CITY SNAPSHOTS (7) - JERUSALEM 2017

Many great cities are more than just bricks, concrete and bustling populations – they also have a mythic quality. Paris, London, New York and Rome have this quality in spades. Perhaps the most highly symbolic city of them all is Jerusalem, a holy city for Christians, Jews and Muslims - A City upon a Hill, Jerusalem the Golden, Next Year in Jerusalem, the Hills and Daughters of Zion, just some of the cloudy and fable-laden epithets attached to this famous place.

A Visionary Version of the New Jerusalem

The gap between hopeful imagination and everyday reality is often wide and Christian visitors returning from Jerusalem sometimes express disappointment. They complain that the place is hot and dusty, the streets narrow and noisy, the sites underwhelming other than for the archaeologist or the seriously devout, while hawkers of all kinds add the confusion of a Levantine bazaar to the mix, not to mention the perils of terrorism and sectarian conflict. I am talking about Old Jerusalem, the devotional heart of the city, while modern Jerusalem is lively enough but lacks any great charm.

Jerusalem carries a heavy weight of turbulent history on her broad shoulders. She is said to have been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, captured and recaptured 44 times. Founded in about 1500 BCE by the Canaanite tribe, the Jebusites, it was seized in about 1000 BCE by David, King of the Israelites.  The First Temple was erected by David’s son Solomon, making the city the capital of the Kingdom of Judah and the centre of the Jewish religion. After much conflict and division, this Temple was destroyed in the early 7^th century by Philistines, Arabs and Ethiopians. The Jewish kingdom was overwhelmed by the Babylonian Empire and its leaders went into captivity there in 597 BCE though they were allowed to return and a Second Temple was built under the auspices of Cyrus the Great of Persia in 516 BCE.

The Western (Wailing) Wall

The Al-Aqsa Mosque

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The Dome of the Rock

The Persian Empire fell to Alexander the Great in 198 BCE and the city became a vassal state of Egypt. In 37 BCE Judea came under the control of Rome. In 66 AD the Jews revolted and were routed by Emperor Titus who expelled the Jews entirely from the city and destroyed the Temple. The Jews were only allowed one annual visit to pray at the Western Wall. The Byzantine Empire cherished the city as a Christian shrine and Constantine’s mother Helena founded the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the supposed site of Calvary with relics of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, along with many other churches.

The city was largely Christian until the rise of the Muslim religion and in 650 Jerusalem fell to the Abbasid dynasty. The Muslim population grew quickly but they were tolerant of Christians and Jews. The later Fatimid dynasty held different views and in 1020 destroyed all the city churches. In 1021 the Dome of the Rock was rebuilt substantially as we see it now and in 1035 the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the 3^rd most sacred site for Sunni Islam, was completed. Persecution of Christians by Arabs inflamed the faith and cupidity of Western Europe, the Pope called for a Crusade and the brutal seizure of Jerusalem occurred in 1099 with a shameful massacre of Muslims and Jews. The largely Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted until 1291 but Jerusalem herself was recaptured by the Kurdish Saladin in 1187. Various local strongmen asserted control. To give an idea of the flavour of Jerusalem in 1482, a highly intolerant and partisan Dominican priest described Jerusalem thus:

 "A collection of all manner of abominations". As "abominations" he listed Saracens, Greeks, Syrians, Jacobites, Abyssinians, Nestorians, Armenians, Gregorians, Maronites, Turcomans, Bedouins, Assassins, a sect possibly Druzes, Mamelukes, and "the most accursed of all", Jews. Only the Latin Christians "long with all their hearts for Christian princes to come and subject all the country to the authority of the Church of Rome".

After some time Jerusalem was taken over by the Ottoman Empire in 1517 where it stayed 400 years until 1917 when the victorious British General Allenby, disdaining a mounted entry, walked in by the Jaffa Gate.

