We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
Even in the cities, Scots seem eager to share their pride in their heritage
Even the back of Edinburgh Castle is impressive. That’s it in the photo above. That’s where you build a castle, of course: atop a massive, virtually unclimbable outcropping of rock for maximum defensibility. Down behind it, where this photo was taken, is an elongated “square” called the Haymarket. It’s not known for its hay. It’s where the public hangings used to be held.
And it’s ringed with pubs; because of the hangings, it was an entertainment district of sorts. (Back before reality TV, people used to pack up the kids and a picnic, go to the town square, and take in some hangings.) The public executions have stopped, but the revelry continues. One of the old pubs is called The Last Drop. The dark humor of that name is genius, and there is something very Scottish about that.
To be fair, I’ve been to Scotland only twice, so my findings are drawn from a very limited dataset, as they say in the research biz. I do want to return to conduct further observations. But so far, my impression is that Scots are quite friendly, though sometimes in a gruff way, practical, honest, unpretentious, and have a slightly grim outlook infused with a wickedly wry sense of humor—mockery, like terrorism, being the weapon of a subjugated but fiercely proud people.
The evening I arrived on my most recent trip, I rode the airport bus into Glasgow exhausted, sleep-deprived, confused, and nearly broken by two days of canceled flights, delayed flights, missed connections, and being addressed by British Airways staff as madam. I carried everything I needed for the entire week on my back and in a capacious handbag, because BA surcharges for EVERY SINGLE SEAT on its flights AND for checked baggage, and I had to draw the line somewhere. Disoriented and aching, I found my way to my hotel at golden hour—and it was beautiful. Overlooking the River Clyde and a little riverbank park with daffodils blooming. I resisted the urge to tumble into bed and resolved to go downstairs to the bar/restaurant, revive with a refreshing beverage and perhaps a small meal (my stomach was so baffled by the odd things I’d been sending it at random intervals over the previous 12 hours that it had gone into a sulk), and try to stay up for a few hours to keep the jet lag at bay.
The young barmen were pleasantly chatty and took good care of me, helping me find my way to a crisp pint and a plate of delicious mushroom arancini that was exactly the comfort my bewildered palate and digestion needed. Then I met a delightful couple. Liz and John, Glaswegian suburbanites of roughly my own vintage, were in town for a night out, saw I was on my own, and invited me to join them. We started chatting and laughing like old friends and buying rounds of drinks. It was almost as if they were sent somehow to wash away all the indignities and discomforts of the journey and welcome me warmly to Scotland. They set the tone for the whole week.
I had never been to Glasgow before, and, while it is slightly grittier than Edinburgh, it is not without beautiful architecture, good food, hustle, bustle, and charm. The Queen Street railway station has a public piano in it. Nothing fancy, just an upright against the wall at one side of the waiting area. But it’s in tune and in good condition. A track worker in a safety vest was playing it while I waited for the train north one morning. This is apparently a thing; I saw another public piano in Edinburgh Airport, being banged on a bit by a child but also in good condition.
Can you imagine what would happen to an unsupervised public piano in an airport or, God help us, train station in this country? This is something I felt over there that I almost never feel here: a spirit of community, of all-in-this-togetherness. It’s what made Brits open their windows and applaud and bang pots for their NHS medical workers during the pandemic. It’s why the hulks of shipwrecks on the shores of Loch Linnhe aren’t covered in graffiti. Of course, there’s crime and domestic violence and vandalism and general shittiness there too; they’re not angels, and bad apples exist everywhere. I just had a sense of … I guess, what used to be called good citizenship. It feels hokey even to type that phrase now. It might be symptomatic of the same culture that makes them value good queueing etiquette so highly. Perhaps people who care for the sanctity of an orderly line can also be trusted with public pianos.
Anyway, this was my view from my room at the Clayton Hotel in Glasgow upon arrival. I really only spent my first night there and another afternoon and night there a few days later before going on to Edinburgh, so I can’t tell you much about the city. Except this: Glasgow has a subway, and the done thing, if you’re keen on pubs, is to embark on the Subcrawl, a loop of convivial self-harm in which one visits at least one and sometimes several pubs close to each of the 15 subway stations. If you’re going to do that, don’t wear the wrong football jersey. (Wearing the jersey of the Protestant team in a Catholic neighborhood invites trouble, as does the inverse.) As I said, they’re not angels.
