Notes from the North

It’s the last Saturday in June. There is a warm wind blowing strongly through Edinburgh. Tourists and locals are sprawled out on the dry grass in Princes Street Gardens and I am with them. I am waiting to go to the opening of the exhibition celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Talbot Rice Gallery.  one of the Shawky glass marionettes Across the grass I can hear the voice of a woman speaking to a crowd which has gathered in the square outside the National Gallery. She and they are protesting the occupation, starvation and killings in Palestine. I have been out on other Saturdays lately and seen similar actions: outside St Giles Cathedral (a collection and a choir singing), outside Barclays bank (‘blood bank’ and other slogans chalked in big capitals on the pavement). I wonder how these signs of dissent and anger will be handled if the government persists in its decision to designate Palestine Action a terrorist organisation. For the moment their documentary To Kill a War Mac...

  Every church in Edinburgh has a story to tell. I have already written about St Mary’s Cathedral on Palmerston Place, Old Saint Paul’s Episcopal church on Jeffrey Street and Saint Giles on the Royal Mile but until last month I had never looked inside Saint Patrick’s Church on the Cowgate although I pass it every time I walk back home across the park.     It stands about halfway down the High Street, an imposing façade complete with a triumphal arch and steeple. Built initially as an Episcopalian chapel, it was sold in the early 19 th  century to the Presbyterian Relief Church which was founded during what is known as the Second Secession (from the Church of Scotland). The history of the various Secessions in Presbyterian Scotland – and there were lots - is a complicated topic but in the case of the Presbyterian Relief Church it was triggered by a recurring dispute about patronage and who had the power to appoint ministers. The dissenters stood for the rights of loca...