The Leither 166

Priceless Issue 166

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The Mystery of New York’s Man-Woman W

hen Murray Hall died in 1901, he left no words that would be shared with the world. No writing survives in which the New York bailbondsman, brawler, womaniser, gambler and politico, tells his own story.

But in the months after his body was examined and swiftly announced dead of breast cancer and declared a woman, countless columns of newsprint were spun out of the ‘mystery’.

The sensationalist press of the time carried headlines like, ‘Known as a Man for Sixty Years, She Died a Woman’ and ‘The Mystery of New York’s ManWoman’.

His life was written and rewritten, in a story that provided scandal and entertainment for New York and beyond. Even now, in Scotland, over a century later, we are telling it - this time in the form of a novel, heavily based on the newspaper articles of the time.

Over the past few years, in researching the novel Murray Hall with my cowriter, Milo Clenshaw, I have spent many hours trawling through the newspaper testimonies of Hall’s friends and acquaintances and following a trail of speculation that leads back to Scotland.

Two sets of eyes, those of a 27-year-old trans man (Milo), and of a 54-year-old cis woman (me), have peered at the same life, as we tried to pick our way through the multitude of stories and shape them into something based around the fictional narrative of a journalist investigating his story.

Murray’s life certainly was colourful.

A small man, often dressed in an oversized coat and straw hat, sometimes wielding a threatening blackthorn cane, he had been married, possibly twice, perhaps three times. He was also known to have “whipped a policeman”, drank, smoked, played a mean hand of poker, and proved himself in the shady world of Tammany Hall politics. He even, as headlines declared with some shock, “voted”.

But also, Hall appears to have inhabited a household of women, including wife, Celia, and adopted

A newspaper report daughter Minnie Hall. Tales of his marriage are not always pretty. on the death of Interviews with his wife’s sister, Murray Hall

A small man, often dressed in an oversized coat wielding a threatening blackthorn cane

Ellen Elba Hobbs revealed that he was abusive, threatening and controlling, exerting some kind of “power” over her.

Remarkably few acquaintances or loved ones seemed to express any suspicion that he was a woman.

Daughter Minnie, for instance, refused at an inquest to refer to him as she.

One of the things that makes him so hard to fathom is that contradictory tales were told about his past and background, many of them presumably generated by him. Was he a ‘fortyniner’ who had sought his fortune in the California goldrush? Or a Scottish nobleman in pursuit of a lost fortune?

Nevertheless, one story became key in determining how Murray’s life would be understood, and it was broken by the New York World. The source, an elderly Scottish former nurse, Mrs. Canning, revealed that she believed Murray

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Hall was originally John Campbell, a person who had been at the centre of a similar scandal thirty years previously in Scotland.

Campbell, an itinerant worker, who had moved around the central belt working on farms, on railway construction, and a shipbuilder’s forge.

Shifting between Govan, Duddingston, Paisley and Kirknewton (where he was married to a woman with two children), took ill in 1871 when Scotland was in the grip of a smallpox epidemic.

He caught the disease from his landlady for whom he had been caring, and when the doctor was summoned, he was told he must go straight to hospital.

He refused, prompting the doctor’s question, ‘‘Was it because of sex?”

Campbell answered in the affirmative, and what followed, including the publication of his story in the UK press (so Mrs. Canning’s testimony went) was what drove him to emigrate to the “land of promise”.

I have no idea if these two really were the same (and a lot of doubts), but what matters, in terms of our book, was that many thought they were. Nor do I think there is much we can say with certainty about what Murray’s own feelings were about what we might now call his gender.

As Milo, in his postscript to our novel puts it: “There are many reasons why Hall might have lived as he did, the two most obvious being that he was transgender, or that he saw and understood the privileges men enjoyed and wanted to access them himself. It is possible that both were true.”

For myself, I do believe that he was trans, or at least genderqueer, because I can’t imagine someone committing so fully to a life that didn’t truly reflect who they were.

But that’s just more conjecture – if there is an objective truth to the story of Murray Hall, we haven’t found it. n Vicky Allan Ê Info: Murray Hall by Milo Allan is published by Black & White £16.99

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Issue 166 | leithermagazine.com | 3

F

or those of you who aren’t currently employed as a Professor of Bob Dylan Studies at Harvard University - yes, there is such a thing - the lyric above comes from Dylan’s song You’re a big girl now..

And I’m sure that we’ve all experienced moments when we suddenly realise that seismic shifts in time are all but invisible until they jolt you from the humdrum monotony of everyday tasks and you realise that every sunrise is actually a reminder of your own mortality, and you should grab every opportunity that life affords you.

As Ian McCulloch of Echo and the Bunnymen sings on Nothing lasts forever: “I want it now, I want it now, don’t tell me that my ship is coming in, nothing comes to those who wait, time’s running out the door you’re running in.”

I had one of those moments recently.

As I was winding the clocks in my flat forward to welcome in summertime, and it suddenly hit me that it only seemed like a week or so ago that I was knee deep in twisted sellotape and wrapping paper off-cuts, listening to Noddy Holder screaming his lungs out as Christmas approached. Three and a half months.

Gone in the blink of an eye.

What had I done in those three and a half months? I couldn’t think of anything of particular importance, but between singing along with Noddy and then twirling the hands of the clocks around, 96 days had flashed by. Which got me thinking; how do we all actually fill our days as we plunge headlong towards the big sleep?

Well obviously, this all depends on who you are, where you are, what you 4 | leithermagazine.com | Issue 166

believe, how much or how little control you have over events, and myriad other circumstances which dictate your very existence. Here are a few examples.

Donald Trump kicked off this week by throwing the entire globe into economic turmoil by imposing tariffs on every nation in the world. The Donald is so cripplingly in thrall to these tariffs, that he actually imposed them on territories which have no human populations and are home to seals and penguins (which presumably, export biscuits).

When quizzed about this, the US Commerce Secretary said that it was to “close loopholes”.

Maybe he should start with trying to close the hole in the President’s backside which he speaks through.

However, Trump is simply on a mission to show his dead father that he’s not the deadbeat that his dad always thought he was. He has never recovered from the trauma of being looked upon as a loser and will do anything which he thinks will rid himself of the shame. I’m sure his dad is looking down on him. Just like he did when he was alive.

Munther Abed is a Palestinian paramedic. On 23 March, he was in a convoy of ambulances and other emergency vehicles who were

The IDF claimed that the vehicles had no emergency lights on and were harbouring Hamas operatives

Graham Ross

Time is a jet plane, it moves too fast”

responding to reports of civilians having been shot and wounded by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) just outside Rafah.

As the convoy approached in the dark, it came under fire from the IDF and in the subsequent aftermath, 15 of Munther’s colleagues were killed and buried in a mass grave along with their emergency vehicles. The IDF claimed that the vehicles had no emergency lights on and were harbouring Hamas operatives. Mobile phone footage of the convoy’s approach retrieved from one of the emergency workers killed, shows the claim about emergency lights to be false.

No Hamas operatives were found amongst the 15 dead. Munther was held and interrogated by the IDF for 15 hours before being released. He returned to work trying to save lives.

My own week has started fairly unspectacularly as always. I woke up needing coffee and am lucky enough to have some in the flat and the power with which to heat it up. I’m giving my friend Anna a lift to work and then I’ll call my mum and arrange to pick her up and go for some more coffee and her obligatory bacon roll. I’m on duty as my sister, who usually looks after her, is doing grandchildren’s stuff as it’s the school holidays.

After I take my mum home, I’ll try and catch up with domestic stuff but will no doubt put it off, walk along the Water of Leith, and then retire to the pub for a few beers and a nonsense talking session with my friends. Then it will be food, a bit of telly, and bed.

