Down memory lane

A few weeks ago I mentioned, in passing, the Oxford Bar in Edinburgh.

It featured in Rebus, the recent TV series that portrayed a younger version of the fictional detective created by Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin.

Unlike Rebus, the Oxford Bar is not a figment of the author’s imagination. It actually exists and Rankin has been drinking there since the 1980s.

What I didn't say is that the Oxford Bar is just a few hundred yards from where I once lived in the early Nineties.

By coincidence the flat we rented for almost two years was on sale recently and I can honestly say that only one property I have ever lived in - the Camberwell house I bought with a friend at the height of the Eighties housing boom - had as much character or history.

Both properties were Edwardian, I think, but in terms of size they were complete opposites.

The Camberwell property (which I lost money on after the market collapsed before I moved to Edinburgh!) was a substantial Grade II listed four-story town house with 2-3 reception rooms, three bedrooms, a kitchen and utility room in the basement, plus a rooftop terrace.

In contrast the Edinburgh property was a small but perfectly formed flat with a sitting room, two bedrooms, and a kitchen just big enough for a small dining table.

It was owned by the father of the friend I had bought the house with in Camberwell.

Through Peter I had known Aldric since we were at Aberdeen University in the late Seventies. His father was one of the nicest, most generous people you could meet.

(Among other things, he underwrote our legal costs when we were sued for defamation while producing an independent student newspaper in 1978!)

He was also a bit eccentric but that was part of his charm.

As well as owning an antiques shop in the heart of Edinburgh’s New Town, Aldric owned several other properties in the same street, including a number of flats.

As luck would have it, when my wife and I decided to move back to Scotland, eight months after we got married, one of them became available to rent.

Better still we were the very first tenants because although the building, like the street, was 200-years-old, the flat itself was ‘new’. Let me explain.

Before we moved in the flat as we know it today didn’t exist. Instead - and this probably dates back to the 18th century when the New Town was first developed - the building was a patchwork of individual rooms with, I assume, shared toilets and bathrooms, although the latter were probably a 20th century addition.

The rooms were owned by people who either lived there or rented them to tenants.

Over time individual rooms would come on the market and Aldric would buy some of them until he was able to reconfigure and convert them into proper flats with their own kitchen and bathroom.

Thankfully he kept some of the original features so it was like stepping back in history.

The two largest rooms in what became our flat overlooked a narrow cobbled street and were the same size. One was designated as the sitting room, the other as the main bedroom.

Originally, however, those two rooms had to accommodate entire families and above the door to what was our sitting room was the original plaque that read:

No more than 14 people shall live in this room

A similar restriction would no doubt have applied to the room that was now the main bedroom, so imagine that - up to 28 people living in two adjacent rooms, with no indoor toilet!

Two smaller rooms had been converted into a kitchen and second bedroom (which I used as an office).

Together with a small bathroom, they overlooked the mews behind the building where what were once stables would have housed all the horses in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In 1992 that random collection of rooms – now converted into a modern two-bedroom flat – was perfect for us.

Situated in the heart of the New Town, we could not have found a better location. Bars, restaurants, and cafes were right on our doorstep, but Thistle Street was relatively quiet.

We lived there for 18 months before buying our own flat in Morningside, a couple of miles from the city centre, but while we were there we absolutely loved it.

As I wrote here:

Today, although it’s been gentrified, Thistle Street has an irresistible Dickensian charm and we were very happy there, living above Aldric’s antique shop, popping in to the Thistle Street Bar or having tea and cakes in the wonderful James Thin bookshop (now closed) on George Street, a few minutes' walk from the flat.

But perhaps my favourite memory took place within 24 hours of our moving there on December 28, 1992.

Like a scene from a Victorian Christmas card, large snowflakes began to fall and the cobbles - indeed the entire street - quickly disappeared under a thick white blanket of snow.

Even today, when I’m in Edinburgh, I sometimes revisit Thistle Street because I still have very fond memories of the place.

Our old flat has now been sold and I envy the new owners. It’s a lovely property in a fantastic location so I wish them every happiness in their new home.

PS. It may not be online for much longer but here’s a gallery of photos.

See also: Thistle Street: UNESCO World Heritage Site:

Thistle Street, tucked away in the heart of Edinburgh’s New Town, was … originally built as affordable homes. However it was not long before shops started opening up, offering luxury goods to the residents of the New Town …

Its intimate scale and historic architecture provide a unique backdrop for a thriving community of local businesses.

Also: Recollections of Thistle Street (circa 1956-1966):

“Further along past Burkes and in the middle of this section of Thistle Street was an antique shop and a little farther on a stair where the local ‘ladies of the night’ used to hang around waiting for custom.

“I used to chat to them and vividly remember when I was about 10 being invited upstairs if I had a shilling – I didn’t go and, anyway, why should I pay a bob to go upstairs?"

Update: It seems my late landlord was not universally loved and admired. According to one of his peers in the antiques world:

Thistle Street was home to the late Kenneth Jackson, a man of great taste and bitter humour, who more than once greeted me at the shop door fresh from his bath, wearing just a pink silk bath robe! Nearby was Aldric Young a man of bitter moods as ill-tempered as the parrot he kept in a cage in the showrooms.

As someone once said, recollections may vary …