"A swally down tae Auld Reekie"



Following on from our introduction to the Multiples brief we were let loose in Edinburgh for the day. Considering I have lived in Scotland my entire life and have been only about 45 minutes away from the capital, I haven't really had the opportunity to look at the heart of the city in much detail. Usually I've spend whole days in the galleries or end up getting dragged around Princes Street to go shopping. But, I was incredibly excited to just walk around the city and see what it has to offer. As part of my brief I had decided that I was going to concentrate on Scottish writers who hold a unique link to the capital whether it is through themselves or through their characters. I wanted to look at a range of textures from both old and new buildings, from cobbled streets to soot stained buildings. By doing this I am hoping to gain an understanding as to what captured the imagination of authors such as Ian Rankin or Robert Burns.

Personally, I can easily understand why the city has remained a prominent location in Scotland's literature history. Within one stretch of road you can encounter great beauty, dirt and squalor, and majestic landscapes, with a mix of old and new.