When I’ll suddenly remember I have a Leither article to write… n

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Issue 166 | leithermagazine.com | 5

A new link to the past Photographs: Charlie Ellis

E

dinburgh is one of the most congested cities in the UK. Fortunately, it also contains numerous splendid paths that offer something of a bucolic escape - along waterways and ex-railways - from gridlock and over-tourism. The Water of Leith Walkway, the Burdiehouse Burn Path, among others, offer places where you can traverse, enveloped by nature. ’ These ‘green corridors’ are a wonderful asset to the city, benefitting physical and mental health. The exrailway path network on the north side of the city offers this in abundance. Leith is lucky to be served by so many of these paths. This is a manifestation of the dense network of rail lines that used to surge into the area and what a busy port and centre of industry it was. The paths give us a way to appreciate the past, in the present. What about the future?

A new link

An addition to Edinburgh’s paths offers something different. The newly opened link from Roseburn to Fountainbridge allows smooth ‘active travel’ across terrain that has been extremely difficult to navigate, whatever your preferred mode of transport. The new green corridor simplifies things for those on foot, in wheelchairs or on bikes. The impressive new bridges built as part of the project offer new connections, new possibilities.

The new path links Fountainbridge to Russell Road. There, via a short roadside section, it meets the Roseburn Path, part of the ex-railway path network. At the Fountainbridge end, it meets the West Approach Road and the Telfer Subway.

From there, it’s just a short distance to the Union Canal. In forging this link, the new path brings the canal, the ex-railway paths and the Water of Leith Walkway within easy reach of each other. This opens up several options for unbroken walking and cycling across the city.

A new path and new bridge linking Roseburn to Fountainbridge

New views

Opened in December 2025, the path’s surroundings remain a little bleak at present, waiting for grass and foliage to spring into life. It’s a reminder that, controversially, a significant number of trees had to be removed at Sauchiebank in order to build the link. New saplings have been planted to replace them. In time, this route will start to resemble Edinburgh’s more scenic paths. But not yet. In truth, this path will never be picturesque.

But it gives you views of the city rarely seen, or allows you to look at familiar things from unusual angles. It’s a puzzle trying to work out what fits where. This area of the city is a real hodgepodge, with buildings and businesses wedged between roads and railway lines. There’s very little accessible green space here, indeed very little accessible space full stop.

6 | leithermagazine.com | Issue 166

The paths are in some sense the lungs allowing the city to breathe

Transformation

The buildings in this area are in various states, some badly in need of attention.

Hopefully, as this area is redeveloped, they can be repurposed, not erased. They are a reminder of the deeply industrial character of this area, even today. This is not the genteel and elegant city usually portrayed in the tourist guides. The industries that were based around here are a key part of the city’s heritage. The new path is helping to reveal some of these, enriching our vision of the past.

This wedge of the city most closely resembles a modern metropolis. Busy roads, glass towers (at Haymarket) and general sense of dislocation. It mirrors, dare I say it, parts of Glasgow. Here it feels as if different transport eras (canal, train, tram, car, active travel) are battling for primacy as they criss-cross each other (the private car still seems to be winning the ‘war’).

Last remnants

The areas served by the new path connection are increasingly busy, with the new residential section of the city at Fountainbridge expanding every

month. This is transforming an area previously dominated by breweries and other industries, including the massive Castle Mills building of the North British Rubber Company. The last remaining remnant of this is now the home of Edinburgh Printmakers, which has enriched the cultural aspect of this area of the city.

The value of this path to the city will become evident in time. It’s already well used. Fortunately, the new path is generally wide, allowing sufficient space for cyclists and pedestrians. This is in contrast with some other paths, especially the canal walkway, which can be crowded and cramped at times.

Unencumbered by traffic and noise Edinburgh’s path network is thankfully growing and its importance recognised evermore. Something manifested by the Save the Roseburn Path campaign, opposed to that part of the path network becoming a tram route. The paths help keep the city liveable and walkable, despite a growing population and significant increases in traffic and tourism. They are in some sense lungs allowing the city to breathe.

They transport walkers and cyclists to interesting places that could otherwise be missed and add to Edinburgh’s rather unique character.

The new Roseburn to Union Canal connection has added something that is both practical and interesting, giving us a new view of the city. It will hopefully add urgency to plans to realise other potential paths, such as the proposed Powderhall to Abbeyhill link.

Where next? n Charlie Ellis

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Performance: a splintered kaleidoscope Legendary is a word that comes easily when thinking of Scottishborn filmmaker Donald Cammell, writes Kennedy Wilson

A

descendant of Charles Cammell of shipbuilders Cammell Laird he was born in Edinburgh’s Outlook Tower on Castlehill (now the Camera Obscura) in 1943. His mother was an aristocrat and his father had a strong interest in the occult writing a book on Aleister Crowley who was once described as ‘the wickedest man in England’. Donald shared his father’s interest in the dark arts for the rest of his life Cammell is best remembered for his late-1960s cult movie Performance, made in 1968 but not released until 1970, after clashes with Warner Bros the studio that financed it. The studio executives were expecting something colourfully groovy but got drugs, decadence and decay.

Cammell wrote the screenplay and co-directed with Nicholas Roeg, another visionary who went on to make 1976’s The Man Who Fell to Earth with David Bowie. Performance can now be seen on pristine Blu-ray and UHD discs from Criterion. Even in this final state it’s dly mangled. It was said that this was the best film in which Mick Jagger appeared (which doesn’t say much).

Full of literary references (Burroughs, Borges), bloody violence, homoeroticism and druggy sex it is a tough but rewarding watch yet often teeters towards pretentiousness.

There’s a famous scene when a chauffeur has his head shaved by gangsters and the paintwork of his Roller is doused with acid. In another, a pouting Jagger horses around in an opart-tiled bathroom with naked women.

As a very young man, Cammell was a gifted society portraitist and was prized by the In Crowd. But he saw painting as old hat. Film was the medium with the real message. First a screenwriter on 1968’s star-studded movie Duffy, it was Performance that was to be Donald Cammell’s Citizen Kane.

James Fox played (against type) an East End thug on the run from the filth and the Firm hiding out in a ramshackle basement in Notting Hill – then the stamping ground of notorious

Did Jagger’s on-screen dalliance with Anita Pallenberg, the partner of Keith Richards, divide the Stones?

slumlord Peter Rachman, a leading character in the 1963 Profumo scandal.

To research the part Fox hung out with London gangsters and, rumour had it, got tips on where to buy his suits and get his hair cut by the ever-dapper Ronnie Kray. Fox’s character finds that living upstairs is his landlord, a faded rockstar (played by Jagger) and his two nubile friends-with-benefits Anita Pallenberg (at the time Keith Richards’ squeeze) and Michèl Breton.

The contrast between the diamond geezer gangster and the hippie pop star is stark. With his blouses, long hair, eyeshadow and lipstick Jagger is ravishing (or like Ziggy Stardust’s auntie depending on your point of view). ‘You’ll look funny when you’re 50,’ says Fox’s character (Jagger is now in his 80s!).

The grimy apartment is like the Biba boutique stockroom ransacked by rats: all candles and flowing ethnic drapes perfect for a debauched lifestyle of sex and magic mushrooms and rock’n’roll. ‘The film was an allegory of libertine Chelsea life in the late-60s… that preserves a whole era under glass,’

wrote Jagger’s muse Marianne Faithful who died in February 2025.

Film writer David Thomson wrote of Performance: ‘It has to be seen – it is very visceral but it’s very heady too – and that element requires patience.’ In his excellent book Supporting Features film critic Damien Love wrote: ‘The film resembles a splintered kaleidoscope, as fragmentary flash-cuts, flashbacks, flash-forwards proliferate and merge’.

The movie had its problems.

The studio hated it and demanded changes and it sat on a shelf for two years before it was released. Rumours about the filming were legion.

‘Were the sex scenes involving Anita Pallenberg, Michèle Breton and Jagger “real”? Did this on-screen dalliance with Pallenberg, partner to Keith Richards, divide the Stones? Was this the reason for Keith’s descent into heroin addiction?’ wrote Mark Bannerman in his review of the 2019 book Performance: The Making of a Classic (Coattail Publications).