The Jerusalem handed to a British League of Nations Mandate over Palestine had been in decline many years. Arab power was in Cairo, Baghdad or Damascus, or in remote areas where oil could be found. The city’s population was barely 20,000; it was of no strategic value and was little more than an antiquarian curiosity. But this was to change. The Zionist movement to revive a home for Jews attracted a trickle of Jews at first, becoming a flood as persecution in Poland and Germany gathered pace. The British were conscious of their duty to protect the interests of local Arabs who became increasingly alarmed by the Jewish influx. US public opinion pressed for shelter to be given to the refugees, though the US itself strictly limited access to America. Commissions and plans by the bucketful reported in vain; Palestine was polarised between Arab and Jew and violent inter-communal clashes were frequent. The British tired of the thankless task of holding the ring and in 1948 ingloriously scuttled. WW2 and its aftermath had seen a horde of Jewish displaced persons and during the war the Arab Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, disgusted the West with his support for Hitler and for his hateful vituperation against the Jews.

 

David Ben-Gurion proclaims the State of Israel on 14 May 1948

The British left,  Israel was proclaimed and the Arabs went to war against it. A furious fight erupted in Jerusalem but the Jewish Army foiled the Arab forces from Egypt, Syria and Transjordan. Only the Old City remained in Arab hands and when a truce was called Israel secured for itself a narrow coastal realm hemmed in by the Egyptian Sinai, the West Bank of the River Jordan and the Syrian Golan Heights. The Sinai campaign in 1956, the 6-Day War of 1967 and the 1973 Yom Kippur War saw Israel seize the Old City of Jerusalem, all the West Bank of the Jordan, most of the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. Israel has been a success militarily and as a fulfilment of the Zionist ideal. It is democratic, largely Western in its culture and economically prosperous. It has tried to make peace with its neighbours with mixed results with Palestinian demands impossible to satisfy. The “international community” is mainly hostile and the UN Security Council does not recognise Israel’s wartime gains, pending a general settlement.

The status of Jerusalem is a highly contentious matter. Israel has proclaimed it her capital (as has the Palestinian Authority) and confirmed easy access to the Holy Places, subject to security considerations. It is now a city of 809,000 inhabitants, at least two-thirds Jewish. It will now never be surrendered by Israel to the Arabs. There is a possibility President Trump will grant US recognition to Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, which will create a crisis. We can only hope wisdom will temper fixed ideas and a lasting peace settlement emerges.

Yet “Jerusalem” is not simply a matter for a guide book. It is a transcendental notion of yearning, of aspiration and of reaching a final destination. It can best be evoked in that sinuous passage in the Introit to Mozart’s Requiem when the soprano voice proclaims:

Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion, et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxAOHez4meA

The British particularly cherish William Blake’s vision of Jerusalem, to the rousing music of Sir Hubert Parry:

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant Land.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=041nXAAn714

SMD

03/02/2017

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2017

CITY SNAPSHOTS (6): NEW YORK 1929

                [This is one of a series describing great Cities at a moment of apogee in their histories]

More than almost any other great City, New York has had her moments of triumph and her moments of disaster. The year 1929 saw her experience both extremes – unprecedented prosperity followed by a gargantuan financial explosion which ushered in 10 years of severe Depression. Times have greatly changed but human nature much less so. There are some uneasy parallels between 1929 and 2016, which bear at least a little sober consideration.

President Calvin Coolidge 1923-29

President Herbert Hoover 1929-33

 

Both 1928 and most of 1929 were times when many Americans could enjoy the “feel-good factor”. Wages were rising, unemployment was historically low and glossy consumer goods, cars and radios were becoming more affordable. Only the farmers were long- suffering, from years of low world prices, and many of them were heading for the gaudy pleasures and new opportunities in the bustling industrial cities.

Calvin Coolidge, the Republican president, a laconic and frugal lawyer, exuded sunshine and was laissez faire incarnate, earning himself an honoured place in the conservative Valhalla. Cal’s only memorable phrase was; The business of America is business and the pursuit of this occupation did not require any Federal interference.  His successor in March 1929 was Republican Herbert Hoover, a much more pro-active and energetic type with a record of achievement but who too was shackled by an ideological horror of using taxpayers’ money to move markets, introduce welfare or bail out failing enterprises.

