neighbours at all."

The 50th anniversary of the multi-storey flats has not passed without recognition: recently Sheila Gilmour, MP rolled up to have a celebratory lunch with Jean and other high-rise residents and there's a plan to tidy up the area by covering unsightly stone planters with some wooden cladding.

"Doing something about the pavements and the road might be better," sighs Jean, whose failing eyesight means she rarely ventures outside.

"There are times when I think I'd like to get a wee sheltered house somewhere, without any stairs and near the shops," she adds.

"I'll be 90 soon. I don't think I'll be moving from here. This is my home."

 

 

Answer to the big question - Where did the name come from?

THE area that stretches from the Pleasance to Holyrood was once farmland divided into sections by a series of dykes.

The name Dumbiedykes emerged after Thomas Braidwood's Academy for the Deaf and Dumb - the first school of its kind in Britain - was founded in the area in 1764.

The academy, built on St Leonard's Toad - later Dumbiedykes Road - became known as the Dumbie Hoose.

It was there that Braidwood pioneered a form of sign language - the foundation for the modern version. The academy closed in 1873 and was demolished in 1939.

The area became a thriving hub of industry, with breweries such as William Younger's in Holyrood, MacKay's in St Leonards standing side-by-side with printing firms like Cowan's at the foot of Arthur Street and Nelson's at Parkside and McNiven and Cameron in Blair Street.

The factories provided work for locals but housing conditions were poor and the slum tenement homes were knocked down and the tight-knit community dispersed.

Modern Dumbiedykes was built between 1959 and 1964. It consists of 650 homes including two multi-storey tower blocks - Holyrood Tower and Lochview Tower - of ten and 11 storeys.

 

 

More than a few famous sons...

 

 

DUMBIEDYKES is home to Benjamin Ellis, one of Edinburgh's brightest opera prospects.

Ellis, 23, was chosen to take a key role in Edinburgh Grand Opera developing artists programme and quickly secured a leading role performing at the Queen's Hall.

He is now studying singing at Trinity College in London.

Father of geology James Hutton could be loosely described as a Dumbiedykes boy. He lived just behind where the modern estate is now, in a cottage that looked on to the Crags.

Super featherweight boxer Alex Arthur MBE grew up on the estate. The former British, Commonwealth, European and WBO champion's last fight was in April last year at Meadowbank, just a few miles from his childhood home.

Former Bay City Roller singer Nobby Clark lives in the area. He was appointed to fight for the estate in the role of chairman of the Dumbiedykes Environmental Group.

Redevelopment of the area with the construction of the Parliament has pushed up prices in neighbouring properties - among the owners of one penthouse apartment nearby was Simple Minds singer Jim Kerr.

Appeared Edinburgh Evening News June 2013

(c) 2013 Johnston Publishing Limited

Sex for sale: Edinburgh's links with the oldest profession

IT is often called the oldest profession in the world and, judging by the earnings of vice queen Margaret Paterson, certainly among the most lucrative around.

The 61-year-old and her pimp partner Robert Munro, also 61, are facing jail after being convicted of running a brothel and nationwide escort business from a flat in the West End.

For nine years they provided prostitutes for punters across Scotland, with co-accused Ian Goalen, 59, acting as their driver.

Police who raided their premises in September 2011 found evidence that Paterson had embarked on a £461,604 spending spree at some of the city's most exclusive shops. And they found more than £204,000 in cash at her home.

The evidence is a fascinating insight into a sleazy red light world, alien to most of us, but clearly every day life to others.

Until "Madam Moneybags" arrived on the scene with her Louis Vuitton handbags and designer clothes, Edinburgh's best known brothel keeper was, of course, Dora Noyce, who ran her house of ill repute from Danube Street from the late 1940s until the Seventies.

Her townhouse at number 17 had around 15 girls in permanent residence who would be joined by up to 25 others during busy periods. Business famously boomed, apparently, when the USS John F Kennedy docked at Leith.

The vessel offloaded hundreds of sex-starved sailors into the Capital and many headed straight to Dora's front door. The queue for her girls' services is said to have stretched all the way to Ann Street, much to the irritation of her well-heeled Stockbridge neighbours.