After he finished the film, Fox had a religious conversion of sorts dropping out of acting for several years. Flirting with the occult, late in 1968 Jagger made the song ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ the lead track on the Stones’ album Beggar’s Banquet (for which Pallenberg sang back-up). Pallenberg struggled with addiction for most of the rest of her life.

Cammell made an appearance in underground filmmaker (and Aleister Crowley fan) Kenneth Anger’s experimental film Lucifer Rising (1972).

Cammell played Osiris, Marianne Faithful was Lilith, and Manson Family acolyte Bobby Beausoliel did the soundtrack.

Things were getting dark.

Donald Cammell never really achieved fame. He made a few other films the most interesting was Demon Seed (1977) in which a robot impregnates Julie Christie.

He finally took his own life in 1996 when he shot himself in his Hollywood home.

Legend had it that he took 45 minutes to die during which time he insisted his wife hold up a mirror so that he could witness his own death. n Ê Info: Performance is on Blu-ray and UHD discs from Criterion Ê Bluesky: @kenwilson84.bsky.social Issue 166 | leithermagazine.com | 9

“Ooh

Miss Jones…”

Lawrence Lettice delves into what constitutes an enduring sitcom

S

ome say that the art of writing a successful television sitcom, is no laughing matter.

Yet, I guess, if the British public were to name their all-time favourite TV sitcoms, three would inevitably emerge jostling near the top: Dad’s Army, Fawlty Towers and Only Fools and Horses. Even after several decades, this comedic trio have never failed to lose their hilarious grip on the British public.

However, there are many past examples of varying quality, now forgotten and consigned to the waste bins of television history.

For those of a certain age, who’s memories can stretch far back into broadcasting antiquity, the traditional sitcom probably came into proper public attention by the close of the 1950s.

Some early examples included The Army Game (which later spawned a sequel of sorts with Bootsie & Snudge) and of course, Hancock’s Half Hour, which had previously aired on radio.

It featured the sublime pairing of Tony Hancock and Sid James, grumbling, groaning and sighing, while giving vent to their daily frustrations of life, amidst their humble London surroundings.

As the 1960s progressed, many sitcoms mirrored the more recognisable and humdrum working lives of ordinary Brits; something that was frequently highlighted in many a 1960s British film.

Possibly the perfect example arrived in the shape of a father and son rag and bone business called Steptoe and Son. The two main protagonists were not comedians, but actors, revealing a flair for comedy, while being ably assisted by the observant writing of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.

Whilst examining these early examples (as well as many comedies that followed) a common thread could be seen running through several of them: social aspiration, manic confusion & character frustration.

Currently, a relatively new TV channel (That’s TV) has been rescreening some rare comedy gold (or 10 | leithermagazine.com | Issue 166

Rossiter in mothridden cardigan, gives his young tenants, and Vienna the cat, a hard time

Rising Damp has been called the greatest ITV sitcom, compared to the works of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter

dire comedy dross) from the not-toodistant past.

Sitcoms that both the BBC and ITV appear to be somewhat wary, reluctant and hesitant to re-show; no doubt due to what is generally now regarded as – ‘problematic material’!

The likes of Till Death Us Do Part, Up Pompeii, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, On the Buses and Nearest And Dearest, have all been resurrected from their cobwebbed crypts, to once more entertain (or shock!) today’s TV audiences.

Perhaps the traditional sitcom plumbed new headshaking depths, with two shows standing out: Love Thy Neighbour and the often-forgotten Curry and Chips. The former focused on the blinkered racial bigotry (verbalised on a regular basis) from a narrow minded prejudiced white man, to his new black neighbour. Certainly, a world away from the cosy middle class familiarity of Terry and June.

As for the latter, Curry and Chips arrived towards the end of 1969 with seemingly impeccable credentials: a script by Johnny Speight, and starring two of the UK’s top comedians, Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes.

A public outcry and accusations of outrageous racism (not forgetting the startling image of Spike Milligan blacked up as an Irish/Pakistani) forced the series to be eventually pulled from the schedules.

An ignominious conclusion to a series

that – even back then – caused a storm of controversy.

One 1970s sitcom has been regularly re-shown on a virtual loop these past months and still stands extremely high in the pantheon – Rising Damp. It has even been described as the greatest ever ITV sitcom, while being loosely compared with the works of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter.

A bit of a stretch perhaps, but some critics have pinpointed the unlikely comparisons.

Written by Eric Chappell, it began life as a stage play called The Banana Box, with Wilfred Brambell (from Steptoe and Son), cast as the lecherous, penny-pinching landlord of a seedy, downmarket bedsit.

At that time, the character was named Rooksby (later changed to the more familiar Rigsby, when transferred to television) with the peerless Leonard Rossiter putting on the moth-ridden cardigan, while giving his young tenants (not forgetting Vienna, the cat) a hard time, whilst railing against life’s injustices.

Rigsby was very much a product of his time: a man seething with ill-concealed prejudices, and lustful frustrations, while constantly bemoaning how life has treated him. In fact, he was not unlike a former work colleague of mine, who often displayed ‘Rigsby like tendencies’, throughout much of the time I observed him in action!

Despite Rigsby’s barbed insults to his black tenant, he is confronted by the fact that the younger man (son of an African Chief, with ten wives!) is far more culturally sophisticated and intellectually polished than himself.

Then there is the object of his thwarted desire, the prim, proper and eternally spinsterish Miss Jones, who attempts to keep his lustful advances at arm’s length…for as long as she can.

The confined setting, the hilarious situations, the overall excellence of the writing and the accomplished playing of the cast, continues to set the bar high in the world of situation comedy.

Thankfully, the show’s comedic durability appears to have lasted far longer than the frayed and tatty carpets and wallpaper adorning Rigsby’s bleak house! n

Issue 166 | leithermagazine.com | 11

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60 Constitution Street, Leith, Edinburgh 60 Constitution Street, EH6 6RR Leith, Edinburgh EH6@CowansLeith 6RR @CowansLeith

Botanica Scotia comes to Leith before moving to the V&A in Dundee On the 18th May 2025, 30 countries will be taking part in a worldwide exhibition of botanical art.

Anne Dana tells us more…

T

he theme is celebrating biodiversity in the crops that have been associated with the human species over thousands of years and grown around the world.

We humans are now as a species, finally waking up to the changes occurring in the Earth’s climate; caused by an ever increasing population explosion and the dramatic warming of our planet.

To feed our increasing population, we now have crop cultivation on a massive scale, often with fewer and fewer types of plants. However, due to climatic conditions changing, more and more crops are being ruined by floods, droughts or pests and diseases.

This is why the theme of this year’s exhibition is heritage crops; grown here, and in each of the participating countries for longer than 50 years.

Focusing on foraged foods, heritage vegetables and fruits that are less grown and often tastier. We need crop diversity, and we have to look to our country’s

Focusing on foraged foods, heritage vegetables and fruits that are less grown and often tastier

Cirsium vulgare, Spear Thistle by Sheila Anderson Hardy

Brassica napus, Sutherland Kale

by Lizzie Sanders

on display. The Society has been in existence for 10 years promoting botanical painting throughout Scotland.

Holding classes, exhibitions and giving demonstrations.

In Scotland we have a long history of botanical painting. Used initially to illustrate mainly medicinal plants and to assist the searcher after flowers and herbs. However in the 17th century this useful plant guide gave way to more artistic illustrations of the rare Trifolium pratense, Red Clover by Marie Barbour

Agathis australis Kauri, Female Seed Cone by Erin Forsyth

variety of heritage and heirloom crops; not only for food but also for medicinal usage.

We are delighted to be able to show this exhibition in Leith. Scotland’s’ contribution to this worldwide exhibition can be seen from 15-20th May, at Customs House Gallery, Commercial Street, Leith from 10-4pm - entry is free, before going to the V & A Dundee for the month of July.

In Dundee it will be part of an exhibition entitled Garden Futures: Designing in Nature. Works from the other participating countries will be shown as a digital slide show via a video monitor.