The 1929 party was swinging at the Prohibition-era speakeasies like the 21 Club and the Landmark Tavern while Babe Ruth hit 46 home runs for the Yankees that season; asked why he was paid $80k to Hoover’s $75k he replied; I know, but I had a better year than Hoover! For popular entertainment the highest-grossing talkie was the musical Gold Diggers of Broadway (its hit-song was Tiptoe through the Tulips), while topping the pop song charts was Eddie Cantor’s Makin’ Whoopee followed by Ain’t Misbehavin’, memorably croaked by “Fats” Waller. Higher up the sophistication scale, newly-opened MOMA was proudly exhibiting Salvador Dali’s wilfully odd Illumined Pleasures.

Eddie Cantor

Fats Waller

                   

                           

Illumined Pleasures by Salvador Dali

Around 6-7% of the population, the richer or at least the well-to-do, found an immensely engrossing new entertainment investing in the New York Stock Exchange. Stock prices were consistently strong from 1927 onwards, no doubt in part as prices caught up with increasing earnings, but the speculative orgy proper did not start until March 1928. Big-name financiers like John J. Raskob and William Crapo Durant sang the praises of the bull market and despite a setback in June and a quiet July, August saw another surge forward helped by optimistic incantations from the normally silent Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon. Herbert Hoover won the November 1928 presidential election by a landslide over Democrat Al Smith, the hero of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, stimulating share values further.

Investors swarmed Into this bull market; many bought on margin – putting up 50% or so of the value of the share and borrowing the balance from their broker on the security of the stock. This leverage allowed the investor to buy more stock, risk-free while values were rapidly rising, but it constituted a deadly prior charge in a falling market. There were other forms too of dangerous leverage. The NYSE was slow to copy the long-established investment trusts, many of Scottish origin, traded soberly in London.  The US public avidly bought the common stock of new investment trust issues, often on margin, but this ranked behind preference shares and various types of loan stock. The underlying portfolio was enough to cover these preferred classes but the common stock was often sold at a substantial premium to the net assets. This premium was justified by the alleged “investment expertise” of the promoters, sadly invisible when the Crash came.

 New boys on the block, pushing shares with voracious abandon, were Goldman Sachs who in 1929 launched Shenandoah Corporation, a multi-layered investment trust, and its shares went to $100. By 1932 their value was 50c. The structure of inter-locking holding companies magnified losses with a domino effect when the Crash came. Goldman Sachs Trading Corporation sold its stock to the public at $104 and by 1932 this stock was worth $1.75. It took Goldmans more than 20 years to rebuild their damaged reputation.

Everyone knew the market could not rise indefinitely but the Federal Reserve Board was staffed by incompetents and it did not play the proper role of a central bank by cracking down on speculation. It confined itself to a feeble communiqué. The first crack in the market came in March 1929. A wave of selling hit the Exchange and margin calls went out. Then Charles Mitchell, chairman of the major NY bank First City, reassured investors that his bank was ready to lend them more; the boom was saved and the market surged on. Nobody in authority wanted to get blamed for spoiling the party.

The ride was bumpier but still upwards through the summer but in late October another round of sell orders hit the market and it fell sharply. The banking panjandrums met in camera and delegated the acting President of the NYSE, Richard Whitney, to restore confidence. He ostentatiously walked through the throng to the stand selling US Steel and placed an order for 10,000 shares at 220, a higher price than had been seen that day. The stratagem worked; investors believed a rescue was being organised and the market bounced back. Alas, the respite only lasted days. On Monday 28 October stocks fell like a stone, margin calls went unheeded, brokers liquidated borrowers’ portfolios at whatever price and thousands were ruined completely, as they had pledged homes and chattels too. While a rash of suicides from atop skyscrapers is happily an urban myth, a million dreams lay shattered.

October 1929 Headlines

Mankind is prone to mass hysteria and to irrational behaviour. Speculative bubbles are well-remembered, starting with the South Sea Bubble of 1720, the 1907 US stock Panic, the Florida land boom of 1925 and the Great Crash of 1929. More recently remember the Dot-Com bubble of 2000 and surely the ongoing London Property Bonanza, when Brits, Americans, Arabs and Chinese make a bee-line for pretty average London pads and pay out absurd prices is another bubble waiting to go Pop! Pricked bubbles can leave quite a mess behind.