Dora and her girls are said to have earned around £4000 before the ship's captain stepped in to declare the brothel a no-go zone for his men.

Dora, a former callgirl herself, appeared in court on many occasions. And never short of a well-placed quip, she once commented that her busiest time of the year was during the church gathering of the Kirk's General Assembly.

She was charged more than 40 times with living on immoral earnings, usually rolling up in court smartly dressed, a string of expensive pearls looped around her neck. Typically she would pay the fine on the spot - then head straight back to work. Sometimes, however, she'd be sent to jail and her last prison term was in 1972, aged 71, for four months.

Dora is the best known, Madam Margaret the latest, but, of course, there were many before and just as many after who made their living from sins of the flesh....

Brothel keeper who paid hefty price

Running a brothel in a Leith hotel not only cost Paul Naef a month in jail, it set the wheels in motion for his deportation. Naef had originally denied running a brothel at the Commercial Hotel in Sandport Street in November 1928.

However one businessman who stayed at the hotel for six months told his trial how "there was very little legitimate business carried on" and that he only saw "one respectable couple" stay there. Police set up watch to gather evidence of men who looked like foreign seamen entering the hotel. Mr Naef was given 30 days, but a previous £25 fine for running a shebeen, or drinking den, meant he was recommended to be deported to his native Italy.

Trade took deadly turn

Victorian Edinburgh was shocked by the actions of prostitute Jessie King. She probably already had mental health problems made worse from doses of mercury given to treat venereal disease.

Lengthy periods spent in institutions no doubt did not help. She turned to another trade to help pay her bills - taking in unwanted children from single mothers who, she'd claimed, she would arrange to be adopted by new parents. Except in at least two cases the babies were strangled and hidden in her coal cellar. Her partner, Thomas Pearson, turned Crown's evidence and King became the last woman to hang in Edinburgh, on March 11, 1889.

Attempts to reform failed

As far back as 1928 efforts were being made to rethink society's attitude to prostitution. Former police officer Mrs Hamilton More Nisbett was called to the House of Commons to give evidence on street crimes on behalf of the Edinburgh National Solciety for Equal Citizenship, and appealed for what she called "the offensive label" of common prostitute to be abolished, arguing that once attached to a woman, it removed any hope of reformation.

She referred to one 15-year-old girl, "in whom the glimpses of good had been crashed" by being labelled a common prostitute. Another she said had tried to reform but her reputation has gone against her. "When you're down, you're down and there's no use trying to get up," she says the woman told her. "When I've finished my 60 days (sentence) I'm going straight to hell".

Exotic and erotic

Many 18th century prostitutes came from more exotic climes seeking a better life. Most are believed to have escaped slavery and arrived at the Port of Leith on board ships from the Caribbean, only to end up selling their bodies on the street.

According to the 18th century 'Who's Who' of vice girls, Miss Ruthven of Nicholson Street was "black and comely, middle-sized, good teeth, agreeable and very good-natured. She is very engaging, and loves the sport very well; and when she is in the height of her devotion, she will turn up her eyes with the utmost rapture".

The trade that won't go away

The early 20th century saw desperate attempts to clean up Edinburgh's prostitution problem. The chief constable's report for 1913 revealed 38 people were charged with brothel keeping. There were 686 women arrested for prostitution. It might take two to tango, but it was clear who the authorities felt were at fault: "How to deal with these women is indeed a perplexing problem," the report concluded. "Many are incorrigible and to deal leniently with them simply means they will figure more often in the number arrested until the state interferes and makes it by law possible to send these women for periods of detention."

Made in Manhattan

A mother of four from Kirkliston, Anna Gristina, was recently revealed as the madam behind a Manhattan sex service.

The 45-year-old was jailed for six months and sentenced to five years' probation after it emerged that she had been peddling call girls, a business that's believed to have operated for 15 years. Gristina was caught on tape arranging for an undercover police officer posing as a client to watch two prostitutes have sex. Prosecutors believe she made dollars 10 million from her business which had a roster of wealthy clients.