So you can see the variety of fruit, vegetable and herbs that are part of each countries cultivation.

Shown alongside this; The annual exhibition of the Scottish Society of Botanical Artists will have works

flowers grown in the gardens of wealthy amateurs.

The botanical artist has to render the plant scientifically accurate while at the same time trying to capture its character and beauty. A botanical illustration is an idealised yet scientifically accurate representation of an individual plant that includes all of the distinguishing features in a way that is not always possible to capture in a photograph.

This is a chance to see beautifully illustrated and painted pictures; while giving food for thought as well as ideas on how we might all think of diversifying what we grow, that is if we are fortunate enough to have an allotment or garden.

But if not, just come and enjoy. n Ê Info: botanicascotia.uk Ê Facebook: thessbaorg/ Issue 166 | leithermagazine.com | 13

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his Greek guy will explain.

“Listen, I swear to Zeus I haven’t been near that place in the woods where the mushrooms grow, but how about we build a huge wooden horse? And this is the good bit, oh I know you’re going to love this, we make a hollow belly and…”

You have to admire the cojones of the Trojan, let’s call him Pericles after a flatmate of my student days, who had that light bulb moment – even if it was more a flaming torch moment, or a smouldering ashes of Troy moment, or not a moment at all, given it existed in the realm of myth.

But let’s not quibble for it must still rank as one of the most impressive acts of misdirection ever, an exemplar of what Forbes Magazine might call the high art of low cunning, surpassed perhaps only by Jefferson’s insistence on the phrase “the pursuit of happiness” in the drafting of the US Declaration of Independence.

My contention is that happiness, and for Jefferson the word was of course a stand-in for money or profit, is not something to be hunted like the Snark, the Wilderpeople or Red October. Happiness isn’t an object, an objective, a key performance indicator, a dividend, or a profit margin. Nor is it somewhere you look up on Trip Adviser. Happiness is a feeling and, as with any feeling, it will surely pass and be surpassed by the next feeling.

To dress in Victorian whites and run through a poppy field trying to catch happiness with a butterfly net is folly, as is to daub an outline of its image in red ochre on the wall of a cave, or to nail it to a wooden cross and offer only sour wine for consolation. Such pursuits tell their own story; they won’t though take you to a location location location in which you can linger, a sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice, a place where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came.

Happiness is a warm gun was the blackest thought on the White Album.

However, to quote another musician, a bass-playing Manc: that would be a “long-term solution to a shortterm problem”. Unhappiness, like its opposite, can be here today and gone tomorrow – as with an unforgivable pun, the smell of gherkins, or a home defeat to Swindon Town.

And this is not to downplay the extent of the problems some people grapple with daily, like a mythical but all too real manifestation of a composite character pushing a boulder up a hill while an eagle pecks at their flesh and, having rolled all the way back down the slope, Jack ‘n’ Jill fashion, they finish up in a broken heap of limbs at the edge of a pond only to fall in love with their own reflection. Before starting the process all over again. Forever.

You can call it myth or you can call it addiction, depression, grief, whichever your own story of the blues – or, in Capote’s words, the mean reds.

Happiness can also be found in the 14 | leithermagazine.com | Issue 166

Sometimes you have an idea and sometimes an idea has you The Procession of the Trojan Horse in Troy

by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

But let’s not quibble for it must still rank as one of the most impressive acts of misdirection ever

everyday and the exceptional. At risk of parodying the Sound Of Music, and let me say I don’t like any musicals apart from the musicals I like, these are currently some of my favourite things: a hall filled with young (and some not so young) graduates, including my oldest child, wearing their gowns and invincible selfie smiles, aglow with potential; sitting at a bus stop on Easter Road watching a rivulet of rainwater dividing like the hydra with its nine heads (give or take); a Dalmatian on its hind legs spying on me through a window and I can’t see the tail but I just know it’s wagging; and reading a passage in a book by Diana Athill in which she – a keen if compassionate observer of the human condition, an author and editor who knew better than most how to put the best words in their best order, and 101 when she died in 2019 – drops the c-bomb out of a blue and cloudless sky.

She could have been but wasn’t describing our friend Pericles, the ideas man. He’s tasked with knocking on the gates of Troy to announce the offering of the wooden horse with a hollow belly.

Shush, no spoilers. But, such is the fate of all messengers, they shoot him, or rather they pierce his chest with a spear.

And as he exhales his last breath Pericles sees not his life flash before his eyes but an as yet unwritten story by Borges about an animal imagined by Kafka, an animal “with the big tail, a tail many yards long and like a fox’s brush.

How I should like to get my hands on this tail sometime, but it is impossible… the tail is constantly being flung this way, and that. The animal resembles a kangaroo, but not as to the face…

Sometimes I have the feeling that the animal is trying to tame me”. Whatever.

Wheel in that horse will you. n Rodger Evans

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Issue 166 | leithermagazine.com | 15

TheLeithGlutton

A touch of drama is a good thing

Amos Karahi Avery Restaurant 54 St Stephen St Tuesday - Saturday, 5pm - 8pm  0131 563 4470

A

nd so, there was another. The Michelin restaurant gods have smiled benignly upon Edinburgh and doled out more stars. We now boast seven one-starred restaurants. A further five are recognised with the lesser Bib Gourmand. That is an impressive haul and recognition of the consistent escalation of the city food scene. Boundaries are being pushed, and it is happening right here.

Allow me to quibble with the Michelin ratings a little: Lyla must know that two stars is in near reach, Cardinal should feel hard done by, and The Kitchin must surely be trading on reputation and a proprietor’s helpful name as much as anything that comes over the pass these days.

That said, the whole point of a new Michelin guide is to stir up a little controversy and generally get people like me muttering darkly in a corner. After all, one person’s burnt tangerine financier with a mustard sorbet is another person’s ideal canape.

The place stirring up the most interest, reader, is Avery. It’s not every day that a chef from San Francisco pack his muchlauded restaurant – pots, pans, plates and glasses all – into a shipping container and moves to St Stephen Street. In fact, I am prepared to wager a lot of cash (the set menu, for example) that this hasn’t happened before. It is a culinary and Stockbridge first, and neither cuisine, not Stockbridge, has many firsts.

Chef Rodney Wages hails from Kansas, but it doesn’t seem that we are in Kansas anymore, Toto. His resume glitters with

16 | leithermagazine.com | Issue 166

the greatest Californian restaurants: a stint at the French Laundry, time at Benu, overseeing the pass at Atelier Crenn.

(These are the best restaurants in the world, west of Picardy Place.) His own pop-up quickly found feet in the opening of his first restaurant, also called Avery, in the heart of San Francisco’s Japantown.

The Asian influence on his cooking shows.

He is a cheery sort of chap, willingly decapitating bottles of champagne with a sabre outside his New Town cellar. (Again, a first, at least since Henry Dundas was roaming down an unnamed hill nearby.)

Despite recently welcoming a new baby, he is very much ‘hands on’ in his tiny, loudly decorated restaurant.

The night we were there, he had been up since 4am and was very much on top of things nearly twenty hours later. This is a chef at the coal face, working incredibly hard to deliver something exceptional.

That, he is managing.

It’s easier to get a table than you might think.

Almost all the other diners on our night were Americans in town, who gauchely confuse dinner time with the late afternoon. Five pm being apparently late, a second and more civilised sitting at 7.30 becomes available.

The menu, despite being scrawled with a sharpie pen, shows real class from start to finish. This is a man who can cook at the highest levels and my sense is that he is only just getting started in this town. Ingredients are consistently in peak condition, and they are impeccably flavoured. He doesn’t just serve luxury ingredients. He cooks with them. Other restaurants should take note.

The opening caviar, for example, is

served on a smoked cream with grilled anchovies. The roe is there to add taste and mouthfeel, not just to look expensive on a plate.

