Edinburgh
A Sense of Place
Have you seen the film Sunshine on Leith? Built
around the songs of The Proclaimers, it tells the story of two former soldiers
trying to get used to civilian life in Edinburgh. The plot is not much to write
home about, but the movie is worth seeing just for the star of the show. The
latter is not one of the cast but the city of Edinburgh itself.
There are a number of films that have such a strong sense of
place that the setting itself seems to become a character: Covent Garden Market
in Hitchcock’s Frenzy; Venice in Don’t Look Now; the Australian
outback in Walkabout. The list could go on and on, and would include
many American films of the mid-twentieth century which are set in European
capitals- remember the saying that when Americans die, if they have led a good
life, they go to Paris for eternity.
My list of books which have such a strong sense of place
might be a little shorter but there are some mighty candidates. For some
reason, collections of short stories spring to mind. First and foremost are the
Sherlock Holmes stories which evoke so strongly the danger and mystery of the
great city of London in the late nineteenth century. I first read these when I
was at primary school, and how exciting and intriguing I found their setting!
So many of MR James’ ghost stories breathe out the eerie atmosphere of Suffolk,
the most haunted county in England. Many of the short stories of John Cheever,
the brilliant chronicler of suburban American unease, take place in the New
York State commuter settlement of Shady Hill. So vivid is the evocation of the
place (fictitious but I am sure representative of many real towns) that the
setting is a character in its own right.
In full length novels, obvious examples include Edinburgh in
Ian Rankin’s Rebus novels, Victorian London in the works of Dickens and
Thackeray, and the Scottish Highlands and Islands in Compton Mackenzie’s work,
notably Whisky Galore, The Monarch of the Glen (see a previous
blog) and The Rival Monster. However, I would like to draw your
attention to a more obscure literary curiosity.
The novel Caroline Miniscule by the superb crime
writer Andrew Taylor tells the story of a race to find hidden treasure in which
the good guys aren’t much nicer than the bad. I remember my late mother saying
that this aspect of the book made it all the more believable. It isn’t one of
Taylor’s best. I think it was his first published novel, written while he was
still developing his craft. However, the atmosphere of menace is very deftly
achieved. Much of the action takes place in a cathedral town in the East of
England and although as I recall it is not named as such, Ely jumps out of the
page at you.
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When I was a young fellow I lived and worked for the best
part of a year in Singapore, and read JG Farrell’s The Singapore Grip
while I was there. Farrell’s novel, heavily influenced by Richard Hughes, is
set in the fall of Singapore to the Japanese forces during the second world
war. Farrell had to rely on historical records to reconstruct Singapore in the
1940’s, but it amazed me how well he nailed the atmosphere of the place, which to
some extent still prevailed in the 1980’s. I would really love to revisit
Singapore and see my old stamping ground from 1985, eat fish ball soup noodles
in People’s Park and so on. But I suspect I will never get round to it.
As part of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s medical training, he
served as ship’s surgeon on a whaling vessel for a year. He said of it that he
put to sea as a boy and returned as a man. I can’t claim the same for my stint
in Singapore, my growing up has probably still to happen, but I do feel that I
came back a different person from the fellow who went out there.
As you can see, I have shamelessly segued from literary
places to personal reminiscence. When I was an infant we lived in Malta, and I have
never been back there since 1960. I would like to return and see the places
where we lived, but again I wouldn’t bet on it happening. You might ask why
not? I am retired on a good pension- I have the time and resources to travel.
My problem is that I find air travel such a pain in the backside nowadays. When
I was working I did so much of it, and that may be the problem. These days, the
only time I find the idea of flying attractive is if some corporate entity with
more brass than sense offers me business class travel.
There is no moral or theme to any of the incoherent
ramblings above. However, let me return to the subject of the Sherlock Holmes stories,
and my discovery of them when I was a kid. I recently wrote a series of twelve
poems, one for each month of the year. I do not propose to inflict them on you
as they are mostly bollocks, but I gave the November one the theme of the adventures
of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson in the London fogs of Autumn, and the
fascination it held for me as a kid. Here it is.
John
and Sherlock
Fog up the river: fog in Regents Park.
In Baker Street a first-floor window
glows.
A shadow, violin, aquiline nose
Shows on the blind. A cab halts in the
dark.
The horse snorts. The bowler-hatted
cabman
Knocks on the door. A stately matron
shows
Her face and calls upstairs. In the
shadows
Across the street there is a watching
ruffian.
Two men appear, one stout, one lithe
and spare.
The spy has no idea he’s been clocked.
The men clamber aboard, the roof is
knocked.
The hansom rattles through the Autumn
air.
Off school with whooping cough, a
child devours
The tales, adventures in the London
fog.
The speckled band, the silent
night-time dog
Beguile the ordered, indoor, silent
hours.
The Conan Doyle Centre, Edinburgh
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