IT was good to read George Kerevan’s article highlighting Edinburgh’s shopping thoroughfare in Princes Street being so badly let down by years and years of needless neglect and disregard by officials of City of Edinburgh Council, who definitely have a lot of questions to answer from critical citizens like myself (Why the state of our capital’s main shopping street is a man-made mess, Oct 18).
George’s account is not a surprising one as many citizens like my wife and I have watched the gradual erosion of such a famous shopping thoroughfare and the demise was indeed man-made – an absolute disgrace.
Successive officials of the city’s development department appeared to be more obsessed with transport projects like Edinburgh Trams (remember that fiasco and the eventual damning public enquiry!?) while forgetting about the proper joined-up thinking to compliment this kind of project (and the new St James Quarter shopping complex).
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I could name some prominent senior transport officials who “talked a good game” and had an array of very good town planning cohorts at their disposal, some of them fairly talented if allowed to exhibit what could be done with such a run-down shopping thoroughfare while trying to draw in some welcome inward investment and new ideas to improve the whole shopping experience alongside these other multimillion-pound projects.
There was a nice painting of Princes Street located on a wall of the City Chambers and it depicted a futuristic view of the trams travelling east and west along a narrowed two-lane road with the footways extended out to portray a fully pedestrianised Princes Street thoroughfare – a visual presentation of a typical attractive European city centre. It reminded me of the city centre in Heidelberg, a German town I visited years ago.
Unfortunately there were no great visionaries amongst many of the senior officials who came and left during the decades when so much more should have been done to enhance the attraction of such a famous street in the capital.
An absolute failure – all talk not enough action!! Facta non verba!
Bernie Japs
Edinburgh
I HAVE always been struck by the statue of John Hope, the Fourth Earl of Hopetoun, who with his horse stands outside Dundas House, the former headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland at St Andrew’s Square in Edinburgh.
His uncle by marriage was Henry Dundas, who is immortalised across the road on top of the Melville Monument. The role of Dundas as Home Secretary in prolonging the slave trade is now recognised by a plaque at the monument.
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However, unbeknown to many is the fact that Dundas House was the original home of Lawrence Dundas, cousin to Henry Dundas, who owned slave plantations in Grenada and Dominica. John Hope was the vice-governor of the bank for a period and MP for Linlithgowshire. While serving with the British forces in the West Indies in the 1790s he helped put an end to a two-year slave revolution in Grenada.
The so-called Fédon rebellion was an attempt by revolutionaries and slaves to create a black republic. It saw 200 rebels enslaved and 50 executed, suffering hanging and then decapitation, with it estimated that around a quarter of the enslaved population on the island were killed.
Given the plaque at the Melville Monument, contextualising the role of Henry Dundas in prolonging the slave trade, as we mark Black History Month a similar approach may want to be taken by the powers-that-be at the Royal Bank when it comes to Dundas House and the statue of John Hope.
Alex Orr
Edinburgh
IN his letters of October 14 and 19, David Roche of Coupar Angus says it all about our anthem. Scots Wha Hae has been “suppressed” by the folksy beer bar song Flower of Scotland, which is promoted by the SFA, the Scottish Rugby Union and others as a “suitable alternative”. Yet it will always remain just that, a folksy song, ideally suited for some maudlin evening in a bar, and there’s nothing wrong with that on occasions.
What the majority of Scots appear not to realise is that the vibrant and uplifting music of Scots Wha Hae has been collated and incorporated into the works of many of Europe’s greatest composers of the last two/three centuries. They recognised the quality of the music, so why not the Scots? Yet many Scots don’t seem to know of it.
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We are told by Unionists that it’s words are “too warlike”. If so, it is not beyond the powers of our poets or writers to come up with an alternative version of words. This would give the option of choosing either version depending on the occasion, with the probability that one would fall into disuse.
Personally, I see nothing wrong with the original words of Scots Wha Hae, but I would far rather hear that rousing and tuneful music when they finally say, “please stand for the national anthem of Scotland”!
Paul A Gillon
Leven
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