This focus on flavour over bling elevates beetroot into the same exalted category. It is grilled for an age and carefully rolled into an origami rose, sitting proud atop the finest burnt sesame tartlet, all sprinkled with some very magical onion ash. This is exciting, exhilarating. Cook, baby, cook!

Courses are served with a touch of drama. This is a Good Thing. You are paying a lot of money here, and you want a bit of fuss. Fresh-as-can-be langoustine is gently grilled, shelled and served with fermented pineapple and chili on the most enormous crimson glass dish, over a foot wide. Aebleskiver, the iconic sweet Danish batter ball, came out all savoury with brassicas and roasted garlic. BBQ eel came served on a shiso leaf with a glistening sliver of pork fat: I curled it into a taco and swooned. I’ll remember these three dishes for a very long time.

As the menu developed, it struck a more serious note, but teased us still, veering between plates of simplicity and plates of the posh stuff. One of the best larger dishes was tortellini in brodo: filled pasta in broth, as I believe the Italians call it. This is a dish of great simplicity, but takes skill and confidence to execute so perfectly.

Quickly there followed a wild bird – pigeon, I think – made as a small wellington, topped with truffle and bottomed with two rich sauces: a vadouvan reduction, and a cream

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Live Jazz every Monday 8pm Starring Ed Kelly, Steele & Dougie Urquhart or Open Session with Mike Kearney From top right: Aebleskiver, brassica, roast garlic; Beetroot, burnt sesame tartlet, onion ash; Langoustine, fermented pineapple and chili ; BBQ eel, shiso leaf, slivers of pork fat

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Rodney Wages is a cheery chap, willingly decapitating bottles of champagne with a sabre

sabayon. Delivering dual sauces, getting both to perfection at exactly the same time, is a harder trick for a kitchen than it seems. It is the kind of skill that impresses a Michelin guide. Then we are back on the more simple side: two tiny cuts of perfectly pink deer, with a farce on the side. Heaven.

A cheddar cheese tart with honeycomb led into dessert. Dessert was the only dish that failed: the custard was far too large, and the woodruff flavour added little.

It reinforces my view that however wonderful a chef is, being a wonderful pastry chef is a different beast, just as brilliant food reviewers don’t necessarily make noted equestrians. They operate in different worlds.

Drinking by the glass is expensive. The prices are vague and have an air of being high. It is the kind of place that offers to find an open bottle and pour a glass of something special for an unspecified fee.

We chose to drink by the bottle. Us Scots like to know what we are paying, what we are getting for it, and whether we are being diddled. The truth is, no-one is being diddled at Avery. It is an expensive restaurant, but is operating at very high levels, with a small staff, and can clearly go further.

In other Foodie news, the chocolate shop on Maritime Street has sadly – if not unsurprisingly – closed down. We hear interesting things about Barry Fish now occupying half of Mimi’s, and will be off to get the skinny on it soon. n

Mon-Thu 2–11; Fri-Sat 12-12; Sun 12-11

Issue 166 | leithermagazine.com | 17

Things that go bump in the sh*te

Picture: @ThatSkance

These shitty Trumpian times have left many horrified. But don’t cower, lean into it all with a manic smile, says Colin Montgomery

‘F

asten your seatbelts, we’re in for a bumpy night.” So snarled the incomparable Bette Davis in the 1950 classic, All About Eve. A cautionary tale of vaulting ambition, insidious power grabs, and Machiavellian machinations, in a story dominated by the amoral antics of a scheming arriviste. Hang on that sounds familiar. Wait… can it be it’s the sequel!

All About Don - where once was stylish snarl, now is thudding idiocy.

“It’s a disaster, Col!, “the end of the world as we know it. And I don’t feel fine.” So goes the tidal wave of panic that washes up on the shore of news right now. Second by second. And it’s understandable. All bets are off. All previous expectations are null and void. And any idea of certainty has been shown the door – no, shown the window, where it has ejected itself from a great height, having slipped on a roller skate ‘accidentally’ left there.

Enough has been written about this stuff, so I am not going to dwell on the ‘whys’, ‘hows’ and ‘d’you think it mights’.

The new idiocracy has feathered quite a few nests of quite a few newspaper columnists – it’s the magic porridge pot of satirical takes, shroud-waving, and pearlclutching. Even lefties practise disaster capitalism. Don’t know what they pay per word at the Guardian, but Monbiot, Hyde et al must be quids in.

The same might be said about me of course – given I’m knocking out a screed of words about all this shizz - which would turn this into real self-skewering. Except, except… I do it for fun. At least until the Editor stages an intervention. So far, so good on that front. But I digress. Truth is – ah, the truth, remember that? – while I think it’s admirable to get angry about injustice, inequality, and the sheer gall of this one-man wrecking ball, you end up being owned by it all.

Which is to say, your mood, your thoughts, your very saline tears even, the more you allow them to be controlled by the news cycle, the more they become mere page boys in the Hall of the Orange Fool. Index-linked to one man’s death 18 | leithermagazine.com | Issue 166

spiral. Worse still, they become grooms of the stool even dealing with the daily excrement. And while it is reasonable to say, “Well of course we worry, his actions will have a profound affect on us citizens of the world,” there’s a limit.

What your own particular limit is will depend on your reserves of tolerance, resilience, and a kind of thrawn positivity.

I’m very short of the latter. Always have been. Not so much a ‘glass half-empty or half-full’ person as a ‘glass in my face’ person. Yep, physician heal thyself eh?

But while picking the shards out of a morning the other week, a pertinent thought occurred to me…

Maybe, by leaning into the existential horror we can endure whatever comes our way with a smile. A manic smile. The smile of knowing however much crap they come out with, if we metaphorically smear ourselves in it and run naked and screaming towards ‘the guns’, it will be out-horror their horror. So, here are ways of channelling your horror to deal with these troubling times. NB. It’s satire, not an invitation to plunge headlong into misery or illegality.

I have always been, not so much a ‘glass half-empty or half-full’ person, as a ‘glass in my face’ person

1. All jobbies to be re-named ‘Donalds’

Lavatorial matters are never pleasant.

Especially if you’re routinely getting leathered to forget all this crap; the morning after can be an ‘experience’, I can tell you. But I’ve given these brown lows a silver lining by referring to all defecation as ‘going for a Donald’ (Donald Trump = ‘dump’). Yep, as the world goes down the pan, so the reason for our ruin does too. Every single fricking day.

2. Invite Trump for a state visit to… Summerisle All the principled sniffing about Trump’s state visit. Meh. You’ll tie yourself in knots. We’ve invited the Chinese Premier over and I didn’t see any signs calling him a ‘c*nt’.

Reminder: China locks up dissidents, persecutes minorities, and is an authoritarian basket case. Instead, see it as an opportunity. Send Trump to ‘Summerisle’. By seaplane. And let ‘God’s will’ be done.

3. American ‘golf tourists’ to be sequestered on Bass Rock In ye olde days, naughty people – aka anyone deemed undesirable - were locked up on Bass Rock. Nowadays it’s a bird toilet. That’s unfair. What I meant was, it’s a protective haven for birdlife.

But there is A LOT of guano on there.

Maybe, we sell it as a luxury resort to the Yanks who come to ‘do’ East Lothian’s Golf Coast. Welcome to your VIP lodgings, brad!!!!

4. Trump’s voice to be overdubbed with Donald Duck’s

Remember when the UK gov thought they’d end the Troubles by having actors voice the words of Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and other Irish Republicans? That’ll learn ‘em. It didn’t work. Negotiation, compromise and diplomacy did. Funny, that. But I think it would undermine the narcissist Trump if we put his every utterance through a ‘Donald Duck’ filter.

All the time. n

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Issue 166 | leithermagazine.com | 19

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Use it or lose it

TimBell

I

t’s in the heart of the community.

It’s one of the most used and most successful of Edinburgh’s community centres. And it needs help. .

It takes over 100 room hires every week, involving around 1,500 people, and it could take more. But the rents pay for only around 25% of the running costs.