The 1929 crash was soon followed by the 10-year great Depression and fragile US confidence did not survive the failure of banks (346 local banks failed in 1929). A particular blow was the collapse of Credit Anstalt in Austria in 1931. How will the West fare if there is another major bank failure in say, Germany or in Italy? Some are known to be vulnerable. Again, the domino effect can be horrendous. Like 1929 America, the gap in Europe between the few very rich and the ordinary people is widening and resentments fester, yet nothing much is being done. This is perilous.

In the Depression one song caught the mood: Brother, can you spare a Dime? I like the emotional rendering given by Al Jolson, reproduced below. Do we have to learn his words again?

 www.youtube.com

/watch?v=4F4yT0KAMyo

SMD

5.08.16

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016

CITY SNAPSHOTS (5): ATHENS 1969

Normally this series tries to describe a City at what I have called a moment of apogee in her history. This time the great moment belongs only to the author as he was married to his wonderful Greek bride Betty in Athens on 19 April 1969. The date was of course hugely significant to me and I take the opportunity to sketch in some recollections of laid-back Athens 47 years ago and contrast it with the often sadly troubled Athens of today.

The Parthenon and the Erectheum on the Acropolis, Athens

The Athens to which my wedding party of Scottish family and old friends was introduced was then ruled by by the Colonel’s Regime (“Junta”) which lasted from 1967 to 1974. The classic military coup d’etat of 21 April 1967 had appalled Western Europe, who believed democracy had permanently taken root there since the bad old days of the 1930s. But Greek politics were deeply corrupt and a drift leftwards had alarmed ultra-conservative elements in the army who saw themselves as self-appointed guardians of traditional values. The wounds of the bitter Civil War (1946-49) had not healed and supporters of the defeated Left had long been excluded from public office; the hard core of agitators lived in exile in communist Eastern Europe.

Colonels Pattakos, Papadopoulos and Makarezos

The Colonels suppressed dissent, rounded up leftist activists, sent them into internal exile and shamefully tortured some resistors. Maybe as many as 24 civilians were killed in the turmoil associated with the violent Athens Polytechnic riots of November 1973 (none on campus), but the Junta’s real sins pale beside those of many other dictatorships. The regime was authoritarian rather than Fascist.

The Greek life I initially knew was simple, relaxed and traditional. Supermarkets were unknown, car ownership far from widespread and the infrastructure urgently needing investment. The local taverna was a focal point of social life: all the family and relatives would come along - commonly 10 or 12 would sit down to sup animatedly on a long table. Before eating, the taverna kitchen pots would be inspected to see what looked appetising. The fare was often grilled meat or my favoured kokkoretsi (lamb’s innards tied up with an intestine and spit-roasted) washed down by gallons of draught cold resinated white wine. The Greeks ate late – an 11pm kick-off was quite usual: as a young chap I could cope, though it played Old Harry with the digestion of older visitors!

Greece was delightfully cheap and back-packers abounded in Athens and the islands. It was a fun place with loud discos to patronise, nightclubs (bouzoukia) with their plangent mandolin music, busy outdoor cinemas with the latest escapist movie from Aliki, Konstandaras or Vlachopoulou and plentiful cafes like Papaspirou, Floca and Zonars for chats into the wee, small hours. By day one could swim on the pine-fringed beaches at Schenias or eat seafood at now much missed Psaropoulos, Glyfada or at Lambros, Vouliagmeni or a dozen fish tavernas at Microlimano, still going strong. There was not much sophistication but Greece retained her distinctive Levantine air.

The Bouzoukia of Athens

The Greek curiosity of spirit was irrepressible and reserved Brits got short shrift. I recall my uptight indignation when I was pressed by a local to disclose my income to him after all of 15 minutes’ acquaintance! I tended to keep off politics, always a fraught subject, but typically my dear father-in-law embraced me when he accepted me as a son-in-law. “I will love you like my own son”, he tearfully declared, “but if I find you are a communist, I will kill you!” He meant it, though I felt safe enough: but later he opined that blameless Clem Attlee was “a famous communist!”

Cities and cityscapes change; inexorably Athens moved on and became more European. Democracy of a kind was restored by respected Constantine Karamanlis (New Democracy) and populist Andreas Papandreou (PASOK) did a great service by welcoming back exiled leftists and opening up government positions to all. One virtue of the Junta was that Greece was solvent, largely forced upon her when she was excluded from capital markets. By the 1980s Greece wanted to catch up with more developed states and started to borrow.