The train trip between Glasgow and Edinburgh is about as long as the train trip between, say, Philadelphia and New York but is infinitely more beautiful. The train was crowded, but several fellow passengers offered to help with my luggage, and a young man gave me his forward-facing seat—unasked—so I could better enjoy the scenery.
I had a particularly memorable pub experience in Edinburgh, an amusing cultural exchange with a handful of middle-aged men in a tiny, out-of-the-way pub called Kay’s.
As soon as they heard me speak, they were on alert. Not many tourists find their way to Kay’s, apparently, which is admittedly far from the Royal Mile and its busy environs. They asked whether this was my first trip to Scotland, and I said something like “I’ve been to Edinburgh once before,” which caused an immediate reaction.
“She said it right!” one said. “An American! And she said it right!” The one closest to me and the most intrigued—I’ll call him Andy—explained that Americans tend to mispronounce the capital’s name as either “Edinberg,” with a hard r and g, or a carefully enunciated “Edin-boro.” These are both wrong or at least inauthentic and provoked eye-rolling and shaking of heads. I was pronouncing it closer to correctly: “Edinbruh.” When you let that roll out of your mouth after a pint, it should hint at the hidden “borough” under the contraction “burgh.” In fact, “I’m from Pittsbruh, myself,” I said.
(That is actually not a facetious remark: Pittsburgh was named by a Scot, General John Forbes. In a 1758 letter advising Prime Minister William Pitt that his British forces have taken Fort Duquesne from the French, Forbes christens the place “Pittsbourgh.” (Way to do some vintage quill-pen sucking up!) Burgh and bourgh were variant spellings of borough that had been obsolete in England for a century when Forbes wrote his letter, but those spellings were still in use in Scotland—as in Edinburgh—and, as I said, Forbes was a Scot. He and who knows how many of his men probably pronounced Pittsburgh in the Scottish way!)
Having finished my half-pint, I ordered a whisky with ice—*record scratch*. My goodwill evaporated in a cold drizzle of “Och, she ordered it with ice!” The rest of the herd moved on, but Andy muscled in to perform CPR. “That’s not the way to have whisky,” he mansplained (it’s my whisky and I’ll drink it with a shot of grenadine and a cocktail onion in it if I want …) “Here, let me—what are you drinking?” (… but if you’re buying, I guess I’ll indulge you). I told him, and he called the barman over and ordered another, neat, on his tab, “with water.” When you order whisky this way in Scotland, the server will bring you a glass of straight booze and a wee carafe of water. It’s DIY. You put that water in a few drops at a time, tasting after each dribble, so as to get the exact scientifically optimal mixture for your discerning taste.
I knew this. I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, you know; I’ve been to whisky tastings. I also know that I like my whisky slightly cooler than room temperature, so I ask for an ice cube but quietly monitor the melt rate so that I finish the whisky before it becomes tragically watered down. Put that in your peat bog and smoke it, Andy. P.S. thanks for the Glenmorangie 12. It would have been better with some ice.
This last image is a statue of a dog in front of a pub named after him: Greyfriars Bobby. The story of this little terrier is iconic in Scotland, and there have been books and films as well as a pub and statue in his honor. In the early 1850s, a night watchman named John Gray patrolled the streets of Edinburgh. He got a dog for companionship, and through the lonely nights, snow and rain and wind and cold, he and Bobby could reliably be seen making their rounds and keeping the neighborhood safe. Then John Gray came down with tuberculosis. He succumbed to it in February of 1858 and was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard. Bobby settled himself by his master’s grave and would not move.
Neither foul Scottish weather nor the church groundskeeper were able to dislodge Bobby. Eventually the groundskeeper built a little shelter for him by the grave. Bobby had one trusted friend, a local tradesman who would come to the graveyard every day at 1 p.m. sharp to take Bobby to lunch at a nearby coffeehouse. Bobby was still keeping his vigil in 1867 when the city passed a law requiring all dogs to be licensed on pain of death. A city official paid Bobby’s license fee and gave him an inscribed collar, which is on display in the Museum of Edinburgh.
Bobby became quite a fixture during his loyal 14-year residency in the churchyard and was cherished by the people of Edinburgh. He died in 1872 at the age of 16 and was buried just a few feet away from John Gray. The RSPCA erected the statue the following year.
Can I get you a tissue? How about a whisky?