There’s a long and honourable history behind Leith Community Centre. After considerable influence from Leith Rotary Club, initially under its President Mr Gurdit Dhillon, it opened in 1969, owned and operated by the council, to replace the good many church halls that had been caught up in the widespread postwar demolitions.

But it was little more than a series of sports halls. Councillor John Crichton pleaded for another floor to be added, containing smaller rooms suitable for meetings. To no avail.

It is the only premises in the Kirkgate complex not owned by the management company New River. There was a general refurbishment in 2004-2007, in which the community centre was included, and now there is a greater variety of spaces.

The Centre is also the only premises with access above ground level. The ramp at the back is not pedestrianised and is not suitable for folk who can’t manage the steps.

The shopping centre management company is obliged to maintain the disabled access lift, but there have been long periods when it hasn’t been working, or the access gate is locked. And it’s pretty pokey anyway – there’s barely room for a wheelchair and a carer.

Edinburgh Council lost a lot of expertise and local knowledge in its reorganisation of 2016/7.

The charity Leith Community Association was formed as a council initiative to lease the building and give Trustees some protection from personal liability. The charity’s stated purpose is to advance education and to provide and assist in the provision of recreational facilities for the community of Leith and its surrounding areas.

Its purpose does not depend upon nor is limited by its use of the building. It can initiate and support and collaborate with other projects around Leith. But for the time being its efforts are focussed entirely on making use of the building it leases from the council.

It’s a point of principle that the Centre is alcohol-free. No exceptions. The place has to be respectful and safe for a wide variety of users, including wee ones and those recovering from addiction/ dependency challenges.

The world has moved on from the early years of the Centre, and the meaning of ‘community’ has changed shape. Now you can have a digital community in your pocket.

But we can’t forget the lessons of

Graffiti in Leith Community Centre

the lockdown. Remember how much we missed casual mass meetings, on a bus, in a café, going to the library. And purposeful meetings, like playing sport, or sharing a hobby or an interest.

Every week in the Centre you can find – to name but a few - basketball, badminton, dodgeball, Roller Derby, martial arts, classes and clubs in photography, art, dance, English learning, youngster and toddler groups, dependency support groups, youth development groups, crisis and homelessness-focussed groups, three faith groups, one-off events and a weekly lunchtime community meal.

I could go on. You can’t get them on your smartphone.

The café closed during the Covid lockdown and hasn’t reopened.

Shoplifting in the Kirkgate is a problem, as it is elsewhere. It affects the Community Centre, as trouble sometimes spills over to the upper level.

Very much against the instincts of the charity and the council, it is necessary to have controlled access on the front door, and a café really needs unrestricted access.

But the kitchen is usable to

Volunteers are needed to help run the daily processes of the centre, including admin and social media coverage

professional standards. There are discussions under way to make good use of it: cooking and catering classes to meet personal educational development needs as well as offering regular community meals.

What we are dealing with here is the collective failure of politicians of all stripes, at all levels of government, over many years, to invest routinely and properly in community provision. It’s austerity by inertia.

The above is a copy-and-paste paragraph. We all want our political representatives to show leadership and fix problems for us. But they also need to be led. In the end we have the politicians we deserve.

There’s a real concern that the present model is unsustainable. If something doesn’t change, it looks like the charity is set up to manage decline.

So an urgent appeal is going out: use it or lose it. Charities are started with energy and good will. Over the years, energy and good will need to be replenished.

Volunteers are needed to help run the day-to-day processes of the centre, including admin and social media coverage. And there’s a need for an initiative working with other community and charity groups in the area.

Manager Rob Levick will be happy to meet you and talk it over.

The commitment is to provide affordable, accessible, creative, useful, safe spaces for the community.

Community services don’t come from thin air or work by magic. n Issue 166 | leithermagazine.com | 21

Shetland and Streaming It’s taken Tom Wheeler a long time to get into binge watching a single TV series, he’s onboard now ast time out, I told the story of a middle-aged man (spoiler: it was me) doing a mostly inept job of navigating a world that had sneakily moved on – and indeed, moved online – while he was busy doing something else. And I’m aware that the march of time has become something of a preoccupation in these columns. I make no apology for that – sorry kids, but it’s coming to you too one day. Then you die.

But I’m also wary of becoming one of those people who believes that everything – and I mean everything – was better in the old days. Evolution,

landscape has fragmented at a rollicking pace, for good and bad.

The days of 30 million people watching Eastenders at the same time are long gone. But it’s less than four years since that many people tuned in to watch a football match. Event telly still exists, but for live or as-live events, not drama series. For those, now that we have the technology, we expect the right to choose when we watch stuff.

Anything other would make no sense – it would be like being told that books had to be serialised weekly rather than published in full, or that we could only listen to a particular album between 8 and 8.30 on a Friday.

Linear TV was the product of the medium and its limitations. With those limitations removed, it was always bound to morph into something else. We can get all misty-eyed about old episodes of Bullseye – and trust me, I do – but as

having moved in a consistently forward direction since the days of primordial soup, snapped abruptly into reverse at some point when they were in short trousers, and it’s been on a backward path ever since. Which seems improbable when put like that.

Yet it’s a fiction that’s easily maintained. All you do is pick out a few things that are noticeably worse than they were a few years ago – which isn’t too tricky just now – and judiciously ignore all the things that aren’t. In no time at all, you’ll believe that all progress is bad, and that anyone who says otherwise has been brainwashed.

A popular source of ammo for the hell-in-a-handcart brigade is the perceived death of old media: linear TV, printed newspapers and so on.

And of course, it’s true that the media

changes go, there’s nothing remotely regressive about it.

All of which is a roundabout way of expressing my solidarity with our new(ish) streaming overlords – and an even more roundabout way of saying that, after it had passed me by for ten years, I’ve just binged the entirety of Shetland in a few weeks. In a way, it makes sense that it took me a while to discover it, as crime drama isn’t really my genre. In another, it makes no sense at all, as staring wistfully at wild landscapes and tootling ferries very much is my genre. But I’m glad I got there in the end.

And there’s a part of me that would have liked to have seen it at the time, and in a less fragmented world. I’d cheerfully have had a good natter around the water cooler, as I’m pretty sure nobody has ever actually

L

22 | leithermagazine.com | Issue 166

Will Sandy add to his single apparent skill such as being able to find his arse with both hands?

Production crew, DI ‘Tosh’ McIntosh (Alison O’Donnell), DI Ruth Calder (Ashley Jensen)

done, about the previous night’s developments.

Who do you think did it? Obviously not the incredibly shifty-looking prime suspect – it’s only episode two. How much do you think you’d pay for the amazing house, with the island kitchen and sweeping sea views, where that fella got shot in the head?

Does Billy ever get a day off? (Or even an hour off?) Will Sandy ever add to his single apparent skill – the ability to look determined and bewildered at the same time – with a second, such as being able to find his arse with both hands? Is the local population somehow unaware that, over the past decade or so, the death rate has mushroomed to Midsomer or Cabot Cove levels? And most importantly, how has nobody at the station yet noticed that the big blackboard of suspects and theories is clearly visible from the public reception desk?

In the absence of a time machine, and indeed a water cooler, I’ve been having these conversations with my partner, who has happily shared my epic island journey. And crucially, we’ve been able to watch the next episode at the touch of a button, rather than having to buy or borrow armfuls of box sets. How people in creative industries are compensated for their work in a streaming world is a live issue (and one that affects me directly). But that’s not the same as saying that a world of art on demand is a retrograde step. It’s a positive one – and an unavoidable one – so it’s up to us as a society to make it work for everyone, and to make ourselves heard when it doesn’t.

In the meantime, though, I’m a bit annoyed at having to find something else to watch. I’m all caught up, and the next series won’t be out for ages.

What do they think this is, 1987? n

Issue 166 | leithermagazine.com | 23

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When a name becomes a nickname N

icknames are very common in all sorts of environments — work, sport, schools, communities. These names may be a result of a` persons’ characteristics, behaviour, a particular incident, a family nickname, a workplace nickname, etc. In many instances a nickname may only be used within a specific group, i.e. within a workplace and would be meaningless to people out with that workplace.