Successive governments introduced welfare the country could not afford and pampered their favourite special interest groups. Her finances were an opaque swamp. The political elite betrayed the people with its own looting. In 2001 Greece joined the Euro on a false prospectus and while the Greeks confessed their sin in 2004, the EU was too polite to eject her. The lure of ever more debt intoxicated the Greeks who wallowed in debt like a cat snuffling catnip.

There were still some good times – the Olympics were successfully staged in Athens in 2004, and underdogs Greece won the European football championship in the same year; she even won the Eurovision song contest in 2005! But Greece was hanging on a debt-fuelled thread and disaster struck in 2009 followed by 3 massive bail-outs up to 2015. The Greek economy, unable to devalue as it was shackled to the Euro, had to apply harsh deflation and is in ruins. Unemployment at 24% has sapped the will of poorer people, industrial production has nose-dived, benefits have been slashed and any recovery seems far away.

Mount Lycabettus towers over Athens

Athens and Greece are currently depressed, injured and desperate. Yet the warm spirit of Greece, which I have loved for 47 years, endures even though you now need to dig deep to find it. It is of the greatest value to our world.

SMD

09.07.16

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016

CITY SNAPSHOTS (4); PARIS 1936

The Paris we know and love, the Paris laid out by Haussmann, the Paris of uniform building heights and of the grand boulevards emanating from the Arc de Triomphe, was still more or less in place in 1936 - no Tour Montparnasse, no hideous La Defense, no aeroplane din, less chaotic traffic, only the intrusive Eiffel Tower to spoil the beautiful view. With every justification she was known as The City of Light to celebrate her intoxicating spirit.

L'Etoile

In 1936, Paris was a byword for modernity. Like Britain, France presided over a vast empire in Africa from Algeria to Madagascar and in Asia from Syria to Indo-China, but Paris set the fashions, introduced the designs, stimulated intellectual life, excited the arts of the cinema and the theatre and her popular music, sung, whistled and hummed by millions, lightened the routine burden of  workers everywhere. A typical song would be Boum! - a catchy tune from iconic Charles Trenet.

For French trades unionists and industrial workers generally 1936 was a year of excited hope. After a succession of centre-right governments and the nasty shock of the February 1934 Paris Riots, when right-wing anti-democratic groups like Action Francaise and Croix de Feu almost staged a coup, the pendulum swung and in May 1936, Leon Blum formed a Popular Front government with Socialist and Radical ministers and with the support of a significant Communist bloc.

The government rushed into action passing 133 laws in 73 days. Amid a flurry of strikes, the Matignon Accords were adopted protecting workers rights. The 40-hour working week was defined, two weeks paid annual holiday became mandatory, collective bargaining was introduced, unions and their officials could not be obstructed and retaliation against strikers was outlawed. There was a raft of other measures increasing civil service pay and ex-servicemen’s’ pensions – all an apparent triumph for the workers. But the euphoria was short-lived; while wages climbed 45%, prices cancelled that out with a 42% rise. French industry, already in deep depression, made no progress. The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 polarised opinion and Blum’s espousal of cautious Non-Intervention alienated many on the Left. The Popular Front coalition began to fracture and fell apart in later 1937. The Socialist dream was over and the Popular Front failure embittered an already divided nation.

Leon Blum's light flickers in 1936

 

Modern France - a 1936 Bugatti

Modern France- a 1936 classic Citroen 7C




Conservative currents were strong in France. Surprisingly, Left wing students were in a minority in the Latin Quarter with the right-wing Leagues attracting greater support. Philosophically, at the Sorbonne the influence of intuitive Henri Bergson remained strong; Charles Maurras’ nationalist stance originally attracted de Gaulle; Paul Claudel in drama and poetry and Jacques Maritain in essays proclaimed the values of the Catholic Church. Another Puritan was highly influential André Gide, a pederast with acute psychological insight, who moved across the political spectrum finally denouncing the Soviet Union after a visit in 1936. The Thibaults, an epic novel by Roger Martin du Gard, was widely admired. Not all were conservative; Voyage au bout de la Nuit, a tumultuous, misanthropic novel by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, astounded and impressed intellectual Paris in 1932, notably Sartre, with its depiction of mass production and its satire on bourgeois values. Marxist Sartre himself produced the powerful Nausea before succumbing to the role of apologist for Leftist totalitarianism, ending his friendship with humanist Raymond Aron