Dangerous life for women

Victorian Edinburgh police knew of around 200 brothels in the city, although that is thought to have simply been the tip of the iceberg, with street prostitution rife in some areas. Even Princes Street and Hanover Street were frequented by streetwalkers after dark. Life for a prostitute in those days was certainly a difficult and brief one. Charitable organisations were set up to help them, and found they were dealing with young teenagers and few older women - many simply fell victim to disease or brutality. Many girls rarely lived past the age of 30 and had most had been working girls since their early teens.

 

It takes two to tango

Dance club owners Asher Barnard and Edwin Jones appeared in court in November 1933 accused of attempting to earn money from prostitution.

The pair ran Kosmo Dance Club in Swinton Row, where they were said to have conspired together with a view to gaining money through the prostitution of employees who worked as dance partners or instructresses. Men who were "desirous of having immoral relations" it was claimed, could enter the club and chose a partner or make arrangements by phone. Thirty shillings would be paid to the owners, ten shillings to the women.

A street called desire

Rose Street may have a reputation as being the city's one time red light district, but the Royal Mile in the late 18th century was a thriving street of shame where there were at least 117 brothels to be found. In the 19th century it thronged with loose women who sold themselves for pennies which was often used straight away to buy booze.

The posh New Town wasn't that much better, behind the prim walls of impressive properties. One of the best known areas for brothels in the 18th century was St James Square, however Elder Street also boasted one particular brothel said to be so wild that no decent person would go at night.

James Tytler: Imaprtial and investigative

Vital reading, perhaps, for many an 18th-century gent was Ranger's Impartial List of the Ladies of Pleasure in Edinburgh, written in 1775 by none other than James Tytler.

Tytler's other, more legitimate, achievements included editing the Encyclopaedia Britannica and a particularly flying high career as the first Scot to navigate the skies in a hot-air balloon.

His book reviews 66 of the city's best known prostitutes, providing details of their looks, their personalities and just what they might offer their gentlemen clients.

Among them was Miss Peggy Alexander of Monteith's Cross who, according to the List was: "A smart genteel lass, about 20 years of age, dark brown hair, good teeth, fine skin, and extremely good-natured.

"She has got a very agreeable squint, which sets her off to great advantage."

Most of the ladies receive a range of excellent reviews in Tytler's list.

 

Lady who feel from grace

Lady Agnew of Netherbow was the daughter of a wealthy baronet who fell on difficult times, turning to prostitution to make ends meet. But a scathing review in the 18th century List of Ladies of Pleasure would do little to increase her business. It described her as a "drunken bundle of iniquity", adding: "Lusty and tall, and she has followed the old trade since she was about 13. She regards neither decency nor decorum, and would as willingly lie with a chimney sweep as with a lord. Her desires are so immoderate that she would think nothing of a company of grenadiers at one time. Take her in all, she is an abandoned piece."

Robert Louis Stvenson no stranger to fleshpots

One of Edinburgh's most famous sons, Robert Louis Stevenson, was no stranger to the city's brothels and prostitutes.

While his own family campaigned vociferously against the evils of prostitution and were busy donating money to save the city's fallen women, the Treasure Island author was said to have been among their regular visitors. Biographer Jeremy Hodges claimed the famous writer liked nothing better than to satisfy his own carnal curiosities among the city's seedy underbelly.

And the fleshpots around Leith Street, where bawdy brothel girls flaunted disease-ridden wares and negotiated hurried sex for a few shillings and the illicit drinking shebeens where booze flowed regardless of the law, were where one of the Capital's most famous writers frequently spent his nights. It's not completely clear whether Stevenson visited the brothels for illicit sex or simply because of his fascination for Edinburgh's underbelly.

Among the brothels of his time was Clara Johnson's Clyde Street brothel, the poshest in town, where clients would pay GBP5 to spend time with one of her girls, known not as prostitutes but as "gay girls". The 1871 census revealed them to be young women with previously respectable jobs, whose £8 annual salaries for such skilled jobs would have been dwarfed by their earnings under Clara.

Appeared: Edinburgh Evening News June 2013

c) 2013 Johnston Publishing Limited