However, in small communities with many people sharing a limited number of surnames, nicknames became an important way of identifying people.

This was particularly true of fishing communities such as Newhaven where a limited number of surnames were shared by different families. The old tradition of naming the first son after the paternal grandfather, the second son after the maternal grandfather and the third after the father meant there was also a limited number of Christian names. For example, I knew of seven John Wilsons in Newhaven and there were probably more. Hence the use of nicknames.

Fishing communities grew up near natural harbours or where beaches were suitable for launching boats. Later manmade harbours developed but fishermen remained close to the sea so that in bad weather they could quickly check up on their boats. So communities tended not to spread.

Before the advent of trawling and seine net fishing, wives played an important part working on drift nets which were very long and often crewmen owned nets in addition to the skipper’s nets.

This was for herring. White fish were caught with long lines, which on the smaller day boats were baited by wives and families ready to be taken to sea.

Larger boats which fished with great lines would be at sea for a few days and the lines would be baited with herring as they were being shot. I think most of the Newhaven boats worked on a daily basis with the lines being baited by the families.

You are maybe wondering what this has to do with nicknames. It would obviously be an advantage to have a wife with all these skills. It would be a brave decision to marry outside the community (for the husband) or into a fishing community (for the wife).

So, many fishermen married within the community. In some cases this led not to grandparents’ but rather to mothers’ surnames being used. In this way, you start getting Carnie Seatons, Carnie Logans, Liston Rutherfords, Linton Logans, etc. Hence the need for nicknames, One Seaton Hall, a cousin of

Jim Wilson on the left and Jimmy Todd whose son, Stephen, operates one of the last shellfish fishing boats out of Newhaven

my father, had a very squashed face just like the faces on the Bisto kids advert and was known as ‘Bisto’. Let’s have a look at the nicknames of John Wilson for example.

‘Johnny Biggie’, possibly a corruption of his mother’s surname, Begg, was a well-known trawler skipper in the latter years of the trawlers and skippered Lothian Leader. In 1963, he bought a 50ft ringnetter Fertility along with Carnie Seaton (’Carnie Bunner’). There were two John Wilsons who both had the nickname ‘Scone’. The older one was a trawler skipper and for many years was skipper of one of Joe Croan’s motor trawlers. The younger ‘Scone’ was son of ‘Geordie Biggie’ of the Gratitude. He was aboard the Gratitude for many years before going on to the Pilot Boats. Sadly he died quite young.

‘Tammy Lambie’, another John Wilson, got his nick name from his father, Tom Wilson, who was, I’m guessing, married to a woman whose surname was Lamb and so he got ‘Tammy Lambie’.

There was another John Wilson killed during the war in the Firth of Forth on a fishing boat which had been requisitioned for war service. The boat was blown up by an acoustic mine.

These Wilsons were known as the ‘Backends’. The father ‘Jimmy Backends’ was married to Jeannie Ramsay whose nickname was ‘Jeannie Buckets’. She

John Wilson (Johnnie Biggie), skipper of Gratitude from the early 30s to mid 60s

Smaller day boats were baited by wives and families ready to be taken to sea

was the sister of ‘Bobby Buckets’ who skippered the Endeavour which paired at the ring net with the Ocean’s Gift of ‘Jimmy Backends’.

After the war, a third son, Willie, had a modern ring netter built also called Ocean’s Gift. Tragically, he was killed when was he was dragged into the winch while seine netting off Dunbar. He died leaving four sons, one of whom was born after his father died. One of the sons was yet another John Wilson.

The last John Wilson I’m going to mention was a trawl skipper who had the nickname the ‘Brave Laddie’. An interesting story there. He was a young skipper and there had been a spell of very bad weather with trawlers coming in with poor shots.

The story is there was a group of women in a shop discussing the bad weather. John’s mother was in the shop and informed the other women that in spite of the bad weather, her son had come in with over 400 boxes and she remarked “The brave laddie”, so that was his nickname from then on. ‘Johnny Biggie’, the trawl skipper had a brother, Willie, who got the nickname ‘Wee Wee’.

While communities remain tight knit, nicknames can be passed on but new nicknames also come into being, sometimes very topical… That’s another story for another day! n Bill Hall of Newhaven Heritage Issue 166 | leithermagazine.com | 25

TracyGriffen

Time to talk about Chrononutrition

Writer without portfolio

W

hen you eat is as important as what you eat.

One of the easiest ways to lose weight is to eat more earlier.

In fact, if you’d like chocolate cake, have it for breakfast.

(You’re more likely to burn it off that way).

Why is this so?

New research into our circadian rhythms shows that food is metabolised differently at different times of the day. Circadian rhythm is your body’s internal clock, a 24 hour cycle dictating when you are most alert and when you are ready for sleep, influencing various physiological processes. It’s interesting to consider your internal clock when it comes to nutrition, rest and recovery.

If you’re hankering for late-night cookies, just imagine slapping them onto your thighs and tummy. That’s right, calories consumed at night (that tend to be of the junk food variety) are more likely to be stored as body fat.

After all, all you’re doing is going to bed afterwards…

Save that treat and enjoy it in the morning, when your body is primed for action and needs the fuel for energy. This is especially important if you’re trying to incorporate more exercise into your life.

Be sure to eat enough during the day.

A good rule of thumb is to eat between eight and eight, that’s 8am and 8pm. So your body theoretically has 12 hours downtime to rest, repair and restore energy.

Regular Leither readers may remember my article on fasting from 2017. Stopping eating early-ish in the evening and not eating before bed really works. It means waking up hungrier for breakfast in the morning. Your ‘eating window’ shifts to earlier in the day. If you’re following intermittent fasting, it works better if you fast for a longer time overnight, rather than during the day (i.e. don’t skip breakfast).

I have found great success with this simple concept. It means you can eat pretty much what you want, as long as you’re mindful to “breakfast like a king/ queen, lunch like a prince/princess, dine like a pauper.

That simply means your evening meal is not the largest of the day.

Ideally eat half of your calories by the end of lunch.

Enjoy a morning snack (something more than a coffee and sweet biscuit) to keep your blood sugar levels stabilised, especially important if you have a busy day or demanding job. Even if you just sit at a desk, your brain still uses 20% of your energy, so stable blood sugars and feeding your body during the day will aid concentration, memory and problem solving.

I find putting healthy snacks somewhere obvious helps. Put easy-to-

26 | leithermagazine.com | Issue 166

eat food on your desk or in your work bag. Even if you WFH, place planned morning snacks on your kitchen counter where you’ll see them before scouring the fridge. The back bench in my fitness studio is often littered with snacks including fruit, oatcakes, dates, nuts and seeds.

The research into circadian rhythms and how different systems in the body are affected at different times of day is very new. Previously it had not been possible to accurately measure fluctuating hormone levels in the body over time. Published late last year, The

The research into circadian rhythms and how the body is affected at different times of day is very new Inner Clock: Living in Synch with our Circadian Rhythms by Lynne Peeples is an excellent, easy-to-read book. A more in-depth study by Russell Foster, Professor of Circadian Neuroscience, University of Oxford was published in 2022, Life Time: The New Science of the Body Clock, and how it can Revolutionize your Sleep and Health. It’s a hefty tome, but has a whole detailed chapter on the subject of Chrononutrition – nutrition and time.

Quoting from page 273: ‘By gaining a better understanding of our metabolism, and how our metabolic

pathways are regulated by the circadian and sleep systems, we will be better armed to navigate the difficult path between healthy eating and metabolic syndrome… The relationship between the circadian system and metabolism is an emerging area of science, but already it is transforming our understanding’.

I’ve set up a Google alert for the phrase Chrononutrition and there’s more research being posted online every day. It’s gone from being a niche field of research to mainstream science.

Foster also tells us ‘The circadian system influences every aspect of metabolism, from hunger and digestion to the regulation of metabolic hormones. For example, under normal circumstances we eat during the day.