Intellectual exchanges were a feature of French café life at the likes of the Dôme in Montparnasse or Les Deux Magots at St Germain des Prés. But life is not defined by politics, philosophy and economics. Just as important are fun and games which Paris provided in abundance. Maurice Chevalier, the clichéd embodiment of the romantic Frenchman, with his trademark boater, returned from heady Hollywood success to conduct an affair with ageing Mistinguett, the toast of 1920s Paris.

The end of aristocratic Europe was movingly evoked in Jean Renoir’s pacifist movie La Grande Illusion but less seriously elegant Arletty was to be seen in Fric-Frac. Years later Arletty was demonised for her notorious affair with a German officer to which her spirited retort was My heart is French, but my ass is international! In a music-hall in Pigalle, a diminutive street-singer dressed all in black made her debut – matchless Edith Piaf. Sasha Guitry trod the boards in the fancier theatres, Coco Chanel dressed the chic, and the Americans flooded in, - Hemingway, Pound, Sinclair Lewis et al happily propping up the bars with no nostalgia for Des Moines, Iowa.

The party was in full spate. Jean Sablon provided his “clip-clop” song, the jaunty Le Fiacre (The Horse-drawn Cab), the night-clubs, cabarets and music halls were rocking.

Elegant Arletty

Coco Chanel

Another Jean Sablon song was Paris, tu n’a pas changé but come 1940, Paris was to change and suffer grievously in the bitterness of Defeat, Occupation and Collaboration. It took many years for the Parisian spirit to return to 1936 levels but she now blooms again in all her glory.

SMD

15.06.16

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016

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CITY SNAPSHOTS (3): EDINBURGH 1999

          

     [This is one of a series describing great Cities at a moment of apogee in their histories]

We Scots are immensely proud of our great capital city, Edinburgh, with her historic Old Town, elegant Georgian and Victorian New Town, her dominating Castle, superb setting on the Firth of Forth to the North and the gentle Pentland Hills to the South.

A View of Edinburgh

The City has witnessed many a significant national moment – the erratic reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, the dogmatic ministry of John Knox, the rejection of Charles I’s prayer book at St Giles, the brutally anarchic 1736 Porteous Riots, the brief seizure of the city by Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobites, the glories of the Scottish Enlightenment, the 1843 Disruption splitting the Presbyterian Church of Scotland – sometimes moments of turmoil, but a peaceful and cherished moment occurred on 12 May 1999 when the Scottish Parliament, in abeyance since 1707, was re-inaugurated by H.M. The Queen, accompanied by the new First Minister Donald Dewar.

Dewar is sworn in as First Minister

Dewar and H M The Queen

Few Scots could fail to be moved by the formal words intoned by SNP’s Winnie Ewing, the most senior member: The Scottish Parliament, adjourned on the 25^th day of March in the year 1707, is hereby reconvened.

It must have been a particularly proud moment for Donald Dewar whom I knew slightly. A lanky, rather shambolic figure, who learned his razor-sharp debating skills at Glasgow University, he was witty – not suffering fools gladly – but rational, fair-minded and politically cautious. Living alone, his wife had left him for Labour Lord Chancellor Derry Irvine, he immersed himself in Scottish history and had piloted the Scotland Act, defining devolved powers through Westminster In 1998. The temporary first home of the new Scottish Parliament was the Kirk Assembly Hall on the Mound, where his hero Thomas Chalmers, leader of the Free Church Disruption, had taught theology.