So, no surprise, there is a circadian rhythm in saliva production that rises over the day and falls at night’.

In my mind, it’s connected with ‘intuitive eating’ where you learn to listen to the signals from your body as to when and what to refuel with.

Minimising, or avoiding ultraprocessed foods (UPF) is important, as they can play havoc with your metabolic system.

To summarise Nature Journal, 26 March 2025: ‘Our findings suggest that eating later and having longer eating window are associated with higher dietary intake and higher BMI’.

In other words, eat more earlier and feel good. It’s official. ■ Ê Info: www.griffenfitness.com Ê bluesky: tracygriffen

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Standing in from the Crowd Short story by Christian Weir

H

ello, Zit. I see you hanging around my forehead, pulsing with hate. Sometime during the night, you turned from a vague under-the-skin threat to a full-on catastrophe. And on picture day too.

Zapping, prodding, creaming, and praying were all failing me. Until there was only one option.

Nu-Clear Face Wash Diving into the bathroom cupboard, pushing beyond webs, rusty pipes, and bog roll, I put a hand on the pitchblack bottle. Even under the relentless light of the bathroom, the oblong bottle remained opaque, with only the company’s tagline legible.

Atomise Your Imperfections My nostrils tickled as I sloshed putrid black gunk on my face cloth. Heard this stuff was illegal under the Geneva Convention. Was I really this desperate?

Zit answered in Morse.

Blinking back chemical tears, I set about dabbing. It stung like plucking a hundred eyebrow hairs at once. With bated breath, I worked with the careful touch of an artist, a dab here, a stroke there. The toxic fugue assaulted my sinuses, threatening to cause a sneeze, but I held strong.

A high-pitched whine rewarded my work as Zit popped. I mopped the ooze and evaluated my work. What met me was more Picasso than intended.

I anchored a white-knuckled hand on the sink; my stomach felt like it was getting stapled. Zit was gone, but my skin was messed up—replaced by some kind of composite. It was mostly the right colour, but featureless and way too smooth to the touch, like gliding your fingers over silicone.

My chicken pox pock was gone, so too the tiny cut when I ran into the mirror, both replaced by sorta skin. Worse yet, half my left eyebrow had been covered by approximation.

Calm down, breathe, no one will notice. Just need to finesse the right eyebrow to match. Slow and steady and... ahhhhhchoo!

Oh no. No-no-nonono! My right eye had been replaced by some sort of placeholder eye, and the side of my mouth was far too... mouthy. Before I’d had a gap between my front teeth and a deep cupid’s bow; now half was what you would use to explain the idea of ‘mouth’.

One side of my face was now a bland, inoffensive, face approximation. Come on, Picasso, think.

Okay, let’s just... there must be a phone number I can call. Unable to read the package, I Googled the company.

Semi-human models smiled at me with stock photo-perfect teeth. I found their phone number underneath a page urging me to buy now and say goodbye to imperfection forever.

“Gooood Morning, this is Tim for Nu-Clear. Who am I speaking to, and how can I help to clear up your day?” Tim’s voice was soft and gentle. It was probably put through some high-tech corpo filter that eradicates personality.

“Tim—I don’t—half m-my face... gone!”

“Okay, and how might I help with that?” He spoke without urgency.

“Well, it—it’s—I want it back.”

“Back? Oh right, okay. That’s a little…

Let me just speak to my super, ahh…

Please hold for clarity—thanks.”

Muzak beeped and booped. I practiced a smile. Horrendous. One side of my face lifted up as always, and the other half dropped into the uncanny valley. They wouldn’t even put this on Embarrassing Bodies—The woman who had half a plastic surgery. Or…or… The woman who looks like a filter. The phone blipped.

“Sorry about that, we don’t usually have people complaining that our product has worked as advertised.”

“It’s not worked! My face is all, like, procedurally generated.”

“Well, yes, exactly. Or as I understand, half of your face is. It’s really smart how

How to squeeze a zit (sort of)

Sorry about that, we don’t usually have people complaining that our product has worked as advertised

it works, have you heard the jingle?”

“Just tell me what to do, Tim!” “Ahhhhh, listen, I can’t...ahhh...do you want a voucher? I can’t give you a refund because, by your own admission, it worked as advertised.”

“TIM! It’s picture day.”

“Ahh, maybe just even it out a little?”

“Oh for God’s—” I hung up.

Tim was right, what else was there to do? Basic beauty dictates symmetry. And one bad picture can haunt you forever, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

A quick Google picked up hundreds of positive reviews for the product. It also found a video of a lad whose face had been wiped off in a sleepover prank. He had used a marker pen to redefine his features. The result was less than stellar.

I didn’t have time to fake a convincing face - symmetry was the best I could hope for.

Heave-ho, here we...go! High on adrenaline and chems, I slathered the cloth and scrubbed in blind hope.

The result was... wonderfully symmetrical. A triumph of boredom.

Thunderously regular. You’d have a hard time picking me out from a crowd, a face so indescribable that I could escape scrutiny. With my (sorta) face held high, I was ready for my photo.

You can see me standing... somewhere.

I’m actually rather hard to spot. n Ê Info: medium.com/@weir.christian Issue 166 | leithermagazine.com | 29

CrosswordNo.141 across

1 Form that is right and is more stylish (8) 5 Short chum bled because of low self esteem (6) 10 Shattered Lib, our bitch aims at in Canada (7,8) 11 Mane combed with our love (7) 12 Tie puss and rut out (5,2) 13 Breakast here and any stiff will do apparently (8) 15 Oriel broken by French runner (5) 18 Cat weight (5) 20 Electric gets cold and loses right to get diverse range of sources (8) 23 Lute ran off in impartial state (7) 25 Pitcher is holding love (7) 26 Lens torches Mons & strangely a mythical beast appears (4,4,7) 27 Pan tree chemical (6) 28 Breakfast time! (8)

down

DELI • CATERING • DELIVERY DELI • CATERING • DELIVERY

DELI • CATERING • DELIVERY

1 Sent gram by taxi first (6) 2 Mini not AA perhaps, but certainly has vigour (9) 3 Incidental benefit bowler uses, not on side (4-3) 4 Clear sky for alien and girl (5) 6 Remarkable, strangely (7) 7 Found in wood or page 3 (5) 8 Characteristics of divorcee with large smile primarily (8) 9 Crazy Col riots for chemical (8) 14 Doesn’t want much and is avoidable (8) 16 Started round a tin I tied (9) 17 Heads or tails it’s a toss up (4,4) 19 Darren’s out for messages (7) 21 Axe lance to the Queen’s char (7) 22 Blair witch project? (6) 24 Sun cutie partly unabridged (5) 25 Red smell accompanies five piece (5)

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Send your entries to billy@leithermagazine.com

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answers crossword 140 across

1 Squinted (8) 5 Grated (6) 10 Wimbledon Tennis (9,6) 11 Earlier (7) 12 Inertia (7) 13 Staysail (8) 15 Timid (5) 18 Undid (5) 20 Red Cross (3,5) 23 Big Bang (3,4) 25 Rematch (7) 26 The United States (3,6,6) 27 Enters (6) 28 Oxbridge (8)

BREAKFAST, SALAD, BREAKFAST, TOASTED SALAD, WRAPS, TOASTED COFFEE WRAPS, BREAKFAST, COFFEE SALAD, TOASTED WRAPS, COFFEE

Down

1 Sawyer (6) 2 Unmerited (9) 3 Nullify (7) 4 Elder (5) 6 Re-elect (2-5) 7 Tenet (5) 8 Discards (8) 9 Unfilled (8) 14 Abrogate (8) 16 Misstated (9) 17 Sunbathe (8) 19 Drainer (7) 21 Remoter (7) 22 Chaste (6) 24 Great (5) 25 Radix (5)

winner crossword 140 Winner: David Hall, Easter Road

30 | leithermagazine.com | Issue 166

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