Kirk Assembly Hall and temporary site of the Scottish parliament (1999-2004)

Edinburgh in 1999 was going through a fruitful period. Although Labour won back power in 1997 after 18 years of Tory government, it still pursued basically Thatcherite policies. Government interventions in business were infrequent. Over the years Edinburgh had built itself up as a financial centre, with ambitious local banks, well-regarded investment managers and solidly-established insurance companies like Scottish Widows and Standard Life. Royal Bank of Scotland was expanding quickly and a year later was to acquire the much larger NatWest Bank, a tasty feast for driven Fred Goodwin, rising star of the Bank. The other major local bank, Bank of Scotland, was to merge in 2001 with the Halifax Bank and embark on a headlong expansion.

RBS St Andrew Square

Bank of Scotland Head Office

Edinburgh was much more than a financial centre. Her professionals, notably Scots lawyers and doctors were of a very high quality, four universities graced the city led by the venerable Edinburgh University, famed for its medical faculty and later its School of Informatics, studying engineered computational systems with a speciality in artificial intelligence. This had encouraged a lively IT industry. Secondary education was rated highly with 20% of Edinburgh pupils attending private schools, like my own Alma Mater Merchiston Castle but including Loretto and Edinburgh Academy.

The city’s atmosphere was mainly comfortably bourgeois but there was a druggy and violent underside as depicted with some brio in Danny Boyle’s 1996 film Trainspotting starring Ewan McGregor, from Irvine Welsh’s novel. With a population of 495,000, Edinburgh’s largest employer was the local authority – food manufacturing, brewing and hospitality provided more jobs for working people. Scottish culture is now largely subsumed by that of Britain but the Edinburgh Festival, created in 1947, now the largest in the world, brings music, theatre, cinema and art of the highest standards to the occasionally stolid burghers of the wind-swept city.

In 1999 Labour controlled the new Edinburgh Parliament. It was well-represented in Westminster where incisive John Smith from Glasgow, and a close friend of Donald Dewar, had been Labour leader 1992-4 until his premature death aged 55. Labour’s new Prime Minister, persuasive Tony Blair, was English but had been educated at Edinburgh’s Fettes College. His principal lieutenant, powerful Gordon Brown, was at the Exchequer, while gnomic but brilliant Robin Cook was Foreign Secretary. Alistair Darling, a safe pair of hands, jumped from portfolio to portfolio – all 3 Edinburgh men.

Gordon Brown

Robin Cook

Alistair Darling

But Fortune is a fickle goddess and her wheel turned against Scotland. Donald Dewar had a fatal heart attack in 2000 on the steps of Robert Adam’s elegant Bute House in Charlotte Square. The construction of the new Parliament building at Holyrood was mismanaged; the original estimate of £109m ballooned to £414m: similarly the later Edinburgh Tramway system, managed by the council, cost £776m against an estimate of £545m and was years late. All this damaged Labour whose support was being eroded rapidly by the nationalist SNP. The 2007 economic crisis undermined Edinburgh’s financial sector; Bank of Scotland had lent very unwisely and HBOS had to be rescued by Lloyds Bank: RBS was worse, overreaching itself with fanciful global acquisitions. Too big to fail, the UK government stepped in and even now still owns 73% of RBS’s equity.

The SNP tide proved to be strong. Under epicene Alex Salmond it formed a minority Scottish administration in 2006 and a majority one in 2011. A reasonable competence was established. The Westminster government permitted a referendum on independence in 2014 and the 55-45% vote in favour of the union was a relief, but too close for comfort. More recently the collapse in the global price of oil has ruined the economics of the North Sea Oil industry, a lynch-pin in the SNP’s budgetary case. In 2015’s general election Labour’s vote collapsed and the SNP won another 50 seats to add to its existing 6. The SNP was led by Nicola Sturgeon, a feisty Glaswegian, but narrow and coarse-grained to my taste. There were signs of a Conservative revival in the Scottish elections of 2016 under the vigorous leadership of Edinburgh’s Ruth Davidson, but she is a kick-boxing Lesbian – not at all the tweedy, land-owning Unionist with which I am more familiar!

Edinburgh changes constantly like any city. Her beauty thankfully does not much change and I echo contemporary writer Alexander McCall Smith’s words;

This is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again.

For those who have never been, come and visit. For those who know her well, refresh your spirit by savouring again the city’s conviviality, fascinating history and friendly atmosphere.

Convivial Edinburgh

Historic Edinburgh

                                                                 

SMD

10.06.16

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016